by Rick Murcer
As the dancing, wind-driven snowflakes bounced from my windshield like an endless swarm of pallid insects, I cranked up the stereo and began to bellow out The Christmas Song, accompanying the incomparable Nat King Cole, (who really didn’t need my assistance, but hey, it was Christmas and I was in a charitable mood.) After a few bars, I looked into the rearview mirror and noticed the halogen lights of the vehicle behind me vacillating in a manner that often accompanies lack of control. Not a terribly encouraging trait on icy, snow-swept roads at fifty miles-per-hour.
I kept my intense vigil as the vehicle grew closer and consequently larger, much larger, moving precariously closer to my red 2000 Ford Taurus, almost blinding me in the process.
It was obviously a much bigger means of transportation than mine, and the fearful little feeling one acquires when panic replaces tension began rising up from somewhere south of my throat. I would later find out that it was a Chevy Tahoe being guided, or not guided, as the case proved out, by a teenage driver who was trying to impress his companions with his newly-discovered ability to drive in winter weather. Did I say I love kids?
Backing off the accelerator in hopes that the driver of vehicle behind me would realize the error of their way and slow down accordingly was my first mistake.
The unit appeared to pick up speed and now was literally inches from my bumper and eminent disaster for one, or both, of us. I considered tapping the brakes in that situation, but it could have done more harm than good. Moreover, what was wrong with the driver, was he blind?
Nat was still crooning while I queried through my options traveling an icy two-lane with a moronic driver behind the wheel of a large SUV fixing to become my car’s proctologist and maybe mine in the process.
Those options were few.
My perspiration was now beginning to out-perform the holiday air freshener hanging from the mirror, odorizing the interior of my car with refreshing evergreen and tantalizing candy cane, with good reason; I only had about a mile before we reached the busy, major intersection drawing Hwy. 62 and Hwy. 85 together.
The traffic light at this particular junction was notoriously slow to turn and, in this weather, the hue of the light meant much less than the velocity of oncoming traffic. San Francisco driving had nothing on the likes of rural Michigan traffic or its drivers. Right of way was more like a suggestion.
I glanced to my left, eyes wider than a cartoon character, and could see a stream of headlights in the north- bound lane and to my right ranged a ten to twelve-foot drainage ditch with steep banks and tall snow banks cascading into an intimidating “V”. That’s when the first recoil between bumper and trunk jolted me to the next level of terror. I guess that wouldn’t be terror, it would be terror two?
“Oh God,” I croaked.
I guess I was hoping my pathetic plea, reeking of carnal desperation, would send an instant army of God’s angels to rescue me from whatever unpleasantries destiny seemed to have ordained for me.
Don’t laugh, one can hope. I was hoping my derriere off.
The next glimpse was of my wavy red hair in the rearview mirror and wondered if it would still be attached to my scalp when this was over. Or, even if my head would be, you know, would still be connected.
I wasn’t overly optimistic.
The Taurus progressed into its horrifying, control less spin with my hands virtually squeezing the steering wheel into gray synthetic pulp. In the vernacular of my co-worker, Abbey Manis, I was pretty much bent over two ways from Sunday.
According to some, experts I suppose, time slows to an inexplicable creep in situations like this. I’ve read that it was the brains way of helping the body to survive. Apparently my brain was tired of the rest of me because a slowing of my environment was the last thing I experienced. In fact, if things had moved any faster, I would have passed out.
I’d always pretty good at keeping my limited wits in tight situations so my brain reminded me to do all of the things we were taught in the infamous drivers training course required of every high school student. I tapped the brakes, turned into the spin, swore like a sailor, and begged for the car to listen to my voice, blah, blah, blah. Nothing worked.
It became increasingly apparent that I needed an unanticipated miracle to avoid boatloads of pain...or worse. I then rushed to the most universal of defaults in times like these, I prayed like a man being ominously strapped into a Texas electric chair.
As if by some divine cue, or just sheer crappy driving by one or both of us, I received my answer almost immediately, in the form of another bone jarring thump to the Taurus’s rear, compliments, of course, of the large car traversing amazingly close to my slow-spinning vehicle.
Immediately after the spontaneous slam to the right quarter panel, Old Red straightened out and the spinning segment of my road adventure was complete. I was entirely grateful. Spinning and I don’t get along.
I am one of those folks that can spontaneously puke by just helping some little tike stay steady for a couple revolutions on the playground’s merry-go-round. Motion sickness and I have deep-rooted love and hate relationship. I hate to puke and it loves to make me.
In any event, I barely had time to blurt out the breath I had been jealously hoarding (one never knows when the opportunity to take another may present itself and I was taking no chances) and to focus wide eyes through the snowy windshield.
I didn’t care for what was next on my dance card.
This nightmare was spiraling into just that, a nightmare. I was no longer traveling along the intended route the engineer had designed for this shimmering, ice-covered asphalt ribbon. I was, instead, streaking out of control toward the twelve-foot trench that doubled as a drainage ditch, and perhaps, in this fastidious instance, a frigid underwater deathtrap.
I find it amazing how one’s sense of positive thinking evolves into a disciple of Murphy’s Law under circumstances such as these. I, wanting not to offend the masses concerning that paradigm, knew without a fraction of misplaced doubt, death was waiting with open arms for me. Of course, I would first have to go through the horrific act of striking the embankment and watch, in even more pointed, horrific, slow motion, as I sank slowly to the bottom of the frigid, watery trench.
Old Gabe could already feel my body temperature dropping twenty degrees. I suddenly wondered what my underwear would feel like in that environment.
Hey, think about it.
I then did what every able-bodied, macho man on the planet would resort to and covered my face, screamed like a terrified school girl, and waited for death’s scythe to harvest yet another soul.
2-Chapter
IN THE PAST, WHEN I HEARD PEOPLE SPEAK OF THEIR LIVES PASSING IN front of their eyes, in perilous situations like my current predicament, I paid it little credence and passed it off as an urban legend or some old, less quantitative, wives tale.
I hate being on a roll because I was wrong again, dead wrong.
In the instant before impact, I saw much.
Hurts I had administered, wrongs I had perpetuated involving people I had never really met or, at the very least, forgotten. Intentional or not, I felt what those poor souls had felt.
My humiliation and shame involving certain contexts were driven even deeper with the knowledge of selfish desires and ambitions that really had no defined purpose, other than to fulfill some self-centered impulse. Like, for instance, the incident with the peacock feathers and my grandfather’s tractor. (There will not be more information forthcoming on that little episode.) Even if I survive what’s coming.
There were good things, too. Wonderful things.
Meeting Kara had been the very best thing to happen to me. Her undaunted support and influence had coursed through my adult life with remarkable consistency.
I saw her enchanting, beryl-green eyes gazing at me with such love that it had startled me, again. That expression, that unexplainable gaze impressed even more intently my nearly complete lack of understanding of why a woman with her undeniable
physical beauty, (she is hot) and unmatched gentleness could have been drawn to someone as ordinary as me.
I heard once that we should never question the destinies that lure loving soul mates to one another, no matter what that looks like to the rest of the world. I haven’t. Okay, maybe once, or three thousand times.
Or in other terms; don’t knock it.
Strangely, there also appeared, in this instantaneous reflection of my rather unremarkable existence, a very young, wonderful face accompanied by one much older; almost ancient.
They were both people I knew I’d never met, but each held a countenance that radiated such eccentric familiarity, that they both caused my heart to jump.
Not the heart that pumps blood, that one was surely jumping enough already, but the one that is purely undefinable emotion. We all have it. We all covet more of it, and we all spend time denying it, at least to ourselves.
Yet, as my immediate circumstances would dictate, I really had no time to dwell on these unusual visualizations, as it were, because precipitously my stream of life-experiences and back-visions were abruptly interrupted by the loathsome collision I‘d been anticipating.
The impact was . . . brilliant.
My head slammed forward at the same time my airbag deployed, countering the forward momentum of my somewhat prodigious noggin. I’m not great at physics, but even I knew this was going to hurt. Yep, it did.
I’m no boxer, but I felt like Mike Tyson had decided I was an IRS agent and began to rearrange my face. It wasn’t just my pretty cheek bones either.
I heard popping and cracking as my vertebrae spoke, debating whether to put me in a wheelchair, end my life, or just make some spine wrenching chiropractor the happiest person in the fine village of North Star. I had vaguely wondered if my insurance policy included clauses that cover prolonged ventures into the realm of natural healing, or would I be calling myself from the collection agency, demanding payment for unpaid treatments? Bizarre deliberations, I admit, but, as they say . . . well, who really cares what the hell they say?
That’s what was going on in the old thought process, for whatever reason.
With my head firmly encased within a nitrogen-filled nylon bag pressing entirely too fiercely, intimately sharing its somewhat putrid chemical odor on my face, I felt the car side wind after the head-on kiss, strike the bank, and rise up on the two passenger-side tires like a cartoon scene from Speed Racer. (Isn’t it wondrous how he and Jeff Gordon could be twins?)
There it remained, balanced for what seemed like an eternity. I wondered what was taking so long and why fate was teasing me like this way.
By then, there had almost no question that I was already paralyzed from the neck down anyway so let’s just get this debacle over with. But fate, as it turned out, had other plans and the car dropped, as gently and ceremoniously as possible, back to all fours, crunching snow and ice while completing its unlikely journey to stability.
I took a few seconds to evaluate what had just happened. Good God, I was alive. I hadn’t gone down the Valley of Ice. In fact, I hadn’t even hung on the precipice of the sinister ice hell just feet away.
Maybe my desperate pleading to a God I didn’t know had worked. Or maybe my Irish luck had finally worked for once. Either way, air bag and all, I knew I was a live.
Elation over that truth hardly covered the significance of that unexpected gift.
A moment later, I made the hardest decision I had ever made to date, well, other than evoking all my will not too wet myself. I decided to get out of Old Red, but that meant I’d have to move my left leg, something quadriplegic’s couldn’t accomplish.
I gathered every ounce of intestinal fortitude, and then gave it my best shot and—nothing happened.
My mind ran berserk with thoughts regarding the difficulty, or lack of, with moving one’s leg. After all, I had been doing it a hell of a long time, right? Unless, of course, one has lost all sense of motor control and is destined to become dependent on wheelchairs, church ladies, and Meals-On-Wheels.
Not relishing the thought of Kara leaving me and being forced to beg for food, I gathered my remaining courage and attempted to wiggle my right toes and…they frittered around my size ten wingtip. I had hope.
Bravery coursed through my veins like an illegal drug and I attempted, successfully, to move my arms and hands. Everything was working except for my left leg. Three out of four ain’t bad.
One can’t imagine the feeling of pure relief that moment rendered. I felt warm tears gather, and then I manned-up and sent them packing, nearly.
By now the pallid airbag had deflated at a rapid pace, allowing my eyes access to the real world, and more importantly, more sweet air rushed to my lungs.
Reaching out my left hand with new-found confidence, I dialed the dome light to on and could immediately see the reason my left leg hadn’t responded to my effort. The emergency brake foot pedal had dropped down against my leg, pinning it fast against the inside firewall. It had apparently come loose from the fabulous assembling that American-made autos are known to perform.
Gingerly, and with less pain than I had anticipated, I reached the foot pedal’s steel linkage and pulled. It gradually, as I exerted increased effort, moved to the right, just enough, to allow my calf well-earned freedom. I rubbed the pinched area and immediately thought that Thor would have been proud of my exhibition involving super-human strength. On the other hand, he probably wouldn’t have rubbed his calf with half the enthusiasm I had.
I took a moment to be thankful to a God Who may or may not be real there for keeping me safe. I learned a long time ago to cover as many bases as possible. There was no mistaken that I was here and lucky it was so. This little incident had had the potential to be something other than just a well-embellished story to entertain my friends with for the next few months. Far more
With everything working well enough, I decided that my blood pressure had dropped to an acceptable level and it was now time to survey the damage rendered to my long-time faithful Big Red. I pulled the door handle, heard the hinges creak like some trap door scene in a grade “B” horror flick, and stop at about half its full range.
“Crap,” I muttered.
Always something, have you noticed?
I sighed, retrieved black leather, fur-lined gloves (necessary apparel during the frozen winters of Michigan) from the floor and began the ordeal of squeezing my one-hundred and ninety-pound frame through the opening. I keep myself in fairly good shape so it wasn’t going to be too daunting of a task. Don’t get me wrong, at forty-three, I had no offers to model naked, (well, there was that one incident at the office Christmas party a couple of years back. I refused on the grounds that the security cameras were still very much functional), but I could still get around a softball field pretty well.
As I exited the car, the snow still fell and was swirling gently, although not as intently as a few minutes, I prior glanced around and observed slow-moving headlights shining from both directions, and for a moment, those lights caught the splendor of huge, dancing flakes reflecting against the evening’s darkened background. Dazzling. Interesting the beauty one can observe in even the most stressful of situations. Then again, my stress was over. I’d made it.
Tiptoeing with ice-induced caution toward the front of the vehicle. I could see that the hood, bumper, and engine were tangled and now were somewhat related to an accordion. It was a minor miracle the door opened at all. Perchance it would have been better, for me, if it hadn’t. I guess, from my point of view, the jury is still out on that one.
Cursing in my house had been a no-no. I didn’t care at that moment. I cursed. Well, mayhap. I don’t know, is “oh, horse balls” cursing?
My deceased mom, bless her heart, had infused into her three children the principle of “if you can’t say something nice, shut up” so growing up there weren’t many idle words floating around the Stark homestead. I didn’t think even she would mind, given my current state of affairs. I know tha
t because I heard her say the same thing when my father had come home with two new Lab puppies one Christmas. She also had said something to him about not getting close to her for a month. I figured out what that meant a little later in life.
I’m fairly new to the whole cell phone culture so it took a moment for me to realize I didn’t need to flag down a vehicle, instead I could just pull the little flip toy, (I had one that reminded me of an original Star Trek communicator), out of my coat pocket and call 911. I reached in, pulled the black and silver phone out, flipped it open with Kirk-like flair, and straightaway dropped it into ten inches of cold, wet snow. I didn’t have Abbey Mani’s flair or talent for double cursing. I gave it a shot anyway.
Twisting toward the general direction the phone had done a three and one-half gainer; I spotted the severely muted blue light throbbing just beneath a bank of white.
Realizing I could still get home for hot chocolate and some trumped up explanation to Kara that I need special treatment tonight, I bent to retrieve the accursed thing, as any reasonable person would. That was my second mistake.
As I rummaged through the snow, I swiftly realized that my world was becoming ever so much brighter. Like football-field flood lights all being switched on simultaneously.
I stood straight up and began to gyrate toward the perceived source of that light. Before I completed that turn, the night was shattered by the heart-stopping scream of dual air horns speaking to my ears from a location entirely too close to exist as a good thing.
By reflex, I cupped my ears and turned just in time to see the jackknifed semi-tractor skidding directly toward me.
There was simply no time to move or even scream, and oddly, no time to see my life flash before me for the second time in a ten minute stretch. Not even sufficient time for an attempt at a triple curse as I watched helplessly as fifty Thousand pounds of steel and glass slammed into me. The impact drove me into Big Red with as much resistance as ten-ounce rag doll and with all of the authority the runaway vehicle could muster. I felt everything, and then nothing.
