Micah P Hinson lived an entire life before he was even legally allowed to drink. Six years ago I wrote a piece about this boy’s journey into manhood, his substance abuse, homelessness and love of the wrong woman I felt so callous, writing about Micah’s worst of times without actually asking the man himself. Today I get to speak to him on the phone, and I make him a promise; no more press-agenda editing. You talk, and I will listen. To try and abridge Micah’s story is like saying Hansel & Gretel is a story about two kids that get diabetes. We spoke for an hour, and here’s the first two full chapters. It starts with some recent business; a crash in 2011, that would add another notch on Micah’s list of life-defining moments.
THE CRASH
One day we were just driving down the road and my back hurt really bad because of a previous thing – I don’t have a disc in my back – so I took a bunch of drugs, lay down, didn’t put my seatbelt on, and basically that saved my life. Next thing, I felt the car kinda shake violently. I didn’t open my eyes fully, but I could see a bit of light coming in. I remember seeing the ceiling of the car, then the seat again, then the ceiling and thinking, ‘fuck, this isn’t natural.’
Next thing you know, I was halfway outside of the window and the van had spun one and a half times off the road. I got trapped through the window and my shoulders were touching in front of me. I was completely upside down and my legs were free. Tis van was sitting on top of me, and gas was coming out; I had gasoline blowing into my face, I mean, it was the closest thing I’ve ever been to war in my whole life. Not that I know what it’s like, but that’s how I imagine; like one minute everything’s OK, then the next, everything’s fucking not OK. If I’d had my seatbelt on, I
24 / April 2014/
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woulda been crushed, so thank God I wasn’t following any laws.
Te rest of my band couldn’t find me; I could hear them speaking English, but I know they weren’t, because they’re Spaniards; they’re not gonna start speaking English in an emergency just because some asshole in your group speaks that language, so some psychic shit was obviously going down. So when my drummer found out where I was, like a dumb, kind person he began to try and push the van off of me. He was holding on to the exhaust pipes and so he badly burnt his hands.
When the emergency crew got to us, they were looking at us as if we were fucking dead people. Tey said they’d seen less heavy accidents with more
people die. So yeah, after that they took me to a hospital, gave me an x-ray and I had no broken bones, but my left arm wouldn’t work at all, and my right arm worked about 28%, maybe less. No broken bones, which was like, ‘what the fuck?’ I was bent like an accordion! Tey gave me an MRI, but they couldn’t see anything wrong with me, so I spoke to a physician I have back here in Oklahoma and he was like, “if you can move the tips of your fingers” - I mean really Kill Bill that shit – “and you can do that in the morning, get the fuck out of there.”
It was interesting, having been in American hospitals and then in a hospital of another country, it’s such a different thing; one is not better than the other, but when you’re freaked out,
mean really Kill Bill that shit – “and you can do
that in the morning, get the fuck out of there.”
“If you can move the tips of your fingers” - I
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