"You're Not Gonna' Like It," ep. 4
The Downside of Speed Limits
Sorority chicks – and I mean that type of sorority chick – are the fucking worst. I’m not talking about the ones that join Alpha Chi Omega or some shit because they heard about the Harry Potter marathons and the excellent volunteering activities with local animal shelters. I have no problem with that type. No, I’m talking about the “oh my gawd” kind. The hold hands with my BFFs because we think it’s cute kind. The have a dip of Copenhagen at a frat party because it will make guys think I’m cool kind. The “on Wednesday’s we wear pink” kind. The I’m saving myself for my husband (but have swallowed babies from every dude on the basketball team and can gape with the best of them) kind. Side note, if you’re not sure what I mean by “gape,” I strongly suggest that do you NOT research it. The “Daddy, my car is, like, totes embarrassing. Can you bring me the Benz tomorrow?” kind. The why do you have that much goddamn makeup on for a football game at Noon on a Saturday kind. You know the one. I hate them all, and it pains me to say that I almost saw one die. The painful part is that I needed to write the word “almost.”
January a few years ago. I was having a night out on the town with a few buddies and, probably against our better judgment, we decided on Cherokee Street. Club, club, bar, club, drunk food hotspot, bar that closed six months ago for serving underage kids, coffee shop, more drunk food. Every college town has their own version of that street and we weren’t college kids anymore, though I wasn’t against trying to find one who had low self-esteem and a couple too many vodka cranberries in her belly. So there we were, having just knocked back two shots of Beam and a couple IPAs each at The Axe Hole. It was time to go on walkabout to find a place more our speed – somewhere with peanut shells on the floor, buckets of ice in the urinal and a bartender named Chet who wears glasses because he has bad eyes and not because he’s trying to be ironic.
We hang a left out of the Hole and go north on Cherokee. It’s closing in on midnight and the street is absolutely slammed with kids (I call them kids) who are all types of ripped shitty. An old friend of mine, by the way, crafted the phrase “all types of ripped shitty” for people that were obnoxiously drunk and I’ve commandeered it. Bros are back-slapping and ball-busting and snap-chatting the girl they just met on the dance floor while hoping their girlfriend doesn’t find out. Bass thumps inside the blackened windows of Heat Ultra Lounge (Coming this spring - rooftop bar! DJ Pauly D live next month!). Clusters of tight-panted, glittered, high-shoed, perfumed girls yell across the street to friends and tell them to meet at the Velvet Mitten or the Slobber Pocket or the Upright Wink or wherever because cosmos are two for one until 2am. Police stand on street-corners and reconsider their choice of career. Cars drift past, the melting snow under their tires constantly telling everyone to shussssshhhhhh. The smell of vape pens and smoke machine and vomit waft across the sidewalk. Bouncers are stationed in front of nearly every watering hole, arms folded across their chest as they scan the crowd for someone to knock out or fuck. The ogre parked at the door of Angry Sally’s is giving the vibe he’d like to inflict both punishments on the same person, and wouldn’t be terribly picky about the order of operations or the biological sex of the victim. And then the magic happens.
I see it out of the corner of my eye. The girl has the standard uniform: pants like a second skin, fake eyelashes as if she’s impersonating a gazelle, a shimmery, strappy top that shows off her non-existent tits and the infinity symbol tattoo on her right shoulder, shoes of an inappropriate height. The kind of girl who looks forward to Han Solo season and PSLs. She looks back over her shoulder to say “bye bitches! 😊” to her crew, steps off the curb…and directly into the path of an oncoming car. I had enough time to think “Imma’ watch this chick die!!”
What I wanted was 50 miles per hour, the screech of brakes coming just a tad too late (like golf…you want the divot after the ball, not before it) her shattered body flung onto the sidewalk as her cell phone skitters to a stop against a garbage can, the screen still open to a TikTok video of her roommate lip-syncing to audio from Legally Blond. Her crumpled form lying there, discarded like sequined roadkill, a slow trickle of blood escaping from an ear with her arm twisted underneath her at an unnatural angle. Guts rearranged not by the freshman power forward but instead by the front quarter-panel of a solidly built automobile. But speed limits, you know? What I got was this: she gets shoved by the bumper on her left hip, stumbles, tries to catch her balance, then falls to the ground. Completely disgusted and insulted, like someone just tossed a load into her freshly washed hair after a blow job in the storage closet at a wedding, she looks back at her friends and screeches “I just got hit by a fucking car!”
Yes you did, honey. Be glad I wasn’t behind the wheel, or the next phone call would have been to Mr. Jensen-Myers asking him to come pick up Kitty’s corpse at the county morgue. Ahh, good times.