Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine #12

They’re Playing Our Song Max adored his wife Mim but he left her two nights every week—usually Tuesday and Wednesday—and slept alone on a thin cotton mattress at the North Beach Volunteer Fire Department. He led an EMT response team, prying bodies out of crushed cars, transporting the injured and ill, dispensing oxygen and comfort to the frightened and infirm.

He liked the young guys on his team, Arnie and Vince. They’d sit around the fire house playing cards, watching the three ESPN stations and swapping stories about their romantic liaisons. At least Arnie and Vince would. Max and Mim had been married for almost thirty years. Their thirtieth anniversary was coming up soon and they already had tickets for a seven day Caribbean cruise to celebrate. A regular, church-going man, the business manager at West Marine in Annapolis, Max was the last person anyone would suspect of getting caught up in anything the least bit strange, yet he did.

It began innocently enough. His crew was called out one January night just after closing time for the bars along Route 261 to a crash in the middle of the bridge over Fishing Creek. A drunk ran his Charger over the sidewalk and into the railing.

Steel and concrete kept the car from going into the water but the whole front of the car was smashed in. The collapsed steering wheel crushed the driver’s chest into his spine and he was DOA. There was nothing they could do for him. So they pried the body out of the crumpled car, gathered it up and zipped it into a body bag. Since there was no urgency they stuck around directing traffic until the wrecker arrived. While they were waiting, Max noticed that the radio in the car was still playing.

Playing a car crash song.

“Hey guys,” Max called. “Listen to this.” Max didn’t recognize the song or the singer but he could tell it was “something something died at the wheel.” Arnie and Vince stood with him beside the opened driver’s door and listened to the song coming