on Foreseeing My Ideal Death

I suppose this isn't my "ideal" death, per-se. I have two ideas for ideal death, and they are both on opposite ends of the spectrum: Id either like to check out of here quietly while asleep, presumably with someone I love, or to go out with the biggest fucking band possible (car bomb, for example). Although, I hear drowning is suppose to be one of the most zen and peaceful ways to go. So I suppose a shark attack would be a good blend of the two ends of the spectrum. Anyway. Long story short, I think if i died in our van on tour, I'd be ok with that.

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Nathan was driving and Alan was in the front passenger seat. I think they were listening to some fantasy dragon-story book on tape, but, honestly, I don’t really remember. I think James was laying in the first bench seat with Marc in the next, but that just doesn’t seem right. I mean, I vividly remember it this way, but Marc always sits in the first bench seat. I suppose it isn’t really that important, because when Nathan jerked the wheel to miss the deer that darted out into the road, no one ended up where they started off.

We built a loft of sorts in the back of our 1991 Dodge Ram 3500 van where the back two bench seats use to be. Our two guitar heads, my fifteen hundred dollar bass head that I bought when I was 18, our guitars and all of the drum kit, as well as my five foot tall, one hundred and fifteen pound bass cab, all fit under this construction of ply wood and 2x4’s. The One hundred and fifteen pound bass cab was an essential element of the loft’s construction, as it was the center support for the whole structure. The one structural flaw of our ingenious construction was that we never secured the loft to the body of the van. And when our blue four-wheeled highway vessel began to roll and eventually settle on its roof, all of that gear landed right on top of me as I met the roof of our van, which was now sitting crumbled against the pavement of Interstate 85 Southbound.

I felt the rims of my Versace glasses cut into the skin around my eyes as the weight of a whole bands worth of equipment sandwiched me into the ground. They say that life moves in slow motion during a moment of catastrophe, but this is completely untrue. One second I was laying on my back on the loft in our van listening to “In A World of Ghosts” by Lemuria, and the next second I was laying face-first amidst mounds of shattered glass as I gasped for breath through my surely collapsed lungs.

I am quite confident that either a leg or an arm or both were shattered because I remember telling my brain to tell my legs and arms to do something. Anything. I heard Marc say “What the fuck,” and I think James say something along the lines of “Holy shit” or possibly “what did we hit” and heard Alan say my last name. I suppose I should of shouted to someone for a helping hand, but, honestly, the only thought that crossed my mind as every last ounce of blood and oxygen escaped my body was that I wished I had treated my bass head better.

Because it sure was good to me during our short life together.