SODIUM:2 Apocalypse Read Free Page A

apartment building. The guys at the factory would always accuse me of being a bank robber or mafia hit man. Here I was at 18 years of age, I was driving a Ferrari and living in a high end apartment, not to mention the beautiful girlfriend that I took to the company Christmas party. I was the envy of every guy there and I knew it.
    The Ferrari was really a dream car; the bright red paint, the handling and of course the speed. The lawmen in Detroit got to know me well. I had been pulled over repeatedly for speeding and otherwise just reckless driving in general, but I had not received a single ticket, that is, until a rookie pulled me over one evening.
    He had no idea that Frank and Eunice had been hosting the Policeman’s Ball for each of the last three years and that I was pretty much untouchable as far as petty crimes went. He gave me three citations that evening and threatened me with arrest because of my cocky attitude. The next day he got an earful from his chief and I’m sure he got quite the drubbing from his fellow officers too. You don’t mess with the golden goose unless you’ve had your fill of golden eggs. And his fellow officers had not had their fill.
    He caught up to me a few weeks later weaving in and out of traffic and when he pulled me over he apologized profusely for his previous disrespect. I remember in my arrogant state telling him that I would let him off with a warning that time, but he had better stay alert and on his toes from then on. I left the scene squealing my tires and speeding away and I'm quite sure there was steam coming out his ears. I spent most of the fall flying around west Detroit in that car without a care in the world.
    It was a cold January night when I crashed the Ferrari. Renee had been at home in bed when I had decided to go out looking for some fun. The kids in my old neighborhood were all too willing to gather up fifty bucks for a race just to see what the Ferrari would do. An easy win also fed my ego so I was all too happy to take their money.
    Frank had been fully insured, but after the accident and with Renee’s urging my Ferrari days were over. A few weeks later a new Mercedes SEL was leased because Frank knew I would have been too embarrassed to try to race it. I wasn’t driving anywhere anyway with my arm still in a full cast and was happy to have Renee once again being my chauffeur.
    My recovery was easy compared to the things that would come. Life can have so many twists and turns as nobody knows what may lie just around the corner. But life had been really good to me at the time, so I had little motivation to better myself. My only real incentive to change in fact, was to take steps to keep the status quo going as long as possible.
    The following spring with wanting to move up in Eunice’s eyes I had enrolled in the local community college and started coursework in Mechanical Engineering. It was not a big step, but I felt the need to advance myself in some way or another, the thought had occasionally occurred to me that I hadn’t brought much to my current relationship.
    I had contemplated a degree in finance at Frank’s urging, but I really had no interest in school anyway, so I picked a subject that I thought might at least offer a little excitement. I had been a good student who had been blessed with common sense intelligence, but I had never had the motivation to actually dig into or apply myself to anything. I managed to bring that same level of learning excitement to the community college which showed up later as mediocre grades.
    When Renee graduated high school later that spring I was already on top of the world. We were out every night for fine dining or at the posh dance clubs downtown. I had all the moves on the floor and I was sure that I quite often made a spectacle of myself, but I didn’t care because no one else's opinion mattered. That summer was all about me and anyone who thought otherwise… well... they really didn’t matter.
    Our summer of