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The Unicorn
By
Margaret Patton Chapman, Apr 02, 2009
Not too long after that night when we would debate what happened, some of us would recall that we could see the
Milky Way through the moon-roof right after we skidded to a stop, as if the sky brightened for a moment just for
us.
Everyone, I mean everyone, had been drunk, but it was John who was driving. Those were dark roads, winding
through dark woods, the kind of woods that disappear into nothing past your headlights. It had been bitter cold,
though most of the snow was gone. There had been too many people for one car, but no one cared. We were piled in
tight in the back, everyone sitting on a lap or being sat on, all arms around each other, drunk feeling warm and
close and together, leaning en masse as John took the turns. We were laughing at something, no one can remember
what, when we hit it.
“More like it hit us,” said Mandy later. “More like it jumped and landed on us and took off again.”
When we hit, John slammed on the brakes and those of us in the back seat tumbled forward, one or two of us
falling down on the floorboard, others on top. Mandy had her seat belt on up front. We skidded and stopped and
John must have forgotten to put the clutch in because the engine stalled and the car was quiet and still in the
cold dark.
In the back it took us a moment before we could start moving, finding our limbs. Mandy had her head on straight
away and asked if we were all alright.
“We’re okay,” we said and someone opened a back door so we could sort ourselves out.
John was unhurt, but he was pressed against the steering wheel, gripping it tight, looking off to the woods.
Mandy put her hand on his back. “I don’t think we hurt it,” Mandy said softly into John’s ear.
Later Mandy would say we were lucky, that we’d learned a lesson, that neither she or John got in a car after
drinking, never.
The only thing John ever said about it, years later when I ran into him at a wedding, long after he and Mandy had
broken up, long after that night had become a joke among the few of us that were even in touch with each other
any more, long after everything he said to me:
“I know what I saw.”
Margaret Patton Chapman splits her time between South Bend, IN, and Chicago, IL, where she teaches at
Columbia College.
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