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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 any minute and inform me I'd been punked. But nobody jumped out the bushes to surprise me or have me fooled.
So I reached out in slow motion and i touched him, as gently as possible as if I were tip toeing around a sleeping baby,, he was still warm to the touch.My mind is screaming at me now," HOLY SHIT THIS IS REAL BITCH!!! ...and I reach for my back pocket to pull out my cell phone...another thing I never do. (I have over the years learned to never take a cell phone into 2 places, one is the bathroom. you cant drop it in the toilet if you don't take it in there. the other is my back pocket. you cant break your phone if you don't sit on it). but somehow someway id broken my own rules and was quick and in a hurry to call 911...which went something like this...
"9-1-1 what is the location of your emergency?"
It was like I was choking on silence, like my words had to break inertia or something to get phonetic sound out. I felt like I was barely making a sound but somewhere a cool calm and collected self says,"Im here at the Conoco gas station off of IH35 exit 217, northbound, I need a star flight emergency medical team, an ambulance will do no good, " I didn't even pause to allow her to ask any questions, I just spit out everything I knew to be pertinent information ," I have an unconscious male in his mid to late 30s, massive trauma to the head and upper body, he's barely breathing and is bleeding heavily. please hurry, he is dying."
"and what is your name ma'am, how do you know the victim?"she asked me.
" My first name is Quila, Q-U-I-L-A,,,my last name is Finley, F-I-N-L-E-Y...and I don't know him at all, I found him in the culvert while I was pumping gas.. and I think I saw him falling from the corner of my eye..."but then as if it weren't already really interesting, the unconscious man opened his eyes and looked at me with the most confused glare I've ever seen interrupted by the most haunting shreiks of agonizing pain to ever bellow from a human mouth...and I knew if I didn't do something to distract him he was going to go into shock and he would surely die there with me, a stranger, phone on her ear listening to the dispatcher for guidance on how to keep him alive.
in the distance I could hear the sound of his only hope for living, a helicopter was coming, and I could hear the sirens of several police units blocking the exits of the highway...there wasn't enough room to land the chopper anywhere else but the highway so they did.
I'm trying not to cry, but in my mind i knew this was really bad and so i started to pray. im covered in this mans blood and brain matter, and glass....there was little broken pieces of glass all around his body and in my hands, in his face and im praying in my mind the hardest ive ever prayed while speaking to him at the same time...it was like having two mouths to work with, somehow i juggled it and i went to hold his lifeless hand. His body is flailing about like a fish out of water and i looked him dead in his eyes and said, " Ok guy, look at me here in my eyes if you can.. I know you are in incredible pain, but I need you to try your best to just listen to my voice and believe me when I say that I've got emergency help on the way, and I know its hard but try to stay as calm and as still as possible. Youve been injured badly and you could make it worse by making any movement." I'm speaking to him like a friend would and as slow and clear as possible, not too loud and not too soft but just as if I knew exactly what I was doing and then I felt the fear of seeing him die right there in front of me, his eyes began to roll around as if he were searching for something in the back of his broken skull, and I tried to catch his attention by telling him my name and jokingly said just hang on man they are going to be here any minute and they've got the best medicines in the world you wont be feeling a thing real soon I promise." And it was the truth, either the paramedics were going to take him and save him or the angels were coming to take him home in the clouds.
The paramedics took me by the shoulder and backed me away from the scene. as they wheeled him away and I watched as they put an oxygen mask on him and were trying to get some vitals. Then he was gone. He was barely a spot inthe sky, and I thought I'd never see that person again. I didn't think he was going to make it and I'd probably end up seeing a story about him on the evening news or something. I answered a few questions from the police officers and other first responders. They asked if I were alright and I kinda shrugged, and one told me I did a fabulous job and if I had previous medical experience. I laughed and said," No but I was a surgeon in my last life."
I went to work. Already late and typically I would be driving as if I were in a high speed chase with the fuzz, but I think I was trying to process what had happened and drove the speed limit to give myself more time before I walked into work 45 minutes late, still stained by the mans blood. I punched myself in on my time card and then punched myself back out. I could see my manager at the front counter and he is staring at me leaning sideways, with a phone to his ear probably trying to find a last minute driver... I said, " I cant today boss, I'm going home, I'll see you monday morning, okay?" Honestly i dont think he even realized I had someone elses blood on my clothes, and although he had a peculiar bewildered look on his face he slowly nodded his head and as if trying out his hooked on phonics pronounced every sylable slower than I thought were normal saying," ooookkkkaaaayyyy Qqqquuuuiiiillllaaaaa...."
I drove even slower to get home. I was in no hurry to wake my loser husband from his temporary tomb raider coma. I was anticipating a more comforting and soothing reaction from my husband when I explained to him why I wasnt at work, and why I was going to take the car to the detail cleaner from a couple of places where there was blood. He was more concerned with the car than the fact that id watched a man probably die today. He said," Good job, you found a half dead guy before someone else did, and ruined the car in the process....didnt think that one through did ya?"
(Total jerk, right? Yea. I know. It would be several years still before I finally had enough and left him.)
Fast forward several months, probably 6 months later i was at work in the back pulling some parts for my next delivery run, when the boss man hollers at me,"Hey Q! Could you come up to the front real quick?"
I noted to myself the last part i needed and walked up to the front counter where a man stood with i assumed to be his wife and 5 children, all girls....poor guy...
"Yes sir? Hi. How can i help you?" I asked.
The man cleared his throat before he spoke to me and said,"Actually you have already helped me far more than words can say. You probably dont recognize me...(this is when it hit me)...without the broken skull and blood and brain matter, but months ago I fell from the sign I was working on, and thank god you were there to call for help. Because of you, you saved my life, and during the months of surgeries and physical therapy it gave me a second perspective on my life and how I was living, and I had to come here and thank you because you didnt just save my life, you also saved the life of my wife and the lives of my 5 daughters. If I had died that day I would have left my wife and children without a chance of being taken care of by someone as good as what I thought I was, and truthfully I wasnt the best father and I wasnt the best husband either, but I was blessed to be given a second chance to change that thanks to you."
Tears trickled down my face as i felt so humbled by the act of appreciation, he brought his entire family to thank me and it was like no other feeling in the world, you cant possibly compare it to anything else...like being crowned Miss America or like child birth, if youve never experienced it yourself you just cant really know how unique and what a rush it is and unlike anything else in the world.
He then introduced me to his wife Carmen of 15 years. She wasted no time in pulling me in close to hug me with the sweetest and most sincere embrace i think ive ever felt from another woman. She spoke a little English, enough to make small conversation, kinda,"And our daughters, Isabella, she is 13. Dahlia is almost 11, Hannah is 7, and the twins Grace and Phoebe are both 3."
" Wow, what a beautiful family you all are together, im so happy to meet you, under strange circumstances maybe but it turned out ok it seems..." Each girl took their turn in wrapping a hug around my neck and said, "thank you for saving my daddy, you are my hero." the twins were not so verbally understandable but i got the idea...they were too cute...His name was Joeseph, and as he explained to me, he was an electrician and that day he had nothing better to do than change the light bulb....on a sign...a sign that was like 100 feet or so in the air, an advertisment billboatd sign off the highway, 12 stories high.. he got electrocuted while he was replacing the bulb, breaking the light bulb at the same time, lost his balance and fell with his arms out in front of him,( thats probably why he lived) shattering every bone from his finger tips to his collar bone, and fractured his skull and had I not seen the tiny pieces of glass from the broken light bulb falling and reflecting from the sun, I would have never stopped or thought to go look, and he surely would have died there. He also explained to me if he had died, Carmen and their girls would have been deported back to Mexico with nothing and no means to take care of all their children...and thats when he pulled his wife towards him closer, and layed his hand on Carmens stomach, and his chin began to wrinkle with pride and man hood and he says to me,"and we are having another baby as well, and we want to name our next child after you Quila....and we love the name so much anyway and we would like to ask you if that be ok with you?"
I couldnt believe that this was seriously happening to me and before I couold answer him, my boss rolls over, minus the phone, and looks at me asking ," Everything going ok here folks, is there any assistance I can offer to help Q?"
While im wiping the tears and the mascara rolling down my face i quickly turned towards him saying," No sir! Everything is great! This here, this is Joseph, and his wife Carmen and their 5, soon to be 6 children, and they've come by here to thank me for something that happened a few months back... you remember that I day I came in and then I just left and said see ya monday?" I asked.
He nodded very hesitant and with a raised eyebrow...,"yyyeeeaaahhh?"
"Ok well Joseph here has some obvious thrill issues and almost died that morning, it was his blood I had on my uniform, but anyway , he is alive and and and they wanna name their unborn child after me, and that's why they're here..., crazy huh boss?"
I smiled still and in almost disbelief my boss said," OOohhh well...I had no idea we had such a hero in the ware house...he pauses and looks at the family and looks at me and says well done Quila...
I closed our conversation by saying I would be honored by him naming a child after me, but I was just happy to be there at the right time to do the next right thing. I believe the prayer helped...and so sometimes I would pray that one day my husband would fall from the sky too....but on a brighter note, a child was born months later and they named her Tia Tequila....no not really, they had a boy, and named him Samuel.
© Quila Marie
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 any minute and inform me I'd been punked. But nobody jumped out the bushes to surprise me or have me fooled.
So I reached out in slow motion and i touched him, as gently as possible as if I were tip toeing around a sleeping baby,, he was still warm to the touch.My mind is screaming at me now," HOLY SHIT THIS IS REAL BITCH!!! ...and I reach for my back pocket to pull out my cell phone...another thing I never do. (I have over the years learned to never take a cell phone into 2 places, one is the bathroom. you cant drop it in the toilet if you don't take it in there. the other is my back pocket. you cant break your phone if you don't sit on it). but somehow someway id broken my own rules and was quick and in a hurry to call 911...which went something like this...
"9-1-1 what is the location of your emergency?"
It was like I was choking on silence, like my words had to break inertia or something to get phonetic sound out. I felt like I was barely making a sound but somewhere a cool calm and collected self says,"Im here at the Conoco gas station off of IH35 exit 217, northbound, I need a star flight emergency medical team, an ambulance will do no good, " I didn't even pause to allow her to ask any questions, I just spit out everything I knew to be pertinent information ," I have an unconscious male in his mid to late 30s, massive trauma to the head and upper body, he's barely breathing and is bleeding heavily. please hurry, he is dying."
"and what is your name ma'am, how do you know the victim?"she asked me.
" My first name is Quila, Q-U-I-L-A,,,my last name is Finley, F-I-N-L-E-Y...and I don't know him at all, I found him in the culvert while I was pumping gas.. and I think I saw him falling from the corner of my eye..."but then as if it weren't already really interesting, the unconscious man opened his eyes and looked at me with the most confused glare I've ever seen interrupted by the most haunting shreiks of agonizing pain to ever bellow from a human mouth...and I knew if I didn't do something to distract him he was going to go into shock and he would surely die there with me, a stranger, phone on her ear listening to the dispatcher for guidance on how to keep him alive.
in the distance I could hear the sound of his only hope for living, a helicopter was coming, and I could hear the sirens of several police units blocking the exits of the highway...there wasn't enough room to land the chopper anywhere else but the highway so they did.
I'm trying not to cry, but in my mind i knew this was really bad and so i started to pray. im covered in this mans blood and brain matter, and glass....there was little broken pieces of glass all around his body and in my hands, in his face and im praying in my mind the hardest ive ever prayed while speaking to him at the same time...it was like having two mouths to work with, somehow i juggled it and i went to hold his lifeless hand. His body is flailing about like a fish out of water and i looked him dead in his eyes and said, " Ok guy, look at me here in my eyes if you can.. I know you are in incredible pain, but I need you to try your best to just listen to my voice and believe me when I say that I've got emergency help on the way, and I know its hard but try to stay as calm and as still as possible. Youve been injured badly and you could make it worse by making any movement." I'm speaking to him like a friend would and as slow and clear as possible, not too loud and not too soft but just as if I knew exactly what I was doing and then I felt the fear of seeing him die right there in front of me, his eyes began to roll around as if he were searching for something in the back of his broken skull, and I tried to catch his attention by telling him my name and jokingly said just hang on man they are going to be here any minute and they've got the best medicines in the world you wont be feeling a thing real soon I promise." And it was the truth, either the paramedics were going to take him and save him or the angels were coming to take him home in the clouds.
The paramedics took me by the shoulder and backed me away from the scene. as they wheeled him away and I watched as they put an oxygen mask on him and were trying to get some vitals. Then he was gone. He was barely a spot inthe sky, and I thought I'd never see that person again. I didn't think he was going to make it and I'd probably end up seeing a story about him on the evening news or something. I answered a few questions from the police officers and other first responders. They asked if I were alright and I kinda shrugged, and one told me I did a fabulous job and if I had previous medical experience. I laughed and said," No but I was a surgeon in my last life."
I went to work. Already late and typically I would be driving as if I were in a high speed chase with the fuzz, but I think I was trying to process what had happened and drove the speed limit to give myself more time before I walked into work 45 minutes late, still stained by the mans blood. I punched myself in on my time card and then punched myself back out. I could see my manager at the front counter and he is staring at me leaning sideways, with a phone to his ear probably trying to find a last minute driver... I said, " I cant today boss, I'm going home, I'll see you monday morning, okay?" Honestly i dont think he even realized I had someone elses blood on my clothes, and although he had a peculiar bewildered look on his face he slowly nodded his head and as if trying out his hooked on phonics pronounced every sylable slower than I thought were normal saying," ooookkkkaaaayyyy Qqqquuuuiiiillllaaaaa...."
I drove even slower to get home. I was in no hurry to wake my loser husband from his temporary tomb raider coma. I was anticipating a more comforting and soothing reaction from my husband when I explained to him why I wasnt at work, and why I was going to take the car to the detail cleaner from a couple of places where there was blood. He was more concerned with the car than the fact that id watched a man probably die today. He said," Good job, you found a half dead guy before someone else did, and ruined the car in the process....didnt think that one through did ya?"
(Total jerk, right? Yea. I know. It would be several years still before I finally had enough and left him.)
Fast forward several months, probably 6 months later i was at work in the back pulling some parts for my next delivery run, when the boss man hollers at me,"Hey Q! Could you come up to the front real quick?"
I noted to myself the last part i needed and walked up to the front counter where a man stood with i assumed to be his wife and 5 children, all girls....poor guy...
"Yes sir? Hi. How can i help you?" I asked.
The man cleared his throat before he spoke to me and said,"Actually you have already helped me far more than words can say. You probably dont recognize me...(this is when it hit me)...without the broken skull and blood and brain matter, but months ago I fell from the sign I was working on, and thank god you were there to call for help. Because of you, you saved my life, and during the months of surgeries and physical therapy it gave me a second perspective on my life and how I was living, and I had to come here and thank you because you didnt just save my life, you also saved the life of my wife and the lives of my 5 daughters. If I had died that day I would have left my wife and children without a chance of being taken care of by someone as good as what I thought I was, and truthfully I wasnt the best father and I wasnt the best husband either, but I was blessed to be given a second chance to change that thanks to you."
Tears trickled down my face as i felt so humbled by the act of appreciation, he brought his entire family to thank me and it was like no other feeling in the world, you cant possibly compare it to anything else...like being crowned Miss America or like child birth, if youve never experienced it yourself you just cant really know how unique and what a rush it is and unlike anything else in the world.
He then introduced me to his wife Carmen of 15 years. She wasted no time in pulling me in close to hug me with the sweetest and most sincere embrace i think ive ever felt from another woman. She spoke a little English, enough to make small conversation, kinda,"And our daughters, Isabella, she is 13. Dahlia is almost 11, Hannah is 7, and the twins Grace and Phoebe are both 3."
" Wow, what a beautiful family you all are together, im so happy to meet you, under strange circumstances maybe but it turned out ok it seems..." Each girl took their turn in wrapping a hug around my neck and said, "thank you for saving my daddy, you are my hero." the twins were not so verbally understandable but i got the idea...they were too cute...His name was Joeseph, and as he explained to me, he was an electrician and that day he had nothing better to do than change the light bulb....on a sign...a sign that was like 100 feet or so in the air, an advertisment billboatd sign off the highway, 12 stories high.. he got electrocuted while he was replacing the bulb, breaking the light bulb at the same time, lost his balance and fell with his arms out in front of him,( thats probably why he lived) shattering every bone from his finger tips to his collar bone, and fractured his skull and had I not seen the tiny pieces of glass from the broken light bulb falling and reflecting from the sun, I would have never stopped or thought to go look, and he surely would have died there. He also explained to me if he had died, Carmen and their girls would have been deported back to Mexico with nothing and no means to take care of all their children...and thats when he pulled his wife towards him closer, and layed his hand on Carmens stomach, and his chin began to wrinkle with pride and man hood and he says to me,"and we are having another baby as well, and we want to name our next child after you Quila....and we love the name so much anyway and we would like to ask you if that be ok with you?"
I couldnt believe that this was seriously happening to me and before I couold answer him, my boss rolls over, minus the phone, and looks at me asking ," Everything going ok here folks, is there any assistance I can offer to help Q?"
While im wiping the tears and the mascara rolling down my face i quickly turned towards him saying," No sir! Everything is great! This here, this is Joseph, and his wife Carmen and their 5, soon to be 6 children, and they've come by here to thank me for something that happened a few months back... you remember that I day I came in and then I just left and said see ya monday?" I asked.
He nodded very hesitant and with a raised eyebrow...,"yyyeeeaaahhh?"
"Ok well Joseph here has some obvious thrill issues and almost died that morning, it was his blood I had on my uniform, but anyway , he is alive and and and they wanna name their unborn child after me, and that's why they're here..., crazy huh boss?"
I smiled still and in almost disbelief my boss said," OOohhh well...I had no idea we had such a hero in the ware house...he pauses and looks at the family and looks at me and says well done Quila...
I closed our conversation by saying I would be honored by him naming a child after me, but I was just happy to be there at the right time to do the next right thing. I believe the prayer helped...and so sometimes I would pray that one day my husband would fall from the sky too....but on a brighter note, a child was born months later and they named her Tia Tequila....no not really, they had a boy, and named him Samuel.
© Quila Marie
