Near death experience

I'd like to say that after today I will never get in the car with a drunk friend again, but I'm not sure if it's completely true. In Mexico it is completely normal - though illegal of course - to drink and drive. Some people will 'only' drink a few beers if they know they're going to drive, others will knock back the tequilas and drive when they can barely walk. As a result I've come to take it in my stride, and I'll accept a ride from someone who I know has been or will have been drinking if the alternative involves hassle or taxis or having to go home early or not go at all.

However, after today I will be a lot more careful about the cars I get in, and I don't think I can think of my drunk friend as my friend anymore. A devil-may-care attitude to my own mortality doesn't any longer seem funny.

Up until we got in the car, I was having an exceptionally nice evening. We had gone into Mexico City for a farewell party for an American colleague. I am rather sad I didn't get to know her properly earlier, and have the chance to get spend time with her and her friends, but it was profoundly pleasant. I got to catch up with an ex-colleague and build that relationship a little; chat to some superfun Mexicans; meet some pleasant Americans and one Italian (and a rather terrifying American girl who works at the embassy). I got to have a dance with her boyfriend, who may be the best salsa dancer I have danced with in Mexico. I enjoyed myself even though the Boy wasn't there. I was brave and chatted to strangers.

And then we left. We were four, colleagues and friends: the driver, his girlfriend, my officemate and me. The others were boisterous and amped-up and I - stone-cold sober - was trepidatious from the moment we got in the car, but I just stayed quiet and said nothing. Driver started messing about, driving too fast, and, perhaps not surprisingly, generally acting like a drunken prick behind the wheel. It comes to a head when he does a big, terrifying, dangerous swerve around another car.

"Driver, that's not even fucking funny" I yell, though not loudly.

This turns out to be the wrong thing to say.

Far from prompting him to start not driving like he wants to kill us all, he starts swerving all over the three-lane road, deliberately throwing us from side to side, at top speed.

We are all shouting, loudly this time, and screaming in fear. I think I am saying things along the lines of "for fuck's sake Driver, fucking stop it, you're going to fucking kill us, fucking stop the car right now". My officemate is saying similar things, only with less fuck and more please.

He doesn't stop. I think I might die in this car.

"Every time you say fuck Eloise I'm going to crash the car, I swear," he says. His voice is menacing. He is angry with me, punishing me. All my friends know that the word fuck is practically punctuation with me, but it seems that he has taken offence at me trying to reign him in, tell him what to do.

He stops, though his driving is still terrifying.

I sit in absolute silence and disappear into myself. I am trembling with rage and fright. I am also feeling miserable with guilt, because I feel like it's my fault, even though it isn't. Girlfriend is apologising for what she has said or shouted - I didn't hear it. "I'm sorry, but...", she says. Driver is driving like a madman.

He starts the crazy swerving again, I don't know why.

This time I let myself break into terrified tears. I know that, though there is a certain kind of nasty machismo that would get a kick out of having power over three screaming, frightened, begging girls, there are very few men who won't feel ashamed of making a girl cry. I am right, and he calms down. But the tears are real and they won't stop. I am sobbing and sobbing and there is music playing and no-one says a word.

I draw even further into myself, looking away out of the window. Sometimes the tears come back and I try to fight them off. Sometimes my whole body seems to go stiff, other times I shudder and shake. My officemate reaches out to comfort me. We write each other text messages and show each other our phone screens. Are you OK? Do you want to get out? Will he let us? We hold hands. Driver is still going too fast, too aggressive, too close to other cars, stopping just in time.

We do get out. My officemate is conciliatory - I love you, but you're scaring me. I am too frightened and too angry to speak. Just four words: "Girlfriend, are you OK?"

Yes, she says, so I leave her to her fate.

It's after midnight, dark, a busy road somewhere in Mexico City with cars streaming past but no-one about, a few distant figures seeming threatening rather than comforting. I am crying uncontrollably again and half-shouting, barely coherent with rage.

We flag down a taxi, itself a dangerous enough decision in this city. I can't afford what it will cost, but it doesn't matter. All the way home I can't stop crying, I can't stop shivering. I can feel my heart racing, I can feel my limbs trembling with the adrenalin. Every little bump or swerve frightens me.

The saddest thing about it all is that in the back of Driver's car, when I was hopelessly afraid, all I wanted was to call the Boy and ask him to come and make it alright, to hug me better and drive me home. I would have called him - and I know he would have come and rescued us - except that he lost his phone and doesn't have a new one yet. He would have come, because he is generous and chivalrous and he is my friend, but I wanted to be the one he wanted to come for, I wanted him to want to hold me, I wanted there to be someone to want those things. My tears of fear became too tears of loneliness - and there's nothing like impending death to make you feel alone - and tears of want of love.

I am home now, safe. The fright has almost worn off, with sugary foods and time, but I will not forgive tonight easily. It isn't that he drove drunk that makes me angry. That's culturally normal for him (he is Latin American, though not Mexican), and it would be unreasonable of me since I was willing to get in the car knowing he'd been drinking. But I don't believe that drunkenness is an exuse for any and all behaviour. Mooning yes, terrorising your friends no. Alcohol isn't some kind of magic potion that gets forced down your throat by evil wizards. You don't get to abrogate responsibility for whatever you do. It doesn't make you a whole different person, just loosens the straps on whatver you normally keep strapped in.

I am angry because he put us in danger by deliberately driving dangerously and too fast. I am angry because it was all about his fucking ego. I am angry because he deliberately terrified us. I am angry because he didn't stop, even when we were screaming. Someone who would - who could - do that, drunk or sober, isn't someone I can be friends with. Maybe it's not such a big deal. Maybe I'm a bitch. Maybe I'm unforgiving. But I don't feel I can forgive. If he apologises I'll be polite - for the sake of the group - but trust? friendship? affection? No.

Even at the time I was thinking about how the limits of friendship are revealed in extremis. I have felt like a bad person for having some reserve in my feelings about Driver, not really trusting or feeling completely comfortable with him. Yet another lesson in trusting my instincts. The contrast with the Boy was sharp and immediate. He plays the fool sometimes, making race-car noises or pretending we're taking off on the long straight road to the campus gates, but no matter how drunk he was (and he doesn't drink much - by Mexican standards - when he's driving) he would never, ever do something like that. I trust him absolutely.

I am not, I think, a fearful person - sometimes not fearful enough. It's easy to make me jump but not generally easy to really scare me. But when I do get really scared - which fortunately is not often - I am miserably, overwhelmingly terrified. Everything frightens me. When I got home I hurried for safety and looked over my shoulder. A loud doorbell noise coming from somewhere on the stairs made me jump. I phoned my officemate to make sure it wasn't her, because I was too scared too open the outer door. The sounds of people walking past in the street sent shivers down my spine. A truth was suddenly clear to me: I hate people who make me afraid.