Nurse the Hate: The Kunick Boy

It was April 17^th when The Kunick Boy slid off Taylor Road and into the embankment.  His name was Keith, but almost everyone called him “The Kunick Boy”.  I believe the thought was that by not calling him by name, it could be implied that there was a distance between the speaker and whatever terrible thing Keith had inevitably done.  Keith was diagnosed once as being hyperactive, but that didn’t quite cover it.  I don’t know what it was exactly.  There was something about him that was just off.  He was unpredictable.  His wiring was wrong.  Even Keith was aware of it.  

There were many people that believed the accident was caused by alcohol.  I knew that wasn’t it.  Keith had stopped drinking after a few incidents when alcohol interacted with whatever combination of meds they had him trying.  He showed up at a party once in December wearing cheap sunglasses to try and hide a shiner he had received the night before.  He couldn’t remember where he had been or what had happened.  I don’t know why he thought no one would ask why he was wearing $3 red Ray Ban knockoffs on a winter’s night.  After that he stopped drinking.  His family gave him an ultimatum.  He then assumed a moral high ground like it was his decision alone to evolve, a superior being.  It was just overcompensation for his nagging understanding that something was broken with him, so I never called him on it.  He knew I knew.

The newspaper had a brief recap of the accident.  To most readers it was just another traffic incident.  It was just a few lines.  "A local man and woman were in an auto accident on Taylor Rd.  The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.  The man is in critical condition at St. Luke’s Hospital.  Police are investigating the cause of the accident."

What the article didn’t say was this.  Keith was driving a used Chevy Nova SS that he had just bought at Riley’s Auto World.  That was a beast of a car.  It was all engine and very little control.  He was likely trying to show off to Lisa Bliley, a sweet but somewhat misguided girl that gravitated to the broken birds she thought she could heal.  She thought Keith was introspective and deep.  He was actually moody and medicated.  She asked him to drive her home from a party at Patterson’s Barn.  Literally everyone was there at that party.  We knew he wasn’t drinking, but he seemed edgy.  He had that vibe to him that made even Patterson’s dogs shy away from him.

Keith went over the hill by Elk Creek too fast and lost control.  He must have been going 80-85 mph.  He slid across the lane and the car flipped when it hit grass.  They rolled over numerous times until the car settled on its roof in the ditch.  The police told the Bliley Family that Lisa died on impact.  I mean, what else could they do?  They couldn’t tell them the truth.  A good friend of mine had a brother that was a paramedic.  The way he heard it was that the car caught on fire.  Lisa’s legs were pinned in and crushed.  Keith had been thrown into the back seat.  The fire spread quickly.  Keith knocked out the back window and pulled himself out as Lisa screamed begging for him to help her.  He was almost clear when the gas tank blew.  Lisa died horribly in the fire.  Keith got third degree burns over most of his body.

Keith was unrecognizable in the hospital.  His face had been burned into a grimace that looked like a decomposing jack-o-lantern.  His mother kept a constant vigil.  She was torn between her son’s condition and the guilt of the Bliley girl’s death.  It was a small town.  Everyone knew everyone.  Keith died on the fourth night in the hospital.  I heard he had regained consciousness briefly but didn’t speak.  He could only open one eye and it darted around for a few minutes until it closed again.  They used his high school graduation photo in the obituary.  There was a small private burial.  I didn’t go.  No one I knew did.

I saw Mrs. Kunick a few months later at the IGA grocery store.  She smiled as I greeted her.  She looked thinner than I had seen her last.  Not a healthy thin, but gaunt.  She had a forced smile as we exchanged small talk.  There was an electricity behind her eyes and face like she was trying to maintain control.  She was playing the role of contented suburban mother and wife but threatening to break character any second.  She told me to say hello to my mother for her as she climbed into her car.  Behind me I heard two women whisper to each other.  “That’s her.  The mother of The Kunick Boy.”