Wesley's Story

Wesley's Story

It happened on the morning of Friday August 12, 2005 around 12:48 a.m. There was a party going on over at the Roger's Farmhouse on Thursday night. I saw Wesley on the day of the party. I stopped in at the local auto parts store where he worked to see what was going on with him. He told me about the party and asked me if I was going. I told him, "Nah man, I'm just going to chill at the house tonight." That was the last time I saw Wesley alive.

Wesley had always teased me and my buddy John about having a curfew. He would always smile and say, "You have a curfew and I don't." Wesley's parents trusted him so much that he could almost come and go whenever he felt like it. His parents had no clue about his personal life, but that was because he did not let his partying and nightlife interfere with his job or school. He made excellent grades in school and was successful at his job, but Wesley had a flaw.

When Wesley went out partying, he was the type that would not stop until the bottle was empty or every beer was gone. He also started taking pills, but not bad. When he took the pills, he would take a lot of them at once. On average, if he was popping them, he would take 5 or 6 Xanax bars at the time but only if he was out partying or drinking beer with them. The day of the accident, when I saw him at the auto parts store, he told me he had some pills. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellophane wrapper, and in this was 10 Xanax 1 mg bars. Also, along with the pills, he pulled out something a little more extreme. It was a Fentnyl rapid-release morphine patch. I just knew that he shouldn't have all of these things along with a fast car, oh yes, a very fast car.

It was a 1998 Pontiac Trans Am. It was candy apple red with 18 inch chrome wheels, leather interior and T-Tops. It was a beautiful sight to see. Wesley had done some work to the engine, changed the intake, and installed a $500 chip to increase the horsepower. He drove his car very carefully most of the time. He never was a showoff. He would never spin the tires or burn out just to do it, but sometimes he would stretch it out if he was on a straight, open road. Also, if he was upset or angry about something, he would take it out on the car.

I recall one night that a bunch of us guys were sitting around, having a beer when Wesley's phone rang. He answered it, hung up, and said, "Oh shit." He then ran to his car and peeled out like a bat out of hell. About 10 minutes later, we heard the growling of his engine coming back down the road. When he passed the house, he had to be traveling at least 120 mph. A few minutes later, he came back. I went to his car and asked him," Man, why in the hell are you driving so fast for?" He told me that one of our friends had gone into the ditch with his car so he had to take the boy to get a chain to get the car out of the ditch. I told him that he needed to be more careful so that he wouldn't put his in the ditch. He said, "I know."

On the evening of the party, Wesley had went to the store and bought himself a 20 pack of Bud Light in the bottle and a pint of After Shock Cinnamon Schnapps. He put the beer on ice in the cooler that he kept in the hatchback of his car. He started drinking around 7:00 p.m. that night. When he arrived at the party around 8:30 p.m., he had already drunk the pint of After Shock. They said he was feeling pretty good when he got out of the car.

The party was just beginning. There were tons of people showing up from all over. Wesley walked around talking, shaking hands, and hugging the girls. Everyone was getting acquainted with each other as usual, reminiscing about old times, the good and the bad. Wesley took 2 pills, cracked a beer, and kept surfing the party. Wesley was having some girl problems too. This did not help his habits at all. His girlfriend was talking to someone else, but that was not the real problem behind the deal.

I do not know at what point Wesley put the patch on, but somehow he managed to put it on. At this point, Wesley was 3 sheets in the wind when our friend Kevin drove up. Kevin saw that Wesley was in bad shape and told him that he needed to chill out. There was 8 pills left when Wesley showed Kevin the