Wrecking momma’s red Mitsubishi/Dec. 1990

In December of 1990 Moe and I got into a car accident in momma’s red Mitsubishi. Moe used to borrow momma’s red Mitsubishi car in the evenings and take me on a ride. Usually we would take a ride down Blackstone Ave. but this particular night we went to see Moe’s friend Jay who worked in a Liquor Store. Mia wanted to come with us that evening but momma didn’t let her. After Moe bought a lipstick we drove down Clovis Avenue. Moe put on the cassette, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C&C Music Factory. I always enjoyed these rides with Moe.

Before we had even gone a mile, a white van barreled over the divider and hit the car on the driver’s side. Moe and I looked over to one another and only had enough time to shout each other’s name, I was losing my sister, how do you lose someone in a few seconds, it had to be an eternity, I had to make these few moments an eternity, remembering all we had done together, the hours we played paper dolls until late in the evening, sitting together, cross legged on hard wood floors, until our legs were cramped, sitting there with the radio blaring, with 60’s songs, with our characters of 60’s bands, that we drew. Creating lives for them, and story lines. All of that would die.

I remembered our time in college, cutting class, buying popcorn at the book store, and then rushing home on the bus, to play paper dolls. That was our motivation then, to play with the paper dolls, the illusion of life we created. They lay stacked under the bed, 500 faces drawn on note book paper. Moe’s were always beautifully drawn as she was an artist like daddy. I could hear them ripping in the air, in my mind, our lives were being torn from us. Life was that fragile in a moment snuffed out with very little evidence to others that indeed you had lived. Moe was only 21 years old, unmarried, she had a few relationships that didn’t work out.

We ate lunch every day when I left the Army. She was 14 and I was 18, I’d walk to Sequoia to spend time with her. She had no one I had no one, we were two misfits joined by our passion for art and writing. She was my little buddy, always smaller than me she had gotten down to 90 lbs.

We missed the first day of college we were sitting cross legged, eating pizza on the floor, when someone from the E.O.P. program called asking “Where the hell was she?” We were being children, giggling, drinking diet Pepsi. We weren’t women yet, I was 23, and she was 19. We were sheltered in our imaginary world.

Moe had anxiety issues, when she worked at Fresno State as a cashier in the cafeteria, sometimes she’d call me to come and pick her up after work.

“Sit under the tree and wait for me”, I assured her. “I’ll be right there, wait for me.” I didn’t have a car, so I took two city buses to get to my little buddy who I found sitting under the tree.

Our lives were enmeshed, we needed each other. We suffered a traumatic childhood that forever bound us, that and the loneliness of our introverted hearts we were each other’s best friend. We anchored each other.

There was the Moe that was angry, and drank to numb what daddy had done to us so many years ago. Alcoholism was really a crushed spirit, drowning in its own blood that was splattered by not wanting to feel. It was not wanting to live, but slowly poisoning oneself, and pushing everyone out of your life, by this generational curse. She stole money from Boi when she lived with him, the change of quarters he had in a large jar. Daddy kicked her out too, not being able to handle her. Moe took rides from men, not caring if she lived or died.

This accident wasn’t her fault. Months later she would get a DUI and lose her license. The Clovis police locked her up in a jail cell, and released her at midnight. I thought that was egregious thing to do. She had to walk miles home through the darkness and stickers to get to her car, covered only with a blanket. She came home that morning covered in devil’s stickers. This would happen in a few years, but wouldn’t have happened.

She cried, “Matty!” I cried, “Moe!” We held each other with the love of our blood, the crippling love of our blood, our sisterhood that had smashed and broken us.

The car spun helplessly out of control, just spinning, I thought I was going to die, but worse I felt as if I was going to break a lot of bones in the twisted movement of the car. I woke up with shattered pieces of glass inside of my mouth. I must have fainted, but Moe’s head was smashed against the driver’s window, there was blood smeared on the window. She looked dead she wasn’t moving I ran back to where all of the people were gathered as a small mob.

“Help! Please help!” “My sister and I got into an accident.”

“Did you see the accident?”

“I was in it” “My sister’s hurt.” I didn’t want to say dead. I didn’t want her to be.

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Momma went out all the time. Daddy had his girlfriends and tried to start a photography company, “Empresa Duran”. Misi had her own friends, Mia was only 5. Boi was working in Lancaster as an engineer for the U.S. Air Force. Jimmy was in the Air Force stationed at Andrews Air Force Base with his wife Irene. They had been married 3 years.

They all had their lives except for me and Moe.

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“Come now, you who say “Today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit”

“Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

(James 4:13-14)

“Man who is born of woman

Is of few days and full of trouble,

He comes forth like a flower and fades

Away;

He flees like a shadow and does not

Continue.”

(Job 14:1-2)