grab the weed i got a story to tell a couple years ago it was christmas night back in my hometown wells the snow fall about an inch an hour and on the road just our pickup truck and snowplows after familial obligations me and my man phil met up to start blazin around 8 sparked the back woods on the back road the wind chill blew the snow like satchmo i asked how was your christmas he said it sucked i asked why he said man my sister s fucked and if that slut died tonight it wouldn t be enough i asked for an explanation he just took another puff handed it to me i told him mine wasn t better i just got a couple corny ass sweaters and my family embarrassed me because apparently getting arrested twice in a month is worthy of a parody just then turned onto bear s den saw a whip with a woman and a kid in it in a ditch volkswagen the color of cocaine with the front end buried inside a snow bank temperatures near zero man it isn t may no reception out here to call triple a it s safe to say if phil and i hadn t drove by this lady and her son could ve frozen and died we put the woods in the ashtray stopped the truck put the gloves on hopped out of the shit and walked that way we asked if we could help she said oh thank god yes she looked blazed herself her son shivered in the passenger wearing a seat belt he looked to be about 12 we said no prob the son said you re our guardian angels we laughed and moved the truck at an angle we hooked the chains up and put her in drive we had em out faster than a first pitch pop fly it was all thank yous and huggin could ve sworn i smelled rum on the breath of the woman nonetheless i gave her son a high five said bye hopped up in the truck and drove into the night never told anybody about the good deed of the two dudes in hoodies i wish the story ended there i awoke the next morning with the sun reflecting off the snow in the yard out front i felt fine in my flannel sheets the day after a snowstorm tends to bring clarity and a shitload of shovelin i was still living in the home that my mother s in i pulled the covers off i felt quite alive as i reached for my phone that i had on silent and this was years ago now but i recall i saw 16 texts 31 missed calls i knew something was awry i ran downstairs mom tears in her eyes and her mouth agape staring at the tv i said what happened i knew something was creepy she just pointed at the screen i walked down next to her to see and i saw it two dead in a drunk driving crash in wells a woman 22 and boy age 12 one survivor was in critical condition it was the mother of the boy they think she had been drinking the scene on the screen looked grimy a white jetta bisected by a pine tree in the background a green jeep flipped i put my hand to my mouth and said jesus as i recognized the sugarloaf sticker on the back of the jeep that belonged to phil s sister the whole scene flashed blue and red lights illuminating christmas night my heart sunk like a plane with no wings because i understood the whole thing my heart sunk like a plane with no wings broken i mean what if we had left em in that ditch what if we never burn cruised and we were good kids what if phil was a bad dude like everybody thought because he sold pot and we had never even stopped and helped them what if i had questioned that mom what if phil s sister and the boy weren t gone what if that right that we did wasn t wrong and what if and so on and on until the break of dawn  just another christmas song on and on life goes on and on just another christmas song on and on life goes on and on life goes on just another christmas song on and on til the break of dawn this is just another christmas song in the news this morning a car crash on bear s den road in wells has left two people dead it happened shortly before midnight lisa richards of kittery lost control of her volkswagen jetta and slammed into another car traveling in the opposite direction the driver of the second car amanda powell was killed instantly as was lisa richards twelve year old son police say richards was drunk in a terrible twist to this story richards had gone off the road earlier on the snowy evening and struck a snowbank two men happened by in a pickup truck and helped haul her out and get her back on the road they had no idea she had been drinking one of those men is the brother of amanda powell the woman police say richards killed