After leaving the F-Bomb laced message for his father, Brig felt elated. Not only had he freed himself of the commitment to go on a church mission, but he had stood up to his father, face-to-face, man-to-man. Unfortunately, he lacked the prophecy gene and could not foresee his accelerating decline into a life of excess and debauchery. His religion and his family were the only things that had been propping him up, and when they were no longer there to provide him the structure he needed, his demise was fast and furious. Until that point, Brig had only drunk beer and occasionally hard liquor, but he had avoided drugs. The climbing community that Brig had attached himself to had several counter-culture, hippy-dippy marijuana smokers who were generous with their weed. Brig had never succumbed to that specific temptation, primarily out of the responsibility he felt to his family and faith, but also a deep fear of his father and what VII might do if he ever found out. Alcohol was one thing, but drugs, Brig feared, would take things to a whole new level.
But now, Brig was free of those chains. He no longer cared what his father thought. In fact, he wanted his father to find out, so VII could blame himself for Brig’s bad behavior. Brig’s efforts to come out of the party closet were tentative at first, but as the third anniversary of his mother’s death approached the SLCPD took Brig into custody for DUI and possession of an illegal substance. A small plastic bag that contained less than an ounce of marijuana was lying in plain sight on the Range Rover’s passenger seat. When the officer asked Brig to step out of the car, he responded angrily, slurring a foul-language laced invective that referenced Brig’s father and the officer’s mother. When he tried to speed off, he was flummoxed as the gear shift wouldn’t engage. Brig was so out of it he hadn’t realized that he had turned the car’s engine off.
The officer dragged Brig out of his car through the open window, forced him face down on the road, and cuffed his hands behind his back. Brig smiled as he lay on the cold winter asphalt of Salt Lake City’s State Street, watching the red and blue lights of the police car lighting up the crime scene and listening to the sound of the officer on his radio calling for assistance. VII would come unhinged, Brig thought pleasantly.