Slade

1

If you live the life you want, you will love the life you live. The more you love your life, the easier it is to accept your eventual death.

~ Slade Bennington

Interviewer: Tell me about the accident. What do you remember from that night?

Slade: I died, man. I died in that moment nearly thirty years ago. But nothing in life is an accident.

Interviewer: You’re sitting here conversing with me now. You’re very much alive.

Slade: More alive than ever. More alive than before that night. Before, I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. I was selfish and doing things that brought me pleasure, but with no purpose. I knew that too. I knew I wasn’t living. Something was missing, some intention to life. But I was young, you know, and I figured I’d settle down and live the way I knew I should once I’d sowed my wild oats. Sowing wild oats. That’s a cliché, isn’t it? My agent is always pointing out when I use clichés. Apparently, I like them.

When I was nineteen, I thought I could start being a responsible adult when I was twenty-one. At twenty-one, I thought twenty-five sounded like a good age to mature. Then thirty sounded like the right age to become a grown-up.

But at twenty-nine, life ended. I knew my life was ending. When something like that happens, you know you’re dead. And you see.

Interviewer: Your life flashed before your eyes?

Slade: Now that’s a cliché. Life didn’t so much flash before my eyes, but I could suddenly see it all clearly. The life I was intended to live, the life I’d avoided, procrastinated, put off until I was older. And now I would never be older. I’d missed that opportunity. We’re all given one chance at life, and we don’t think it’s going to end suddenly like that. And when it ends, you see how it was meant to be. It’s like getting to the station just as your train pulls out, and it’s the last one. You missed it. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing to be done.

And so I died.

Interviewer: Are you saying the doctors revived you in the hospital?

Slade: I’m saying the old me died. I was reborn the moment of the crash. The doctors, bless them, did the best they could with what they had to work with. I was fully aware the whole time. Fourteen days in a coma and I heard every word and saw every person who walked into my room. Hovered over the operating table and watched whenever they performed surgeries.

Once I was conscious, the doctor sat beside my bed to update me on my situation. I interrupted and recited to him everything he was going to say. I already knew. I’d heard it all before. And I smiled and patted his hand and told him everything was going to be fine. He started crying. Uncontrollable sobbing. It’s hard to witness a grown man weep like that.

The new me was conceived even before they got me to the hospital. The surgeries, the months in the hospital, and recovery were all equivalent to childbirth. The new me being born.

Interviewer: Do you ever ask why?

Slade: These things just happen. One person dies. Someone else survives. Another is reborn.

Interviewer: God’s plan or random chance?

Slade: Is there a difference?

2

Brothers and sisters are extensions of yourself, your DNA, your mind, your heart and soul. They always know you best. No one ever puts up a false front with siblings. Make everyone you meet a brother or sister.

~ Slade Bennington

Interviewer: Tell me about Matt, your brother.

Slade: Ah, what an absolute joy he is. Having an older brother is special. But he wasn’t always a joy, you know.

I’m laying in bed one day, and Matt walks in. Asks if I want to go for a ride, see some friends. I hadn’t left the house in six months other than to doctors’ offices and hospitals. Seventeen surgeries in six months. Getting out sounded great.

Sure, I said.

And Matt said, Okay, let’s go. Meet you at the car. Then he left. Just flat walked out.

I didn’t even say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I lay in bed and listened as the screen door slammed. A few minutes later, his car started. It sat there idling for a few minutes, then he drove away. I thought he was trying to be funny and he’d be back in a couple minutes. But he didn’t come back. Not until after midnight.

Where have you been? I think I was yelling at him. Why did you leave me here? He shook his head and went to his room. Didn’t say a word.

A few days later, he walks in and says the same thing. Want to go for a ride?

I said, Yeah, but don’t just drive off and leave me here this time.

Fine, then. Get out of that bed and get your ass in the car. You got five minutes. And he went out to start the car.

I got mad and fumed for a minute, but I really wanted out of the house. So I rolled out of bed. And it was a standard bed, you know, a couple feet off the ground. Hardwood floors. That really hurt when I landed. But I got my arms under me and dragged myself out of the bedroom, down the hall, out the front door to the porch. My mom’s house, only three steps down from the porch to the driveway where Matt sat in his car. A red Camaro Z28 that he was way too proud of.

Those three steps looked like eternity. It was a struggle, but I made it down the stairs and into the car without his help. He didn’t offer, and I wasn’t going to ask.

Glad you decided to join me. Buckle up.

I pulled the seat belt across. First time I’d tried to buckle up since the crash. That’s when I realized the seat belt wasn’t really going to work for me anymore.

How can I buckle in when I don’t have a lap?

Use the shoulder strap then. Can’t have you messing up your pretty face on my windshield.

The shoulder strap hit me across the throat. The lap belt lay uselessly on the seat where my legs used to be.

A few days later, Matt lifts me out of bed and moves me to the couch. He goes out to the shed and loads up some tools. Hauls them into my room. I hear him banging and sawing for nearly an hour. Then he carries me back to my room. He’d amputated the legs off the bed so it sat only a couple inches off the ground. I’d be able to crawl off the mattress to the floor without busting my ass.

That was so thoughtful of him that I didn’t have the heart to ask why he didn’t just get rid of the bed frame and put the mattress on the floor. That would’ve been a whole lot simpler.

3

Mom’s whole life was slick tires on an icy road, and she never could keep it between the ditches.

~ Matt Bennington

Interviewer: What was it like growing up with Slade?

Matt: He won’t admit it still, but he was always the troublemaker and I was the responsible older brother. Ha! Yet somehow he managed to influence me more than I could influence him.

He’d say, Let’s spray paint bad words on the neighbor’s garage, and I’d say, No way, man, we’ll get in trouble. Then about two in the morning, I’d be gathering cans of spray paint from our shed and helping him out the window.

And it wasn’t like we could get away with anything. Two boys running around more or less unsupervised, if anything happened on our street, neighbors came knocking on our door. Or the cops.

Mom would deny it and defend us, give us an alibi, say she was up at two a.m. helping us with our homework or something like that. Then she’d whoop our butts with a belt or a spatula. We’d be good for about two weeks and then do something else.

Interviewer: Ever get into any serious trouble?

Matt: Slade spent six months in juvie after letting the air out of a cop’s tires. While the cop was sitting in the car. He got suspended from school a couple of times for fighting. Held back to repeat seventh grade because he skipped so much school.

In eighth grade, he got busted for stealing some of Mom’s birth control pills and trying to sell them at school. Told everyone they were Ecstasy. When they found out it wasn’t really Ecstasy, they dropped the drug charges, but he got suspended again for three days.

That’s about the time Mom got pregnant with Jolene, so that kid was totally Slade’s responsibility.

Interviewer: Sounds like he was a real delinquent.

Matt: Oh, not really. I’m just raggin’ on him. He was a good kid, good heart, but we didn’t have no real parental supervision, ya know. And he was just out to have fun. Harmless fun. Never did things to hurt people or rob anyone. Just pranks and mischief. I tried to be the parent, but I was just a kid too, so eventually the mischief would overcome my more mature sensibilities. Somehow, I never got caught.

Like when Slade let the air out of the cop’s tires – the cop was parked on the corner of our street while I watched out the window. When Slade gave me the signal, I called 911 to report a prowler a few houses down so we could watch the cop try to drive away with three flat tires.

As the cop started to pull away from the curb, he spotted Slade, jumped out of his car, and nabbed him. I should have waited until Slade was clear away before I called 911, but I jumped the gun and Slade went to lockup. They assumed Slade was the prowler that got called in, so in a way, I ratted him out. Not intentionally, of course, just too quick on the buttons.

And he never ratted me out as his accomplice.

Interviewer: What about in high school? More of the same?

Matt: Not so much. Slade got quieter. Kind of studious. Actually went to class and did his homework. Started getting good grades, wasn’t getting into any trouble. He tried to stay out of Mom’s way while I tended to get in Mom’s face, especially after Jolene came along.

And when Slade wasn’t getting into trouble anymore, neither was I. But I was never the student Slade was.

But one day Mom smacked Slade around a bit too much. I intervened to keep her from beating him. Slade never raised a hand to her, not even to defend himself. He’d just stand there and take it.

Afterward, he comes to me with his duffel bag in his hand and says he’s leaving. I ask where he’s planning to go, and he had no idea. I told him you can’t go live in the street. And don’t leave me here with Mom and Jolene by myself. He started crying and hugging me and told me he had to get out or he was going to go crazy. So I said, Let’s come up with a plan and do it right then.

He unpacked his bag.

A couple months later, I was turning eighteen. I was a senior. Slade was almost seventeen and still a sophomore since he got held back that one year. I’m about fourteen months older, and we were always one year apart in school until then. Our plan was that when I turned eighteen, I’d get an apartment in my name, but Slade would move in there and I’d stay at home with Mom and Jolene. He had a bicycle to get to school, and he’d have to get a part-time job, and he had to stay in school. Those were my rules if he was going to move out.

He agreed, and he did all that. Pretty soon, he had saved enough money to buy a junker. I paid most of the rent out of my jobs, but he had to pay some rent and the utilities. He didn’t one time and got the electric turned off on him in January. He didn’t miss any more utility bills after spending a few nights in a dark apartment with no heat. But he stayed there rather than coming home. Didn’t tell me about it until later.

I don’t know if he was that responsible or just that stubborn. Maybe his natural stubbornness evolved into taking responsibility. But he grew up real fast at that point.

Interviewer: You were going to school and working?

Matt: Usually had two or three jobs. Had a paper route for a long time. Got up at oh-dark-thirty to deliver the Star-Telegram. Worked at McDonald’s for three or four hours after school for a while. Then I did pizza delivery at night and on weekends. Made some good cash when I partnered with a pot dealer. His customers would call him and place an order, then he’d call Pizza Hut for a pizza and specifically request me as the delivery driver. I’d get the pizza, swing by the dealer and pick up the baggie, slip it inside the pizza box and then deliver the pizza. The customer would pay me for the pizza and the pot, plus a nice tip. At the end of the night, I’d swing by the dealer and pay him for the pot. He’d pay me and give me a nice tip too. So I was raking it in for a while.

Until I delivered the pizza with the baggie to the wrong house. No one ever called the police, but they called the Pizza Hut manager. He fired me, of course. I told him I had no idea how it got there, but then I realized that meant I was blaming the cook. I owned up and asked him not to bust me, so he said just get your stuff and get out.

The guy that got the wrong order – the large pepperoni with a side of cheesy bread sticks and Hindu Kush – never called the cops either. He kept the pizza and the pot. Not like I was going back to his house and ask for it back. He paid for it. He looked a little confused when I told him the total price, but he paid it and shorted me on the tip.

So I swung by the dealer and told him I was out of business.

I was delivering for Domino’s the next week, so we were back up again. I was a little more careful after that.

Interviewer: What did your mother think about Slade moving out when he was sixteen and still in school?

Matt: She acted like she didn’t care and that it was a good idea. One less mouth for her to feed, not like she was feeding him anyway. She had moved out on her own when she was fourteen, and I was born she was fifteen, so she was probably more concerned with why I was eighteen and still living at home. But since I took care of Jolene, she tolerated me.

Interviewer: You were taking care of Jolene during this time too?

Matt: Yeah, that wasn’t good of me to be running pot. But, ya know, I was still a kid and thought I was being responsible by bringing in good money. Mom wasn’t working most of the time. She’d get fired every few months when she’d go on a binge and not show up to work for a week. She was getting some welfare or disability or something most of the time. I’d try to get that money from her for food and to pay the bills, but mostly it went to Southern Comfort.

She used to go out to the bar most nights, so I had to make sure I was home before then or she’d leave Jolene home alone. I finally convinced Mom she had to stay home with the kid so I could work. She could go to the bar on the nights I didn’t work, or after I got home at nine or ten. So she kept a few bottles at home to get started.

Sometimes I’d come home from work and Mom was passed out on the couch, Jolene was sitting there hungry, dirty, crying. It was better when Slade was still at home ’cause he’d take care of her while I was at work. But I had to be home to take care of her after Slade moved out, so eventually I had to give up the gig at Mickey D’s.

When Jolene started kindergarten, I couldn’t get her to school and pick her up and get to my jobs on time. I had graduated high school and was working a good job and didn’t want to screw that up. They put me on second shift, so I couldn’t be home to make sure Jolene got fed supper and put to bed. So I asked Slade to come get Jolene for a few months.

Interviewer: He was still in school then?

Matt: Yeah, he was a senior. It was a lot to put on him, but I thought it would just be for a little while, and it worked better with his schedule to get her to school and pick her up.

Then it turned into a permanent arrangement.

Interviewer: How did your mother react to her daughter going to Slade’s?

Matt: Depended on the day. At first, she put up a fuss, but she didn’t protest too much. Gave her more freedom to go out, and she could bring a guy home without a kid there.

She got used to it and seemed to like being free of the responsibility. Then some nights she’d get really drunk and cry about how much she missed her baby. She’d sober up for a few days and want her back home. We’d let Jolene come visit when Mom was clean, of course, but we never let her move back in.

After a while, everyone was good with the new arrangement. Slade and Jolene were inseparable. Slade became a very responsible father-figure, believe it or not. More responsible in a lot of ways than I was.

Interviewer: How so?

Matt: He didn’t just make sure she got to school every day. He did homework with her. Met with her teachers. He joined the frickin’ PTA. Took her to after-school activities. He made sure he set up his work schedule so he could be there for her. Never left her home alone. He was a much better parent than Mom, that’s for sure.

After one time when Jolene got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and caught Slade hitting a bong, he stopped doing that. I think maybe it reminded him of when we’d see Mom all shitfaced. Slade told me there would never be any drugs allowed in the apartment under any circumstances. He got all serious about it, and that was a good thing.

I’d always been the more responsible one, but he surpassed me in that regard. He didn’t stop smoking pot, just never at home or anywhere near Jolene.

Interviewer: Tell me about the night of the accident. Or life event, whatever you prefer to call it.

Matt: Yeah, Slade always calls it an event. Says there are no accidents. Well, he didn’t drive his car off the road on purpose, so to me, that’s an accident.

Interviewer: Was he drinking or anything?

Matt: No. He didn’t drink, smoke pot, nothing at that time. He’d stopped everything. Turned into a very boring little brother. He might have been tired from working all day. Jolene had gotten herself knocked up and asked Slade to drive her to the clinic to take care of things.

That caused a huge fight between them. He didn’t think that was right. Said she should tell her boyfriend. But they’d just broken up. He was a giant jerk-off. I’d told her before that he was bad news. I told Slade to make her stop seeing this guy. Slade said that would just make it worse.

So she catches this asshat with another girl – in Slade’s apartment, in Jolene’s bed. At a time the guy knew Slade would be at work and Jolene would be coming home. Like he did it just to rub her face in it. She kicked him out and broke up with him. She also punched his nose hard enough to draw blood.

Then she finds out she’s pregnant a few weeks later.

While Slade and Jolene are arguing over him driving her to the clinic, Slade calls me up and tries to enlist my help.

I told him, No way. She’s too young for a baby, and you don’t want that douchebag to have to be part of her life and the baby’s life for the next eighteen years. Take her to the damn clinic and get over yourself. Your moral standards don’t affect you, but they’ll affect her the rest of her life.

So Slade took her.

Interviewer: And they never made it.

Matt: No, never got there. Hit an icy patch on the road going around the bend over by Benbrook Lake. Slade’s tires were bald. He’d finally saved enough money to buy new ones but was spending it on an abortion instead.

Interviewer: How did you feel about convincing Slade to take her to the clinic and them getting in an accident? Guilt or remorse over that?

Matt: Oh, tons. It was all my fault. If I’d gone along with Slade’s opinion, they’d both be fine and I’d have a niece or nephew. Or if I’d said, Let me come get her and I’ll take her, maybe I wouldn’t have had the accident. I had good tires. But I was at work and thought that was more important.

But that kind of thinking will mess with your head. And it did. Slade was the one that finally talked me down off that trap door. He said it wasn’t an accident. It was meant to be. It was an event. No one’s fault. You can’t change fate. All that sort of stuff. I don’t dive as deep into all that as Slade does, but it makes sense. You can’t let guilt over something you had no control over destroy your life. It is what it is. Learn and move on.

When Slade’s daughters were little, they’d run around the house singing Let It Go until you wanted to shove an icepick in your ears, but it’s pretty sound advice.

Interviewer: Then your mother died too.

Matt: Yeah. I didn’t feel any