Accident, Part III: The Next Day

Drawing of the accident scene and road measurements by Deputy Noble Deakins

First contact made just inside my lane from the shoulder between my driver-side tandem tires and the civilian's driver-side front tire. His tire rim likely cut into the pavement as contact was made, then as his car bounced back into the lane the rim cut into the pavement a second time.

My 14 hour DOT clock ran out while I awaited roadside service to fix my trailer tires and I was forced to take my 10 hour break at the accident site. It allowed for pictures to be taken the next morning.

Accident, Part II: The Wrecker's Prayer

Ahead of me the wrecker was sweeping the accident debris off the shoulder. The wrecker continued to my truck and knocked on the passenger side door. 

I caught up to him. "You need something?" 

The wrecker turned to me. A wide scar ran from his right eyebrow up his forehead and back through his hair. The hair did not grow where the scar passed.

"You're the driver?"

"Yes."

"Nobody was hurt here tonight?"

"No."

"When I got the call I expected there to be dead people. When did it happen?"

I told him.

"I was in bed and an explosion woke me. I said to my wife, there's been a terrible accident. But that was 25 miles from here. I couldn't have heard it." 

"It was like a bomb went off when he hit my tandems."

"Somebody should have died."

"Yes." 

"If he hit you a second earlier he goes under your tandems and you drag the car down the road crushing him. A second later, he hits the rear of your trailer and shears off the top of his car taking his head off. He should have flipped from how he hit you."

"Yes."

"I had an accident with a truck once. Its how I got this," he pointed at the scar. "My brakes went out and I hit his trailer going through an intersection. Ejected me from the car. Truck dragged the car two miles before he knew he was in an accident."

"You don't feel anything when you're driving a truck."

"I asked an EMS guy once what was the worst accident he ever saw. He was off-duty sitting at a diner eating a burger and from the window he watches a car collide with the trailer of a truck. The driver is ejected 15 feet in the air, then lands on his feet and starts running. The EMS guy chases him down the street yelling after him. He chased the guy until he collapsed from blood loss." The wrecker smiled.  "That guy was me. You lose a lot of blood when your head's opened up."

"You didn't remember running?"

"Nothing," said the wrecker. "I was in the hospital a long time." Then the wrecker said, "Are you a Christian?"

"Yes," I said.

"May I pray with you?"

"Yes," I said.

The wrecker held out his hands and I took his hands in mine. We bowed our heads and the wrecker began to pray. The wrecker prayed in thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for what had happened this night, that I and the other driver were both alive and unhurt. The wrecker prayed in thanks for the Lord's protection against evil and prayed for His continuing protection. The wrecker prayed in thanks for the gift of His son Jesus Christ, who's birth we were to celebrate in a few days. The wrecker prayed that more of the world would come to know Him and accept Jesus Christ as Savior. The wrecker prayed this all in name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Amen.

"Amen," I said.

Accident, Part I: Over The Line

The night was clear and very cold. After leaving Dallas in rush hour there had been no traffic on US 69 through Oklahoma, and it was very quiet in Pryor and in Muskogee. In my trailer was more than 45,000 lbs of boxed Coca-Cola syrup. It was three days until Christmas.

At midnight, miles from the Kansas border, I turned into the dirt truck parking lot at the Buffalo Run Casino to take my 30 minute DOT break. I heated water to make coffee and lay in the sleeper reading. I had 180 miles left to Kansas City and a 4 am appointment at Vistar. 

It is my custom to begin driving after exactly a thirty minute break -- the minimum mandated by the DOT to unlock the remaining three hours of drive time on the daily 11 hour clock -- but on this night, knowing traffic would be light into the city because of the holiday, I chose to make a proper coffee from grounds, requiring water heated longer and to the highest temperature. 

I remember finishing the coffee and noting on the Qualcomm my break had lasted 42 minutes. I was not pressed for time, and would likely have to wait to be unloaded when I arrived at the customer, but a truck driver lives by his clock and as a matter of principle these twelve minutes in excess bothered me. 

I began driving and crossed into Kansas. US 69 merges with US Route 400 at the town of Baxter Springs and the posted speed increases to 65mph as the road leaves town, a northbound and southbound lane undivided by a median. The road continues to a roundabout with Route 66, a very technical obstacle to pass cleanly with a semi-truck, but one I each time looked forward to as a test of my professionalism. 

A mile before the roundabout a southbound car edged over the line. 

At 65mph you do not have much time but I gave the driver the tiniest moment to right himself in his lane, then yanking my horn I started to the shoulder. But he kept coming into my lane and now with both hands on the wheel, headlights coming at me, I jerked the tractor onto the shoulder, as close as I could get to the drop off into the ditch and bushes and the pond, and he went by me. Then an explosion like a bomb had gone off, but I felt nothing. I slowed onto the shoulder but in my mirror I saw nothing. Then bounding down the middle of the round went one of my trailer tires. 

I quickly put on my coat, took my flashlight, my knife and a blanket and jumped out of the truck. The driver-side outer tandem tires on the trailer were gone, the rims bent and disfigured. A quarter mile back in the ditch on my side of the road was a car with its lights on and I ran towards it. The roadside was littered with pieces of metal and plastic and glass.

A car stopped on the shoulder ahead of me. A young couple was inside. I told them to call 911, I gave the location, and told them to say a car has collided with a semi.

I hurried down the embankment through the grass, shining my light on the car. The hood on the driver's side was crushed, the front tire was gone, and the driver's side door panel was torn away. I prepared for something awful inside.

Someone was in the back seat. I shined the light in on him. A young man was packing things into a duffel bag and mumbling. I asked him if he was okay. He said he was okay and continued packing. I told him I was the driver of the truck he had hit and I asked him to step out of the car. He stepped out and faced me. I looked him up and down, shining my light on him. I asked if he was injured, if he was in any pain. He said he was fine. I could hardly believe it. 

On the knee of his right leg was a spot of blood. He had recently had a skin graft, he said. The skin was tender and prone to bleeding. It was nothing. He really was fine. I could hardly believe it.

A patrol car arrived and parked on the road. The state trooper came down the embankment with his light on us. The young deputy was called Noble Deakins. He asked each of us if we were injured. I gave the deputy my CDL and insurance card and told him what had happened. He sent me back to my truck to call my dispatcher and roadside service. 

After I had made my phone calls I walked back to see the deputy. A wrecker was down in the grass preparing to winch the totaled car up onto a flatbed. The young man was gone. A friend from Missouri had come for him, the deputy told me. He claimed to have insurance, but could produce no insurance card and had been cited. Deputy Noble Deakins also said the young man said it was I who had gone into his lane and nearly killed him. I smiled. The roadside evidence does not support his story, I said. The state of Kansas does not assign guilt in accidents and the two stories would be presented in the report, the deputy explained, the insurance companies will then debate who was at fault. 

I said goodbye to the deputy but he stopped me.

"You did a good thing here tonight," said Deputy Noble Deakins. 

"I know, sir. But I was lucky too."

He held out his hand and I shook it. Then I walked back towards my truck. 

(Part II to come)

Work In Progress

Preview of "The Skerry" by Knut Hamsun from a forthcoming audiobook of poems set to music. Translation and reading by me. Music composed by my brother JHD.

"The Skerry" a poem by Knut Hamsun

The boat glides now
towards a skerry,
an isle in the sea
with luxuriant shores.
Flowers grow there
never before seen,
they stand like strangers
and watch me moor.

My heart has become
a fabulous garden
with flowers like these
on the island now.
They talk with one another
and whisper strangely,
like children meeting
with laughter and bows.

Perhaps I was here
at the dawn of time
as a white Spiraea
waiting to be found.
I know that fragrance
from long ago,
it makes me tremble,
that memory profound.

I close my eyes,
the recollection fades
my head onto
my shoulder falls.
The night is thickening
over the island,
the sea is thundering –
Nirvana's thunder calls.

My translation of "Skærgaardsø" from Det Vilde Kor, 1904

In Patagonia

It was tree-less, grey-green thornscrub for as far as you could see. There was no shade and the wind was relentless. The gusts blew my bike out into the road. I had ridden all day in my lowest gear. In 12 hours, I had covered 80 kilometers.

I passed a shrine to Gauchito Gil and then a sign for “Agro Tourism,” and I turned off onto a one-track dirt road that led back to an estancia. In front of a white farmhouse shielded by poplars a man sat at a table drinking mate. I had not seen anyone in three days.

“¿Qué tal?”

“The wind is strong. The wind has defeated me today,” I said.

“This wind is nothing,” said the man. “In the Land of Fire is the strong wind. La Escoba de Dios. The Broom of God, they call it.”

His name was Guido and I asked about food and water and a place to put up my tent. Did I also want to go horseback-riding, or to fish at the coast? Did I want to hunt guanaco? I told him I was too fatigued for those activities and we came to an agreement that for 100 pesos I would put up my tent and have an asado of mutton for dinner, then breakfast in the morning.

Guido showed me a place along the poplars to put the tent, and as I started to put it up, he whistled and called for “Samantha.” A guanaco came trotting out from the corral. Two sheepdogs barked and nipped at her legs. I had only seen guanaco from a distance on the pampas. They were like deer with bulging black eyes. As the guanaco neared, Guido quickly turned his back to it. The guanaco sniffed at his hair and his neck, and then it rubbed its nose on his back. 

"You must not look at the eyes of Samantha," Guido warned me. “If you look at the eyes, she will [something] on you.”

I looked away. But I did not understand the verb. I asked Guido to repeat it, but I still didn’t understand.

Guido tried in English, “You look at the eyes, she put a spell on you.”

“A spell?”

“A spell. Yes.”

Whether or not I respected the dark power of certain animals to cast spells, I saw the seriousness with which Guido turned his back to the creature, and so when she came for me I quickly turned away. I felt her at my back and then her breathing upon my neck. I reached behind and touched her fur. I wanted to be friendly. I didn’t want her practicing any witchcraft upon me. She pulled out a mouthful of hair from the back of my head and I jumped forward.

Guido laughed. “Cuidate. If she [something] on you, it will take four baths to remove the smell. The saliva is dark and very terrible.”

I realized Guido had been trying to say that Samantha would spit at you if looked directly in the eyes. There was no sorcery involved. He had confused the English words “spell” and “spit.”

I went back to putting up the tent, but Samantha continued to harass me. Being unable to turn and face her, she would trot up behind me and pluck out my hair. It was all very funny for Guido.

When the tent was up, we went behind the farmhouse where the peon was butchering a sheep for the asado. He stretched the carcass on an iron spit and staked it above the fire. A dog chewed on a purpled bunch of intestines in the dust. Guido and I drank cups of rainwater from a barrel.

"Do you not fear camping?"

“What is to fear?”

“Do you not fear the Mapuche?”

“What is the Mapuche?”

“Indígenas. They come with a knife in the night. Chorros. Thieves. I do not hire Mapuche. No one hires Mapuche.” He nodded at the peon. “That one is Tehuelche. Only a half-breed.”

Inside the farmhouse, we sat at the dinner table drinking Fernet and cola. It was dark outside and the generator hummed loudly. Samantha looked in through the farmhouse window, her nostrils pressed against the glass. “She looks for you,” said Guido. I thought so too. His wife brought out the heaping plates of mutton-chops with mashed potatoes and a salad of greens and tomatoes. The meat was delicious.

“Do you think more gringos will come here?” Guido asked.

“Maybe. But it is far.”

“In Patagonia everything is far. But there are penguins here.”

"There are penguins in other places too."

The lights flickered and went out. The generator had stopped. It was quiet and his wife lit the candles and we finished eating by candlelight.

“If only they brought us electricity. If only the government brought us running water and telephone lines. More gringos would come then.”

“Maybe.”

“She destroys Argentina, this Kirchner. This one destroys it worse than the husband. Esos chorros roban Patagonia. These thieves steal from Patagonia.”

His wife touched his arm.

“They argue always for who has the true Peronismo. But all are chorros. Thieves. What they do not steal for themselves, they give to the poor. That is the true Peronismo.”

"He is a little drunk."

“And what if I am drunk? Are they not chorros? Do they not steal from Patagonia?”

“Yes, Guido,” she said gently.

“These thieves steal from Patagonia because it is where there is money. But soon they take all the money. Soon there is no more money!” Guido slammed his fist on the table, his glass bouncing off and shattering on the floor. “Putos chorros!” He looked as though about to cry. He stood from the table and left the room. His wife picked up the pieces of broken glass.

“I am tired,” I said finally.

“Yes,” she said. “The wind was strong today.”

I did not see Samantha at the window. I went to the door and opened it carefully and started towards the tent. Then I heard the guanaco behind me in the darkness and I ran. I heard her stumble on something and I quickly unzipped the rain-fly and crawled inside. I heard her outside. She was nibbling on the tent poles.

In the morning, I packed up and loaded the bike. Guido prepared mate for us and apologized for the night before. After all, it has happened before, he said. First the army will remove her. Then the generals will name the towns and streets after themselves. It has happened before many times. Argentina will have more towns and streets named for generals. He was resigned to it.

The Black Poet

It was early morning in Ibarra, Ecuador, and all the bars were closed except for a small, one-room tavern at the edge of the old city. It stayed open for men who were committed to their drinking. The police did not bother with it so long as the drinking was done quietly. At a wooden table inside, I was sharing liter bottles of beer with an out-of-work carpenter, a belly dancer, one very drunken photographer, and the Black Poet of Ibarra.

The belly dancer had just finished her performance and returned to the table. She wore a green sheer dress and a sparkling bikini top, and she jingled when she moved. Four old men at the other table looked at her longingly. She smiled and was not ashamed of her bad teeth. She very much enjoyed the attention.

The Black Poet stood and announced that his poem for me was now complete.

He asked that the pasillo music be turned off. From the pocket of his corduroy jacket, the Black Poet produced a jagged piece of convex glass. It looked as though it had been broken from the bottom of a bottle. He held the glass to his eye and he began to read the poem he had written on both sides of a small square of paper:

– PETER –

Undiscovered friend, pollen of light,
Dragonfly that heeds the pollen of the setting sun,
Torch of wind inflamed,
You noble rebel of thought
Your heart is a tear of rain
That no one can undermine to fail

Your thought is perfect, but cold
Like a game of death
On the outspoken lips of life
You love not philosophy,
But love instead the sad and cloudy mirror
Of the fool’s heart

Go and fill your pockets with wind
And having no longer the ugliness of words
All shall be yours
The perfect, impressible beauty of the heavens.

The photographer had his head on the table and was asleep. The belly dancer put her hand on my thigh. Your poem was beautiful, she said. Take her upstairs if you want, said the carpenter. The Black Poet handed me the square of paper. The poem was written in a shaky but elegant script. The poem is now yours, he said. Please, will you do me the favor of walking me home? 

The Black Poet was old and very sad. His wife of 48 years had just died. He walked slowly and talked to me of Augustine and Nietzsche and the Pre-Socratics. He talked of how life might have been had not men become so reasonable, had not the myths been rejected and the gods exiled. I told him that his verse about having pockets filled with wind was going to stay with me a long time. The Black Poet lived nearby and I slept a few hours on his couch until the sun came up.