Fifty some-odd cars sit in pieces, sporadically on the perimeter of the lot down the hill from A-One Towing’s office. Gravel, a chain linked fence, and a concrete wall surround the area. Orange Xs on front windows (for those still with windows) mark the cars going to the junk yard


or being sold on eBay. Wheels are missing. Entire engines and springs are exposed. Glass windows are folded over into the interior of cars. The majority of these cars’ fates lie in the hands of one thing: drinking and driving.
“At least 90 percent of the cars in this lot ended up this way because of drinking
and driving,” senior Heather Morgan, family member of the company, explains.
“It’s just crazy how stupid it is. It may seem cool, but look at them now,” she says while motioning around the lot to the many pieces of metal and glass.
Steve, an A-One Towing employee also known as “Shrek”, comes down the gravel hill in a blue and pink truck, maneuvers to the corner of the square lot, and steps out. It was time for a relocation. He hooks up the “j-chains” to what is left of a white BMW and slowly leads it onto the tilted ramp in a back and forth motion.
“I’ve seen probably twice as much as most kids have in their lifetime,” Heather says. “Kids say they’ve seen a lot of drunk driving accidents, but they’ve never really seen what truly goes on after the accident. People don’t think about who has to take care of everything after they leave the accident. To actually see it happen…it changes your life. . .forever.”
11:15 p.m. March 5, 2005: the intersection of 94 and Jung’s Station
It wasn’t an easy way to start the morning. It wasn’t a forgettable moment. It wasn’t a desirable outcome. A-One Towing had pulled up next to their bent up car, lights flashing, sirens blaring, eyes staring. Brad Boss, graduating year 2006, and Jacob ‘Jake’ Liscombe, graduating year 2007, both alumni of Francis Howell North, had an abrupt end to their lives that early morning, all from one quick split second of a decision…to drink and drive.
“A-One Towing, this is Shaa.”
Back in the office, employee Shaa Hatcher, Heather’s mother, answers the black phone on her desk.
“So did your vehicle get towed already? Where is it going?” she asks and then waits for a response as she sits in her cushioned chair at her desk. “Yes sir, it’ll be $65 to hook it up and $3 a mile…alright, bu-bye.”
Mounds of paperwork are tossed into stacks blanketing her wooden desk. Kindergarten ‘artwork’ and hand prints of Heather hang, stuck with scotch tape along the metal cabinets and walls. A carpeted hanging of the beloved Disney character ‘Tow-Mater’ decoratively matches the hundreds of tow-trucks neatly aligned on a shelf at the front of the office, including ‘Bob the Builder’.
Heather walks through the front door dressed in jeans, a Knightline hoodie, Ugg boots, and with a pony tail. For the past three years Heather has continued to assist her family whenever needed with its love for mechanics and towing even though she is not an official employee. Heather moves along through the next doorway into the garage.
Tires are propped around the perimeter of the concrete flooring. In one corner sits a plain white sink, an off-white refrigerator, and a vending machine. The trash can is overfilled with take-out boxes and Mountain Dew bottles. And in the center ring awaits the main attraction…’The Incredible Hulk’. Painted on the ‘boom’ of A-One’s largest truck reads “35 Tons of Fun.” Gary, step-father of Heather and owner of A-One Towing, stands over the front of a hoodless black mustang, head twisted, eyes narrowed and focused on the scraps of a dusty engine.
“This has always been a part of my life,” Gary says, waving his arms, gesturing
towards the cars in the garage. “I would much rather be out on the road in the trucks with our employees than be stuck behind this desk in this office everyday.”
Gary has worked with mechanics from the day he walked across the stage in his cap and gown. His life, along with his family’s, revolves around A-One Towing, through fun times and sad nights. Gary has seen the shattered glass, the parents’ bland expressions of terror, the lifeless meaning inside each of the cars his company has towed.
Heather Morgan was there when her mother received the call from the police, reporting a ‘J-14’[a fatal accident]. “It’s go time,” Heather remembered Shaa saying. She was there when Kevin heard the news of his best friends’, Liscombe and Boss’s, deaths. She will always be there for A-One Towing, not just a business
of blood related employees, but a business of working together to pick up the pieces for those that need picking up. Those pieces of people’s lives caused all from one quick split second of a decision…to drink and drive.