It's one thing to hear about a lethal accident while watching the evening news, but it's another to see the damage in person. I'm no police officer, no firefighter, no paramedic. I was fresh out of high school when I heard the distant banging of metal that concluded in a explosive bang, like someone had been beating at a steel drum set and then blew it up Keith Moon-style. Everybody from the apartment complex was pointing fingers and dragging each other towards the scene at the nearby highway. The kids made it there first with their parents frantically playing catch-up. I went by myself and saw my first car accident up close and in person.634Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH2QYNro2q0
Traffic had to be squeezed down the northbound half of the route, because the wrecked car had closed off the southbound half. All of the passing drivers slowed to a crawl to catch a glimpse of the wreckage. I stood atop a slope of rocks beneath the overpass, watching as firefighters did what they could to pry the driver out of the car. All while red and blue lights spun in endless circles from both sides of the accident.
If I had seen the wreckage sitting in a field away from any road, I wouldn't have guessed that what I was looking at was once a functioning car. It looked like a crumbled up ball of paper that someone hurled at one of the support columns for the overpass. The column itself was cracked but otherwise shrugged off the car like it was nothing more than a ball of paper.
“What happened here?”
I looked down to see a middle-aged man with a mustache that was rivaled only by a young Nick Mason's. But Horseshoe, as I called him, looked like he'd rather spend his spare time drinking cold beer in his reclining chair rather than playing drums to Comfortably Numb.
“I hear a car rolled over before slamming into the column.” I told him what I overheard from everybody else. If I was the only bystander, my best answer would have been a shrug of my shoulders. I had played out the scene in my head, using the trail of broken glass and spare metal as guides, but I don't think my imagination ever came close to what really happened.
“Is that so?” The man turned towards the wreckage and stood on his toes. I estimated he was about six feet tall, but his height didn't help him see over the lines of cars. He turned around and took careful steps to the halfway point of the slope, where his head was just beneath mine, and whistled after seeing the accident for himself. “Damn. How long ago did this happen?”
“An hour ago, I think.”
“Hmph. And they're still prying the driver out of his car.” He scoffed, crossed his arms, and added, “I hope he's not bleeding to death in there.”
If he's still alive, I thought. A crumbled ball of paper makes for a better coffin than home for a bug, and I've always felt the same about a car.
Metal screeched as a firefighter wielding the Jaws of Life peeled off the last bit of the roof that had caved in over the driver's seat. I didn't see the driver himself, but I saw the reaction of the firefighter blocking my view. He turned around and held his hand up to his mouth, like he was trying not to lose his lunch. A range of images flashed through my mind because of that. They ranged from a squeamish firefighter seeing his first corpse while on the clock to a body torn apart like a Mr. Potato Head toy to the driver coddling the remains of his pet.
The firefighter with the Jaws of Life tapped his partner on the shoulder and said something. “Are you all right?” I guessed, because the squeamish one nodded. Jaws clapped Squeamish on the shoulder, set the machine down, and climbed on top of the car. He bent over, but because Squeamish was still in my way, I couldn't see what they were doing.
Horseshoe was bobbing his head left and right, trying to see what they were doing. “Goddamn son of a bitch in my way!” He started towards his left, stepping carefully on the rocks in a manner that reminded me of using stepping stones to cross a creek. One rock didn't take too kindly to his foot and slipped out from beneath his leg, nearly sending him crashing onto the pile. “Dammit! They're going to need to call a second ambulance at this rate,” he said as he stepped down from the pile. Several people turned their attention towards him, but he ignored them and walked along the bottom of the rock pile.
I looked back at the car to find my heart sinking. Jaws lifted the driver out of the seat by his armpits, and Squeamish was hooking his arms beneath the knees. The body was bloodied and the clothes tattered, but I could now see what nearly caused Squeamish to reunite with his lunch.
The driver's head was missing, but it wasn't cut off like a guillotine clotheslined him while he was driving. It looked like a shark with saw blades in place of teeth had taken off the driver's head down to his sternum, with red ribbons of flesh dangling from the opening. They reminded me of confetti you'd throw at a surprise party, but the only guest celebrating at this party would be the Devil himself.
“Jesus!” I heard Horseshoe exclaim a good twenty feet from me. Several other people had stolen my idea of using the rocks as a lookout point. All of them gasped or brought their hands to their mouths in a shocked or nauseated gesture.
Jaws and Squeamish carried the body over to a body bag that a paramedic laid down on the ground for them. The pair carefully placed the body into the bag, which reminded me of similar scenes from the crime shows that everybody likes. The pale body laying motionless, yet looking as if it could sit up at any moment. But here, I didn't feel like I was watching two firefighters load a body into a bag but a Halloween decoration. Like the party was over, and they were putting the prop away for next year while still in costume. Hell, if it hadn't been the middle of summer, I might have for a second thought that this was part of an act in the spirit of Halloween.
Jaws zipped the bag up to the shoulders while saying something to Squeamish, who violently shook his head and held up his hands in a stopping gesture. Jaws nodded his head and walked back to the car by himself, and Squeamish walked away from the body bag while rubbing his temples. Their gestures told me how their brief conversation went.
“We still have to look for the head in the car,” Jaws said.
“No, no! I don't think I can handle anymore!”
“That's all right.”
I hope Squeamish has a backup job option, because I don't think he's cut out for this sort of work. After today, he might have thought the same.
I saw from the corner of my eye Horseshoe walking back towards me beside the rocks. I expected a comment about Squeamish's poor choice in careers, but he started rambling about something else: “It's a real shame, it is,” he said two steps up the slope. “The driver's probably not a day over thirty, thirty-two, and his time's over.”
“That's pretty impressive guessing a person's age without a face to look at,” I said.
“Just a guess,” he admitted while shaking his head. “To be honest, I'm splitting the difference between how old I think he was and how old I wish he was.”
“Why do that?”
“The older he was, the less he missed out on in life,” Horseshoe said solemnly.
“Not that it matters anymore,” I blurted out.
“No, but I'd sleep better thinking that he was an old man with terminal cancer who tried to play bowling with his car than some college kid, newly wed, or a proud, new father.” He sighed and then continued: “I think the worst part is that a week or two from now, a month or two at the most, no one will remember him.”
I parted my lips to counter his argument, but he beat me.
“They'll all adjust and move on with their lives.”
That statement I couldn't rebuttal like that last one. I'd seen kids skip school for a week or two because their parents died, but they returned and always acted like nothing happened. “That's pretty harsh,” I said to Horseshoe. I had the urge to argue against his second-to last sentence, but I wanted to see what else he had to say.
“Maybe, but it's the truth, kid. That man may be dead, but people will still wake up, go to work, to school. They might read about his death, but they'll never think, 'Oh no! Now I'll have to wait longer in line at the gas station!' or, 'Who will drive the bus my kid rides to school?' or even, 'Now that's one less shitty driver I have to deal with.' They just shrug their shoulders and forget about what they read.”
“Will you remember him?” I asked.
“I'll think about him here and there, but I'm no exception. My life won't stop because his did. And I have no doubt that you're the same.”
Horseshoe didn't say anything else. I returned my attention back to the car, where several police officers, firefighters, and paramedics searched for the man's missing head. Several more scoured the grass the car cut across during its rollover.
To them, I thought, this is just another day on the job. Horseshoe's words echoed in my head: They'll forget about today and this man. And I have no doubt that you're the same.
He was right about everything else, and I wish he was right about that last thing.
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