Totaled
It's tough for me to write about my first Honda Civic because of the car crash in 2014.
The ill sensation of time slipping into thick molasses when something pushes outside your control, is no exaggeration. It has unmatched force. When a dark haired gangly specked high schooler driving daddy's Benz rear ended us on the highway (not braking in time for an unanticipated but minor slowdown) my little red bullet shot towards the utility truck in front of us.
It had, of all the damnedest things, a ladder projecting out top right. Passenger side. Mercifully for the low profile of my car, the ladder missed by narrowest sliver. On buying the car I had been warned that this was a "dangerous" vehicle.
I was told 1) I was sure to be subject to routine police profiling for possession or DUI spot checks; 2) If I should ever get into an accident, the road-hugging that I loved would surely mean being crushed under whatever car, van, or truck, might be in front.
When the impact came from the back, I remember deafening silence, the milky sky, tranquility broken by my own voice flowing from some dark hollow recess, asking my tall friend Mark without turning my head:
"...will we stop?"
and his hesitant gruff, "I don't know..."
and then whoosh, crunch, the crush of metal, and shattering of glass behind us.
We were in shock, but we weren't hurt. Half an inch from the ladder. The windshield could have broke just from the force of impact, but it didn't. I was on the passenger side this time. Mark was behind the wheel. He was an excellent driver and loved that Honda maybe even more than I, without jealousy, just with a sense of camaraderie in fine rides.
Thanks to that low profile, we knew we had suffered less than we would have if we had taken bumper to bumper impact. That would have snapped us into neck braces. Lack of airbags meant we were full witnesses, unwhipped by canvas. The whole incident played out for us across the windshield like reality tv on Netflix.
The preppy kid was beside himself knowing Daddy would be livid. We watched him agonizing into his cell phone in the middle of the street oblivious to the oncoming traffic that a was skeetering around our debris. And the utility employee from the truck in front wanted to lay into us, but when Mark redirected him to the culprit, the guy took one look and gave up. I guess the Benz and the thought of the kid's Daddy put him in check, so he huffed back into his truck and took off as soon as we exchanged all the proper papers with the cops who pulled in amazingly quickly.
The truck was unscathed, except for a red smooch my puckered hood had left on the white bumper.
I felt for the kid. The face of his Mercedes was smashed, windshield shattered. He was obviously new to driving, though just a few years younger than me really. Eighteen maybe. I couldn't help but wonder if the experience would change him in anyway or if this was destined to only be a financial/ social mishap in his life. A small blip in his curriculum-vitae.
Police would not let us drive out. Safety. Something was leaking from the underbelly, so I had to call a tow truck. My sister drove out to pick up.
Nothing was rougher than seeing my Honda, battered and bruised like a boxer in the corner of the tow yard when Mark and I went to visit to assess the damage and drive it out. Insurance said it was "totaled." Crash was rightfully deemed not our fault. Recompense was $1,200. It wouldn't cover the cost of repairs, and it wouldn't amount to much of a vehicle as replacement. Certainly nothing comparable to my Honda.
"You gonna fix it?"
"Hell yeah."
The magnificent beast had three more years of life until my nephew busted it up. We fixed it again. But when he crashed it soon after that, I left it up to him, prodding his fighting spirit I suppose... but he scraped it.
Fact is, not everybody knows how to love a car.