Car Of Steel

5 Pages 1189 Words

They call it a car of steel. That 1985 Dodge Aires, a four door station wagon, that hardly ran, wouldn’t pass the emissions test, and kept running even after you turned the key to the off position. It was hardly worth the two hundred dollars that my friend Elly paid for it. It did, however, get us to where we were going and back home again. Two weeks of going to and from work, running errands and just cruising. We had a lot of fun in that car, but that was all about to change.
I will never forget that night. A night filled with laughter and high hopes was quickly replaced with fear, pain and finally thankfulness. I remember it as if it were just yesterday. I can still recall that old maroon bench seat which smelled of cigar smoke and mildew. Elly and I had driven down from her house in Masonville to Fort Collins to return a video to Blockbuster that her mom had rented. We stopped off at Arby’s to get something for dinner to take back to her house. The smell of warm roast beef emanating from that paper bag made my mouth water. I couldn’t wait to eat one. We waited at the light on the corner of Horsetooth and College to make our final stop for the night. As we waited we talked about our plans for the New Year. We discussed what our New Year’s resolutions were and how we planned to accomplish them. We were just having fun, but little did we know that our fun would soon turn into terror.
The light signaled that it was our turn to proceed though the intersection. Half way through I saw it out of the corner of my eye. A candy apple red Dodge Neon speeding through the right turn lane headed straight for us. “Oh God!” I yelled as Elly spotted the car. She then slammed on the brakes. The car hit hard on my side right at the front bumper. As the car crushed under the immense force my seatbelt gave way and I slid all the way across the seat almost landing in Elly’s lap. As we spun 360 degrees we struck a van which had been in th...