A Bad Day All Around

At sixteen degrees below, January 17th had begun as the coldest Denver day so far that year.

At five fifty in the morning Joshua Aton should have well been on his way to work. But standing in front of the ancient, gas furnace mounted on the wall of his second floor apartment, he sipped at his coffee, staring unenthused out of his window at the still-dark, and as of yet, undisturbed scene below.

While he would miss his six o'clock delivery, the weather that morning had made pulling his frame from beneath the warm blankets next to impossible.

The unrelenting snowstorms of the past two days blanketed the city's streets and sidewalks, making them invisible under what had now become and inch or better of thick, impenetrable ice.

The calm would soon become mayhem, Joshua thought, watching an overly garbed figure tread a small dog across the frozen street.

People, he among them, would struggle with their frigid, uncooperative machines, driving them through the narrow neighborhoods on their way to work, giving up the control of their lives to seven o'clock for another day.

But for another minute or two, at least, he was safe.

Exhaling the last drag on his cigarette, he crushed it in the ashtray beside him, feeling unsure that his car would even start this morning.

The white, rust spotted, '88 Honda had proven itself over the last nine months since he'd found it in one of the countless second hand lots that line both sides of East Colfax.

At seventeen hundred dollars, they'd wanted considerably more than bluebook, and what Joshua thought the car was worth.

But the balding, salesman—bad tie and all—had emphatically assured him of the car's soundness, pointing out that it was a Honda after all, practically worth its weight in gold.

He would even sacrifice his own commission to "let it go" at that price.

So, Joshua, desperate to find something reliable on his meager budget, had shelled over the down payment, hoping on the car's reputation—and, so far, so good.

But the winter thus far, had failed to reach this degree of harshness, and even a car worth its weight in gold would have a hard time defending against that.

Lighting another cigarette, he changed his mind, and pinching off the burning end, he dropped it quickly into the ashtray, before carefully inserting it back into the crumpled pack, along with the ten or so others that would have to see him through the day.

Already dressed in layers of long johns, thick socks, jeans and the brown army tee he wore under his work clothes, all that remained was to pull on his boots and the thick, black sweater his mother had given him for Christmas.

Then, after donning his watchcap and coat, he filled his small thermos in the kitchen with the remaining coffee, grabbed his keys from the hook beside the door and jammed them into his pocket.

With the cruddy, inefficient furnace working overtime against the cold inside the apartment, he opened the door and stepped into the unwelcoming bitterness outside, closing it behind him.

The winter wind bit into his face and ears, as he made his way carefully down the wooden staircase that ran along the side of the building.

He hoped Mr. DeLittle wouldn't be too pissed at him.

As Joshua neared the ice-encased Honda, there was no way that he could have known that Brigette Nelson, who lived three blocks to the west on Downing, had already backed her warm Grand Cherokee from its place in the garage, and was headed his way.

6:05 am

"Where the hell is Josh?" Steven DeLittle, Joshua's boss demanded loudly, stomping into the warehouse. "He was supposed to be here already!"

The other workers, six in all, stopped what they were doing. Though DeLittle stood only five six, he was stocky and thickly muscled with a temper. In front of him, he held out the delivery sheet for Joshua's route that day. "If these parts don't get delivered I will have his ASS!" He bellowed, punctuating the words HAVE HIS ASS by stabbing an index finger at the other workers, before storming out.

6:10 am

After knocking as much of the ice as possible off of the windshield, Joshua pried open the driver's door.

Sliding behind the wheel was like sliding into an icebox, his breath floating in visible puffs as he fumbled the key into the ignition.

"Okay baby, what you gonna do," he said aloud. Pressing the clutch to the floor, he turned the key. Wump, wump wump the frozen engine tried it's best, then died.

"C'mon baby, you can do it," he tried again. This time, the car sputtered, coming to life reluctantly. Jubilant, he pulled a cigarette from the half-empty pack in his pocket, setting it alight, before snapping the seatbelt. Then, moving the shifter into first, he crept from the curb.

6:11 a.m.

Cruising her black Cherokee down the snow-crusted street, Brigette glanced at the speedometer. It read forty miles per hour, ten over the speed limit.

Driving too fast on a slippery surface isn't a wise thing to do, but she was running late.

So, with the Jeep in four-wheel, her plan was to make up time by cutting through the neighborhoods, turning left at the park and following it around where it meets up with Colfax.

But approaching the intersection at Twelfth and Downing, one block from where Joshua was entering the street with the Honda, the light went from green to yellow.

"Shit...dammit," she swore aloud, combining it into one statement.

With the ice pack beneath her, the light called for an instant decision: moving too fast to stop without ending up in the middle of the intersection, she was too far away to make it through the light.

So, gunning the Jeep, she raced under the light in just enough time to watch it change to red, before slipping over to the left side of the road.

6:12 am

Steering the Honda, Joshua shifted into second, fiddling with the heater knob.

Newly broken, it required effort, and he hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet. With the burning cigarette hanging from his lips he was distracted, glancing up just in time to see the big, black, Cherokee bearing down on him from the wrong side.

Reacting instinctively, he stomped on the clutch and brake together, dropping the cigarette between his legs and sending the car reeling into the path of the Jeep.

6:13 am

The house on the corner of Twelfth and Downing, a three-story Victorian style, built sometime in the early part of the last century, had been sub divided into four apartments: two ground-floor, that faced Downing to the west, and two on top, one towards Colfax to the east, the other, Twelfth Avenue to the south.

It was in this top, south-facing apartment that Mr. Damon, ten years retired from teaching math at the middle school on ninth and Corona, lived, passing his mornings sipping his tea by the window with the Denver Post.

The furnace in his apartment proved inadequate on mornings like this, and rising to turn the heat up again, Mr. Damon happened a glance at the ivory colored street below. From his vantage point two stories above, the sight he beheld made him gasp.

A small, white, car spun, while from the opposite direction, a black Jeep barreled towards it on the wrong side of the road.

Mr. Damon estimated that the Jeep had to be doing fifty miles an hour or better when they hit, in an explosion of glass and metal, the screech of it screaming through the frozen air, up to where he watched, horrified.

They say that for the participants, catastrophic events happen as if in slow motion but not so for the onlookers.

In the time it takes to draw a breath, the Jeep plowed directly into the white car, demolishing the front right corner, before sending it spinning again in the opposite direction.

Continuing on its deviated path, the Jeep then jumped itself over the curb onto the sidewalk, and smashed headlong into a lamppost, knocking the light at the top askew.

The light hung for a moment by a corner, as if deciding what to do next, before plummeting end over end, and shattering all over the top of the Jeep.

Meanwhile, the Honda railed over the curb on the opposite side of the street, ripping the mirror from a Pontiac, before taking out a mailbox, a section of iron fence, and slamming violently, rear end first, into the unyielding brick wall in front of the house across from Mr. Damon.

Coming to rest finally, the Honda's horn blared continually, as if announcing that it was over.

Mr. Damon, standing as if welded to the floor of his living room, shock mouthed, took it all in, before snapping his jaw shut and dialing 911.

7:00 am

Joshua opened his eyes momentarily in the back of the ambulance, but did not comprehend what he saw. Nor would he ever remember it.

7:30 am

Two burly medical technicians gently lifted the gurney carrying the crimson spattered form of Brigette Nelson and loaded it into the back of the ambulance.

In too much of a hurry that morning, not bothering with her seatbelt had cost her everything. When the Jeep hit the post head-on, the force of the impact slammed her forward over the top of the steering wheel, shattering her skull, leaving a bloody imprint on the cracked windshield. She died instantly.

8:30 am

"That little son of a bitch!" Steven DeLittle yelled, slamming the phone into its cradle on the desk in his office.

"That little fucker is fired! He just cost me the Del Odair Paint account!" Entering the warehouse from the side door of his office, he strode angrily, crossing the floor quickly with his squatty frame, to the nearest worker, bent over a pallet of paint.

"Has Aton brought his lazy, fuckin' ass in here yet?" he stormed at the man.

"No sir..." the man answered fearfully, "I haven't seen him." Turning towards the center of the warehouse, DeLittle, standing with his legs shoulder width apart, cupped his hands to his mouth and hollered loud enough to be heard over the noise of the machinery. "HAS ANYONE SEEN ATON?"

But nobody came forward.

"Fuck..."he swore under his breath, before heading back in the direction of his office.

January 18th 6:00 a.m.

Joshua Aton survived the crash...barely. His right leg, broken in three places, hung from traction above the bed, the rest of him packed firmly into a body cast.

The ride from the crash scene to Rose Medical Center had been short, a mere ten minutes despite the icy streets—a fact that saved his life.

In addition to the nineteen separate broken bones throughout his body, he'd suffered trauma to his head, neck, and spleen.

While the doctors were positive that his body would recover, Joshua was unaware of their diagnosis.

In fact, he was unaware of anything, because the last time he had opened his eyes in the back of the ambulance was the last time he would open them for the next two years.