Something 4 The Weekend #31

It was 1992, and we were driving home, northbound on I-43, from Milwaukee to Grafton at about 3 in the morning. "We" being Biff, Dan, and myself. Earlier that evening we had seen The Pixies live on their Trompe Le Monde tour at the Eagles Ballroom, and had scarfed down a post-show, post-doob pancake meal at a nearby George Webb restaurant.

So, there we were, barrelling down I-43 in Biff's Camry in the middle of the night with ringing ears and the faint scent of patchouli and mosh pit sweat lingering in the car, and not a care in the world.

But as we crested a hill right around Good Hope Rd., we were astonished to happen upon a wicked car accident about 100 yards ahead, and as fate would have it, at 3 am, we were only the second car to happen upon this wickedness.

The first thing I noticed was the small black girl, about five years old, standing in the middle of the highway crying and bleeding. Behind her was her mother, and still further back was a middle aged white man wearing a white linen suit and a very thin moustache. Later Dan remarked that the guy looked like John Waters, and Biff and I agreed...

The white guy, we surmised, was the driver of the big yellow Cadillac which rested sideways on the shoulder, while the black woman drove the small Japanese car that was presently resting upside down, on it's hood, with small flames dancing on the undercarriage.

Andrew Bird: Fiery Crash: 188k mp3

The white man was yelling and cursing the black woman, and the small girl kept crying, and bleeding, as we exited Biff's Camry and quickly ran towards the scene.

That's when we saw the humongous black man still trapped in the upside down car, his head shiny with blood.

"My husband is stuck, my husband is stuck - please help him!" the woman yelled, and without much trepidation, Biff, Dan and I ignored the enraged white dude who was now pleading his case with us, and rushed towards the huge black dude trapped in the flipped, flaming wreckage...Were we fools? Heroes?

Well, our intentions were heroic, I guess, though I admit that we were unable to get his door open, or cut him from his seat belt, and in general, get him out of the car. Dan, for his part, was able to extinguish the couple of small fires with his flannel shirt, and fortunately, a county sheriff happened upon the scene about two or three minutes after we did, and this guy was take charge and fucking awesome...He got the white dude to shut the fuck up without breaking stride, assess the state of the trapped black dude, and calm down the girl and her mother...

"He's going to be fine, ma'am. It appears to be just some minor cuts and abrasions. The firemen will be hear in a minute."

And indeed, the firemen showed up a minute later, and were able to easily extract the enormous black man from the car, without the need for the jaws of life, just an ordinary pry-bar...

The sheriff took statements from the three of us, and since we hadn't witnessed the actual accident, all we could tell him was the white dude was being a dick, and a racist one at that, and we were on our way back home, our ears still ringing in the stillness of the night.

Whether or not the sheriff noticed the stench of weed on us was probably inconsequential, and as far as we knew, everybody was alright..."Fuckin' A!"

Hotcha! Hank