Pets weren’t allowed at the motel. I didn’t want to share a room anyway, so I offered to let the pup sleep with me in the van.

I gambled dollars on video poker and broke even. Nick wouldn’t let them gamble. I drank a few free whiskey sours while I played and went back to the van. The pup was on my bed. He was small and brown with a big head. I picked him up and held him in front of my face. Some little creature. Without her he would die. He clamped his gums around my finger. I liked his puppy breath. His little eyes were barely opening and they were dark blue. He was a feisty little shit. We wrestled a bit and he fell asleep on my chest, his head buried under my chin. I didn’t mind at all. During the night he would whimper so I stuck my finger in his mouth and he sucked on it until he bonked out again.

In the morning I heard the van door slide open. I had forgotten to lock up before I went to bed. I looked down. I had my hand over the pup. Lana looked in.

“Are you decent?”

“Yes.”

She climbed in and saw the pup on top of me.

“Oohhh, there he is.”

He woke up and smeared his nose across my neck. She put her hands out.

“Let me hold the baby.”

I didn’t want to. I patted his back.

“What’s his name?”

She picked him up and nuzzled him.

“His name’s Bubba. ’Cause he’s going to be big and strong when he grows up and he’ll protect his mama.”

The guys piled in. They smelled better. I was glad we’d stopped there. We drove through Nevada all day. The plan was to cut left at Flagstaff and go down through New Mexico. It was dark when we hit Vegas. I pulled over and called Greg. His machine said that he and Stephanie were in San Diego. We passed the big dam and made Kingman. I saw the hotel where I had met Julie and her boyfriend. Nick offered to drive. I told him to wake me up when we hit Albuquerque because the van had loose steering and the weather was getting worse. I bumped Lana to the floor but kept Bubba with me. Craig was bitching about the dog holding them back. He had a real problem with her. He was bitching a lot about everything, the gas station food, my music not being “punk” enough for him, the length of the trip and the money it took. He was getting on my nerves. Nick was quiet because they were buddies, but I knew they wouldn’t be buddies when they got back home. Traveling together will make or break people.

I woke up to the sunlight. We were far out of the mountains. Nick said he didn’t want to wake me. I sat up and gave Lana the bed. I handed Bubba over. I told Craig he could have the floor. He took on a pissy air.

“Finally.”

I was ready to pop him one. I couldn’t stand whiny, precious assholes. We stopped at a gas station and I drove from there. We made Texas by late afternoon. Craig wanted the bed. Lana said she was having cramps and that she needed to lay down on something soft. Craig then told her that they wouldn’t be in this mess if she hadn’t taken the dog. They were arguing again. He wrestled the dog from her and threatened to snap its neck. I couldn’t slow down because a trucker was tailgating me. I finally got over to the right lane. Craig held the pup to the side window and threatened to toss it. I told him to give the pup back to her. Nick didn’t say anything. Craig told me I could go fuck myself. My blood boiled. There was someone like him everywhere I went. We were eight hours from Austin. Lana reached out for her pup but he tossed it. I heard him yelp, and in my side mirror I watched him hit the freeway and tumble and break until he was stiff. My heart sank to my stomach. Lana buried her head into the pillow and sobbed. I pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. In the rearview Craig asked me if I wanted a piece of him. I jumped out of my seat and grabbed the back of his hair and punched him right in the mouth. Blood sprayed into my eye and he went down against the door. I hit him hard across his body. He curled up into a ball and swore at me. Nick did nothing. Lana was still sobbing over her pup. I jumped out of the driver side and walked around to the sliding door. When I opened it, Craig almost fell out but he caught himself. I grabbed his bags and threw them as far as I could into traffic. Then I pulled him out by his belt and the back of his shirt and swung him to the ground. After he hit I got a running start and kicked him in the back. And then, just for myself, I rabbit punched him in the back of the head. He wasn’t swearing anymore. Nick got out and stood by his door, eyeballing me. I walked up on him.

“You got a problem with this, Nick? Fucking silent partner.”

He put his hands up. I told him I would still get Lana to Austin, and him, unless he wanted to stay with his buddy, that I didn’t care either way. He did what I thought he would. As we pulled away I saw Craig’s body struggling in the rearview, getting smaller and smaller. I wanted to turn around and run him over. Lana dug into her backpack and licked a clean sock and dabbed the blood from my eye. Nick stared at the road.

“I fucking knew this day would come. I always told him he was going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and he would pay for his mouth. But he always said that everyone was a pussy. Man.”

“If I see him again I’ll kill him,” I said. Nick told me that he knew Craig had warrants in Texas, and that he knew a cop would stop him on the highway and that he would go to jail. He also told me that he hadn’t seen him in a few years before they set out to Alaska. I considered Nick to be smarter than I had thought. He was simply watching Craig get his. He was having a fair time with it. I spoke to Lana’s reflection in the windshield.

“I’m sorry about Bubba. He was a good one. I don’t think he felt any pain.”

Nick shook his head, “Nah. He didn’t feel a thing.”

We both kind of looked at each other. Lana cried. After awhile we were quiet. I kept thinking about the pup, picturing his big head and little face. It was horrible. Something so beautiful and innocent and undamaged, destroyed like that. If the trip had been any longer than it was and if he hadn’t been killed, I would have fallen in love with him.

Emergency room.One o'clock in the morning.That kid's father is wasted.The boy looks to be about 11-years-old.His father has him in a "playful" head lock, grinding his knuckles into the boy's scalp.Then he starts kissing his head, his cheeks. He's all over the boy.The child looks many things: embarrassed, uncomfortable, afraid.I glance around.My own child sits beside me, clutching her aching tummy.I point out the situation to my husband.He observes. Shakes his head. Says nothing."I can't stand it any more," I whisper.At the reception desk, I ask the clerk to get this guy into a room.Pronto.Put him in a room to separate them.Put him in a room so that the doctors can observe that he's unfit to be with this child. Put him in a room and give the kid a break.She agrees.My husband thinks I should mind my own business, especially when it becomes clear that the child's mother is also in the waiting room. Watching the whole thing. Doing nothing to stop it.But I will always step in to protect those who cannot help themselves.That is my business, and I do mind.

I saw the headline, it stood out among the endless celebrity trawl and its phrasing captured my interest. It was a news report of an innocent girl working as a cashier in a supermarket who was brutally murdered as police watched. It shocked me deeply that police would act that way so I clicked the play button.

I have always been a big fan of policemen in general, I thought they did a fine job walking the tightrope between keeping us safe and maintaining law and order.

The video buffered, stuttered and then played out it's horrific content. I was expecting a news report from some Asian Newsroom, but this wasn't a news report, this wasn't an outside broadcast reporting the details after the event, this wasn't one of those swooping camera shots taken by a heli crew, this was a murder.

The video played across my screen as the subtitles scrolled beneath and I could not do anything but watch, open mouthed and with my heart in my mouth as the cctv footage revealed its horrific content.

Like a deer caught in headlights I froze.

This poor girl was butchered in front of me by a maniac with a kitchen knife. It was as if I was stood right there watching as the blows rained down. She fought with everything she had and I cheered for her to somehow survive but she lost the fight, and still, long after she lay motionless did the attack continue.

And just feet away as she screamed for help stood two policemen. They too were transfixed at the scene that played out before their eyes as I screamed at the screen for them to act.

They did nothing.

I switched off the video and sat back in my chair as the murder replayed in my mind, again and again it played as I tried to find some reasoning behind their inaction. It continued to play throughout the rest of that day until I resigned myself that any further analysis was pointless.

I felt awful, as though I had seen something that was not meant for my eyes, but most of all I felt guilty for watching as she fought for her life, but I was not at fault.

Why then, if I am not at fault do I feel that I share the guilt with those police? I can't answer that.

I stood there motionless and numb, watching the blood flow from her face and into her blonde hair as his car made another pass. I ran and dodged through the cars and timed my gait to the tight turn of the beat-up dodge as it chugged, kicking up dust and lumbered along the dirt parking lot. I could see through the soiled fog--the driver's window down, and with three long strides I leapt off the dry gravel ground, flying through the air head-first and through the driver's side window as Deep Purple's Highway Star rang into my ears. The shock on the goon's face was hilarious and priceless as I delivered a thrash metal head butt, the car smashing and sliding to a stop as Ian Gillian screamed.

Childhood is so carefree, for most kids. But his has been an ongoing obstacle course. He was seven months old when the accident happened. Cruel cliche that it is, he was dropped on his head by a teenage girl. There were no dilated pupils, no evidence of concussion, just a rattled baby, trying to drown out the sobs of a devastated teenage girl. It wasn't until after he'd quieted that my finger dipped into a dent in his skull.

He was such a trooper while the ER doc pushed on his head, even smiling and laughing with him. "The way he's acting, I can see he's not in pain. We'll do a CT scan to be safe but I'm sure he's fine". Famous last words. Next thing I know, his head needs to be stabilized and not allowed to move AT ALL! IMMEDIATELY!

He has a head fracture and will need surgery. Only none of the hospitals here deal with head trauma so they're taking us to ICU in Phoenix.

Before they can operate, I must sign a consent form stating I am aware there can be complications, possibly resulting in death. I feel sick and want to scream "his life has barely started! How can this be happening?!" I have no choice. His infant body is so tiny on the bed they wheel toward the surgical room. They stop at the doors so I can say goodbye, since parents are not allowed to be present. The double steel doors lock with resounding finality and I am helpless.

He pulled through just fine. The surgery was a success. Two more days in ICU, and he was good to go. But he would not be allowed to sit up by himself for quite some time. They couldn't take the chance he might lose his balance and bonk his head. Or ride in a carseat without a brace to keep his head from moving from side to side. Or sleep unmonitored, since he needed to stay on his back in the same head brace. His physical growth drastically slowed down. All of his major milestones were far behind the average kid his age. Some of them never happened at all.

With long term neurological damage, there is no set path for the brain to take. There is no logic to what it understands and what it doesn't. My boy can shout out the correct answer to his older brother's math homework, but cannot master legibly writing. Anything. He has an extensive vocabulary, which he creatively employs. Yet is barely learning how to communicate some basic wants and needs.

Since these issues also apply to behavior, he is often unable to be reasoned with. Discipline is a brand new game with completely different rules. As a result, he has been expelled from a couple of different daycare/after-school care establishments. Kids at school don't want to play with him. He is constantly working with occupational therapists, speech therapists, psychiatrists, trying to reteach his brain to follow logical paths.

Six years of helplessness, so far. For him? A lifetime of fighting for each tiny step, for every friend, for the simplest things to just make sense. All over a split second accident.

He was a victim to life. A worn man of 59 but looked a man at least 20 years older. He started the day like every other day, alone at the end of a bar. Days always bleeds into nights and into new days, so he's been told. Poor fool started puking up blood and alcohol right before the bathroom door. The bartender yelled for him to take his drunk ass outside. Some other poor fool, a fellow barfly, saw him losing the game and called for and paid a cab to take him to the hospital.

Now I am a busy busting student but no one could ignore the bellows coming from his room,

"I can't believe this happening to me!" "Please Lord, help ME!" "I did horrible things, forgive ME!" Under me breath I let out an uncomfortable and virtually silent to all but me chuckle. Here was this sad, pathetic drunk pleading for mercy because he just knew this was the end for him and he had lost. I'm pretty sure he knew he was destined to hell if one believes in such a place. An hour or two goes by with more painful, terrified cries from room 402. The frenzied cries got louder, more rhythmic, more hurried.

And then ... Silence.

The floor seemed to standstill in the sudden hush, interrupted moments later by sounds of tennis shoes screeching against the cold hospital floors. Nurses, Respiratory Therapist, doctors and a few of us unlucky nursing students were bearing witness.

It didn't happen quickly. Everyone, including myself, gave a valiant effort to save this poor fool's life. Clothes were stripped off to reveal a sunken in bird chest.

3, 2, 1, CLEAR... Nothing.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

10 minutes.

15 minutes.

Pale face turned to

Grey face turned to

White face.

Last breath.

No pulse.

Machines beeping, buzzing, humming... Silenced.

Nothing.

I'm not sure what that poor fool got after life. Did his pleads meet with wide open arms or did he meet his fiery fate as I'm sure he was convinced of? Or did he simply vanish in a cheap coffin in an unmarked, or worse, assigned number, funeral plot?

From your pleads and no family to be notified, I doubt you had a funeral or anyone to celebrate your life.

Long forgotten by most;

good riddance poor fool.

I saw him pin you down

I saw him kick you

I'm sorry I only stared

I'm sorry I left without a word

I'm sorry I didn't help

I wish I stopped him

I wish you weren't gone

I wish you were here

I wish I helped you

I'm sorry you died before your time

How DARE you

Wait and watch

Sit empty,

Without expression

What right do you have

To gaze in terror

Out of fear for what

Could have been

You don't give a damn

About your so called

Friend

You don't know what

"Love" is

The only thing you'll ever know

Is your reflection..

Dammit

Should've been me..

Should've been me..

Instead of them

Facing danger on a whim

At least no one would wonder

What happened to him?

At least then

I could see your smile

Without the regret

Of the Nile