The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

On July 26, 2009, a woman named Diane Schuler left the Hunter Lake Campground in Parksville, New York, driving her 2003 Ford Windstar. She had five passengers: her five-year-old son, her two-year-old daughter, and three nieces. She seemed fine – the last person to see her at the campground swears she was alert and had no liquor on her breath – and equally fine an hour later, when she fed the kids at a Mickey D’s. Not long after that, however, she was observed vomiting beside the road. She called her husband and said she did not feel well. Then she turned onto the Taconic Parkway and drove the wrong way for nearly two miles, ignoring the horns, waves, and flashing lights of those who dodged around her. She eventually hit an SUV head-on, killing herself, all but one of her passengers (her son survived), and the three men in the SUV.

According to the toxicology reports, Schuler was processing the equivalent of ten drinks at the time of the crash, plus a large amount of marijuana. Her husband stated that his wife wasn’t a drinker, but toxicology reports don’t lie. Like Candy Rymer in the previous story, Diane Schuler was loaded to the max. Did Daniel Schuler really not know, after at least five years of marriage and a period of courtship, that his wife was a secret drinker? It’s actually possible. Abusers can be incredibly sly, and hide their addictions for a long time. They do it out of need and desperation.

What exactly happened in that car? How did she get drunk so fast, and when did she smoke the dope? What was she thinking when she refused to heed the drivers warning her that she was going the wrong way? Was it a booze and drug-fueled accident, a murder-suicide, or some weird combination of both? Only fiction can approach answers to these questions. Only through fiction can we think about the unthinkable, and perhaps obtain some sort of closure. This story is my effort to do that.

And by the way, Herman Wouk is still alive. He read a version of this story after it appeared in The Atlantic, and wrote me a nice note. Invited me to visit him, even. As a longtime fan, I was thrilled. He’s pushing a hundred now, and I’m sixty-seven. Should I live long enough, I might just take him up on the invitation.

Herman Wouk Is Still Alive

From the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, September 19, 2010:

9 DIE IN HORRIFIC 1-95 CRASH

Spontaneous Mourning at Scene

By Ray Dugan

Less than six hours after a one-vehicle accident in the town of Fairfield took the lives of two adults and seven children, all under the age of ten, the mourning has already begun. Bouquets of wildflowers in tin cans and insulated coffee mugs ring the scorched earth; a line of nine crosses has been placed in the picnic area of the adjacent rest area at Mile 109. At the site where the bodies of the two youngest children were found, an anonymous sign, words spray-painted on a piece of bedsheet, has been erected. It reads, ANGELS GATHER HERE.

I.

BRENDA HITS PICK-3 FOR $2,700 AND RESISTS HER FIRST IMPULSE.

Instead of going out for a bottle of Orange Driver to celebrate with, Brenda pays off the MasterCard, which has been maxed like forever. Then calls Hertz and asks a question. Then calls her friend Jasmine, who lives in North Berwick, and tells her about the Pick-3. Jasmine screams and says, ‘Girl, you’re rich!’

If only. Brenda explains how she paid off the credit card so she can rent a Chevy Express if she wants to. It’s a van that seats nine, that’s what the Hertz girl told her. ‘We could get all the kids in there and drive up to Mars Hill. See your folks and mine. Show off the grandchildren. Squeeze the home folks for a little more dough. What do you think?’

Jasmine is dubious. The glorified shack in Mars Hill that her folks call home doesn’t have room, and she wouldn’t want to stay with them even if it did. She hates her parents. With good reason, Brenda knows; it was Jazzy’s own father who broke her in, a week after her fifteenth birthday. Her mother knew what was going on and did nothing. When Jaz went to her in tears, her ma said, ‘You got nothing to worry about, he’s had his nuts cut.’

Jaz married Mitch Robicheau to get away from them, and now, three men, four kids, and eight years later, she’s on her own. And on welfare, although she gets sixteen hours a week at the Roll Around, handing out skates and making change for the video arcade, where the machines take only special tokens. They let her bring her two youngest. Delight sleeps in the office and Truth, her three-year-old, wanders around in the arcade hitching at his diapers. He doesn’t get into too much trouble, although last year he got headlice and the two women had to shave all his hair off. How he howled.