Teardrop
Rick is dying for a second chance.
In the fifth installment of Dying To Live, a young Rick Dowers makes a terrible decision.
August 17, 1996
8PM
The sun was on its descent to close out another long Pacific Northwest summer day. Rick Dowers sat on a large rock overlooking the Columbia River. This spot had been a regular hang for him since he met his friend, Steve, back in second grade. His parents had great jobs; dad was a software engineer for Hewlett-Packard and mom was a charge nurse at Providence Hospital in Portland. Their house was an incredible four-thousand square foot four-bedroom spread that featured an immaculate game room, a wired sound system throughout the house, and an in-home theatre with couches instead of those butt-destroying folding seats peasants used in public theaters. They had a detached, heated indoor pool and hot tub, too, but Rick’s favorite thing about Steve’s house was the view from his backyard. The house was on June Hill and faced south towards the Columbia River and Oregon on the other side. The river was no more than a quarter mile away, and between the river and Steve’s backyard was a rocky stretch of land that the boys once called the “rock quarry”. It wasn’t that, but the name stuck.
Steve’s parents were out of town for the weekend, and they left Steve in charge. Naturally, he invited his best friends over to crush some beers and kick it.
Rick sat on the rock and watch the sunset while Steve delivered a heartfelt monologue about the end of summer to the other guys in the crew—Derek, Mike, Will, and O’Shea.
“This is it, fellas. This is the last Saturday night of our summer break, and the end of an era for us,” Steve said. He was facing his house, with the river view behind him. His audience sat, mildly amused by their friend’s dramatic speech. The beer buzz helped. “It’s crazy that this is our senior year.”
“It’s crazy that you’re still a virgin,” Derek teased, setting off the group. Steve, engulfed in group mockery because he has a pristine penis, had nothing to fire back. Empty clip.
“He’s holding out for some of that primo trim from you know who,” Rick added. The laughs became “oohs” as the guys all knew Rick meant Beth. Steve was quick to shut that downs.
“Nah, don’t even bring her up,” Steve warned, but Rick was willing to risk a tussle between friends for any good laugh.
“Who?” he asked Steve. “Who am I talking about? Say her name. I know you’ve been practicing.” It was then that Rick leapt off the rock and hit the ground, going prone. He simulated missionary sex with who everyone there knew was Beth because of the way Rick was yelling her name. Steve suppressed his laughs as he let off a flurry of punches to Rick’s ribs to the hollering and enjoyment of the other boys.
The squabble was over in under a minute. Steve came out victorious and raised his arms to the sky. “You get what you give, bro,” he chided Rick before helping him up from the ground.
Rick dusted himself off and chuckled, “It was worth it.”
They returned to their cheap beer drinking and intoxicated philosophical musings.
Twilight crept over them, and once it got dark, they guys moved into the house, and they turned their attention to what Saturday night adventure lay ahead next.
8:30PM
Well, whatever the rest of the night had in store for the crew, it continued into Steve’s game room. The little heaven on earth was lined with various arcade machines with titles that stretched back from old school Pac-Man to Cruis’n USA. A Pop-A-Shot game was set up in the back corner of the room, and the center of the room featured ping-pong, air hockey, and foosballs tables aligned side-by-side. O’Shea and Mike posted up at the air hockey table; Will picked NBA Jam; Derek hopped on Mortal Kombat 2; Rick and Steve played ping-pong. Their laughs and jokes echoed off the room’s bare white walls, a cacophony of teenage joy.
“Where’s Riley,” Rick asked before he served. He did it on purpose, and his strategy worked. Steve took his eyes off the ball long enough for the ball to bounce off the side of the table and past him. “Four,” Rick pointed at himself. Then, he pointed at Steve and said, “serving zero.”
“Hold up,” Steve said. “Why are you asking about her?”
Rick smiled and said, “Because I miss her.” Then, he served the ball. Steve was ready for it this time, and he smacked it back at Rick. The ball started on a line towards Rick’s stomach but took a dive after it flew over the net. It managed to clip the far edge of the table and bounce into Rick’s crotch. The two cracked up.
“Fool me once, but not twice, buddy,” Steve waggled the index finger on his left hand, giving Rick the universal denial. “One,” he pointed at himself. Then, he pointed at Rick and said, “serving four.” They proceeded to play the next five points in silence, and Steve went on a five-point run. On that fifth and final point of his current serve, Steve made a couple of miracle returns during what ended up being an epic twenty-hit volley. It ended with a whimper when Rick whiffed completely on a return. He chased the ball down and smacked it to the opposite side of the room out of frustration.
“Go fetch,” he shouted at Steve, who just laughed.
“Angry Rick is back, guys,” Derek said from the MK2 machine. He kept his eyes on his own screen as he guided Scorpion to a close win against his rival, Sub-Zero.
“Don’t let him get in your head, Rick,” encouraged Will from NBA Jam. “Keep hitting it at his backhand. It’s the only way to beat him.”
“For now,” Steve stepped back up to the ping pong table. “Five all,” he said and tossed the ball to Rick. “You know we haven’t heard from Riley in a couple of weeks.”
Rick paused, mid-serve. “What?”
Steve didn’t seem concerned. He shrugged and said, “You know how she is. She’s at some meditation retreat near Hood River. Somewhere out there. She went with Melissa.”
From the air hockey table next to them, O’Shea let out a moan. “Oh, my god. She’s so hot.”
The boys laughed away their final few moments of hanging out together.
9:30PM
Rick raced down June Hill in his new(ish) Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe. He got the car—a gently used 1995 edition with only five-thousand miles on it—for his eighteenth birthday, last week. Rick didn’t live up on June Hill, but his dad made good money from a drywall company that he built himself. He couldn’t have timed it better. Dower’s Drywall had been around for a decade, during which the last five years had seen a boom in residential construction throughout Clark County.
“You’ve been a responsible kid your entire life, son,” Rick’s dad told him when he put the Thunderbird’s keys in his hands. “You and Julia have done a lot to help me out while mom has been in recovery, and we’ve been blessed with good business, so here you go.”
Rick was his way to pick up his longtime crush, Rebecca. Tonight was the night Rick would finally tell her how he felt about her.
Racing down June Hill was a stupid thing to do at any time of day, in the best of conditions. There were long driveways fed onto the two-lane road, so a driver had to be aware of the possibility of a car pulling out into the road. At night, driving too fast to see far enough beyond your headlights along the winding road, you threw caution to the wind if you raced down June Hill. Rick was not being careful. Rick was going to let his father down. He was going to prove him wrong.
9:45PM
A 1992 Honda Accord pulled into a driveway at 890 South June Hill Road. The driver of the vehicle, twenty-eight-year-old Oliva Judd, later recalled that she took the turn slowly because there are “two big rocks on either side of the driveway,” and hse has to be careful because she scratched up her dad’s truck on the once. As she turned into her driveway, her vehicle was struck on the passenger side by a 1995 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe, driven by eighteen-year-old Richard Dowers. Ms. Judd initially couldn’t recall anything that happened until she was pulled from the vehicle by her mother, who had run up the driveway from her home when she heard the collision. Ms. Judd was taken to Good Samaritan Trauma Center in Vancouver along with her seven-year-old son, Micah. The driver of the Thunderbird was also taken to Good Samaritan Trauma with what are considered serious to life-threatening injuries.
10:30PM
Rick was laying in a hospital bed awake. His condition had been stabalized, but he was in pain. His face hurt, his head rang, and he was crying. He knew he fucked up, but he had yet to find out that he killed a little boy.
