I’m not proud of it but yeah, early in college, I drove home plenty of times while impaired. Sometimes I would wake up not knowing how I got home. I was out of control. I never drank in high school so when I started living on campus, I had the freedom and curiosity to explore the hazy, mind-boggled world of constant inebriation. Beer, liquor, beer mixed with liquor, liquor chased with soda, funnels full of beer, funnels full of beer with a shot of vodka, every possible combination imaginable, cooked up in a dorm room full of brain-dead engineers and at least one English major.
One night I was driving home from a house party. We first went to a little dive bar to see a local band, the drummer whom we knew, was in our Political Science class. After the bar, we went back to my friend’s house. He was a local, who commuted to the campus. His family owned a tire store, and they were more than middle-class well off. Their house was a gorgeous cabin with dark exterior wood, but the inside was white pine, the contrast was shocking when you first stepped through the front door. I left the party about one in the morning. I wasn’t smashed, but I damn sure wasn’t in any state to drive. I didn’t know the area too well and missed the right turn I was supposed to take to get back to the interstate. The right turn lane was a yield lane, so I thought it would be fine just to wait on the green light and turn from the straight lane. As the light flashed green and I made my right-hand turn blue lights began to flash. I hadn’t even noticed but on the opposite side of the intersection was a police car.
I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, while at the same time trying to gather my composure. I was already chewing on some cinnamon gum, but to be safe I unwrapped a couple more pieces and shoved them into my mouth.
“License and registration.” It was a female cop. I couldn’t really see her with the flashlight shining in my face and the lights from the squad car flooding through my back window. So many lights.
“Yes mam.” After I fumbled through the glove compartment, I handed her my crumpled-up registration and got my license out of my wallet.
She went back to her squad car and sat there for a while. I remember thinking that I’ve never had a warrant out on me before and this was taking a while. Had I been an asshole to someone, enough to want me arrested. Finally, she came back to my car.
“Have you been drinking tonight?”
“I had two, maybe three beers earlier tonight.” A slight underestimation.
“Could you step out of the car?”
I don’t remember everything I had to do, but she administered a field sobriety test, which I felt like I passed with ease. I was actually surprised at myself, because I was a little unbalanced when I got in the car earlier that night. When we finished, she started talking. I’m not for sure what she was saying. My attention had been captured by something in the woods behind her. I heard a flutter of wings and then a blast of white light sped towards the officer, hitting her in the back.
“What the hell.” She stretched her neck, trying to get a contorted peek at what had collided into her backside. She looked back at me with a questioning look.
“It looked like a moth.”
She squirmed a little and reached back into her pants to try and flush it out, but she couldn’t reach it. She turned her back towards me.
“Can you get that out of there?”
“What, me?”
“Yeah, can you get Mothra out of my pants?”
I walked closer to her and looked down. Sure enough, there was some sort of bug tunneling down her pants towards her ass, and not far from her gun. Was I really going to shove my hand down this lady officer’s pants, with her gun well within my reach. Either this lady had some brass balls, or she was that confident in her abilities to turn me over like a child.
“I got to reach down your pants.”
“Ok, can you hurry before it burrows up my ass!”
I reached down her pants, making slow progress since her utility belt was so damn tight. I thought about asking her to loosen her belt but then thought better of it; a request she may not interpret in my favor. I finally grasped the little turd, pinching its barbed insect leg with my index and middle finger. I pulled my hand up slowly so as not to tear its leg off and lose it for good. I was determined to capture my quarry. In my mind, if I was successful, then surely this cop would let me go home without any trouble.
I pulled the bug from her pants, and it immediately flew out of my hand. It was a bright white moth with a red glowing thorax, and extremely long antennae. It hovered, facing me, as if staring at me in anger for pulling it from its warm comforting shelter, blocking its access to safety. Its wings made a high-pitched hissing sound, growing louder and increasing in pitch. I felt nauseated. The officer had turned, and she was looking up at it when I finally noticed how nice she looked. I was thinking to myself. “Man, I had my hands down her pants.” At that moment, there was a flash of light, and I felt a sharp pain in my right forearm. It felt like I had been shot in my arm, and yes, I know what it feels like to be shot. Let’s just say my brother is an idiot when it comes to guns. I looked down and the moth was halfway in my forearm, head buried under my skin and its body vigorously shaking from side-to-side, slowly pulling the rest of its body inward. I could see the red glowing head under my skin, and my arm burned with pain. The moth’s abdomen was swelling. I sensed that it was feasting on my blood, and the more it consumed the more violent it got. It was growing underneath my skin.
The officer ran over and grabbed me by the wrist. By this time the moth had completely submerged itself under my skin. It looked like a fleshy baseball sized growth, a tumor with a mean disposition. For whatever reason, she just started pounding on the growth, like she was a toddler demanding ice cream at the dinner table. She slammed her fist down several times. The moth struggled to escape the beating, pushing and tearing through muscle and tendons. Finally, I felt a razor-sharp cutting from the inside, blood spraying forth, and then a burst of flesh, the moth flying free. It no longer had any agility, looking like a fat full tick with tiny wings, barely able to keep its fat ass afloat. The officer pulled out her gun and shot it, exploding blood all over our faces.
The officer radioed in for an ambulance. While we were waiting on the ambulance, another police car pulled up.
“Breathalyzer? 10-55”
“No, did I say that. I’m sorry. This gentleman was attacked. The assailant ran off into the woods. He has a knife wound.”
She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders, as the other officer walked back to his squad car. “Well, it’s not a total lie.”
“You’re not taking me in for a DUI?”
“No, I think you’ve sobered up. Whatever alcohol you had in your system has been properly evacuated,” saying this as she pointed down at my pants. I had pissed myself.
I couldn’t have agreed more. I was never more sober than at that very moment. The ambulance finally arrived, and I didn’t wait on them. I walked directly to the back door, knocking, asking them to hurry up. Back behind me, in the woods, I could hear a cacophony of katydids buzzing, bullfrogs croaking, and a faint high-pitched fluttering of wings.