This week of suffering.
By now I have told just about everyone — even finally now my mother — about being hit by a car. I should probably speak no more of it and, better yet, should no longer think of it. But it is probably one of those incidents in life that will stick with me for years, if not forever.
For instance:
On Friday afternoon, I worked at the New Museum on the Bowery, sitting at the desk of one of the exhibition’s participating partner organizations. The show is themed around newspapers and the closest piece of artwork, on the wall to my left, was a series of photographs of a front page of The Los Angeles Times.
Funny, of the tens of thousands of front page possibilities — this one. Thursday, October 28, 1993. A coincidence. It was Friday, October 29th. Almost 17 years to the date of ”Inferno, Orange County.”
Southern California, as it is known to do, burns every few years. The brush fires are news easily forgotten. And so, probably, this was not a front page of importance for most. But this is not the case if I think over the memories of my own life.
My parents took me to our neighbor’s house to watch the fires. (I was 8 years old.) From their balcony, we watched the gigantic flames (you could see some individually) turn the sky a furious orange-red. It was truly an inferno, and nothing short of terrifying: a vision that I knew even then would stick. A few hours later (the fires still burning), this very paper (pictured) would have arrived on our driveway.
(On the following Sunday night, if memory serves correctly, we would have put it out on the sidewalk to be recycled.)
*
I always knew that, living in this city, I would be hit, sooner or later, by a car. So it did not come as a surprise.
I was on my way to dinner, in Park Slope. I took the train to 4th Ave and 9th, a station that I love likely only because it is elevated. I wanted to cross 4th Avenue and saw the light turn for me. I could: a, walk all the way to the beginning of the crosswalk and be in view of any approaching car for a few extra seconds. Or, b, I could save a few seconds and walk around a parked car and into the crosswalk. I have lived in the city for seven years so I chose the latter.
I walked into the crosswalk. I watched a car that had slowed down in the middle of the intersection, clearly watching a man who walked before me. I walked faster. The car picked up acceleration. It was continuing its turn, right at me, and I knew it would not stop. This is the clearest moment of my memory: This car is going to hit me. I was calm. Let’s get this over with, almost.
And so, it hit. It was hard. I remember the force, too, well. But where did it hit? How did it hit? When the adrenaline died down, and the pain began to emerge, I recreated the event in my mind. I found the image deeply troubling: my physical self, small and donned in a bright red coat, being smacked with a large piece of moving machinery.
It happened though, perfectly. Perhaps because I knew it was coming. I was thrown forward, off my feet, but I fell into a sitting position. My butt bore all the brunt. My head was spared, my back too. The car must have hit my upper thigh, but missed, mostly my knee. My hands were not scraped. My hairclip popped off my head from the force. I jumped up, and in doing so, I must have grabbed the barrette from the street: I found it later in my bag.
The man ran out of his car. He was young. From his t-shirt I could tell that he was a firefighter. He had just gotten off his shift, he told me. His hand shook as he held his driver’s license up for me. “Oh, it’s okay!” I said to him again and again because he was so frightened and I was so exhilaratingly happy: I had been hit by a car and yet— I was okay!
This was, I knew then, only a continuation of the wonderful week prior. So lucky! I had dinner, and returned home. The adrenaline drained. The pain began. Anxiety loomed: What if, what if, what if. In the cloudy sadness that followed I was left only with what remained: sore self-doubt.
