Car Accident

One of the first friends I made in Arizona died in a car crash on a Friday night in the spring of 1977. His name was Pat and we shared a table in art class with a cheerful chubby Mexican kid. School was almost out for the summer and I thought that made it slightly more tragic. I remember sitting at the table on Monday morning and asking the Mexican kid (I don't remember his name) Where's Pat? He said, he died. I couldn't believe that so I probably said something stupid like are you sure? Miss Brown are teacher was crying. Pat was a nice kid and a fair artist so she had kind of taken him under her wing. How did he die? I came around to asking and the Mexican kid told me that it was a car accident. The car flipped, he said Pat was in the passenger seat and he was the only one that even got hurt, he added and sighed. Fuck, I said, were they drunk? I asked. He shrugged. It don't matter anyway, I said. Miss Brown came to our table and asked if we were alright. We said that we were although the Mexican kid said, don't expect much out of me today. She was a mess and I should have asked if she was OK. I didn't know Pat that well. I moved to Arizona in the middle of the school year so I hadn't known him long either. He liked getting high and drawing dragons. He loved rock and roll music. He had long blond hair. He was skinny. He made people feel comfortable. Kids shouldn't die when they are in high school. Art class for the rest of the year was pretty somber and that was inevitable. I haven't thought about this in over thirty years. If I hadn't thought about it tonight I wonder if I ever would have thought about it again. .