Eye On Life Magazine

Make every day a beautiful day.

Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine.  Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.

Underage

Around here it’s still beer and, of course, the time of year
whole carloads crowded loud with music, speeding along
end the night in a number of ways: get pulled over, police
blue lights flashing, sirens blurring, the driver carted off and
parents called, something they’ll recall, joke about later; or
they crash somewhere, head-on, into a stray bridge abutment
an oak tree by the side of the road, oncoming traffic, or even
upside-down in a river, the ambulance and police, parents and
survivors create a haunting scene; or other nights they come out
okay in the end, wake late the next day, recall only parts of what
went on, becomes a joke of sorts, something to brag about, part
of their legend, their mythology; around here it’s still mostly beer
and the chances we take being young; I remember waking late
wondering where I left the car, remember police cars out front
and trying to explain what we did, trying to make it sound better
than it was, and I remember another time the police at the door
to say my brother ended his night, his life head-on into oncoming
traffic, at least he was alone that time, a scene I never saw but still
imagine, sirens, red and blue lights flashing, the truck he hit, and his
body lit up, crushed; my brother on the road, forever underage.  

-- J. K. Durick