It was 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning and the BMW was in the right-turn lane at the corner of Tucson Boulevard and Broadway. The driver was unconscious at the wheel.
Tucson Boulevard is a busy street, but Broadway is one of the main arteries through Tucson, and here was an unconscious guy sitting behind the wheel at the intersection.
I tapped the hood of the elegant, relatively new BMW. Finally, the driver opened his eyes and looked at me. He seemed to be in his twenties,
“Dude, you’re on the street. You need to pull into the parking lot here and sleep off your hangover,” I said, pointing to the parking lot behind me.
He stared at me for a few seconds and then went back to sleep.
I tapped the hood of his car again. He opened his eyes again.
“You’re going to be arrested and your fancy car will be impounded. Get your car off the road,” I screamed.
He looked at me for a few seconds and then fell asleep again. Apparently he couldn’t keep himself awake with alcohol, drugs, or a combination of them.
Since I didn’t have my cell phone with me, I couldn’t call 911. I walked away, thinking the police would be there soon to take care of the mess.
But at least I tried.
I’m not the type of person to just let things go without trying to help. I believe that if you see something is wrong, you should do everything you can to fix things and deal with the consequences that may arise.
I’m the guy who says something to an idiot who is rude to a waiter at a restaurant. I’m the guy who tells people not to talk so loudly during a movie. I’m the guy who intervened at Target in El Centro when a mother punched her six-year-old son in the face so hard you could hear the impact.
“It’s none of your damn business,” the mother told me when I told her she didn’t have to punch the little guy in the face.
“If you do it in front of me, it’s my business,” I replied.
I’m the type of guy who tells people exactly what I think when asked for my opinion on something. My senior year of high school, my social studies teacher got tired of me telling jokes to my friends in the back of the classroom. He asked me if I thought I knew more about the subject than he did.
Since I had earned every point and every bonus point in the course that semester and knew that the teacher had gotten some facts wrong in his classes, I thought about the question for a few seconds and replied, “Yes, I think so.”
This earned me a three-day suspension for “insubordination.” This meant that I was not allowed to go on the graduation trip to Disneyland because it took place during my suspension.
My school counselor, Mr. Brislain, a truly fine man, asked me why I reacted that way. My response was, “He asked me a question and I answered honestly.”
“That’s often your problem, Bret. Learn to be discreet,” said Mr. Brislain.
My father’s mantra to me, from age six through adulthood, was, “You gotta learn to keep your damn mouth shut.” Only he never said “damn.”
He knew that I was already used to saying what I thought needed to be said and intervening when I felt it was necessary. And he knew that this would get me into trouble later in life.
He knew this because he was the same way. Dad tried to keep me out of fights and arguments like the ones he was involved in his entire life.
But I learned from what he did, not what he said.
Bret Kofford is a screenwriter and professor emeritus of writing and film at San Diego State University-Imperial Valley. He can be reached at [email protected].
