It happened on a Sunday I skipped church. Guilt motivated me to call my mom, the one person who was certain to ask what the good minister had preached. Her lecture was short and tender, providing me, still in my pajamas, a vicarious sort of worship via the play-by-play of her own church service.
An hour of long distance later, the click of call waiting interrupted us. I almost ignored it, because most of the calls at our house are for my older child. Twenty-year-old Rod, named for his father, had spent the night out with friends. A good chunk of the conversation with Mother had been about the hardheadedness of my much-loved firstborn son.
Rod inherited his father’s DNA for charisma and speed. My husband was nicknamed “Rocket Rod” at A&M, and he still holds one of the faster times in the world in the 60-yard dash, at 6.07 seconds. As a high school valedictorian, the Rocket was recruited by more than 200 colleges that chased his 4.0 average as much as his athletic prowess. But the younger Rod, who billed himself as “Hot Rod,” used his talents to run away from his true potential. As a boy, he wrote imaginative stories and hypnotized people with his intelligence, eliciting a string of predictions about his future greatness. Teachers and friends thought Rod had “it,” and they longed to see what kind of man would evolve. But as the years went by, it became clear that Rod preferred shortcuts to success. His supporters dwindled, and he did nothing to prove them wrong. He preferred part-time retail work to full-time college. But through it all, I refused to stop believing in the boy.
“Hang on a second,” I said, irritated that I had to put our camaraderie on hold.
Speak of the devil. On the other line was the same strong-willed child who was at the center of our conversation. I can still hear the words he spoke.
“Mom, Mom, I’ve been in an accident!” There was fear and trembling in his normally booming voice. “There’s been an explosion,” he cried into the phone. “Mom, there’s a fire, and people are trapped!” I heard a familiar number before the line went dead. Highway 190 is the President George Bush Turnpike, almost visible from my bedroom window. I clicked back to my mother and told her I had to go.
Hair uncombed, face unwashed, all I could hear was the voice of a child in pain. I do not remember dressing, but I must have. My mind ran in a thousand directions, all of them wrong. The words “accident” and “explosion” tormented me.
Five minutes later, I found the scene on the service road, where the Turnpike crosses Shiloh Road. There was yellow tape, and officers directed traffic away from the accident. “Please let me in,” I said, fumbling to roll down the window in a car I had owned less than 24 hours. “My son is up there!” The cop must have seen my tears and those of Brandon, Rod’s 10-year-old brother, who was in the passenger’s seat. He let me pass.
On the other side of the yellow tape was nothing produced by reality, yet it was all real. Charred metal. Five cars strewn about, smashed, burned, twisted. Emergency personnel from two suburbs had put out the fire, and smoke drifted through the heat of a 95-degree day. One car, larger than the rest, sat upside down on a concrete median in Shiloh Road. Another car, a compact, was crushed so badly I couldn’t determine its make or model. People from nearby stores, a gas station, McDonald’s, and an apartment complex had formed a curious crowd. They stared in muted shock. A team of caregivers attended to the injured. Others, perhaps those involved in the accident but not seriously hurt, walked around dazed. I called my husband, who was several miles away.
As a radio news reporter for many years, I’d seen horrible scenes like this before. I had learned to make sense of them, to gather the facts and tell them without bias. But the mangled cars in the service road intersection defied my comprehension. I wasn’t thinking like a reporter. I was thinking like a mother who couldn’t find her child.
Then Rod emerged. He stood on a grassy embankment topped by guardrails, trying hard to project a tough-guy image through a tear-streaked face. At 230 pounds, the high school linebacker physique might fool others, but I knew. I threw my car into park and raced to my son. From the freeway above, onlookers stared. A policewoman stopped me in mid-sprint. “Ma’am, you’re going to have to get back.” I buckled in half, screaming and crying to get to my son. “Your son is a witness,” she said.
I got back into the car. I assured Brandon that his brother was alive and physically unbroken. My baby could see a little of what lay ahead when he craned to look around fire engines and forensic trucks parked ahead of us. I did not tell him what I’d seen.
As a reporter, I sometimes felt like a voyeur, carefully stepping into lives to record pain and misery. I thought about an interview I’d done with a woman whose missing son had set off an Amber Alert. After we talked, I hugged her. She remained optimistic that a boy who rode away on his bike would return to her yard, but he never did. A hundred stories like that flashed through my mind and made the accident heartbreakingly familiar, yet totally foreign. I watched every move Rod made. It was breaking news that I wasn’t being allowed to report.
A short time later, I saw my flabber- gasted husband join the crowd. He didn’t see me, and I could tell he didn’t see Rod. I rang again to calm him. I told him that our son was okay. When the policewoman finished her interview with Rod, I leaped from the car to the side of the road and fell into a long, life-affirming embrace with my son. Hot tears landed on my shoulder. Haltingly brave, Rod recalled what had happened.
A handful of cars were waiting at a red light. As Rod approached the intersection, destruction fell from the sky. A giant, maroon Suburban plowed into the stopped cars. According to witnesses, it was traveling about 80 mph, weaving in and out of traffic. The people waiting at the light never saw the 5,000 pounds of metal charge down the embankment. They never heard the wailing horn.
The Suburban roared into a red Mustang. The thundering impact knocked the car into the middle of the intersection, where it exploded, trapping the people inside. The big truck flipped, hit a pole, and eventually came to rest upside down on the median, wheels spinning. Fire licked the sides of the Mustang. Five or six people ran up to rescue whoever was screaming inside. Rod was there. He could hear the cries for help. He dialed 911 on his cell phone.
Rod mentioned an off-duty firefighter named Eric who was heading home. Eric didn’t see the accident but was trained to help. Another man, Josh, risked his life when he approached the flaming Mustang. But the heat was too intense. Helping hands tried to save a father and son to no avail. Rod said firefighters quickly took over. I held my son when he stopped talking. All I wanted to do was take him home.
As we stood hugging, a CareFlite helicopter landed. Two others had been critically injured, and one was airlifted away. A large tarp was used to cover the Mustang, but the wind kept blowing it up. I watched a firefighter struggle to secure the tarp, to give privacy to those who’d been lost.
When we were finally told we could leave, Rod assured me he could drive. Sandwiched between his father and me,
Rod drove the short distance home in a car so ragged that the air conditioning didn’t work.
Once safe behind the closed doors of our house and holding his namesake child, my husband shed tears of gratitude. Rod simply wanted to shower and change clothes. “I’m all right,” he kept telling us. But the look on his face said otherwise.
It hit him later that night. “I can’t sleep,” Rod moaned. The memory of the screams from the strangers in the Mustang wouldn’t let him rest. He’d envisioned a Hollywood ending in which he was a hero, but he’d been powerless to help.
“Anytime you need to talk to someone, a professional, we can get help for you,” I told my son, stroking his face.
But tough guys don’t need therapy. “I’ve talked to my friends about it,” he said.
“Rod, this is your wake-up call,” I said. “God has placed you here for a reason. You were not put on this earth to take up space.”
Suddenly we were back to Saturday and the ugly conversation that had consumed most of our evening, the conversation that had spilled over into my talk with Mom. I had given Rod an ultimatum: “If you’re not going to go to school, you must get a full-time job to support yourself.”
That option carried little appeal for a part-time assistant manager who felt he already had everything he needed. Since high school graduation, Rod had been in automatic party mode. His father and I picked up the tab for one reckless decision after another. Rod would never forgive me if I published a list of his mistakes, but his leisurely pursuits started long before he chose to empty his savings account.
His dad fired: “We pay your auto insurance, tuition, and have given you a gas card as well as money for incidentals. Where is our return on the Rod investment?” All we got was more of the blank look that said he wasn’t interested in the weekly lesson on strength of character.
Now I wanted Rod to see that the near miss with the Suburban could mean something. The boy had no clue that a fateful moment held the power to alter his course. I saw it as a sign. And it pointed directly to a letter written 15 years earlier.
BLESSED WITH MAHOGANY SKIN, ROD was dubbed “Mom’s Little Hershey Bar” at a young age. And in 1989, when he was 5, a shameful episode concerning his color wounded a sweet boy and captured the attention of a president. I believe it set his present date with destiny.
Rod was an energetic diplomat who got along well with others in kindergarten and those in his playgroup afterward at day care. One evening, though, he was solemn and withdrawn, refusing to tell me what was wrong. After some coaxing, I discovered that some kids at day care had given him a new nickname.
“Mom, the kids say I’m so black, they just call me ’Burnt Toast.’” It was the cutest racial slur I had ever heard. But there was nothing cute about his graduation to a more familiar epithet a few days later. For- tunately, we had the weekend to strategize.
We were stretched out on our tummies in the living room with crayons, He-Man figures, and Lego parts when I blurted, “Let’s write to the president.”
Rod’s eyes widened like two Moon Pies. He said, “What president?”
I jumped up and placed my hands on my hips to announce, “The president of the United States, of course!”
Rod was delighted, but my husband thought we were crazy. “The Secret Service will be all over us!” he said. I figured the president gets thousands of letters. One more from a mother about her child wouldn’t jeopardize national security. Besides, I never thought President George Herbert Walker Bush would see the letter. I simply wanted to teach a little boy he was important enough that the commander in chief should know that too few people were following his code of “kinder, gentler” ethics.
A few days later, Rod was back at day care, the only black kid in his group, enthusiastically explaining his Penn- sylvania Avenue-bound correspondence. I still had no expectation that our little letter would find its way onto the big desk. But it did.
An excited postal worker told me at home, “I have a special delivery from the White House.” I snatched the official-looking envelope and slammed the door.
Sure enough, President Bush had written to apologize for the racial epithet young Rod had suffered in day care. Bush wrote of his sadness that children so young were involved. He even passed along warm salutations from Barbara.
Today, that letter hangs in a frame outside Rod’s room. I often think of it when I travel the Turnpike on my daily trek to and from home. Odd that Rod and I would find ourselves facing this sad situation on the service road of a multimillion-dollar highway named for the man who took the time to write my son. But the connections didn’t stop there, and in the days that followed, it became ever clearer to me that Rod had avoided his destiny too long. There was nowhere to run except toward manhood.
RECURRING NIGHTMARES OF THE ACCIDENT worked on Rod’s nerves. “I can still hear them,” he told me. “I’ve seen a lot of action movies, Mom, but this wasn’t like anything in the movies.” The look in his eyes told me he ached to escape from details he couldn’t share. It was obvious that Rod needed to unburden himself, but he refused to sit still. He went out every night, trying to drown out reality with any distraction he could find.
Three days after the accident, an officer called to tell Rod to wait until after the Fourth of July holiday to give a written statement at headquarters. The cop also provided what local newscasts had not: the names and phone number of the victims’ family. I wrote the information on a piece of paper and stared at it, unable to work up the courage to call. What would I say? What were the right words? There weren’t any.
The cop had called before I’d had a chance to read the morning paper. Casually flipping pages, trying not to think of the phone call I knew I had to make, I saw in the center of the page the last name I’d jotted down just moments ago. There they were, the men from the Mustang, in two columns of death announcements. I studied their faces, hoping to learn something from words and head shots. A father and son, both named Mark*, like the two Rods, had left this world suddenly. Handsome faces that belonged to those names should not have appeared on an obit page for a long, long time. But there they were— Mark and Mark. A parent who was 43 years old when he was snatched away from family and community died with his 20-year-old son beside him. Their ages struck me. I am 43, and my son is 20. I instantly felt a kinship with the family.
I wondered how Julie, wife and mother to the men named Mark, would feel about a stranger offering condolences. I could not imagine her pain. How do you introduce yourself to a mother whose son had died while your son watched? I didn’t pick up the phone until the next day.
“Hello, I’m looking for Julie,” I said, pausing to pronounce a last name I was unsure of. A voice on the other end filled in the blank.
“My name is Joyce, and my son was a witness to the accident.” I tried to sound composed. A woman named Donna explained that Julie had been deluged by visitors and callers. I said, “Please let her know that if she ever wants to talk or needs anything, we would like to help.”
I wasn’t sure what Julie could possibly need from me, but I said she could call day or night. I hung up feeling inadequate and tried to busy myself around the house, vacuuming, making beds, cleaning. I put on workout clothes to ride a stationary bike. I went through the motions of normalcy, but try as I did, I could not push the family of four—minus two—out of my mind. I pictured Julie in tears, in black, cordially receiving people with food and hugs. I saw myself in her place and wondered how I would behave.
Then the phone rang. I was startled by the number on the caller ID. Taking a deep breath, I answered, unprepared for where the call might lead. A soft voice politely introduced herself as Julie’s mother, 20-year-old Mark’s grandmother. She had come to town to make arrangements and look for answers. The woman spoke as if I were seated next to her on the sofa.
“Thank you so much for calling my daughter,” she said. “Letting us know that you care means so much.” I asked again if there were anything I could do. “So many people have called or come by,” she said. We were, for those few minutes, the only two people in the world, as delicate words about what Rod had witnessed passed between us.
Then came a question that made me uncomfortable. “Do you think we could speak to your son?” she asked. “Did he hear any last words?” Part of me was grateful Rod was at work. My concern was two-fold. I knew he wasn’t ready to speak directly to the family. The nightmares hadn’t stopped. But I was also worried about Rod providing graphic details the family had probably already imagined. Still, I told her, yes, they could speak with him.
Before we said goodbye, there was an invitation to a double memorial. Even though I felt Julie’s family was my family, I decided not to attend the service. Something told me that a lot of curious people who saw the story on the news or read about it in the paper might show up. I also had another reason for not attending. Rod was a little unnerved when he came home from work to discover that I had phoned the family with our condolences.
I got right to it. “Rod, I spoke with Mark’s grandmother, and she asked about speaking to you.” His brow tightened, and he stared directly into me. Rod wondered why I kept picking at an open wound. I didn’t encourage him to lie or distort the truth but to use sensitivity. His big shoulders tensed when I told him it was normal to want healing and to seek closure.
Our July Fourth weekend was spent in somber reflection of the accident days before. Rod didn’t seem any closer to acknowledging destiny. But I couldn’t help scanning my mental tapes of the two families and seeing the connections between Rod and Mark.
They were both good kids, both 20 years old, both considered fun and outgoing by friends and family. Both lived at home. Like Rod, Mark loved working at his retail job and had proven to be honest and dependable. They both went to public schools in the same district and graduated in 2001. Rod and Mark aspired to higher academic life, but they knew the road to college would present obstacles. Each grew up with one sibling. And they were eternally bound by tragedy.
Later that night, after Brandon fell asleep, I summoned Rod to my bedroom. He had dark circles under his eyes. I told him I thought those connections revealed the best way to help Rod put a life-altering event into perspective.
“That young man was 20 years old,” I told my son, “the same as you. And now he’s gone. Rod, I want you to think about his face, his life. I charge you to live for him, pick up the mantle, and live a life of integrity for Mark.” I told Rod that only time and hard work could replace the images that tore at him. None of the stupid mistakes Rod had made mattered anymore. I told him the slate was wiped clean. My voice grew louder: “Rod, do you understand what I am telling you?”
“Yes,” he said. A sparkle lit his brown eyes. But it disappeared before I could gauge the emotional impact.
“No, no, Rod. You have a duty to live two lives and to do it with respect and reverence. You must live for Mark, not with what happened to Mark.” I showed Rod a photograph of Mark, a handsome man with spiked blond hair, decked out in a black tuxedo. Rod held back tears. I pleaded with my child to use the photo as a replacement image to hold in his heart. A similar picture of Rod in a black tuxedo sits in the foyer of our home. Their expressions are strikingly similar. “Using Mark’s face and picture, you must imagine him alive in you. Can you do that?”
Rod nodded yes, but confessed that it was all “too deep” and that he wasn’t sure he could do what I suggested. “Only you would think of something like that,” he said through a half smile.
I told Rod none of it would be easy, but that would not release him from a duty to try. “You’ve got to take Mark, in spirit, to the classroom, to church, on dates, and to the mall where you work,” I said. He listened intently as I told him this fall semester would have been the very first at college for Mark. “How many chances are you going to throw away?” I told him Mark wouldn’t have any more opportunities, so Rod had to take advantage of his chances in this young man’s name. Rod’s shame at logging two mediocre years in college showed on his face.
“Have you thought anything about the fact that the accident happened on the George Bush Turnpike?” I asked. He shook his head. “God has placed you here for a reason,” I told him. “Can you live for Mark?”
Rod promised to try. He got off his knees and left my bedside. On the wall outside his room, he had to notice that framed letter from the president. I prayed that the accident on the highway named for the same man would change Rod’s course.
For now, Rod will return to school. He will try to redeem himself for two lives instead of one.
Joyce King is the author of Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas (Pantheon, 2002). This is her first story for D Magazine.
*The names of the victims and their family members have been changed to protect their privacy.
