Getting hit by cars has generally been a good experience for me. As it stands, I am not dead. I have all four limbs, and I maintain the same generic face I was born with 24 years ago. Walking away unscathed feels pretty decent the first time, but when it happens twice, there’s never a better moment to waste a dollar on a lottery ticket.
The first time I was drilled by a Sierra Cutless Supreme while on my bicycle. Riding down the sidewalk, I was quickly T-boned at a neighborhood cross street. The shredding of metal polluted the air as I flew 8 feet off the bike landing softly on my ass, unscratched. Kevin Harrison, the lad who crashed into me, was a 23-year-old college grad from Madison, WI. He was totally sober but completely drained from another 14-hour day selling wheelchairs to the elderly over the phone. This was Harrison’s first full-time job, and telecommunicating to Old Man Clemens was sucking his mind dry from any ability to operate a motor vehicle. Upon impact, Harrison flipped out, panicking “dude, I’m so sorry! You okay, you okay? I hopped up from the road high on adrenaline, missing a shoe. I was holding my head in disbelief, not from pain. At that moment, Harrison thought he was going to prison for sure. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I said. It was hard to tell if Harrison was crying out of fright, or out of elation that I was not hurt.
Harrison gave me $60 to repair the barely-damaged wheel on my bike, which was a ghetto cruiser to begin with and would ride for another year unrepaired. Its tattered frame was worn down from all the late night trips to Taco Bell in college. Harrison’s financial donation would later be transacted for 50 Chicken Burritos from T-Bell. A man had just been paid for getting hit by a car, and that man was me. I celebrated Christmas in July while Harrison was dancing with Miss Misery. His car was barely worth more than my bike, his job was poo, and he dodged killing a man by a few miles per hour.
Rapper 50 Cent always bragged about getting shot (or at least his PR team did). Who could blame him? It’s cool in a fuc*** up way (like competitive drinking or Mohawks). While getting hit by a car is notably less cool, it remains in the upper echelon of ways to dance with death and tell about it. People like to say, “It’ll be a good story to tell my grandkids,” but I’m not going to say that, as it may jinx me into getting hit by another car.
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