Car Crash V

Mike Boltiere was down after his sister's demise. She had been his only sibling, the product of his mom's marriage to a half-Italian, half-Jewish ne'er-do-well from New York City. He hated his dad and harbored some antisemitism as a result. Mike would be at the house with his Mom who had a parrot and two mean black Chow dogs. His maternal grandparents had flown in from Las Vegas and were complaining about the ticket cost even though they had been given a compassionate discount. Mike's grandfather regaled us with tales of guarding Nazi prisoners with a Tommy gun during World War II. Things brightened up a bit for Mike and his mom-Joyce if I recall, with their insurance settlement checks. They bought cars-Mike a '57 Chevy like Stephen King's Christine with a bad generator that kept stalling out. Mike got a new job at a place called Cube Graphics which sounds high-tech but was actually assembling sticky notes. On April 1, incidentally my grandfather's birthday, I heard on the local ABC affiliate's early news that two young men had been killed in a car accident. They named one as Mike Boltiere. I looked in the phone directory and there were two Mike Boltieres listed. I prayed it wasn't my Mike. I called our mutual friend Paul when I was not able to raise anyone at Mike's house. Paul and no one else I knew had heard the news report or anything of the accident. Even Mike's mother had not been informed but some irresponsible emergency service worker had released the name to the media. Paul confirmed the death through local cops he knew, and he and I drove to Mike's house and told his mother who had just arrived home from work that she needed to come with us to the hospital. We entered through the ER and spoke to a nurse who immediately understood the gravity and nature of what Paul and I whispered. A clergyman-I always presumed from the staff told Joyce the news. She wailed. Mike had been in a little yellow Mustang-I had thought Christine and his bad driving had finally caught up to him. But he was a passenger. He and his co-worker were rushing with a batch of Ex lax pudding to play a joke on their mates before their shift ended. What an ignominious way to go on April Fool's Day. The last time I saw Joyce was when we visited her home several days after the open casket funeral. She was distraught, almost catatonic. Her home was on the market; her folks were there and they were going to move her to Vegas. Everything she had created with her life and cherished was dead.