We all gather outside to smoke after tonight’s speaker meeting. A fellow I have never seen before comes up to me and asks me for a light and just begins to talk to me. It felt kind of awkward at first. I almost thought he was doing a version of his fifth step.
“You know, I used to live down in Key West,” He said.
“Oh really,” I replied. “My big run when I drove an eighteen wheeler was from Birmingham, Alabama down to Key West, Florida.”
“You know that long two lane bridge coming down from Miami?” He asks.
“Sure do,” I replied. “I drove over it many times. You think that bridge will never end.”
“Let me tell you a story about that bridge,” He began. “Me and a buddy were drinking and raising hell driving down that bridge one afternoon. The car in front of us slammed on their brakes and I swerved to miss them. I hit the guardrail and caused a pile up of cars. The shit hit the fan. Me and my buddy were both pretty messed up and hurt.”
“Hmmm…” I said as I smoked my cigarette and listened.
“We sat there for about an hour in pain until a tug boat came along pushing two barges up next to the bridge. The cars were backed up miles behind us. On one barge was a helicopter and on the other was a crane. That crane picked up all the wrecked cars and put them on the one barge to clear the road while the helicopter flew all us injured to the hospital.”
“I always wondered how they would handle an accident on that long bridge,” I replied intrigued at this point. “Did you two go to jail?”
“Sure did after we had been checked out at the hospital,” He said. “I was hung over as hell the next morning thinking how in the hell I am going to myself out of this mess. I finally got my then wife to come bail us out. Bless her soul. I liked to have never heard the end of that one from her.”
The story continued on until I had finished smoking my cigarette and had an excuse to take leave and go head for the ashtray. I thought the fellow was going to talk to me all night. I walked back over and shook his hand and asked him for his name and told him mine. We had skipped those pleasantries initially.
“Bob S.,” He said.
“Good to meet you Bob,” I replied. “Well, I am headed to the house.”
“Only in Alcoholics Anonymous would you meet such an interesting character and hear such an interesting tale,” I thought as I walked to my car and drove on home.
By the way, we had a wonderful motivational speaker tonight. He was this bigwig business man out of Houston, Texas in town for business. His story was fascinating and he was an eloquent and masterful story teller; much better than our usual fare. I left feeling inspired and motivated in my sobriety.
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