electric mist

fragile

Last night late, Jake called to tell me that one of his friends, K, just totaled out his car. K walked away pretty much unscratched from what amounted to a completely crushed car. He was doing 110 on the Interstate. (He told Jake the cops thought he was only doing 90, but he admitted how fast he was going.) The thing is, Jake has ridden with him in the past. The passenger seat? Completely obliterated. Back seat? The same. Jake almost always travels around in his own truck, thankfully, but there are times they'd all jump in one car, particularly K's car since he had all the fancy stereo equipment. His roommate at LSU (also one of Jake's closest friends) normally rides around with him. Jake or the other friend, Dan, would be dead right now if they had decided to hang out with K yesterday.

Jake seemed shook up about it. He's already had one very dear friend get killed in a car wreck (when someone else was driving badly and ran into him), so he's aware of mortality moreso than K. (The currently wrecked friend didn't know the one who died.) It makes me furious to think this kid was happily taking chances with everyone's lives -- including those people on the interstate where he was driving. What scares the hell out of me is that he's the kind of kid who never learns. He sloughs off anything that anyone tries to tell him for his own good. He's rude to his parents (who still coddle him, but they're learning not to... too late, unfortunately). He tried to be rude to me one day when he was here and that got nipped in the bud so fast, I think I scared him. (Good.)

I know he has no idea what he's done or the damage he could have done.