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Unthinkable

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

I didn't remember saying that, but he sure remembered hearing it. The man had tears in his eyes as he filled in the gaps in my memory, explaining that I had grabbed his arm when he came over to ask what he could do.

He was the driver of a truck that was behind the eighteen-wheeler that had sideswiped our pickup, causing me to go flying off the side of our truck's toolbox and bounce up and down the hot asphalt of the roadway for 324 feet. When the pickup finally stopped, what was left of my right leg was trapped under a trailer carrying three tons of lawn-mowing equipment, and my back was a mass of third-degree burns from scraping along the pavement.

I was just a kid at the time-eighteen years old, fresh out of high school and working a summer landscaping job with a couple of my best friends. It was a great way to work on my tan and my muscles while making some spending money-and I liked the work. We had a boss we called "Unc," an African-American in his late sixties with a grandfatherly manner, who looked out for us. The housing authority of Camilla, Georgia, had hired us to mow lawns in the city's housing projects and some smaller surrounding communities.

When we drove to the smaller towns, three guys would ride in the cab of the truck, and three guys would hop into the back and sit on the toolbox with their backs resting against the cab. Once we were all aboard, we would drive to our location for that day. On July 23, 1986, we headed to Norman Park, a small, unincorporated town near Moultrie, Georgia. I drove the truck that morning-way too fast for Unc's taste, as usual. Having grown up watching movies such as Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run and television shows such as The Dukes of Hazzard, whenever I went somewhere, I always wanted to see how fast I could get there.

My friends and I liked working in Norman Park because it was a bit of a distance from Camilla-by the time we finished the job and made it back to the housing authority office, it would be about time to break for lunch. We always drove at or just under the speed limit on the way back because we were kids and were getting paid by the hour. Plus, you can't hit a road sign with a bottle at high speeds. Yes, we were mischievous, but not malicious.

Whenever we rode in the back of the truck, we played games to see how many road signs we could hit. My competitive nature would take over, and soon we would be throwing cinder blocks, and then larger objects, until Mike McClain-always the voice of reason on our crew-would suggest that maybe throwing a table at a sign might be a little over the top.

Once we arrived back at the Camilla Housing Authority, we'd partake of our favorite event of the day: eating. With the metabolism of eighteen-year-olds, we ate anything and everything in sight. We would head to Guy Watson's house, which was within walking distance, and we'd scarf down soft drinks, pizza, and any other food that had not been properly hidden.

We'd also watch television, but not just any television. It had to be Bodies in Motion, a half-hour fitness and aerobics workout show on ESPN. The star of the show was an Olympic athlete named Gilad Janklowicz, but that's not what kept us glued to the television. No, we tuned in to see Gilad's assistants-the most amazingly beautiful women-exercising in skimpy spandex outfits. These women put Olivia Newton-John and her Physical video to shame.

But even though Bodies in Motion was an intellectually and culturally stimulating program, it could sustain our knowledge-seeking minds only so long before our food coma kicked in. Then we'd fade peacefully into a thirty-minute nap, and I'd dream about blades of grass gently swaying in the breeze until it was time to head back to work. All in all, it was a glorious summer experience.

That particular day, we finished our morning work and went to the store to get some cold drinks and snacks. After we loaded up on enough junk food to put a dent in our $3.35-per-hour paychecks, it was time to head to Guy's house for lunch. I hopped back into the driver's seat, and my right hand had a firm grip on the steering wheel when Unc said, "Why don't you let someone else drive?"

It didn't bother me. I loved and respected Unc-he loved us and we were his boys. He was a great manager because he was tough but fair. I'm not sure if Unc knew how to read or write very well, but that wouldn't have changed my opinion of him. I was proud that he had a managerial role. Growing up in the South could not have been easy for him, yet he showed no bitterness or prejudice against white folks.

Often, he was thinking ahead about what he wanted to tell us, and he would get so caught up in his words that he would mix up our names. He'd say, "Now, Tommy, ... I mean Mike, ... I mean Guy," and then he would pause and collect his thoughts. "Now, Scott, I wantcha ta go over there, and cut the grass on dat part of dat dem buildings." That was our Unc.

We shared the driving duties all the time, and I knew that Unc wanted a slow pace on the way home.

"Tommy, you drive us on home," he said. Tommy Hilliard was a couple of years younger than Mike, Guy, and I were-a good farm kid from a great family. His mom ran the Camilla Housing Authority. Although he was the youngest, Tommy was probably the best driver of us all.

I often replay in my mind that moment of getting out of the driver's seat. It was such a small event, but it changed the course of many lives. I have to believe that Unc and Tommy must have reflected on that decision as well. Unc was right to let Tommy drive. I always drove way too fast because patience was not one of my virtues.

Being behind the wheel was a circus act for me. I was an early practitioner of multitasking. My mouth would run double the speed of the vehicle while I stuffed my face full of chips and washed them down with a cold drink and somehow reached to turn the channel on the radio. My talking or deejaying didn't annoy anyone-the others were too gripped with fear by my haphazard attention to the road. Tommy, on the other hand, was patient and careful when driving.

Who knows how different things might have been if I had stayed at the wheel?

Tommy slid into the cab for the leisurely drive back to Camilla. I hopped in the back of the truck and slammed my dirty, grass-covered shoulders right next to my best friends, Guy Watson and Mike McClain. I sat on the left side of the truck behind the driver's seat, Mike was in the middle, and Guy was on the right. Tommy, Unc, and Demetrius-the other member of our crew-rode in the cab. Jacked up from the sugar of a Snickers bar and the caffeine of a Mountain Dew I had inhaled, I proceeded to give my friends an earful of my philosophies of life.

Guy was one of the best and funniest storytellers I had ever met, with a particular aptitude for impressions. His parents, "Mr. Bill" and "Miss Janie," were like a second set of parents to me. I had known Mike since eighth grade, when he and his family moved to Pelham, a town near Camilla. He was a great athlete because what he lacked in size and strength, he made up for in intelligence. His thinking was calculated and methodical. Okay, there were a few times when he didn't make the best decisions, but that was usually when he'd had too much of the spirit (and I don't mean the holy one). Between Guy's constant humor and my reckless abandon, Mike brought a good balance of levelheadedness to our version of the Three Musketeers.

We proceeded down the highway, checking occasionally to make sure that Tommy was not going faster than the speed limit and reminding him quietly that getting back to the office sooner meant we would have to do more work. Unc made the most of every minute that he had us.

Shoulder to broad shoulder, we were squished together on the lid of the toolbox with our legs dangling in the bed of the truck. The wind whipped around our heads as we bounced and swayed along the country road with the summer sun baking the backs of our necks-blissful, except when we would encounter the occasional June bug at forty-five miles per hour, hitting the backs of our heads like a tiny baseball.

"Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark! You wanna know the first thing that came to that June bug's mind when he hit me? His butt!" I would say as I cackled like a laughing hyena. I have been told that my laugh is also loud, vociferous, and contagious. Once I get started, it's hard to stop until the tears get rolling.

When I got tired of yapping, I relaxed and listened on my gigantic Walkman to one of my all-time favorite rock bands, an Australian group called Models. I still remember the lyrics perfectly:

Hey, hey, honey, when I'm without you, I get a chill up and down my spine....

A quintessential summer tune to fit the mood. There we were, three buddies enjoying our final summer together. We were getting a sweet tan, building our muscles, having great banter, and loving the pride that came from earning a little money by the sweat of our own brows. We were headed to different colleges soon, and deep down we knew things would never be the same after that. This stage of our lives was ending, but for now, there was nothing better than being on the back of that truck after a solid day's work out in the blazing sun, feeling the good kind of tired and the good kind of dirty. We smelled like manual labor, freshly cut grass, and the gasoline and oil of the mowers.

Being red-blooded teenage boys, our conversations ranged from verbal insults that were really terms of endearment to reminding one another of the many foolish and embarrassing decisions we had made to, inevitably, our favorite subject: girls.

These serious topics-well, they were serious to us teenage boys-were interrupted only by the more analytical and thought-provoking discussions of what might be the proper trajectory to give us the greatest opportunity to hit the most road signs using the fewest number of bottles.

Meanwhile, up in the cab of the truck, Unc would be seated with a toothpick in his mouth and one arm hanging over the ledge of the passenger-side window. That was the way Unc always rode. Either he was hard of hearing or he had decided there were bigger issues that he could address, but he never said anything to us about the bottles.

It's not that we ever consciously thought about how dangerous it was or that we were destroying government property or the consequences if we were caught-we were just being boys, keeping ourselves entertained. Boys are immortal and bulletproof, right?

That July day, an eighteen-wheeler had been following us for at least ten miles at a safe distance, but then it started to creep up closer behind us. If we noticed it at all, we didn't think much of it at the time.

"Hey, Scott, let me listen to your Walkman," Guy said, leaning across Mike to reach for it.

"Gumby," I said back. That was Guy's nickname, from Eddie Murphy's character on Saturday Night Live. "I just got this new tape. I want to listen to it first."

"Fine." He turned his back to me, tossing his legs over the side of the truck with his feet dangling toward the edge of the road as if he would leap off at any second. It was a very dangerous way to ride and certainly the easiest way to get knocked off, but like me, Guy was fearless.

And I, I feel so hot, and the pain won't stop Tearing at this heart of mine....

My mind wandered to the driver of the eighteen-wheeler behind us. I wondered what it would be like to have a career like that. Growing up in the late seventies and early eighties, I'd watched a show called B. J. and the Bear. It was about B. J. McKay, a trucker who traveled in a red and white Kenworth K100 cabover semi with his pet chimpanzee, Bear-named for the famed college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. They were always getting in trouble with the local sheriffs as well as uncovering corruption. It seemed like a very exciting job-and apparently one filled with flirtatious, buxom, blonde, lady truckers.

Here I was, about to start my journey into figuring out what to do with my life, and this guy had already made his decision. Why truck driving? I wondered if it was a good job and as adventure-filled as it seemed on television. I wondered if he had kids at home and a wife cooking him a fancy dinner.

In just another two months, I was going to begin reinventing myself. At college, you get to wipe out your entire academic and social past and get a "do over." I wished I had listened to my mom and applied myself better in school-I regretted that I hadn't followed Mike's example and made better grades. Mike was the salutatorian of our graduating class and voted most likely to succeed. Guy was a good student also.

With a chance at redemption, maybe I would turn into a real intellectual in college. Not likely, but anything was possible. And maybe I'd get out of my dating rut, too. I was really fortunate to go to a high school where there were lots of beautiful girls. Rival high schools loved to play us because we had the prettiest cheerleaders and girls in the stands. But I was too shy and insecure to ask them out, so many times I settled for playing it safe and staying in the "friend zone."

I grew up on films like Making the Grade, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and St. Elmo's Fire. I dreamed of being the good guy in the movie who got the pretty girl at the end. In college, I hoped, I would find the courage to be proud of who I was and what I had to offer. Plus, college girls all had shiny hair and short skirts and slim waists. At least that's what I'd heard. I'd find out for myself soon enough.

Relationships were on my mind because I had just broken up with my girlfriend, one of the few really pretty girls I had ever worked up the nerve to ask out. She was six feet tall, with long brown hair, and had won a modeling contest earlier in the summer. Instead of being proud of her success, I was sad and jealous and afraid she would leave me. Two weeks earlier, we'd gotten into a fight and called it off. That was okay, though, because there was another girl I had set my sights on. I was going to call her when we got to Guy's house.

Well, come a little bit closer now; I've got something to say to you....

My girlfriend and I had had a tumultuous high school relationship filled with insecurity, jealousy, and immaturity. I spent most of my time worrying about how I could get her to like me more and fearful that she would one day leave me. I hated dating and the fear that was brought on by it. I would rather play it safe and go out with friends.

Serious dating was rare in high school unless you were "going with someone" or "hanging out." Mostly, my friends and I just drove around town, meeting in parking lots to talk to girls from other schools and trying to buy beer with other high school kids who were also driving around with no particular destination.

Now that I think of it, it was kind of a pre-mating ritual for us guys. Like bantam roosters strutting their stuff to see who could attract the most attention, we would show up in our nicest clothes, best-combed hair, and-yes-even jewelry to impress the young ladies. We'd make a big deal out of finding these pretty girls and trying to impress them. Most of the time, we'd egg each other on to go ask out one of these elusive creatures, and then we'd take turns chickening out.

Unless you've traveled extensively, when you live in a small town you get a sense that the world is very tiny and that you're a big deal if you have more than the next guy has. The reality was that the rich kids' parents had either inherited their money, worked very hard for their wealth, or they were up to their eyeballs in debt.

On the football team, guys would sometimes wear shirts underneath their pads, and the rich kids would show off by wearing Polo or Flying Scotsman shirts-their way of saying, "I'm going to trash this really expensive shirt because I have so much money it doesn't matter."

The guy who most incited my jealousy had that kind of money. He was a doctor's son and our rival high school's starting quarterback. Even his name sounded cooler than mine: Mattison Dunaway. When I saw my ex-girlfriend in his car, it made me even more enraged. I thought, "I'll show her!" Later that week, I called Mattison and told him he could have Her-I wanted nothing to do with her. See how cool I can be? I thought.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Unthinkableby SCOTT RIGSBY JENNA GLATZER Copyright © 2009 by Scott Rigsby. Excerpted by permission.
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