Excerpt:

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Yes, I know everybody says that – but I’m serious.  As insane as it looks in retrospect, I was fully convinced on that particular Friday evening last September that stealing my mom’s car and storming my dad’s house was a brilliant plan.  And not brilliant, as in, “That was a brilliant answer you gave in Spanish today.” I mean brilliant, as in, “Wow, Einstein, when you came up with that relativity thing, and it revolutionized our entire concept of space and time while also leading all of humankind into the nuclear age, that was brilliant!”

The plan had a certain elegant simplicity, too.  I would drink one more pint of Dad’s old vodka, grab Mom’s spare car keys, jump into the Dodge, and fire that sucker up.  Then I would speed through the deserted, moonlit streets, straight and true as a homing missile, or at least straight and true as a sober person who actually knew how to drive.  When I skidded triumphantly into Dad’s driveway, I would leap nimbly from the car, race to the front door, ring the bell with a fury rarely encountered by any bell, anywhere – and catch my father with the no-good home-wrecking wench who was once, in a forgotten life we used to have, my third-grade teacher.

Okay, perhaps these plans would theoretically work better if the planner were not already completely intoxicated.  But I’d never gotten drunk before – so how was I supposed to know I’d get so smashed so quickly?  And hey, if my mom had really wanted to keep me from driving drunk without a license at age sixteen, would she have gone out on a date and left me home with a car, a liquor cabinet, and some keys?

I rest my case. 

So I drowned some more booze straight from the bottle and lunged for the key ring, grabbing it by the wooden number 1 I had made for my “Number One Mom” in Cub Scouts.  I threw on my Yankees jacket, slammed my way out of the house, got into the car, and started it.  Then I believe there was some drama with the gear stick and the parking brake, and probably a bit of fun with the gas pedal.

The next thing I knew, I was hanging out the passenger door, puking up vodka and Ring Dings.  When I got my eyes sort of focused, I could see that the car was up on a lawn.  When I got them even more focused, I could see that my last salvo of vomit had completely splattered two shiny black objects – the well-polished shoes of one angry police officer.  He yanked me out of the car, largely by the hair, and stood me up.  I remember him saying, “ Look at that!  Look what you did.”  I also remember trying to follow his pointing finger.  And when I finally zoomed in on what was lying in front of the car, I couldn’t believe it.  There as a detached head about ten feet in front of the bumper!

The cop sort of puppet-marched me up to the horrific scene and forced my head down close to the carnage.  This head was seriously injured, to be sure.  It was upside down, smushed up against a tree stump.  There was no body in sight.  I whirled around so fast that the cop almost lost hold of me, and crouched to look under Mom’s car.  Sure enough, an arm and a leg were sticking out from underneath the left front wheel.