"Is he not fragrant?"

January 19, 2008

Car accident yesterday—an unusal event for me, in that I was actually involved in the mishap. I was taking a routine trip to the big hardware store to get a key made for the new truck—a spare to attach somewhere in case I get locked out or show up to drive it away without a way to start it up. As I approached the road the store is on, a woman was nosing her car out of a gas station to my right. I was in a line of traffic, driving along at maybe twenty-five miles per hour. I edged around her, steering my car to the left. At that moment she pulled out, hitting the side of my car—over on the passenger side. We pulled over, exchanged information; it was a miracle—in my disorganized way—that I was able to find my insurance card and so on. I finally discovered it, along with the owner’s manual—in a bag of trash.

I saw no damage to my car until later, when I stopped by the place where I keep the work truck. I parked it in the light, having noticed on the drive over from the hardware store that the car was pulling to one side. It was then that I noticed where her car had hit mine: There were scrapes along the front wheel and fender and the door itself. I tried the door, unable to open it without getting caught on some bent metal. I took one of my wrecking bars—which I happened to have in the back of the car—and pried the metal aside. The door opens just fine now, and the car doesn’t look so bad. The woman who hit me had some damage to the front of her car; the bumper was scraped and the license plate torn off. A young bearded man who materialized out of the night went and fetched her license plate from the roadway. The two appeared to know each other, although I am not certain of that. Her car was a late model, red sporty-looking thing that she said she’d just purchased maybe a few weeks ago.

I called the police through the 911 number from my car, and a female officer and her partner arrived fairly quickly. I didn’t have high expectations where they were concerned, and they didn’t disappoint: The two of them stayed in their warm car, not wanting to exit on this chilly evening. The officer pleasantly told me that all she cared about was that the two of us—the young woman and I—had exchanged insurance information. Other than that, she couldn’t care less. I was hoping that, in the interest of helping my case, she would look at the damage, hear our stories, and assign blame to the young woman who’d struck my car. I thought that, ideally, the following should have transpired:

Officer, taking in the scene: “Good heavens! What mischief have you wrought here? Look at what you’ve caused—the mayhem, the mayhem! Oh God see how you’ve damaged that poor man’s car! Behold the scratchy abrasions, the intrusion of carelessness into the fine green of this lustrous road machine. Do you not look where you’re going? Have you not eyes to clearly see?” Then, indicating my person, standing apart in the cold January air: “Behold the victim! Is he not a man of good will? Doth he harbor any ill towards you and your conveyance?” Then, dabbing at her eyes with a soft tissue, in a voice choked with emotion: “Is he not fragrant?” For my part, I would be succumbing to the cold, flapping my arms up and down in an effort to keep warm, doing an impromptu version of the “chicken dance” there in the gas station parking lot.

“This is going to take some time; I have much work to do here. May as well make yourself comfortable.”

After an hour or more, the police officer would exit her car, go to the sporty red car that hit mine. She would hand over one citation after another, some of them sounding like things she made up just for this occasion.

“This one is for failing to yield the right of way.” (She actually deserved that one)
“Here, look at this one—you were probably speeding. I’m giving you one for that, too.”
“This one says you were driving recklessly—at night. And near a gas station.”
“Here is one for ‘wanton disregard for public safety.’”
“Here’s a new one that I just made up: ‘Using your car as an illegal battering ram.’”
“The rest of these are just miscellaneous charges, some of them may be dismissed in court: ‘Associating with the feeble-minded, bearded thin people, too eager to attain a fast-food establishment (she was on her way to a burger joint across the street), attempting to incite a small riot, not maintaining control over a non-truck style vehicle, speaking harshly to a meager and innocent man, causing pain and suffering and mental anguish in a parking lot, causing also those things in a non-parking lot environment, and this last one is a favorite of mine: ‘Making an officer chilly on a cold evening—with a warm cruiser waiting nearby.’”

She would tear off the many sheets of citations, hand them over to the young woman. I would be free to go and get my key made and drive over to where the truck was parked. The officer might even buy me a hot coffee, seeing how anguished and upset I was. I would thank her for the coffee, not being really anguished or upset at all.

None of that happened; the officer powered up her window, shutting out us accident victims and the cold night, and drove off in her police cruiser. She was smiling and chatting idly with her partner—who could have been her boyfriend along for the ride for all I know.

January 21, 2008

Brutal, hideous cold here, the high temperature being maybe in the high-twenties during the daylight hours. At night it hovers around ten degrees. The few inches of snow linger, its crust a sharp and crackling layer when trod upon. I trod upon it often, as I go next door to attend to things, and maybe look around a bit. The work has mostly stopped, as it is just too goddamned cold. Surprisingly, though, it is actually warmer inside the house than outdoors. I would expect the temperature to be about the same; however, some of the sun’s heat gets trapped inside the cold rooms, rendering the space a little more tolerable. It is still pretty cold, however. The little work that remains on the porch floor will have to wait; it needs the removing of some shingles, and for that I have to wet down the area to help prevent airborne dust from the toxic material. Wetting it down in these conditions would result only in a layer of ice, defeating entirely my intent. I may go into the kitchen to start work on that area. Maybe not.

I was spared the extreme and bitter cold on Saturday, the market being chilly but not overly so. The high that day reached maybe into the forties or even fifty degrees. It was Sunday that the wall of arctic air swept across the country—affecting areas from the Midwest to the east coast. We are currently in its grip.

Yesterday I hiked with my brother, who’d located an antique dump truck on the grounds of what had once been a working farm. We walked through the crisp and brittle parkland on the abandoned farm’s periphery, and finally got to a clearing. I was struck immediately by the contrast before me: What remained of the farm’s original land was hemmed in by the state park we’d just exited, and by immense housing developments just a little distance away. Within sight of the old outbuildings, with some good wood and other materials still stowed away, were the French doors of the backs of the new homes, the children’s playsets and barbecue grills marking the boundary between the old and the new. Not so long ago this was all woodland, with the farm’s fields cleared to make space for whatever crops or activities they engaged in there. We came upon the dump truck, which had been left for dead. Needing repair at one time maybe thirty or forty years ago, it was parked and then forgotten. Then the land was sold and no one cared much what happened to it any more. It was someone else’s problem. It appeared to be maybe from the late nineteen-forties, but could have been older. Searching for any kind of markings, I finally decided it was most likely an International brand truck. The carburetor had been removed many years before, so that the elements—the summer rains and winter snows—were allowed to seep into the engine. It was most likely full of water by now, with the freezing and thawing cycles perhaps cracking the heavy iron of the old engine block.

January 22, 2008

It’s not so cold today, just a little rain. I may buy some fresh new pine boards to replace the ones in the kitchen wall, where some termites have damaged them from years past. I will cut out the old wood, put the new studs in place and ready the area for the installation of new wallboard. It is likely that I’ll replace all of the antiquated wiring that now runs through that wall and which is now exposed—making the job easier.