"Sorry I was late. There was a car accident and I was a witness."
The event seemed simple in the retelling. But it
wasn't. There were a thousand blossoming layers which I couldn't
communicate to the police.
My family was having Chinese for dinner. Matthew and I
had had Chinese for lunch, so we opted to get our own dinner. After a
brief discussion, we decided to get frozen food at the local health food
store. We elected to walk and set out in the dark together.
At some point I skipped a step and without a word
Matthew began skipping too. He said that he had forgotten how to skip. I
laughed continuously, though it came out ragged with my breath. It was a
wonderful moment we created.
Matthew and I continually amaze ourselves with our
ability to talk and talk. We chatted all the way to the store. We walked
through the parking lot. A woman pulled into the parking lot the wrong
way (which isn't actually that unusual for this particular parking lot)
and then as Matthew and I walked by her (and she didn't slow down to avoid
us) she swung her Lexus SUV around into one of the slanted spots. This
would be something around a 150 degree turn and she didn't make it,
smacking into the front corner of a parked car. She hastily backed up,
and drove forward into a parking spot, hitting a shopping cart, driving
over the concrete barrier and coming to rest with the nose of her car on
the brick wall.
A woman had just come out of the store and it soon
became obvious that it was her car that had just been hit. A curly-haired
woman in the parking lot immediately offered to be a witness, and Matthew
and I almost went into the store to shop, but I let him know that I wanted
to be a witness.
The curly-haired woman gave her number and took off.
As I was writing mine down, the procedure began. "I need to see your
license and registration," the hittee stated. What proceeded was a long
process. The hittee kept asking for information and the hitter had
trouble providing it. She was having trouble making out what things were,
claiming her registration was her insurance. I said, "She'll also need
your driver's license." I had to say it four different times. When the
hitter brought it she offered it to me. I informed her who was the woman
who's car she had hit and she squinted at my like she couldn't tell the
difference between us. Matthew said that she was drunk, but I couldn't
imagine being so calm. Something was wrong, and I though it might be
drugs or medication. Everything about the hitter was inappropriate. She
offered to pay for all damages, but she was not apologetic and then she
kept trying to downplay the damage. "It's only the headlight." "No," I
explained for the fifth time, "You've hit the metal... We can all see
that."
The woman who hit the car was clearly completely out of
it, so I early on I asked the woman who's car had been hit if she would
like me to wait with her while she got the information she needed.
Matthew seemed unhappy, so he went off to the other side of the parking
lot, where he could watch without getting involved.
The hitter couldn't find her insurance card. First she
produced one that had expired in October 2001, then she offered her
registration again, and finally she pulled out something that looked like
the registration for another car. Both women were getting more and more
upset, so the hitter went to call her husband. The hittee kept babbling
about the woman not being insured. I said I'm sure that she renewed her
insurance but that she had forgotten to put the new card in her car. It
had only expired last month. I suggested that if she was truly concerned,
she could call the hitters insurance company and make sure that the policy
had been renewed.
I also explained to the hittee that she didn't need to
report the accident to her insurance company. I said that even if she was
going to, all she needed was the woman's driver's license number and
license plate number to track her down. I felt it was obvious that the
hitter was going to pay for all damages, even though she kept trying to
downplay them.
The hittee mentioned calling the police. I told her
that she didn't need to call the police to report the accident, only the
insurance company. I said that she should only call the police if she
felt the driver was intoxicated and needed to be tested.
If I had been in this situation, I would have called
the police immediately and said that there was a very small accident
involving a parked car but that I was certain the woman who had caused the
accident was under the influence and could someone please test her.
Apparently all that I had said went in one ear and out
the other, because the hittee decided at that point to get on her cell
phone and call the police to "report the accident." Several minutes
later, the hitter's husband and a mild-mannered friend of his showed up.
The hitter told them that the hittee was on the phone with the police,
which they were appropriately surprised by. They appraised the situation
and declared that there was little damage to the hit car. I couldn't
believe it. No one wants to hear you say, "It's no big deal!" when you
hit their car. They want to hear you say, "I'm so sorry," which the
hitter had not said even once.
In response to saying that their wasn't much damage, I
said to her husband, "I don't think that is the main concern."
"What is the main concern."
"That your wife is intoxicated."
He made a dismissive snort that I felt was a bit too
defensive for actually thinking she was lucid.
The husband produced the current insurance card and
then there was a pause while we all had nothing to do while the hittee
yammered away at the police. The husband stood about two feet from her,
clearly trying to listed to what she was saying. She clearly felt
uncomfortable and moved away. He followed. She moved again. He
followed. As he pressed into her space, and she backed further away, I
said, "Excuse me, sir. You're making that woman very uncomfortable;
could you please stop following her."
He responded, "I don't give a fuck about her comfort."
Then he walked right up to me, in my personal space, and said, "Fuck you,
bitch." I laughed -- an instinctive response.
He again made to follow the woman and I put my body
between them. He walked up to within an inch of me but I didn't move.
He told me to move and bumped me with his belly. I didn't move. He tried
to go around me and I stepped to the side to which he had moved. He
bumped me again and told me to move. I was certain he was going to push
me out of the way. He weighed around 300 pounds, so he would not have had
trouble sweeping me aside. I could see him considering it.
Suddenly Matthew was there. He got close to the guy
like the guy had gotten to me. "You're being really inappropriate, sir,"
Matthew said. I watched the old guy look Matthew up and down. Matthew is
26, 6'2, 200 pounds. This guy was actually considering stating something.
"What?" she spluttered. "What did I do?"
Matthew coolly replied, "You're intimidating that
woman."
I took off. I ran into the store. "Can someone
please call 9-1-1?"
"For what?" someone asked.
"There's been a car accident. Not an ambulance. Get
the police. Just the police." I was crying. This guy had wanted to
frighten me and it had worked. I ran back outside and spied the
payphones. I dialed 9-1-1. "Can you please send to police to the corner
of 15th and Montana?"
The operator responded, "You're on a cell phone and
you're refusing to give information." That took me a bit aback. "No, I'm
a witness on a payphone."
"We're sending someone."
It felt like an hour had gone by since it all began,
but it was probably less time than that. When the police showed up I
greeted them.
"There was a car accident. A woman hit a parked car
and seemed drunk or something. The woman who's car was hit had a hard
time getting the insurance information and called the police. The woman
who hit the car called her husband. He was harassing the other woman and
he yelled 'Fuck you, bitch!' at me and I called 9-1-1." Ah, the short
version.
Two of the officers took the hitter aside and gave her
a sobriety test. I gave my statement. Both woman had behaved so badly,
but that nasty husband had really taken the cake. We were dismissed and
Matthew and I went in to shop. We chatted with the cashier about the
pre-Thanksgiving grocery store rush. When we went back outside the cops
were still there. I asked the one who had interviewed me if there was
anything else he needed. He said no. "We're probably just going to have
them exchange information. The woman doesn't seem very drunk."
"Really?" I responded. She was very something other than sober.
"Yeah, she and her husband just came from dinner where they had two
bottles of wine between five people. That figures with our assessment.
She seemed to have had two glasses." I was really surprised that they
concluded that, but I guess talking to the cops will sober you up really
fast. The cop, who worked the K-9 unit, gave me some K-9 baseball cards
to give to the kids at work.
So Matthew and I walked home, talking the whole time
about how poorly these three people had behaved this fine evening.
