Tuesday – The Scorched Spot
May. 5th, 2009 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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I was recently talking to a young man who'd grown up in the small town close to where I live – the one I mean when I say, "I'm going into town" (if I'm going into Houston, I say, "I'm driving into the city"). When I told him the area I lived in, he asked me if I ever noticed the burned place in the road on the way up to my neighborhood.
"I drive over it every day," I admitted, "when I hit the place where the asphalt buckles, I know it's almost time for me to turn, even in the dark."
"That was a bad accident," he said. "What was it, four or five people?"
"Five people died. Four of the older people in the van that got hit, and the 18 year old girlfriend of the guy driving the other car. One of the woman who got thrown from the van lived." Why I remember details like this is beyond me, but I do.
"She was 17," he said.
"The paper said 18."
"Nah, she was 17. I knew the guy who was driving. I went to high school with him. He's, like, 22, and she was 17."
"Really?"
"I tell you what, if they had put next to his senior picture, Most likely to kill 5 people in a car accident, I'd totally have believed it. I rode in a car with him once for like 5 miles, and I never did it again. You couldn't pay me enough to get in a car with him behind the wheel."
"Wow, he was that bad?"
"He was worse than that bad. I'm surprised it took him this long to kill someone."
"What happened?" the guys wife piped up. She recently moved from another town with her husband, and didn't know any of the people involved, or the story around them.
"On 249, just north of town, where it's 3 lanes going each way," I explained, "You'll notice this spot on the inside lane, right past an intersection, where the asphalts torn up and scorched. People drive too fast on that road all the time. It's a 65 zone, but you always see people taking it at 75 or 85."
"This guy was going more than 100," her husband said.
"They think he may have been racing with a motorcycle," I said.
"He ploys into this van full of people, and that's it – POW!" He demonstrated with his hand, one held out broad and flat to represent the van, and the other in a fist that slammed into it.
"They were all older people. One was this 82 year old man, and it was his first birthday since his wife died so his sister and her husband, and his daughter and her husband, wear taking him out to eat so he wouldn't have to celebrate alone. They were pulling out of the intersection when this kid slams into them." The two people I was talking to were the same age as the "kid," but that's how I always think of him since that I'm old enough to be him mother.
"There's a hill there, so if you're coming that fast there's no time to stop if someone cuts in front of you. He probably never saw them. It was a bad accident," her husband said, "the people in the van didn't die from the impact, they burned to death in the fire." Those were the 3 men.
"Both women got thrown from the car," I added, "One hit her head and died, the other broke her back but lived."
"And of course he killed his girlfriend, too."
"What happened to him?"
Her husband I shrugged at the same time.
"He's in a coma," her husband said.
"If he ever wakes up, he's facing 5 counts of vehicular homicide."
"I don't think he will," her husband said.
"Idiot," I said.
"A complete idiot," he agreed.
I drive over that spot almost every day. It's hard not to think about the accident, since my care goes "bump-ida, bump-ida, bump!" every time I drive over the spot. One bump for each man who burned alive, one ida for each woman killed by massive blunt trauma. I always wonder about the kid, since the papers never followed up with his fate. I assume he's still in a half-state between alive and dead, driving up medical bills that his family will probably never be able to pay off. The accident was in January. The rain has finally washed away the orange spray paint investigators used to mark the spot, and someone finally gathered up all the little white flags marking the debris field in the past few weeks. The pavement where the fire raged is still black and rutted, but that's the only sign left that anything happened there.
"He had a souped-up car and he did like to run it," the kid's stepfather was quoted as saying in the local paper.
If he doesn't pull through, maybe they should use that for his epitaph, along with the words, "See where it got him?"
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
I was recently talking to a young man who'd grown up in the small town close to where I live – the one I mean when I say, "I'm going into town" (if I'm going into Houston, I say, "I'm driving into the city"). When I told him the area I lived in, he asked me if I ever noticed the burned place in the road on the way up to my neighborhood.
"I drive over it every day," I admitted, "when I hit the place where the asphalt buckles, I know it's almost time for me to turn, even in the dark."
"That was a bad accident," he said. "What was it, four or five people?"
"Five people died. Four of the older people in the van that got hit, and the 18 year old girlfriend of the guy driving the other car. One of the woman who got thrown from the van lived." Why I remember details like this is beyond me, but I do.
"She was 17," he said.
"The paper said 18."
"Nah, she was 17. I knew the guy who was driving. I went to high school with him. He's, like, 22, and she was 17."
"Really?"
"I tell you what, if they had put next to his senior picture, Most likely to kill 5 people in a car accident, I'd totally have believed it. I rode in a car with him once for like 5 miles, and I never did it again. You couldn't pay me enough to get in a car with him behind the wheel."
"Wow, he was that bad?"
"He was worse than that bad. I'm surprised it took him this long to kill someone."
"What happened?" the guys wife piped up. She recently moved from another town with her husband, and didn't know any of the people involved, or the story around them.
"On 249, just north of town, where it's 3 lanes going each way," I explained, "You'll notice this spot on the inside lane, right past an intersection, where the asphalts torn up and scorched. People drive too fast on that road all the time. It's a 65 zone, but you always see people taking it at 75 or 85."
"This guy was going more than 100," her husband said.
"They think he may have been racing with a motorcycle," I said.
"He ploys into this van full of people, and that's it – POW!" He demonstrated with his hand, one held out broad and flat to represent the van, and the other in a fist that slammed into it.
"They were all older people. One was this 82 year old man, and it was his first birthday since his wife died so his sister and her husband, and his daughter and her husband, wear taking him out to eat so he wouldn't have to celebrate alone. They were pulling out of the intersection when this kid slams into them." The two people I was talking to were the same age as the "kid," but that's how I always think of him since that I'm old enough to be him mother.
"There's a hill there, so if you're coming that fast there's no time to stop if someone cuts in front of you. He probably never saw them. It was a bad accident," her husband said, "the people in the van didn't die from the impact, they burned to death in the fire." Those were the 3 men.
"Both women got thrown from the car," I added, "One hit her head and died, the other broke her back but lived."
"And of course he killed his girlfriend, too."
"What happened to him?"
Her husband I shrugged at the same time.
"He's in a coma," her husband said.
"If he ever wakes up, he's facing 5 counts of vehicular homicide."
"I don't think he will," her husband said.
"Idiot," I said.
"A complete idiot," he agreed.
I drive over that spot almost every day. It's hard not to think about the accident, since my care goes "bump-ida, bump-ida, bump!" every time I drive over the spot. One bump for each man who burned alive, one ida for each woman killed by massive blunt trauma. I always wonder about the kid, since the papers never followed up with his fate. I assume he's still in a half-state between alive and dead, driving up medical bills that his family will probably never be able to pay off. The accident was in January. The rain has finally washed away the orange spray paint investigators used to mark the spot, and someone finally gathered up all the little white flags marking the debris field in the past few weeks. The pavement where the fire raged is still black and rutted, but that's the only sign left that anything happened there.
"He had a souped-up car and he did like to run it," the kid's stepfather was quoted as saying in the local paper.
If he doesn't pull through, maybe they should use that for his epitaph, along with the words, "See where it got him?"
