That was my car.

I never knew Rachel Stern or Megan Reilly but I live with the memory of them every day. Because, you see that was my car. I am the drunk driver who killed them.

RUBICON BY MARK CONNELLY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 88

Drink in hand, the comic paced the stage. Vegas-kitsch in tux and ruffled shirt, he was spinning Lenny Bruce-Richard Lewis-Robin Williams riffs, spitting jokes, switching voices, striking poses, creating characters, staging scenes. A Catskills tummler working his crowd.

Newman stood in the wings watching the audience. Relaxed by booze, the docs were unrestrained. Their laughter was loud, sometimes boorish. The convention was no doubt a welcome escape from the drab hospitals, clinics, labs, patient complaints, and insurance disputes that consumed their lives.

“Hey, where you see the greatest doctors? Where you think? Mayo Clinic? Sloan-Kettering? Harvard Med?”

The comic shook his head. “I’ll tell ya. Old movies! Don’t you love those? Some guy falls off a building, crashes in…