The recent "Windshield
Killer" verdict makes me contemplate my own driving drunk experiences...
so what's your story?
It's a gamble, and all about not getting caught. And memories...
Chante Mallard got caught...
really
caught. Actually she got caught about three years ago and has been awaiting
a trial... a trial that last week and found Mallard guilty
of murder and tampering with of evidence. She's going to have lots of time
for memories.
In case you're not
familiar with her case: Mallard drove home from a Forth Worth, Texas nightclub
late one October 2001 night while under the influence of alcohol, pot and
ecstasy. She struck one Gregory Biggs (a 37 year old semi-homeless man
with a history of mental problems) with her car. Biggs hit her windshield
and promptly went through it... halfway... and stayed there like that.
Mallard completely freaked out, stopped the car, and tried to smash the
windshield some more to dis-lodge a squirming and moaning Biggs from her
car. When this proved unsuccessful... she got back into the car and drove
home with him still lodged in the windshield. According to Mallard's own
testimony... she sobbed and apologized to Biggs profusely... all while
driving... whom she said moaned and pleaded to her for help while she was
steering and sobbing. Could you imagine the awkwardness in that conversation?
According to blood
pattern samples, Biggs (who by all accounts was in excruciating pain and
bleeding to death) also tried to open the passenger door from the inside
with his left hand several times. Mallard then drove her car, with an alive
and badly injured Biggs still lodged in place, into her garage... got out...
shut the door... closed the garage door... and went inside her home where
she promptly freaked out some more. Inside the garage... a horizontally
impaled Biggs died somewhere between one and two hours after entering the
garage (according to medical experts... he most likely would have lived
if he had received immediate medical attention - cause of death: bleeding).
Mallard then called a boyfriend six hours later... who promptly freaked
out... then came over and helped dislodge Biggs' body from the windshield.
Mallard and the boyfriend then took the body to a nearby park where they
dumped it near some bushes. They then went back home and cleaned up the
car as best they could... and also dismantled the front passenger seat
of the car and burned it in Mallard's back yard. Biggs' body was found
at first light... and chalked up to a random hit-and-run. A year after
the incident... a tipsy Mallard started talking about her secret crime
at a party... and an eavesdropping partygoer promptly called the cops.
Mallard was arrested the next day.
Can I just take a moment
right here to say how soooooo Texas this whole sordid event is?
Now don't get me wrong...
when I say it's all about "not getting caught" I don't mean murder... or
even driving under the influence, per say. The first one is inexcusable
and the second one is very bad indeed. I mean not getting caught while
performing mental high-wire acts with your own moral code. Like: driving
home when you've just a bit too much to drink and deciding that you can
probably make it because you live pretty close and you really have no other
way of getting home and besides since you are very a little drunk and
very conscious about it and a little apprehensive about it too... then
you are going to be extra, extra, super-extra careful behind the wheel
and therefore you are actually going to be a safer driver than if you were
sober! See? It all makes perfect sense! Sound familiar?
Anyone who lives in
an urban area who has never driven home a little tipsy (either drooling,
screaming profanity, walking sideways drunk... or just almost drunk) when
they KNEW it was illegal and KNEW there was a slight chance of plowing
into the back of a car stopped at a stoplight and killing a little old
lady and has used the above rationale to justify doing it anyway is a LIAR.
A LIAR!!! If you have done this only once... maybe twice at the most in
your life then you are normal. If you do it every weekend, then you really
are a moron and are playing Russian roulette and it's only a matter of
time before you'll end up like Mallard (who got 125 years to life in prison
or something like that). Everybody has done it once... but very few talk
about it. Thanks to groups like MADD and MARAADD, there has been a real
stigma attached to driving while under the influence.
I remember my driving-while-drunk-hoping-to-God-not-to-get-caught
experience. I was living in Dallas, and had been at the State Bar with
some friends in Exposition Park. I knew I was pretty tipsy from the several
martinis I had guzzled and almost-all-of-a-joint I had smoked with
my friend Mosquito - so stoned and drunk - no REALLY DRUNK ... like stumbling
and mumbling DRUNKEN - even WINO DRUNK if you will - and due to circumstances,
I found myself leaving alone with no one I knew to drive me home. I decided
to just go for it. "So whddayadon'tdoovehoooomealoonedink?" I said to myself,
with a can-do attitude and a drooling smile. "Icndoooooooit... whaaazabiggiedeeeeal!?"
After all... all I
had to do was get on this itty bitty deserted road outside the State Bar
parking lot (which is deserted at that hour and is on the outskirts of
downtown), stop at one light (which would be deserted at that hour and
blinking yellow anyway) and then enter this on-ramp and take this raised
overpass onto the Dallas Tollway - which is like a 12-lane highway with
super-high concrete walls on each side and a Godzilla-sized median in the
middle - all crossing roads are overhead so if you wiped out into a ball
of drunken flame while driving down it at 3am your chances of hitting anyone
were practically nil. Then once I got off the tollway after about 20 miles
of totally straight line road... I had to throw four quarters in the exit
booth change thing at my exit... go through ONE MORE light (which
would be blinking yellow anyway)... turn right... and follow a 1/4 mile,
8-lane road to another light (blinking yellow) - turn left at that one
and then onto a residential street and into the alley and into the garage.
I mean... basically all I had to do was start the car and then make it
all the way home WITHOUT having to stop... which was very doable... since
there were no red lights of any kind. And since it was all on-ramps and
high-walled tollways... I mean... it was just like getting on a roller
coaster and enjoying the ride...
I KNEW that since I
was drunk... and highly aware that I could indeed hit a schoolbus of children
and kill them all... that in actuality I would be SO cautious and SO careful
that I would end up being a ten-times-as-cautious driver than if I was
sober! Sound familiar?
Since it took me about
a half hour of saying all this out loud in the empty parking lot to myself...
you know just to rationalize it all and sort it all out - it was now almost
4am. I realized too that I was a lot drunker than I thought I was. So I
beat the system... I drove drunk! And I'm not the kind of pussy who lies
about it either!
Here's the boring true
story: I got in my car... shut the door... started the car... released
the brake... tried to focus on what was in front of me... hit the gas (slowly)...
went forward... realized the headlights weren't on... turned them on...
realized I had a little double vision... started to imagine that all drunk
people are actually traveling in slow motion and hey if I got drunk enough
could I actually LIVE LONGER wow that's so brilliant I wonder... opps okay
almost hit a stop sigh... focus Mark remember to focus... you're out of
the gravel-y parking lot... okay the light is coming up... oh hey should
I turn the tape player on?... no... too distracting... okay creep through
the light... everything's cool... cool as a pickled cucumber... mmmhmmmm...
I'm gonna be just f-i-i-i-i-n-n-n-e... okay here comes the on-ramp... getting
on...
Then once I hit the
on ramp and passed on the overpass (glowing downtown Dallas immediately
to my left - levitating slowly past me like that giant spaceship from 'Close
Encounters of the Third Kind)... the deliciously, sweet warm Texas Summer
air started whipping through the spaceship windo... opps, I mean CAR...
the CAR windows... this was helping me to sober up.
Needless to say...
with the wind blowing and all I made it home no problem... just as planned.
The fact that the streets I was on were DESERTED (I probably saw four or
five other cars). I made it all the way home and into the garage without
so much as a scratch or bump or homeless man through my windshield. I then
promptly went inside... upstairs... and puked in the toilet. Oh did I mention
I was living with my parents at the time (my last semester of college before
I moved to NYC) and was in THEIR car? Thanks mom and dad!
I miss Texas.
So you see? Drinking
and driving can be okay! Really! Remember that next time you're debating
whether to risk it all and drive home drunk or blow 20 bucks on a stupid,
slow cab. It's a gamble... you may win or you may loose.
That's the reality of the situation. People risk driving drunk all the
time... they just never talk about it.
Send
me YOUR driving drunk story and I'll post it here. All stories will
be kept anonymous.
Preston writes:Driving drunk.....In Texas, yet. After all, Lyndon Johnson loved to take reporters on beery rides around the Johnson Ranch, scaring the shit out of them!!!
I found myself driving a lot one-toke-over-the-line through Dallas and Fort Worth late at night... The last time I did it did not turn out so well.... In summer 82, working on the Nuclear project making big bucks, living in a cheep trailer with this rock drummer kid I knew from back east, I liked to have drinks after work at the local tavern in nearby Granbury, a bedroom community around a lake, with a historic square, courthouse and all dating from the 1870ís..... lots of tourists. Beds and Breakfasts. A reconditioned Opera House, with apprentice programs for cute drama majors doing shows in the summer.... I like that kind of crowd. Even if I was 20 years older than I should have been. The day in question was payday, and Thursday, still a day to celebrate..... bought some groceries including fresh asparagus! (How I remember?) And some imported beer. (Who was I trying to impress?)
Pulled into the Historic Square that warm June night in my 74 VW microbus which was in bad need of repair or replacement anyway. I had drunk a Heinekens or two. Open container law be damned. The MADD mothers had not shut things like that down yet. The club was called ìFour Doors Downî. A cleaver name, since town ordinances forbid drinking establishments within four residences or businesses of a church. This was the fifth down from the Methodists, actually. But next to the Opera House. I started drinking something like vodka Margaritas or tequila screwdrivers, a clever variation and mix-up, I thought. but after a couple of whatever, I mixed up the boozes and got an extra shot of drunk-sick, but still moving. I sort of forgot about the cute kid I thought I wanted to pick up, and made it to the van somehow. Backing out of the still crowded parking lot, I smashed into a shiny Chevy. Oh my god hit and .......RUN!!!!.... I threw the thing in first and hi-tailed it out of the square, hoping the group of people still around did not notice. I roared around the corner of a small street, looking back to see who might be following, and WHAM!!!! into this power pole, which splintered a bit but did not collapse. The windshield received my face abruptly. I was bleeding. Beer and asparagus all over the place. Across from the Baptist Church. I found a hose to wash off the blood. Then I thought I needed the help of a friend. So I made it back to the square and called my neighbor for help. I remember someone on the square inquired about my bloody face at the phone booth.
my friend showed up soon, and the cops had not discovered my accident yet. He helped me get the thing in gear, smashed as the front end was, and told me to take the back way, to keep from getting discovered. But as luck would have it, cops had stopped a car on that always deserted road. Lights were screaming. My friend saw what was coming and split. I panicked, but could not turn around at that point. Nothing to do but pass on by and hope. But no. They had heard of my wreck somehow and forgot the guy they had pulled, and then pulled me!!! Read me the riot act: go to the hospital first or straight to jail, take the breath test or a blood test at emergency room.... I opted for the later, using the logic that by then, the alcohol level would be lower...
At the hospital, the night nurse, a no-nonsense Texas red neck sort, made fun of my small arms as she swabbed the blood from my wounds. I really hated her. And she stabbed me good getting blood for the test. Which turned out several toques over the line anyway. That cute cop came back and took me to the drunk tank. A fellow I worked with was also in the tank. AMERICAN INDIAN, he was chief of his tribe back in Wisconsin, so he said. Pre-casino days. So still drunk we partied and raised hell for a while.
Next morning, battling depression, I paid my way out, and they said to go by the sheriff's office and I would be charged and court assigned etc etc.... so, not having a vehicle, it still being in the pound, I got another friend with a pickup to pull me back home. The key had broken off in the ignition by that time.
I found myself with huge fines, to replace the pole, and a court date. I heard from my hit and run car owner, at least the driver. Got a break there. She did not own the car, and did not report the accident. I cannot remember how she found me, but said that if I would pay for the repairs, I would not get in trouble and she would not get in trouble with her out of town boy friend. This being Texas, almost Mexico, ready cash goes a long way to fix problems like these.
Later I got to enjoy the irony of it all from the safe sober serenity of an AA meeting, I was sentenced to. I could look out the window and see the 3000 dollar power pole I had bought the city!!!
The moral is.... Oh to hell with morals. I am clean and sober today and that is what counts, but my heart and mind are still as alcoholic as ever. - Preston
Brock writes:
I don't have a drunk driving story. I wouldn't do something like that. Now, blow job- driving while switching places behind the steering wheel with my boyfriend while we both are undressing, while going 60 mph, THAT I've done, but you didn't ask for that type of story. So I'm just going to point out that I doubt Chante Mallard was really under the effects of pot AND booze AND ecstasy. I think she just said that, thinking a jury would place less direct blame on her. After all who COULD both drive wasted and avoid hitting a silly- living life by the seat of his pants by walking in the road in the dark- bum? I think she was just drunk enough to think he was worth ten points yet never considered that he might actually stick to the car after she scored. In all seriousness, she got only half of what she deserved in regards to sentencing (50 years- she'll be out in 20 or less.) She had no respect for life after the fact, when she had enough time and reason to be shocked into sobriety. She isn't just dumb, she's dangerous dumb (and this woman was a nurses aide). As for my story; sex and driving don't mix either. It ended well, but the situation could have turned out differently. I'm glad I wasn't drunk on top of being dangerously horny, I like that I can recall every moment of it. Besides being drunk could have increased the chance I could have, all naked and moaning, plowed into you on your drunken way home that night (I often used the tollway when I lived there). Wouldn't that have been the weirdest story to tell? Least I could say then, with a mischievous grin, would be "yeah, I hit that". - Brock
Sam writes:
Many years ago I drove home very drunk from a party, in Detroit, and ran over someone. I am pretty sure it was a person although I'm sure it could have been some kind of animal. I never went to look and see if the person was OK or anything. To this day it has haunted me and will probably continue to forever. When I got my car home in the garage there was a clear dent in the front of the car and a splotch of fresh brown blood. I panicked at the time and regret my action but it's too late to go back.
Rich writes:
Well, there's no way I could top Sam's cute little story, so I guess I won't bother with mine. His reminds me though of when I was a kid before I went to college, working swing shift at the Post Office in Omaha. We'd usually go drinking after work. This was long time ago, long before the MADD mothers, and none of us worried much about driving home drunk, it was the national pasttime back then. Most of the guys I worked with had just gotten out of Viet Nam, and we'd usually get semi-blitzed. Once a co-worker, Debbie, accidentally ran over an old lady when backing up out of a parking space, some drunk who hung around the bar a lot. Debbie didn't run, but another co-worker backed her up, saying that the old woman had passed out under the car and that Debbie couldn't have seen her, which wasn't exactly the truth. Debbie wasn't too upset about the old lady, just relieved she didn't have to do time. Ah, the blue collar life, happy days!
Paul L. writes:
Dear Mark,
Drunk riving is a terrible, tragic epidemic in our country. Your sense of humor is admirable about many things, but on this one I must send an email of protest. My boyfriend's uncle was killed on a motorcycle because he was driving with an estimate .11 blood alcohol level. He crashed in front of all of his family at an outdoor picnic. He lay for two weeks in a coma before they decided to stop his life support. After living through heart wringing tragedies like that one, it's a little difficult to share in your enthusiasm about people's drunk driving "confessions." - Paul L.
Ams writes:
Much like you I drove home alone after a night at a club with some friends, drinking Yagermeister shots and Blue Hawaiians. And I ended up in my garage after making it home "successfully." I remember being conscious that what I was doing was a very bad idea when I got in my car, but like you I thought that if I was very very careful I would be OK. In the campus town I was in, calling a taxi service or a friend or even sleeping in my car was just not a realistic option.
I was quite buzzed and paid close attention to everything and went slow as I drove from the club to the house I lived in. I thought I had made it home OK once I had pulled into our driveway. I pulled the car into the garage, put it in park, turned it off, got out and locked it, and shut the automatic garage door behind me as I entered the house. "Ah I have made it!" I thought as my head hit the pillow. The whole thing was a bit of a blur actually.
The next morning my hung-overed head was rudely awakened by one of my roommates who told me that a bunch of stuff had been stolen from out garage. A cheap lawnmower, a foot scooter and some sound equipment someone had been storing there were taken. I asked if my car was still there and she said "yes" but it looked like the thieves had moved it for some reason. I ran downstairs in a panic to find my car parked half in and half outside the garage. I thought it was odd as did everybody else. The car was still locked and did not look tampered with. Then I noticed a weird dent and paint scratch on the front hood of the car. The dent and scratch directly lined up with the bottom of the automatic garage door's path.
Just as the cops pulled into our driveway to file a report, I realized what had happened..I had obviously, in my drunkenness, only pulled the car halfway into the garage after activating the auto door when I pulled into the driveway. I then got out of the car, thinking I was all the way in, locked the car, and then entered the house through the garage entrance while hitting the door button on my way in, not looking back. The door then met the car halfway and automatically gone back up. With the door wide open on a Sunday morning, robbers who might have been prowling the area saw an opportunity and took the stuff in out garage. I said nothing to the cops while they were there. They said nothing about the car being "moved" and just thought it was kind of odd..but looking back I think they might have suspected what had happened. What was I going to say "Oh yea officer I was driving DRUNK last night on the way home from a gay bar! So I guess it's kind of my fault the garage door was open." I later confessed to my roommates as to what I had done, and they were pretty cool about it. The stuff that was ours that was stolen was no real loss.
Later the guy who's sound equipment was stolen screwed some other friends of ours over in a really serious way..so we thought his stuff getting stolen from our garage, because of my drunk driving, was kind of strange karma. - Ams
Kelly writes:
Who can afford an automatic garage door while in college?
Jayson from KY writes:
I drink and drive and run over people all the time just for fun. I'm so bored. On a dull night I'll buy several bottles of chapagne and get in my Lexus and just drive around running over as many people as possible. How many have I killed and maimed? No one knows. Cats and dogs too. The more champagne I drink the easier it gets to run over people. The front grill of my car is pretty mangled and damaged over time. I have before found bits of hair and "goo" on the grill but I just hose it off. I always aim for young, healthy types who look like they have their whole lives ahead of them, it's more exciting. I surley know I have only half-killed some people I have drunkenly run over because I've seen them get up and hobble and scream in pain through my rear view mirror. I figure one day I will be caught and go to prison or the lethan injection room, so I guess I'm just trying to live every moment to the fullest until then. My favorite tape to play on the car stereo when I do this is the Patsy Cline song "Walkin' After Midnight". I blast it.. - Jayson from KY
Kylie from SF writes:
Dear Mark Allen:
In late 1995, I had been living in the outer Richmond District of San Francisco. ItÇs a quiet neighborhood, primarily residential with a few shops here and there and the ubiquitous corner liquor stores that serve as neighborhood markets for those who donÇt want to travel to a supermarket. In these neighborhoods, lots of people have cars because street parking is relatively easy compared to other areas of town on the east side. Anyway, I had a little teal Honda Civic VX that had great gas mileage, and scotchguard on the seats in case I had a date in my car who got a little out of control. Loved that car.
One night, I went down to the Castro to hang out in the local bars and see if I could get lucky. That night, I guess I might have gotten lucky actually right in the bar, as sometimes happens, because I ended up going home alone. I was driving back to my place quite late, probably after last call. I was on Fulton, which borders Golden Gate Park to the north of it. ItÇs a long 4-lane street that is usually pretty empty of traffic and is a quicker way to head west than the busy Geary Boulevard. As I made my drunken sleepy way west, I apparently feel asleep at the wheel. I veered to the right and slammed into a parked car. This, of course, jolted me awake and I found myself shaking and scared to death as the car alarm of the other vehicle wailed away. My car had stalled, but I was able to start it up again and drove home the rest of the way on a very hard to control vehicle.
The next morning, I inspected my car. It was terribly damaged. The passenger front fender was mangled and the wheel was at an angle that made the car unusable. I had a mechanic come look at it and he gave me an outrageously high quote on the repair. Something like $5,000. And this car wasnÇt even paid off yet. I dared not notify my insurer. I didnÇt tell anyone. I was really afraid that if my car was this bad, I really must have done some damage to the parked car, but I never found out. It took me over a year to get my car fixed but when I did, the cost was far less than IÇd been led to believe it would be. But, because of my stupidity, I messed up my car and couldnÇt use it for almost a year and a half. I guess I got off lucky, because I could have ended up dead.
Nick writes:
When I was told we were going wine tasting I was thrilled. At the age of 32 I never went wine tasting. Though I drink like Star Jones after a bad taping of "The View" I assumed the wine tasting tour was just that - tasting. Who could get drunk on tasting? I was the token male and I went with two fellow teachers who are females. Teachers, especially in suburban NY, are notorious drinkers. But I wasn't going out with Laverne and Shirley to drink, we were just going to TASTE!I didn't realize until we arrived at the winery that I was in the company of chicks who knew how to drink under the guise of tasting. My friend said to the attendant, "We would like three tickets for the tour please. However, we don't want to see the sites. We would like to go right to the tasting rooms". We received a look of disdain. Though I wanted to see the fermenting barrels and the grape press (I assumed that is what I would have seen but I will never know) I was game to going right to the testing. I was given the ground rules fast and hard. I was told, under no circumstance, to get rid of any wine. My "ladies" told me I was to drink every drop of every sample we received. As the "tour" progressed we were becoming loud and obnoxious. We decided to be superior, yet white trash. After each "sip" we would say things like, "that bouquet was pap smear-ish" or "that wine snuck in like a ho through the back door". After the tour was completed, and our check off sheets were completed noting the wines we loved and the wines we didn't, we decided to actually buy some wine. We bought a lot of wine. We drank a lot of wine. We also sang karaoke as this winery was celebrating a re-opening after half of it burned down. We sang very badly. We were drunk. We went wine tasting. After I saw the grandparents of a former student we all felt it was time to leave. We piled into my car. I drove under the influence of wine tasting. My two teacher friends stood up and enjoyed the ride home sticking out of my sunroof. We are teachers. We should know better. Hey, I was just going tasting. I drove under the influence and I was lucky I didn't crash or hurt someone else. Ashamed? No. Spare me your anger. I am aware of what could have happened. In the end I made it home safe while ignoring double yellow lines. Next time I will look at the wine presses, not drink all the samples and eat some crackers to clear my palette.
Nick
KINGMAKFROG writes:
I was actually the designated driver one evening for a friend, I was driving her car that I was not used to, I got pulled over doing only 6 miles over the speed limit at around 3a.m. the friend that owned the car was in the front seat, she was plastered and feeling invincible, she insisted on getting out to pee right there on the highway , she said there was no more waiting, not concerned with the now 3 police cars present seeing as they obviously were waiting for the nearby Krispy Kreme "Hot Doughnuts" sign to flash. Well here's where it gets "Seinfeld" Few years earlier I had my driver license renewed, and at the mercy of the DMV idiot, my license was mis-typed changing the sex on my license from male to female. When I took it back after noticing three days later they told me it would be another 21 dollars seeing as my apartment number had changed, whatever?! So I kept it for shits and giggles (I did get into ladies night at a bar one night - yes it was a straight bar). ANYWAY, the police asked me to get out of the car after noticing this so they could access the situation and get a good laugh. As soon as i get out out of the car my lush -bladder -swollen friend grabs a coin bucket from a local casino out of the back seat and somehow manages to squat in the front seat and commence peeing in it as the assisting officers decides this is the best time to shine his flashlight in the passenger window. this of course did not affect my friend in any way. Explaining I was the designated driver and seeing as i was only going 6 miles over the speed limit, and seeing who COULD have been driving, and having giving them a good laugh I would have gotten off with a warning. No, I got ticketed. Can we get a break here? What the hell??? I never go out with her anymore. And I am happy to say I am listed as a man again.