I have been in a few accidents over the years. Certainly, the one where the crazy woman thought she could fly over my car was the topper. I can still remember every moment of it in excruciating detail, right down to look on her face as she became a passenger in what used to be my back seat.
I have also seen my share of accidents as well. Half a dozen or so, moments in time where you are either in the right place or the wrong place, watching horror unfold before your very eyes, everything crashing and crumpling in uber-slow motion, your mind unable to comprehend what is exactly happening.
The last accident will certainly be etched into my memory for a long time, not because of any particular horror it presented, but because of the surreal circumstances that surrounded it instead.
It all began last Saturday. A last minute dinner invite from a friend sent me to Alderwood to have my first taste of authentic Korean food. Let me say that it’s always a good sign when everyone in the place is Korean. The cardboard box overflowing with curvaceous and slightly phallic Korean cucumbers was also a good sign.
I would tell you what I had for dinner, but I can’t pronounce any of it. I let my friend order everything, me not being able to really tell one dish from another on the menu. What I can say is that it was all delicious. I sat there wondering why I had never tried Korean food before. Hhm.
When dinner was over, we headed back to our respective cars. Night had fallen, and we chatted for a while, not really wanting to head back to our respective homes, but not really wanting to commit to any other activity since we had chores waiting for us.
It was then we heard the gut-wrenching sound of squealing tires and gnashing metal not far from us. Everything, ever so briefly, moved in slow motion.
Two cars had decided to say hello to one another in the intersection. We stood for a moment, not knowing what to do. I mean, no one wants to look like an accident chaser. There were plenty of people running to the scene, cellphones in hand to call the emergency trucks. We resisted temptation, not knowing that the other really wanted to sneak a peek. Ah, that famed Gemini curiosity.
Instead, we soldiered on awkwardly in our conversation. The topics at hand quickly took a back seat though as we kept glancing over at the intersection. Finally, we gave in and walked across the parking lot.
Yes, two cars had kissed quite hard in the intersection. Everyone seemed to be all right. Sirens blared and lights flashed from all directions. We were merely spectators, satiating our joint curiosity.
Then another accident occurred. A collision of souls as a stranger stepped up next to us. He was very curious. Not so much about the accident mind you, but curious because of the tales that he began to unfold like a piece of origami.
It seemed he too had been in an accident as well two weeks before. His semi, loaded with sheet rock, had met a car being chased by the police. The semi won, killing the man instantly. He was quite matter of fact about the whole thing, seeming unconcerned about the now dead driver, like he had hit an errant opossum instead.
My friend and I just looked at one another as he spun the tale of the stolen car, the police chase, the police car that ended up eating his load of sheet rock and the flattened suspect.
But why stop there? He continued to share snippets of his life. About how he was the father of two sets of triplets. Identical. All girls. He had fathered the first set when he was 14, the second when he was 15 1/2. He fell for the old wive’s tale that you couldn’t get a girl pregnant so soon after birth. He was wrong. And though he wasn’t old enough to drive, he was old enough to father six kids.
It seems everything turned out OK. They are all successful, he said. All of them have Masters degrees, all professionals – a doctor, a lawyer, a couple teachers.
As for our storyteller, he was still a truck driver, though a friend wants him to drive tow trucks instead, which led to his critique of the tow truck driver now picking up the two cars on the street. The guy failed to pass muster by the way.
Just one more story. he said. About a woman who he blind dated recently. A wealthy woman in a Mercedes. A fancy restaurant. She ordered his drinks and food for him, which didn’t set well with him. It ended with him being shuttled out the back door of the restaurant, not because he caused a scene, but the chef and the maitre d’ had a $50 bet on whether he would make it through dinner with this bitch and the bet couldn’t be paid out until he left the restaurant in both of their plain view.
Funny how accidents happen. A little crash in a street leads to the chance meeting of three people, endlessly fascinated by one another. It doesn’t matter if any of the stories were true. Our own certainly wasn’t. When he asked how we knew each other, we replied that we had just met. We said we both love accidents and had police scanners in our car. We came upon the scene at the same time, it was kismet and we planned to spend the rest of our lives together.
More stories, more accidents. It’s funny how life twists and turns the way it does, leading people to meet, to connect through a story or two, no matter how impossible, and how for that one moment, in this case, on a nondescript street in Lynnwood, three strangers become temporary friends, drawn together by happenstance and a really good story.
In the Emerald City and not by accident,
– Robb