Taking the Accident With You

I think I was in my late teens when my friend Donny and I were driving home late at night in his brother-in-law Harry's VW Beetle. It was a typical, inhospitable winter in update New York. Light snow during the day had melted, mixed with grime from the highways and roads, become covered by off-and-on-again rain, and re-frozen into a thick, rock-solid, slippier-than-a-politician layer of ice over everything. At 2:00 AM it was dark and colder than a whore's tits. We were drunk, although not to the degree I would later in life accept as: Maybe unacceptable but still functional. Donny was a good driver, and we were also toasted on weed and tripping, too. Weed tends to slow you down behind the wheel – 10 miles per hour feels like speeding on the highway.

Anyway, we took a curve too fast, probably at five miles an hour or more. We spun out in the Beetle and, I shit you not, that tin can of a car rolled over at least four or five times with us in it. That car went bobbling through the intersection like some toy thrown in distaste across the living room floor by an angry toddler. After what seemed like an eternity – we were, after all, drunk, stoned, and tripping on LSD – it came to an abrupt stop, upright, with the engine still running. To this day I will never fathom how Donny had the presence of mind to put it into neutral.

So there we are. Hunched over in a bright yellow, idling VW Beetle. The car is all mushed up, of course. Did I have a manic episode? Who the fuck knows? I look over at Donny and say something like, “Jesus Christ are you OK Donny?” He stares back at me, wild-eyed with fear, and says, “What the fuck am I going to tell Harry?”

Neither of us have any money to make a phone call. This is the 70's and we are two, skinny hippies living on the charity of our more affluent brethren as we explore the outer reaches of Aquarius. Whatever money comes though our hands is immediately spent on high-priority items: Liquor, Weed, and LSD. Not rent, food, clothing, or the other mundane necessities of life. Although not immune to the aesthetics of psychedelia, Harry has a job, which means that he can afford an apartment, a car, and sometimes, food. So that's where we live, along with Harry's wife and their five daughters, and other hippies who come and go. Our little Walden Pond without the send-out laundry.

“Well, we can't just leave the car here,” I wisely observe. Donny replies, “What the fuck am I going to tell Harry?”

“We need to report this, it's an accident” I sagely declare. Donny glares at me, “What the fuck am I going to tell Harry?”

“We need to have it towed or something,” I deduce. Donny asks, “What the fuck am I going to tell Harry?”

“Does it still drive? Put it into gear and see,” I suggest. Donny puts the bug into first and, lo and behold, we start to drive away. “Now what?” asks Donny. “Drive it to the police station. We'll report it there.” My ability to demonstrate leadership skills under difficult circumstances was already manifest in my youth.

It happens that police headquarters was only a few blocks away. This is a small upstate town. We drive to the station and park the bug in the empty lot. Donny shuts off the engine, takes the keys, and we go into the station together to report the accident. At the desk is a solitary and bored cop, watching something like “I Married a Werewolf” on the only television station broadcasting at 2:00 AM in upstate New York. He looks up in surprise at two long-haired, bead-wearing, skinny hippie teenagers walking in of their own free accord to the police station in the middle of the night. He says,

“Can I help you, gentlemen?”

Donny is basically a shit shy of a full-blown, catatonic fit. He says nothing out loud but because I am gifted with the ability to read Donny's mind I know that he is thinking, What the fuck am I going to tell Harry? I reply on his behalf. “We wish to report an accident, officer.”

“Where did it take place,” the officer asks me, as he reaches for that inevitable clipboard they always have at hand. “Why are you reporting it here instead of from the scene where it occurred?” he adds. “Who's the owner of the vehicle?”

I look at Donny who looks back at me with that special, wild- eyed, white as honky's ass look you only get when you find yourself in a police station at 2:00 o'clock in the morning and you are drunk, stoned, and fucking tripping on acid. How to respond? How to respond? Later in life I would come to learn that the normal people cannot tell the difference between your behavior while on acid and your behavior otherwise. I assume Donny has learned this, too, but at the time we were by no means certain that the policeman didn't know everything about us, including how many times we jerked off a day. I was trying to think of a response when Donny blurts out, “It's my brother-in-law's car!”

“What's his name? What's his phone number?” the officer inquires. Despite having sliced and diced the dilemma eight ways from Sunday since we rolled the bug, Donny chooses to forget Harry's name and phone number at that crucial moment. Once again, my super-human powers of recollection come to our rescue. The officer calls up Harry and after waiting an Age in the Life of Man Harry shows up in five minutes at the station.

“Sir, these gentlemen claim to have been in an accident with your automobile.”

Harry is so cool. Of course, he's in his twenties and married and working and all. Also he pays for our pot. Despite the fact that he, too, is tripping his brains out, he nevertheless calmly replies, “Yes, officer. This is my brother-in-law and his friend.”

“They have left the scene of the accident. We may have to hold them in custody.” The only good effect hearing this has on Donny is that he no longer terrified of what Harry will do to him. Harry smiles in a friendly way and says, “Actually they didn't. They brought it with them. It's parked outside.”

The officer, Donny, and myself all stare stupidly at Harry. The officer leaves the desk and we all trudge out into the winter night. “Is that your vehicle, sir?” asks the officer.

“Yes, it is. And if you don't mind, I would like to drive it home now.” says Harry. Donny and I are mystified that Harry knows the car can still be driven. Like we had the accident and it just plopped itself down, nice and neat, in an empty space in the fucking police station parking lot. The cop justs shrugs his shoulder. Hippies. We march back into the police station where Harry handles all the paperwork and Donny and I wait impatiently for the true outcome and final verdict of this disaster.

Harry drives us back to the apartment. I am crammed in the back seat, which under normal conditions isn't very roomy, anyway, in a VW Beetle. We all toke down on some fresh new weed from Hawaii that Harry scored while on business in New York City. The next day Harry drives the bug, mushed-in roof and all, seventy miles south to where he works and back again at the end of the day. In about a week or so the bug is mysteriously repaired.

No point. Just a humorous oasis I stumbled upon while searching for demons.