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Payday Friday
I used to drive a GT Mustang, with a standard transmission... I was barely 21 years old, working as a delivery driver for an auto parts store. I was also miserably married to a "momma's boy" and while trying to raise our daughter, we were temporarily staying with his mother... living pay check to pay check, barely scraping by, while my husband slept till 3 in the afternoon because he stayed up all night smoking weed and playing video games. Those days are long gone, and our child is grown now, but there is one particular day that stands out the most from that time in my life...
It was in February, on a Friday, and it was payday. Which I dreaded and anxiously looked forward to every week; but this particular payday Friday brought me more value than any paycheck I could possibly cash.
I left for work on time as usual and I warmed up the car first for a few minutes before taking off, as usual, with the full intentions of rolling a fat joint to get me through the day, as usual. I decided to stop at a convenience store for gas. I didn't need it, I had enough to get me to work, but I realized that when I get off I'm going to have to haul ass over to the bank and fight the 5 o clock traffic to cash my check, then fight the same traffic to get home just to get there and have my husband talk me into buying a bag of weed we couldn't afford but end up doing it anyway. I figured I might as well get gas now before going to work. Not the usual. This is odd because I'm usually broke on payday, but for some reason that day I had like 40 bucks and that never happens, my checks were gone as soon as I cashed them.
So I'm standing at the pump, pumping my gas, paying no real close attention to anything except for how freezing cold I was, and usually I'd sit and wait inside the car till the pump was done, but for some reason as cold as it was, I didn't. I stood there like a statue, pumping the gas till out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something flash in the sky, some thing shimmered or sparkled in my peripheral vision. I turned to look at what spectacle might be looming in the sky, but when I looked I saw nothing but the gray winter sky. Nothing out of the ordinary, not a cloud or even a plane in sight. I looked to my left to see if anyone else had thought they seen something and nobody acted as they were interested, no one was looking in the same direction, so I tried to dismiss it. Waiting still for the gas to finish. I hear the click of the pump, finally, I can get back in the car where its warm and get on with the day, but as I'm putting the pump back, closing the lid to my gas tank, I felt this indescribable weight in my feet and in my legs, almost like half my body wanted to go to work and the other half was not having it till I figured out what it was I thought I saw. I wasn't stoned or high on caffeine or anything like that and I wasn't even wearing any make up so I eliminated those possible explanations quickly. It felt as if there were cinder blocks on my feet, not letting me leave till I new exactly what it was in the sky.
I walk to the edge of the store property in the direction I thought I'd seen something and as I drew closer I see that there's a culvert for flood water run off to go under neath the highway. As I came to the edge of the top of the culvert is when I see him, face down, in a pool of his blood. Brain matter is exposed through a cracked skull. It was a man, who I first thought might have been just a large garbage bag with the trash exposed but a second glance definitively concluded there was a dead man laying at the bottom. I instinctively, which I don't know where this comes from either, ran down the steep wall of the culvert and some how I managed not to completely eat it head over feet down to the bottom. I thought at first that maybe this was a prank , like Ashton Kutcher was gonna jump out...
It was in February, on a Friday, and it was payday. Which I dreaded and anxiously looked forward to every week; but this particular payday Friday brought me more value than any paycheck I could possibly cash.
I left for work on time as usual and I warmed up the car first for a few minutes before taking off, as usual, with the full intentions of rolling a fat joint to get me through the day, as usual. I decided to stop at a convenience store for gas. I didn't need it, I had enough to get me to work, but I realized that when I get off I'm going to have to haul ass over to the bank and fight the 5 o clock traffic to cash my check, then fight the same traffic to get home just to get there and have my husband talk me into buying a bag of weed we couldn't afford but end up doing it anyway. I figured I might as well get gas now before going to work. Not the usual. This is odd because I'm usually broke on payday, but for some reason that day I had like 40 bucks and that never happens, my checks were gone as soon as I cashed them.
So I'm standing at the pump, pumping my gas, paying no real close attention to anything except for how freezing cold I was, and usually I'd sit and wait inside the car till the pump was done, but for some reason as cold as it was, I didn't. I stood there like a statue, pumping the gas till out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something flash in the sky, some thing shimmered or sparkled in my peripheral vision. I turned to look at what spectacle might be looming in the sky, but when I looked I saw nothing but the gray winter sky. Nothing out of the ordinary, not a cloud or even a plane in sight. I looked to my left to see if anyone else had thought they seen something and nobody acted as they were interested, no one was looking in the same direction, so I tried to dismiss it. Waiting still for the gas to finish. I hear the click of the pump, finally, I can get back in the car where its warm and get on with the day, but as I'm putting the pump back, closing the lid to my gas tank, I felt this indescribable weight in my feet and in my legs, almost like half my body wanted to go to work and the other half was not having it till I figured out what it was I thought I saw. I wasn't stoned or high on caffeine or anything like that and I wasn't even wearing any make up so I eliminated those possible explanations quickly. It felt as if there were cinder blocks on my feet, not letting me leave till I new exactly what it was in the sky.
I walk to the edge of the store property in the direction I thought I'd seen something and as I drew closer I see that there's a culvert for flood water run off to go under neath the highway. As I came to the edge of the top of the culvert is when I see him, face down, in a pool of his blood. Brain matter is exposed through a cracked skull. It was a man, who I first thought might have been just a large garbage bag with the trash exposed but a second glance definitively concluded there was a dead man laying at the bottom. I instinctively, which I don't know where this comes from either, ran down the steep wall of the culvert and some how I managed not to completely eat it head over feet down to the bottom. I thought at first that maybe this was a prank , like Ashton Kutcher was gonna jump out...
