A Nissan SUV raped me a couple weeks ago. I'm sorta OK. But sorta hurting. Things are a bit out of place in my spine, pelvis, and neck. But all the important stuff is OK. Still in light of this reality, I must share with you a few simple things I have learned as a result.
This won't be as long as the Bible. But it will be close.
First, never underestimate the "slight" impact of a housewife in an SUV embracing all the freedom of reverse while confronting her seven-year-old's emerging views on gender. As a result of her child's awakening, it seemed as if the woman jumped out of a skydiving plane, and who, upon realizing her chute wasn't opening, concentrates on leaving a mark.
That mark, is a metaphor for our introduction. I sat seated in a sports car. The car, owned by my host Ron, was to be our means of transport as we were to tour Tennessee William's and Hemingway's former stomping grounds the next day. I could title this experience:
Car under a Hot Tin Roof.
But I won't.
The car? (was) A Pontiac Solstice.
The Tin Roof? (was) The overhang of the 7-11 Gas Island.
The car? (was) A Pontiac Solstice.
The Tin Roof? (was) The overhang of the 7-11 Gas Island.
After working as long as I have in insurance, I tried to keep quiet, not letting Ron realize too much in advance what I knew loomed ahead for he and his car. This is a subtle knowledge. I guard it like cached Halloween Candy. I imagine my knowledge base as similar to the affirmations of a finally justified bayou psychic, one who knew in advance what Katrina would leave behind, but who just kept quiet about it.
But, you know, sometimes knowledge blows.
The crash, weeks later, now represents the biggest, most royal pain in the ass to ever blacken Ron's horizon. It would be wrong of me to steal the fullness of any aspect of this or dismiss the totality of the insurance claims experience from him. Although its rapidly getting to the point where he no longer believes, like a child no longer believes in Santa, that the insurance company will be there for him, to make him whole.
I comfort him. He will not walk through the valley of the shadow of GIECO or State Farm Alone.
Together we go to the insureds recommended repair provider.
We learn they won't touch the car. We take the car to the dealership, representing the company who owned the brand that no longer exists. Many people will examine the car. Many of them will shake their heads. No one says anything remotely comforting.
We discover that a rental is ours for the taking, providing we can find an Enterprise Rent a Car Agency that has that exact class of vehicle State Farm has authorized, available to rent, at that exact time, on a Friday afternoon. Lucky for us, Enterprise is just across the street from the dealership.
This class of rental vehicle, which just so happens to be the only one that the local Enterprise does not have on their lot, is the only class of vehicle in the universe that the Insurance Company deems we deserve. The helpful customer service representative, who starts out the call with "How can I provide you with excellent customer service today?" is quite cheerful as she directs us to other Enterprise locations that are only three hours away, with good traffic.
I already know our cheerly little helper bee has little control over anything and we get a supervisor on the line, who suggests that somewhere in South Florida, there is an Enterprise Location that has the exact class of vehicle that we are eligible for. She is very sure of this.
Well, yes, but its five o'clock. On a Friday. We are in Boca Raton. The sport car is already in the shop. The supervisor, repeats everything she's just said, sounding as if she's pleased with the pleasant sound of her voice. The Enterprise dude at the counter is rolling his eyes. He has all these other cars, just nothing that is lower than an SUV class vehicle. But State Farm seems to feel that if they give us one of the cars this Enterprise does have, well the world will end. This in the insurance biz is called "paying only what we owe." It's a slogan Satan came up with.
You know where this is going.
Together we go to the insureds recommended repair provider.
We learn they won't touch the car. We take the car to the dealership, representing the company who owned the brand that no longer exists. Many people will examine the car. Many of them will shake their heads. No one says anything remotely comforting.
We discover that a rental is ours for the taking, providing we can find an Enterprise Rent a Car Agency that has that exact class of vehicle State Farm has authorized, available to rent, at that exact time, on a Friday afternoon. Lucky for us, Enterprise is just across the street from the dealership.
This class of rental vehicle, which just so happens to be the only one that the local Enterprise does not have on their lot, is the only class of vehicle in the universe that the Insurance Company deems we deserve. The helpful customer service representative, who starts out the call with "How can I provide you with excellent customer service today?" is quite cheerful as she directs us to other Enterprise locations that are only three hours away, with good traffic.
I already know our cheerly little helper bee has little control over anything and we get a supervisor on the line, who suggests that somewhere in South Florida, there is an Enterprise Location that has the exact class of vehicle that we are eligible for. She is very sure of this.
Well, yes, but its five o'clock. On a Friday. We are in Boca Raton. The sport car is already in the shop. The supervisor, repeats everything she's just said, sounding as if she's pleased with the pleasant sound of her voice. The Enterprise dude at the counter is rolling his eyes. He has all these other cars, just nothing that is lower than an SUV class vehicle. But State Farm seems to feel that if they give us one of the cars this Enterprise does have, well the world will end. This in the insurance biz is called "paying only what we owe." It's a slogan Satan came up with.
You know where this is going.
We will learn that no matter what insurance company one is dealing with, adjusters are mythical creatures who are not lowly enough to answer their phones, like ever. We will be blessed with really long claim numbers, which the automated voice over Internet systems will not be able to recognize when we recite them, slowly, one digit at a time.
We will then punch in the number on the phone key pad. We speak with a really nice person in India. Who is also eager to provide excellent customer service, or at least that what we think he said. And, lucky for us, he is able take our premium payment. For a company that we don't have insurance through.
And thus that is all he can do, so we will be punished, and we must return to the beginning of the board game, where the phone Gods will transfer us to various loops that have no end. We will be asked to rate exceptional customer service that isn't so exceptional, over and over again. We will go mad. The Enterprise guy finally feels our pain. We get an SUV for the price of a Buick.
We will then punch in the number on the phone key pad. We speak with a really nice person in India. Who is also eager to provide excellent customer service, or at least that what we think he said. And, lucky for us, he is able take our premium payment. For a company that we don't have insurance through.
And thus that is all he can do, so we will be punished, and we must return to the beginning of the board game, where the phone Gods will transfer us to various loops that have no end. We will be asked to rate exceptional customer service that isn't so exceptional, over and over again. We will go mad. The Enterprise guy finally feels our pain. We get an SUV for the price of a Buick.
The adjusters, the accountants who live only to squabble over the daily cost of rental cars, and the repair adjusters, who shall bring bad tidings of rip off, as well as all the other crap that insurance now defines, will call us back, but only at the exact moment they know our cell phones are no longer within a service area or right before they head off to vacation for two weeks.
I already knew this would happen, even long before it began to happen.
And all of this happened because of Lady Ga Ga.
The Ga Ga that passeth all understanding...
As if Ron, the cop responding to the scene of the accident, the housewife or I needed any of this.
Our story now returns to our poor housewife,traveling with her young son, as they stop at 7/11. After selecting his favorite candy bar from the 7/11 Store, the kid buckles himself obediently into his car seat.
Only as his mom put the car in "R", did the child go all TMZ with his urgent question. It all happened so fast. Just as her vehicle found reverse and she gave it gas...
.
"But mommy, how do you know Lady Ga Ga is really a girl?"
I do not lie. That is the very question that caused the distraction leading to our destruction, much like the power of a VH1 ear worm, and that even now, days later, continues to encircle her sanity, and our sanity like a flock of transgendered vultures.
In a moment of suspended disbelief, mommy dearest crashed into Timmie Dearest who sat in Ronnie dearest most dearest Solstice. A week later, Lady Ga Ga will emerge from an Egg at the Grammy's, and all because a 7 year old kid didn't trust his mother, I now find myself paying attention to Lady Ga Ga and what sort of things she's emerging from or wearing or dating.
The kid didn't trust his mom. Not when it came to something important, like Lady Ga Ga's gender.
The kid didn't trust his mom. Not when it came to something important, like Lady Ga Ga's gender.
I'm gay.
Gay, gay gay.
But no, not even I'm totally sure, like a 100% sure, of Ga-Ga's gender. And if I'm not 100% sure---the kid is more than right to ask, just as I'd have done were I strapped into a car seat, how is his mommy so sure?
Ga Ga could be the next Divine. Reincarnated. Just this time, with anorexia.
Take a deep breath and...
So that's how it came to be that an SUV nearly landed in my lap.
So that's how it came to be that an SUV nearly landed in my lap.
Even as my spine traded places with my hips, I already sought meaning, mystery, and the questions that remain unanswered from this event. I can blame my MFA in Creative Writing for this. Looking for mystery in the mundane. That's what makes me roll even when a tail light is caressing my right cheek, and a door panel is crashing into my serenity.
Even while embracing the first tender caress of physical shock that will later stand diagnosed on X rays, I look for the "other" story begging to surface within the original story.
Even in the initial seconds after impact, even as I'm not quite ready to embrace all these people, who in at least thirty tropical, Latin based languages, are staring at me in the parking lot, and looking at the damaged car and thinking, "wow, that sucks. Glad it wasn't me.", the very first question that came to mind was:
What's GA GA Got to do with It?
Show Don't Tell...
In creative non fiction, it's the little detail orientated things that strike writer types as important--- its about the metaphor. It's as if, despite the full time job of trudging along through life, you've just been charged with a bigger duty. One that you alone are charged with developing. It's Dantesque or maybe even full of John Donne, and the theme is not minor.
This is no longer some random gas guzzling SUV thing meets sports car thing---it's a bigger, universal thing. Even if the SUV was all painted up in Offshore Rose Burgundy, with bling bling rims and adorned with an "It's a Child, Not a Choice", bumper sticker plastered in the rear window. That's just the beginning. The start. The basic imagery.
But it, the whole chasing mystery drill, it's got to be about something universal, with hidden layers of meaning, pulling depth out of the ordinary, the magic of a 7/11 random particle accelerated collision. In this view, whiplash really is far more than just whiplash. A human spine stands as symbolic. Some intangible thing that links all of us. When you are a writer, this is like, so, duh.
This is no longer some random gas guzzling SUV thing meets sports car thing---it's a bigger, universal thing. Even if the SUV was all painted up in Offshore Rose Burgundy, with bling bling rims and adorned with an "It's a Child, Not a Choice", bumper sticker plastered in the rear window. That's just the beginning. The start. The basic imagery.
But it, the whole chasing mystery drill, it's got to be about something universal, with hidden layers of meaning, pulling depth out of the ordinary, the magic of a 7/11 random particle accelerated collision. In this view, whiplash really is far more than just whiplash. A human spine stands as symbolic. Some intangible thing that links all of us. When you are a writer, this is like, so, duh.
I tell myself this. Isn't this what you wanted that MFA for? Right? A new perspective? An original platform to reconsider a simple collision?
And how is a writer to trust their memory, to remember how it all felt, to describe later in some loosely themed narrative essay, how in a simple moment, everything can just change on you?
I do remember that I, at the moment of post impact---even as I became nothing more than a spectacle for the crowd and as I kept waiting for all the bystanders to disperse, and waiting for my friend to discover the remains of me, trapped by a looming Red SUV, surrounded by the remains of his car, I also recall wondering...
If the presence of a small child, asking of his mother the nature or nurture of Ga Ga, if this represented something truly worth writing about?
Because even in the midst of that crunch, the metal changing form, twisting, and morphing, I'd heard his question, coming out of an open back seat window, and that question, it had triggered something deep within me.
And that is just plain sick.
Because even in the midst of that crunch, the metal changing form, twisting, and morphing, I'd heard his question, coming out of an open back seat window, and that question, it had triggered something deep within me.
And that is just plain sick.
Would an epic essay follow, linking the death of Ron's car with the death of innocence, with the death of a mother's good driving record? Would I, to protect Ron's privacy and to guard his feelings of loss, need to change names, again?
Ron had just told me not ten minutes before, confessing as we stopped to fuel, that he'd only stopped smoking seven months ago. Did his vice add relevance to the story?
Should I edit that bit out?
If not, how much imagery is appropriate to use when describing him upon discovering the remains of his car? Is there such a thing as too much imagery?
Especially when, if I choose to portray accurately him, I used tons of adjectives to describe what an Italian New Yorker looks like? The redness in his face, the steam I could see just waiting to explode from his ears. The screaming silence I witnessed, as he used every fiber of anger management training to keep from killing a mother with a young son. "Ron inspected the damage to his car" is sort of lacking.
So if I'm detailing his initial reaction, how he's already inhaling an entire package of Nicorette Gum, should I go with this?
"As Ron approached the mangled passenger side of his vehicle, he encountered an already apologetic petite blond woman, thrusting a business card at him, while saying over and over again, "I'm so sorry." The muscular Italian man, reddened. Surveying his vehicle, he realized the black sports car, a discontinued model, no longer had a working convertible top, a mag wheel appeared naked where a wheel well had been minutes before. Long scratches disrupted a formerly buffed paint job. Ron, in an effort to keep from strangling the woman, put the remains of his car between him and his vehicle's assailant. Then, and only then, did Ron notice that his passenger, a friend from Washington, sat shaking in the passenger seat. Looking closer, Ron realized the only words coming out of his friend's mouth--- a string of nonsensical words, repeated over and over again. "Ga Ga. Ga Ga. Ga. Ga."
Ron had just told me not ten minutes before, confessing as we stopped to fuel, that he'd only stopped smoking seven months ago. Did his vice add relevance to the story?
Should I edit that bit out?
If not, how much imagery is appropriate to use when describing him upon discovering the remains of his car? Is there such a thing as too much imagery?
Especially when, if I choose to portray accurately him, I used tons of adjectives to describe what an Italian New Yorker looks like? The redness in his face, the steam I could see just waiting to explode from his ears. The screaming silence I witnessed, as he used every fiber of anger management training to keep from killing a mother with a young son. "Ron inspected the damage to his car" is sort of lacking.
So if I'm detailing his initial reaction, how he's already inhaling an entire package of Nicorette Gum, should I go with this?
"As Ron approached the mangled passenger side of his vehicle, he encountered an already apologetic petite blond woman, thrusting a business card at him, while saying over and over again, "I'm so sorry." The muscular Italian man, reddened. Surveying his vehicle, he realized the black sports car, a discontinued model, no longer had a working convertible top, a mag wheel appeared naked where a wheel well had been minutes before. Long scratches disrupted a formerly buffed paint job. Ron, in an effort to keep from strangling the woman, put the remains of his car between him and his vehicle's assailant. Then, and only then, did Ron notice that his passenger, a friend from Washington, sat shaking in the passenger seat. Looking closer, Ron realized the only words coming out of his friend's mouth--- a string of nonsensical words, repeated over and over again. "Ga Ga. Ga Ga. Ga. Ga."
Yet, as a narrator, I need to insert my voice. I remember, vividly, the raw, burning sensation overtaking all of my right side, the muscles and bone that just moments before resisted intercourse with metal and shock absorbing 5 mph impact bumpers and that yet, now reacted in full spasms. I prayed, God let this mean something!
How should I approach my impression of the SUV mom, who as she waited beside us, as we all waited for the police, found it helpful to make small talk.
"Where was I from? Did I live nearby? Didn't I think that Ron seem to be taking everything rather well? Do I always shake like that?"
"Where was I from? Did I live nearby? Didn't I think that Ron seem to be taking everything rather well? Do I always shake like that?"
I'd originally thought it my great fortune that the woman, who backed into where I sat, at 15-20 mph, in that nice SUV, had a business card. This conveyed legitimacy, when she'd thrust her card my way, immediately after impact.
Who says this kind of stuff, one phrase coming right after the other?
It was that last part, the lucky strike reference, that burned. She managed to tell me all this, even as her son, was still asking her if she was sure Lady Ga Ga was a girl.
You say Irony. I say At Fault Collision...
The acidic balm of irony oozed to the surface, ruining any hope of detachment from my experience. And I noted the moment, thinking, how oddly misplaced this, her moment of self affirmations. I had not, until that very week, ever been to south Florida, so when she spouts out all of this, I had no context.
But, this nagging question formed. Had I just landed in a Tim Burton Film? Like, really?
But, this nagging question formed. Had I just landed in a Tim Burton Film? Like, really?
She repeated these things to the police, Then to Ron.
This is all true, I swear. The authentic voice. Our real time dialogue stuff. That she said she was nice, and that she said I was lucky that she was so nice, really happened. It was super important to her. This niceness bit. She kept saying it, over and over again. And after she'd said it to Ron and to me and to the police, like twice, I wondered if she needed a hug.
But I couldn't move.
This trait, her absolute niceness had to have meant something. Because apparently, in South Florida, to be nice and be a good citizen, and yet not be struggling with dementia or another life you are hiding back in Brazil, or Cuba, or Chile, is, uh---quite rare. Noteworthy even. Possibly grounds for a Tim Burton Film.
Hemingway's Whiskey...
So, it is now many days since a burgundy SUV raped me and I fear that this event, will be all that I can remember of T. Williams and E. Hemingway. That what could have been a good story of a vision quest to see the Florida Key's Highway and the lair of great writers is just nothing more than fodder for yet another, going nowhere fast, non fiction essay. One that is partially formulated, but totally lost in my brain, lingering in development hell.
I've been ruined. That's what writing is doing to me.
I can't even enjoy my own damn accident. I can't even tell, without the guilt of adequate showing, and there isn't much mystery left to find, because I am too busy drowning in cultural competency, place, and dialect. The framework of authenticity has me questioning the authenticity of my voice . Did the tail light of the SUV loom or did it appear? How close was it to my face? Inches? A foot? Did my head bobble after impact, or was it just my neck that snapped?
Is this what writing leads to?
I can't even enjoy my own damn accident. I can't even tell, without the guilt of adequate showing, and there isn't much mystery left to find, because I am too busy drowning in cultural competency, place, and dialect. The framework of authenticity has me questioning the authenticity of my voice . Did the tail light of the SUV loom or did it appear? How close was it to my face? Inches? A foot? Did my head bobble after impact, or was it just my neck that snapped?
Is this what writing leads to?
A full acceptance that my life will exist only as a bit character in a new take on a reinvented Southern Gothic genre? One that, as the temptation to revise sets in, reveals a crap essay that is still so not ready for publication in some trendy southern literary journal.
The great southern writer Flannery O Connor still has everything on me. She'd have made hay with that mother's humility and sense of her self. That even as her injured victim was going into shock, mom felt it necessary to do a quick set of affirmations. O' Connor would have found a richness in the line, "You're so lucky that I'm so nice." that still eludes me. She'd have known what to do with the still small voice of a child, only seeking to know the origins of Ga Ga and yet unsatisfied with the answer. Damn it, even Tennessee Williams would have crafted a play.
Hemingway? Well hell, he'd have already married the mother, twice, by now.
The great southern writer Flannery O Connor still has everything on me. She'd have made hay with that mother's humility and sense of her self. That even as her injured victim was going into shock, mom felt it necessary to do a quick set of affirmations. O' Connor would have found a richness in the line, "You're so lucky that I'm so nice." that still eludes me. She'd have known what to do with the still small voice of a child, only seeking to know the origins of Ga Ga and yet unsatisfied with the answer. Damn it, even Tennessee Williams would have crafted a play.
Hemingway? Well hell, he'd have already married the mother, twice, by now.
And me? I do not yet possess a beginning sentence from which to process this collision of lives.
I'm leaning toward, "It all started at 7/11...." Yet the sentence feels empty.
But all of them, the great southern writers, they would have already finished a rough draft, even before the cops showed up. Had it been them, minding their own business, parked at the fuel island, "Oh Thank Heavenin' for 7/11, getting raped by a Nissan, they'd have already penned something, published it, and seen it land on the NYTimes Best Seller list.
I'm leaning toward, "It all started at 7/11...." Yet the sentence feels empty.
But all of them, the great southern writers, they would have already finished a rough draft, even before the cops showed up. Had it been them, minding their own business, parked at the fuel island, "Oh Thank Heavenin' for 7/11, getting raped by a Nissan, they'd have already penned something, published it, and seen it land on the NYTimes Best Seller list.
What is my problem?
I only have little, teeny, tiny bit of knowledge that I've gained from this. Word. That Lady Ga Ga is a he or a she matters not. But a child's search for answers, and a mother's complete inability to provide them, is a mirror of my relationship with writing itself.
Which is about as Southern Gothic as you can get.
Which is about as Southern Gothic as you can get.
1 comment:
Tim are you sure you never pissed off a gypsy, who then put a curse on ya.
Just Asking.
Pat from NY
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