Copyright 2026 Dwayne Phillips
Sam slowed and took a right on a one-lane blacktop road.
He thought to himself, “Is this the right road? It’s gotta’ be the wrong road. Who would live down a road like this? This is what she told me. Gotta’ be wrong. She never gets it right.”
He rolled down his window as he drove down the road scanning to both sides and glancing in the rearview mirror. Sweat poured on his forehead. The air conditioner on the old car had long-since died.
“I don’t have this much time to waste,” he mumbled. “Why am I doing this?”
The answer was simple. It was Friday. There was a football game. At five-foot-six and slow afoot, he was one of the few boys not on the football team. That also meant he was one of the few boys to cruise the many girls who would be at the game. If he ran this errand for his mother and sister, they would let him have to car for the night. With a freshly minted driver’s license at 16, this was a good deal. Right?
Maybe. The “errand,” as his mother put it, was to go to Matt’s trailer and bring him back to the two-bedroom, shingled-sided house where his mother, sister, and Sam lived. It wasn’t much, but it was on a two-lane road instead of one of these little back roads down around no place.
Matt was Sarah’s boyfriend. Sarah, Sam’s sister, was 18 and a high school senior this year. Their mother was so happy that Sarah found a mature boyfriend like Matt, age 22. Not one of those nutty boys her own age. Matt was a man of the world, a man about town, a man with a job and his own home. Well, a single-wide trailer on a one-land road was a home.
Sam didn’t care. He didn’t care much about his sister’s choice in boyfriend. He didn’t care about his mother’s opinion of Sarah’s or his friends. His only care at the moment was to get Matt, take him to Sarah, and get himself to the game and all those unattached girls.
“Wait, a mailbox. Well, it used to be a mailbox. It had some numbers hanging off it. Yeah, this is it, this is Matt’s place.”
Sam slowed to a crawl looking for a driveway or culvert or some way to cross the ditch and pull up to — you gotta’ be kidding me. This is it? Sam gazed upon a single-wide trailer swallowed by weeds and various piles of junk. An old washing machine, a few plastic chairs, the obligatory molded couch. What a dump. This is the desirable, mature, working boyfriend? This place was worse than their own home.
“Just do it. Forget about this stuff. Just get Matt, deliver him, and be on the way.”
Then Sam saw the car. That was Matt’s car. A rusted Toyota with the hood open and some tools littered about. The reason Sam was fetching Matt was that Matt’s car was in the shop for a tune up. These old Toyotas run like a top or some silly old expression. You just need to keep them tuned and they would run forever. In the shop? The car was in the weeds growing rust and time.
Again, just do it. Sam pulled up next to the trailer’s door. He tapped the horn a couple of times. “Come on, Matt. Let’s go.” Matt didn’t open the door and run out. “Come on. Seems like you would be anxious to go somewhere for a free meal and time on the couch with my sister.”
Nothing. A couple more taps on the horn. Nothing. A long, deep sigh. A noise.
Sam could hear a voice from inside the trailer. It had to be “Wait a minute,” or “I’m coming.” It wasn’t. “Help?” Was the voice asking for “Help.” Couldn’t be. Let’s go Matt. We are wasting our time here.
More voice noises from inside the trailer. It was clear now. The words were, “Help. Help me. I need help. Help. Help.”
Sam slammed the stick shift into Park, twisted the ignition, and jerked out the key. He kicked open the car door and bounced out into the knee-high grass. “Stupid. Id’jit.”
Up the two rotting steps to the door and Sam banged on it. The voice from inside was clear. “Help. Help me. Help.”
“Let me in,” Sam said.
“It’s open. Help me,” pleaded Matt from inside.
Sam pulled the door open towards him, looked into the dark trailer, and froze. Matt lay on the floor. He was shirtless. His pants were pulled up but open. He had one shoe on and the other a few feet away.
“Help me,” Matt said quietly as he huffed the words. “Finally, you’re here. Thank God. I didn’t know if you would get here in time.”
Sam stood with one hand still on the door and the other slowly being raised to his forehead. “What. Are. You. Doing?” he asked as each word took a full second to come.
“I’m dyin’. Help me. Quick before I die. Get me to the hospital. Quick. Heart attack. Quick,” said Matt as each phrase sounded like it would be the last from a desperate and expiring person.
Sam startled himself back into thought. “Where’s the phone? I’ll call for help. I’ll call my sister. No, I’ll call 9 1 1 or something or someone. Sheriff’s office. Something.”
“No, no time for that,” answered Matt. “I’ll be dead before anyone gets here. You gotta’ help. Load me in your car. Take me to the hospital, emergency room. Now. Quick. Help.”
Sam looked at Matt. He had to weigh 250 or more. How could he? Sam tried to breathe again as he hadn’t since opening the door. No thinking. Just do something.
Sam moved around Matt and grabbed under his arms to pull him up. Matt screamed in pain. That wasn’t going to work. Sam moved around to Matt’s feet. Nothing there. He moved back to Matt’s head. He moved back to Matt’s feet. He was panicking. Nothing seemed like it would work.
“Wheelchair. Over there,” pointed Matt. “Bring it over here. I can climb in it, done it before.”
Sam followed the directions. Somehow Matt twisted, bent, and pulled himself into the wheelchair.
“Okay, now. Push me to the door, lower me down the steps. Keep me tilted backwards. We’ll make it,” instructed Matt.
Only later did it hit Sam that Matt sounded like he had done this before. The instructions, the procedure, it was all practiced.
Sam again followed the directions. They seemed to make sense. It should work. Matt wouldn’t die in his arms, would he? Sam’s heart raced. Would he have a heart attack like Matt? Would he need someone to take him to the hospital like Matt.
Sam blinked and the wheelchair-born Matt was down in the weeds next to the car.
“Okay. Open the door. I think I can stand long enough to move into your car.”
Sam opened the car door. Matt stood, twisted, and fell into the car. The car sank and bounced back.
“OOOOH,” groaned Matt loudly and slowly. “That HUUUURT! My ribs. My back. My heart. Hold on. Come on heart. Hold on.”
Sam started to pick up the wheelchair and put it back in the trailer.
“No. No time,” screamed Matt. “Leave it. Leave it all. I may not make it back to ever see it again. Quick. Drive. Hospital. Speed.”
Sam pushed the wheelchair clear of the car door. Slammed the car door shut and ran around to the driver’s side. He slipped on something and fell. No telling what tripped him, but he didn’t take time to see what it was.
Sam was in the car. The engine revved. He floored it. The tires spun in the grass. He did a perfect zero-radius U-turn in the weeds and was headed across the ditch onto the one-lane road. The spinning tires caught onto the asphalt, squealed, and left some expensive rubber on the road.
“Go. Go. Go,” said Matt as he moaned, groaned, put a hand to his chest and struggled to breath.
Sam’s eyes widened so much he felt like his eyeballs would fall out. His own breathing was more labored than Matt’s. He was going to have a heart attack. He knew it. They would both die out here on the road.
Two turns put them back on the main highway. The hospital was ten miles away. They would be there in eight minutes. Traffic? Sam didn’t remember if they saw any other vehicles on the road in either direction. It was all a blur. The car drove itself.
One turn put them into town. Another turn put them on the street of the hospital. One right and they were in front of the emergency room entrance.
“Go. Get help. Quick. Now,” sputtered Matt. “I might hold on until they get me inside. Quick.”
Sam didn’t take the time to turn off the engine. He jumped out of the car before his door was fully open. Run around the front. He slipped and fell to the concrete. Whatever it was in Matt’s yard that tripped him was still on his shoe. He scraped his forearms, but pushed himself up and back into a dash to the ER doors.
“HELP,” screamed Sam as the air conditioning hit him. There were a couple of people sitting in the waiting area, someone was behind a table, and several heads peered around a corner at Sam’s cry. Sam had everyone’s attention.
“HELP,” he repeated. “Heart. Attack. Car. Help.” The words shot out with a gasp between them.
Sweat blurred Sam’s vision. He saw motion. He saw people in light blue clothing moving back and forth. Someone grabbed a medical box. Someone grabbed a second box. A third person grabbed a wheelchair.
People ran towards Sam. They pushed him aside. They were out through the doors heading to his car. Sam staggered out after them.
The first person to reach Sam’s car was a woman. She was like Sam’s mother. Maybe younger, but she reminded Sam of mother or what a mother should be, not who Sam’s mother was. She jerked the car door open to reveal a gasping Matt holding on to life by a thread.
The woman stopped at the sight of Matt. The other two people stopped as well. Their posture changed. They were bent at the knees and hips with arms forward. The football coach would have been proud as they had that fundamental football stance, ready to hit and be hit.
The three moved to upright positions. Straight legs, straight back, relaxed shoulders.
“Relaxed shoulders? How could anyone be relaxed at this moment of crisis?” thought Sam. “What happened? How could these emergency people stop acting in an emergency response?”
The pause of the three emergency workers allowed Sam to pass them. He stopped when he collided with the car. He could now see the faces of the emergency workers. There was no alarm. There was disgust. What?
The first one to the car, the mother figure, spoke in the voice of a mother who had just found a teenager lying on the couch instead of mowing the lawn, ”Matt! It’s you again! What are you doing here? We told you not to come back here!”
“Help. Help me,” asked Matt.
“Oh, come on,” spat one of the other emergency workers. “We rush out here all pumped up for this? Get outta’ here you bum.”
The third emergency worker didn’t say anything. He turned, jerked the wheelchair around, and pushed it back inside.
Once again, Sam had stopped breathing. His mouth opened, but words didn’t come.
“Help me. Help me,” asked Matt.
“Help you my foot,” said the motherly figure. “You get outta’ that car right this minute buster and get your hide inside. We’re calling the Sheriff this time.”
Matt’s expression turned from pain to fear, then panic.
“No, no, no, no,” he said four times in a second as energy rushed to his previously broken body. “Not the Sheriff. Come on now Jessica. We’re old friends. I wouldn’t call the Sheriff on you. Now why would you.”
“Shut up,” she answered as she cut off his pleas mid word. “I don’t know what I’m gonna’ do with you. Get inside. Now. We have to file a report so we at least need to take your temperature.”
She turned to Sam. “You brought him here?”
Sam, still unable to mouth words, shook his head in fear.
“Makes sense,” she said. “Matt always seems to find someone who doesn’t know him. Always seems to find a kind-hearted or stupid person to give him a ride into town. Heart attack. Huh. I don’t know if this bum has a heart or a brain for that matter. Just wastes everyone’s time, that’s all he does.”
“But he, he was dying. I saw him lying on the floor. He couldn’t move. He was in pain,” said Sam.
“He’s a pain alright,” she said. “Come on Matt. Get inside. Can’t you at least put on a shirt before you come in here like this? Don’t you have any decency?”
“Wait,” said Sam. “What do I do now? What happens? Is he dying? Is he sick or something.”
“If you know what’s good for you,” she answered, “You’ll just get in your car and go on your way. The longer you stay with this guy the worse you will be.”
Matt was now out of the car. He stood upright and walked into the emergency room waiting area. He limped along as he had one shoe and one barefoot. His rolls of fat hung over his half-zipped pants. His hair was a jumble. He had sweat running down his back. Sam looked at him with the eyes of a person who had no relation or history with the man. “Bum” is what one of the workers had said. Yes, bum. That summarized it.
Sam paused for a moment. Sarah, his sister. And his mother. They thought highly of Matt. They thought highly of a guy who had scammed them — a bum. A freeloader who bilked the emergency room. A guy who would lie to anyone about anything just to get a ride into town. A free night in an air-conditioned bed with a meal or two.
This hit a 16-year-old. This hit Sam hard. It didn’t roll off like what his mother thought or who his sister liked. It wasn’t a casual thought of how many single girls would be in line for a coke at the football game concession stand. This hit Sam. He froze in the chill of something real and big and adult. He had almost killed himself speeding into town in a life-and-death situation. It was all a scam. It was all a lie.
Sam returned to the driver’s seat. In slow motion, he shifted the gear, released the clutch, and drove slowly in the parking lot. He had never driven that slowly. Little by little, the frost of adulthood melted from Sam. By the time he was on the road headed home, he was driving almost the speed limit. A bit slower, but almost like a person who was normal.
Sam eventually reached home. Home. That little shingled-sided house on the two-lane road where he lived with his mother and sister Sarah. He turned off the engine and sat in the hot car sweating for five minutes. He was dazed.
His mother opened the front door and called to him. He jerked back to the moment. “Sam,” she called. “What are ya’ doin’ out there? Get in here? Where’s Matt? Did you forget him like a dang fool or somethin’?”
Sam motioned to his mother. He stepped out of the car, up the steps to the front porch, and into the house. His mother stood in the kitchen. Sarah sat at the kitchen table. They both had a, “Well, what in the world have you done now?” look.
Sam stood at the edge of the kitchen. Adults knew what to say in these situations. Sam, 16, didn’t. The three were quiet for a few moments. Too long. Uncomfortable.
“Mom,” started Sam. “Sarah. I just, I just came from the hospital.”
The air left the room.
“The hospital,” continued Sam. “I went over to Sam’s. I found his place, but he wouldn’t come out when I honked the horn.”
Sam’s mother and sister looked at one another as their shoulders slumped. “Here it comes,” they thought. “Sam messes up again and doesn’t do what he’s supposed to.”
“I went inside and Matt was lying on the floor. Matt was crying for help. He was dying, he said. He had a heart attack, he said. Take me to the hospital before I die, he said. No time for an ambulance, let’s go now.”
“I got him into the car. No time to put on his shoes or a shirt even. I got him into the car and drove to the hospital. Honest mom, I drove too fast, way too fast. But, ya’ see, he said he was dying and I needed to hurry so I drove too fast.”
“I was scared, mom. I was scared.”
“That was right of you son,” said his mother. “That was serious, that was much for a fella’ your age. You did it right.”
“But mom, Sarah, we got to the emergency room and I ran in and called for help. Three people came out to the car to help, but when they saw Matt. You see, they saw Matt, and then, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what, Sam?” asked his mother.
“I don’t know what to tell you next,” said Sam. “The nurse lady started yelling at Sam. Called him a bum. Said he shouldn’t trick people into giving him a ride into town. And Matt sat right up straight. He wasn’t dying any longer. He was fine. He was fine. There wasn’t anything wrong with him. He was fine. The nurse hauled him inside and threatened to call the Sheriff. You see? You understand what happened?”
The room filled with another painfully long pause. Sam’s mother and sister looked at one another. Their hands went to their mouths as if to keep something from spilling.
Then both turned to Sam and Sarah spoke, “That’s terrible! Can you believe how they treat him? Can you believe how badly those horrible people treat poor Matt?”
Sam wanted to protest. He wanted to utter a thousand “buts.” Nothing came out. He could not interject quickly enough.
Sam’s mother spoke, “That poor Matt. That young man works so hard and is such a good man. He works so hard he has these spells. Why just last week Sarah and I ran him to the hospital with such a spell. And that woman there, Jessica I think, she treated Matt so poorly. Called him names. Accused him of all such bad things and all. That woman should be fired. She’s supposed to care for folks and there she was just, just, well, I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s right, momma,” added Sarah. “Matt’s the best. The best. Kind, hard working, honest, clean. He’s a good man. I want to marry him one day when he asks. He’s good.”
Adulthood hit Sam for the second time in one afternoon. His mouth opened. The pointer finger of his right hand raised. “You mean to tell me,” were the only words from his mouth. Something stopped him at that point.
Sam turned and walked out the front door. By the time he was down the steps and near the car, the teenager had returned. It was Friday. Football game night. Girls giggling and pointing and looking at him.
In what seemed like a moment, Sarah had married Matt the week after she graduated high school. Twenty months later, she had a second baby. Twenty months after that, she brought her babies back home to her mother in the singled-side house on the two-lane road.
Sam was not there and would never return.
The End