Crash

We got a wake up call the other day. I’d driven to Roxbury, Vermont to watch my son Callum and some other local boys play tennis at a camp. It was supposed to be a tournament but it was really just kids and chaos. It was a luxury to be there, a break from the madness. I drove to Roxbury with my niece, Christie, visiting from England. I grew up on the other side of Roxbury Mountain, so it was fun to sit in the sun and tell boring stories about childhood.

Christie and I sat in the hot sun on the bleachers. Cal and his buddy played doubles on a far court.  Beyond the court was Route 12A and beyond that a field and then the beginnings of the Dog River. As kids we fished the Dog, and spied on this camp.

Christie is my wife’s niece – her sister’s daughter – and I’ve known her since she was eight. And now she’s thirty. She’s a teacher and I bet a good one. I bet she grades the parents.

We sat in the bleachers and talked away, sat in the sun watching the game, chatted with the sparse crowd, wished we had water. It was my birthday, a nice easy day.

When the tennis ended we collected my boy, made sure no other locals needed rides and headed back toward Montpelier on Route 12, the scenic route. We stopped at a gas station so Cal could get a snack and a drink. We wandered a bit around Northfield, a small college town between the tiny village of Roxbury and Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. I filled the car with gas. Cal came out of the station with a chocolate milk protein drink and a twix bar. We were off.

The three of us talked about tennis and Christie filled us in on her plans to maybe move to the Lake District. The Lake District is in Cumbria, in England, where Beatrix Potter lived and wrote her children’s stories. The Lake District looks about the same as it did when Potter wrote about Peter Rabbit and all the others. It is a beautiful part of England. It is now a national park. It got so crowded a few years ago they closed the county to traffic. Crazy. It would be an interesting place to live. We talked about the Lakes, her plans, what her Mum and Dad thought, where she’d live.

It was a bluebird day, not too hot, bone dry. We planned a cookout that night with a few friends. Nothing could be better.

And then a young woman heading the opposite way on Vermont Route 12 drove right into us. She was turning left into a shopping mall. She was driving a Subaru Impreza. She was right there, not ten feet in front of us. I saw the surprise on her face when she saw us, like we’d just appeared out of thin air. I turned hard right but we were so close. I don’t remember anything after that until I was out of the car.

We hit essentially head on. I saw the girl climb out of her car. She was on her hands and knees. We’d pushed her car many feet away and spun it around. I turned back toward my car, dazed, and looked for my son and niece. I felt a thick, sticky liquid on my face and arms. It was dripping off my forehead.

I turned back to my car and called to Cal. ‘Are you okay!’ I called to Christie.

The viscous stuff was on my lips so I licked it. It was sweet. And chocolaty. I saw Cal. He was out of the car too. He was covered in chocolate milk.

‘Yes, I’m good,’ he said. Christie came up and put her arm around me in the best schoolmarm manner. ‘I’m fine, Uncle David,’ and she steered Callum and me to the curb. I talked with the girl from the other car, sobbing but unhurt.

Cal said softly ‘the car’s on fire.’ Christie yelled firmly ‘the car’s on fire!’ Cal and I walked to the car and reached in to grab some valuables. He grabbed his twix bar. I went to the back and pulled out a tennis racket and a baseball bat. I left my iPhone and passport in the car. Cal left his iPod. Rattled, I guess. Our schoolmarm took us away from the burning wreck.

In a minute it seemed fire and rescue were on scene and the fire was out. A fireman swept the shards off the road. The cars were towed. Traffic flowed again.

 Cal gave the girl from the other car his twix bar, saying he’d heard chocolate was good after a crash. Christie reminded him he’d learned that from Harry Potter movies. Chocolate is good for you after a dementer attack.

The police took statements. I iced my hand. The next day Jackie and I went and cleared our stuff out of the car.

Before that moment life seemed so fast and important. Drive here and there, fit everything in. 

Less than a second. Inches. Anything different at that moment and my boy might be gone, the call to Jackie’s sister might have been the hardest call of my life, a young girl in a Subaru could have suffered more than sorrow at turning at the wrong time.

The girl wasn’t doing anything wrong – not texting or anything – she was just not paying attention. I was not on my phone either but could easily have been. I use my phone in the car like it’s part of me. Not any longer. We were both going slow.

Less than a second. I’m still marveling at it. As one dear friend put it, the best birthday present I ever will get was all of us walking away from that car. The best thing I can take from it is to treat driving like it’s real, like it’s meaningful. A wake up call.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio