Two cars hit each other outside my house sometime after dark. A boyish man in a truck puttered to a stop halfway in my drainage ditch. It had just started to pour so I sat outside smoking under the only part of covered deck available. I deepened that ditch for when the rains started. Flooding season.
Further down the street I could see blinking hazards of a small sedan, only the outline. The boyish man got out of the truck saying something about how sorry he was. He was speaking to whomever was in the sedan. He went to the passenger side door, and I could hear her voice now, though I’m not sure exactly what she said.
‘If you would help me get my olives,’ is what I best managed to make out.
An old woman out driving in the first storm of the season with jars of olives clanking over unseen potholes. What a smell that car will hold after tonight. Wet olive seats, never rung out. Perhaps the car was totaled just from this.
The boyish man opened the door and offered his hand. The old woman, having climbed to the passenger side, emerged like a great troll from a bridge. She stood no taller than her car, due in part to the hunch her back had molded into over time. She began to point at the back of her car which was still blinking in the middle of the road.
But, what was the damage? From my smoking post I could see the front axle of the truck bent in some fuckery. They both must have misjudged the width of the road, thinking it smaller than it actually is. In their defense, the fallen leaves on the shoulder and the puddling rain make it seem quite thin.
With two large paper bags in his arms, full of what I can only assume was olives, the young man-boy ran back to his truck and placed them inside the cabin. Then he ran back and the old woman took his arm. She was moving fine, couldn’t have been moving better before the accident.
They came around the back of her car when they were lit by headlights coming around the bend. Both of them stood plainly like a couple dunce deer. A drip dropped onto my joint. I shouted something like, ‘shit.’ Then the darkness lit up a bright red and the car came slowly weaving around the hazards. The two figures moved from the street and let the car pass.
It was at this point that I wondered if I was supposed to be making a call to someone. But, the apathy of a bystander was seeping through me. Plus the young buck seemed to have it mostly covered and I was enjoying my spectator’s role.
They made it to his truck and he placed her inside, next to her olives. Then he started to make some calls, shining a light on his truck and walking to her car. He stayed there a while. I glanced inside my door where I kept my heavy spotlight and took another hit.
‘No, no one is injured.’ I heard.
Then, ‘I don’t know if she knows where she was headed. Maybe someone can come down to take her home. She’s not to worried about her car just these jars of damn—‘
Olives, I thought.
Then more headlights appeared, this time accompanied by music. Something lifted and heavy was coming down the road, fast. It didn’t need to swerve around the old woman’s car, because it was already on the wrong side of the road. So without breaking speed it wizzed by, catching the truck near the left tail light and ripping through metal as it pushed all the olives and the poor old woman further into the ditch. My fence be damned.
The man child boy stood with his hands over his head while it happened. The perpetrator kept going. And about five minutes later the first tow rolled up and started lighting flares.
There was a lot of screeching getting that lady’s car out from the middle of the road and onto the tow. It must have been a mess of a front bumper. Eventually the tow left, presumably went to the other side of the river and crossed again to come back up my street the other way. Then it attached to the car’s rear instead.
A sheriff pulled up and it made me think of the rangers. It wasn’t their job to be at scenes like this but they usually were. I heard the second hit being explained and the sheriff took off.
I lit another joint and the boy looked my way for the first time. I quickly closed my lighter. He brought his hand to his forehead to block the rain and strenuously peered through the blanket of night between us. Then he gave up and went back to his truck to check on the old woman.
‘Another tow coming in ten!’ The tow driver yelled with his hand out the window. Then he took off with that strapped-in-ball-o-metal.
It was quiet again until the next tow. The sheriff circled back too. They formed a group next to the truck, standing in the gutter. I held my breath and put my hood behind my ears, which undoubtedly makes your hearing increase tenfold.
‘It ain’t right to talk about on a scene like this. We’ve already had two fatalities this week. It ain’t right to talk about.’
‘Poor thing doesn’t even know what’s going on. You heard what Sheryl said from the clinic. She’s been exhibiting dementia prerequis—requisites. Or whatever.’
‘She ought to at least know where she lives.’
‘Well hell, I know that. She’s right over East Austin Creek. But I don’t feel comfortable taking her home.’
‘You think we should take her to the clinic?’
‘Clinic ain’t open, would have to be the hospital.’
‘That’s a ways.’
‘But what about the rest of it?’
The group looked back at the truck.
‘Someone’s gotta tell her there’s no olives in there.’
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