It wasn’t that I didn’t believe someone could have a guardian angel; I just hadn’t really given it much thought until the day I met my own.
It was just a few minutes after sunrise on a chilly fall northern California morning. I was alone, standing next to an upside down car. One I had borrowed a few hours before from a girl who I knew would say yes to anything I asked of her. I was in that moment just after an accident when time has not caught up with you yet. The only sound was the soft rubbing noise from one out-of-round tire still turning slowly.
Just a few minutes earlier I had been congratulating myself on what good time I was making. I was certain I wouldn’t be late for my breakfast date with Amber at the Park Street Grill in Alameda. I hadn’t seen her for several weeks. This was not my first - or last - attempt at rescuing a long distance relationship that was collapsing. My thought was that if I could show her I was still in her life in this little way, a casual breakfast before she started her day, that somehow everything would be okay again. This magical idea to surprise her had occurred to me while at a party sometime after midnight, in Humboldt county, 6 hours of winding, frozen roads away. But I knew that if I arrived there by 7:15 I could catch her and her best friend Jeanie at their Friday morning breakfast date before class. On the drive I had been picturing the look on their faces, “Hi ladies” I’d say, all casual like, as I sat down in the vinyl booth. Amber’s eyes would get big and round and she’d say, “Wait! I just talked to you last night and you were in Arcata!”
God, I am so cool.
Maybe this would be a good time to mention that “class” here was really Alameda High School. Amber was seventeen. I was twenty-one. Yes, I was that cool.
It was cold that night, below freezing. I was on the old 2 lane section of 101 just north of Cloverdale. I had been pushing the little 1976 Honda Civic about as hard as it would go. On each curve I could feel the tires struggle to find the friction to stay on the road. I remember feeling thankful to see the first rays of sun come up, melting the ice, so I could push the car a little more. I still don’t understand why I pushed everything in my life then. It seemed so important to create the feeling that I was living on the edge. If no one is chasing you, drive like someone is. Pretty soon someone will be. You get comfortable with that feeling and it's hard to see when you’ve pushed too far. I had already pushed Amber away, and now I was trying to push my way back in her life.
That night I was driving an ex-girlfriend’s car with expired tags, and no insurance. I had no drivers license and warrants outstanding all over Northern California. Oh, and it sure wasn’t coffee keeping me awake. I was going to keep pushing until something stopped me.
I knew the bridge was coming. I also knew it was on a curve. I didn’t know the steel of the bridge would hold the temperature of the roadway below freezing just a bit too long, waiting for me like a giant cartoon banana peel. As I rounded the corner I saw the erector set framework of the bridge looking like a model train accessory with its green I beams with giant rivets and bright white steel railing. I also saw right away the frosty glint on the road, like a thick layer of white mold. I’ve always had bad luck with mold.
In the fraction of a second I had before my front tires crossed the line of ice I considered the following: The brakes were not going to work well on the ice, the steering, pretty much useless also, but the curve of the roadway had me looking head-on at the railing and the dim shadows of the ravine beyond so I stomped on the brakes anyway and yanked the wheel to the right. The car began to slide, perhaps a quarter turn before bouncing off the first green I beam. I felt the crunch of metal mixed with the soft boom of exploding tempered glass. I was in that strange, altered reality, slow motion state that you only notice in movies or car accidents. The car was now moving toward the opposite side of the bridge. I saw the river below through the white pickets of the rail and I wondered if I would land upside down when I crashed through and sailed off the edge. I was lucky. The car hit another I beam and rolled up against it and then twisted and flipped. I remember seeing the stereo come out of the dash, also in slow motion, and drift past my head. The car was then completely upside down and the windshield was disintegrating as it scraped along the asphalt, sending hundreds of small pieces of safety glass flying around the inside like popcorn. With my hands gripping the steering wheel, I held my head up away from the flying glass and closed my eyes, waiting for the impact of the other rail. This time I was certain I was above the water. It seemed like I could already feel the cold and wet river rushing through the broken windshield, filling my lungs and taking me away. The car slid and slid and the impact never came. When the grinding sound stopped I opened my eyes. I was at the far end of the bridge. Upside down. Dead center on the double yellow line.
I stayed there, hanging from my seatbelt, trying to decide if anything hurt, until the thought of another car rounding the corner and sliding into me inspired me to move. My door was jammed shut so I rolled down the window. I clicked the release button on my seatbelt, dropped to the roof and crawled out. I stood there feeling the first orange rays of sun warm my face, picking pieces of windshield glass from my hair, there was a lot of it back then. Looking across the upside down car, back down the length of the bridge I could see the trail of broken glass, the car stereo, one converse high top, and further down, the front bumper stuck in the rail and a few missing steel pickets. Everything was dead quiet and still. Even though I could see my breath, the air felt thick and warm. I could feel every part of my body and my clothing touching it. I was wearing my clothes from the party earlier, a tight black turtleneck, black jeans and black boots. My mother always told me to dress right for an accident. I felt like a superhero and more alive at that moment than any other before or perhaps even since.
I stood there for quite awhile feeling the adrenaline course through me. My dream-like state was eventually interrupted by a man shouting out his car window, “Hey, is anyone hurt?!” The car had a lumber company logo on the door and a single orange light on top. A security guard from the Mill. I shook my head no. He was talking on a cb radio (this was before cell phones). When he finished he leaned out his window again, “Highway Patrol are on their way!” I nodded slowly and watched him drive away.
Well, this is it, I said out loud to no one. I knew exactly what was going to happen next. The police were going to come. They would run my name, search the car, find what they could (it always amazed me what cops didn’t find in my cars) and probably arrest me. I had found the edge. I remember feeling calm, maybe even a little relieved, like somehow a police report would give my life the structure it was lacking. That feeling didn’t last long.
The ATV entered the road from between two large shrubs. I hadn’t heard the engine until I saw it and the man riding. He had longish silver hair pushed back like a mane. The whole time I watched him his hair never seemed to move. He shut off the engine, stepped off of his machine, stood for a moment looking at me and then at the car. He was a tall man with a weathered and handsome face and he was wearing a grey one-piece jumpsuit. I didn’t say a word. He opened his mouth as if he was about to speak and then paused, took a pipe out of his breast pocket, put it in his mouth, put one foot up on the tire of his ATV, leaned one elbow on his knee, then finally spoke with the pipe still in his teeth. “Looks like we need to get your car out of the road.”
I didn’t say anything. My own heartbeat was so loud in my ears I felt I shouldn’t try to shout over it. After another moment of contemplation he said, “I’m going to go get my rig.” He looked at me but didn’t wait for a response before calmly climbing back on his ATV and disappearing into the brush.
I walked back down the bridge, collecting my things off the road. I got to where the front bumper was stuck in the rail. Down below on the rocks I could see the white pickets that had been knocked loose. Stepping back I guessed the distance between the green I beams at around twelve feet, easily enough room for the Honda to slip through. I pulled the bumper from the rail and carried it back to the car.
I was surprised that I was still alone on the road. I crawled back in the car and grabbed my other converse and my bag. I was thinking I might start walking, leave the car there blocking the road but as I was standing back up the man with the silver hair returned. He was driving the largest pickup I’d ever seen. Sort of a Monster Truck Meets Telephone Repair Man. It was the same color gray as his outfit and had a phone company logo on the door. Without even talking to me he looped a braided cable over the wheels on the far side of the car and started up his winch on the front bumper. The car creaked and groaned and rather quickly rolled back onto its wheels. He disconnected the cable and together, he and I pushed the car over to the side of the road.
While this was happening, a few cars had begun to back up on either side of the accident. I picked up the last of the broken parts from the asphalt and they drove by.
The silver haired man nodded to me and said, “Trooper’s probably going to be here soon. Some place I can drop you?” How did he know I needed to get out of there?
“The bus station in Cloverdale?”
“Jump in”
On the drive into town I asked him what he was doing out here at sunrise. “I’m installing an underground fiber optic cable,” he said. “One continuous beam of light from New York to Tokyo.” It makes more sense now, many years later.
I didn’t make my breakfast date but I also didn’t die trapped upside down in a car in the river. Nor did I get arrested. Sometimes I do wonder if all this is the reason I’m still with AT&T. I don’t think I ever saw my guardian angel again, but I do know that was not the last time he’d save my ass.
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