Crash at the Curve

Late Friday night I sat beside my brother's bed. As it has gone, it seems, for some time, my plans for getting to bed earlier than usual that evening had failed. It was now past 1 o'clock, and though Eric had started saying every so often, "Well, I have to get up at 6 tomorrow," we still continued talking.

For once, Kristen was asleep before we were, and Dad and Amy were still up, though preparing for bed. Mom and Melody, who was not feeling well, were downstairs, having been watching movies. At the time, we weren't necessarily aware of these things.

I can't remember what we were saying, but whoever was talking was interrupted by a loud screech. I was about to say someone had taken the curve really fast.

The curve just down from our house is a bit treacherous; some people have even prayed angels around it. People are always turning around in our drive since the roads are a bit confusing as they merge into one road and emerge again, and taking that road too sharp, causing screeching, isn't uncommon. We've lost our mailbox more times than we can count.

But my words were cut off when the long screech was followed by a loud crashing sound.

Glancing at each other, we all suddenly rose and hurried downstairs. Dad was emerging from the hall, shirt in hand, as Melody and Mom opened the front door. We went out on the sidewalk, peering down to the ditch on the other side of the road where a vehicle had stopped. Unlike I had thought, there was only one vehicle. We suddenly noticed loud, rocky music, and an alarm started going off.

Dad was inside, calling 9-1-1. "Yeah, we don't know. No, we haven't gone down there. There's someone moving around. I don't know if anyone's hurt."

"What," we joked, "he doesn't want to go out in his sweatpants?"

We could see some figures looking around at the car. Mom didn't think, judging by the music, the speed at which they must have been driving, and the time, that it was a good idea to go down there, since they seemed to be fine. We went back inside, and Mom went to look up the upstairs window.

"Keith!" she called. "It's on fire!" The smoking vehicle made an exploding sound. We hurried back outside, and the whole front was engulfed in flames. Every so often, another explosion sounded. Dad called again.

It was frightening to imagine someone in there, burning before our eyes with no way to help.

I got out my camera.

The fire was getting bigger, and right beside the woods. "If they don't get here soon, the woods are going to start burning," Mom said. It was a good thing it wasn't very dry, or they would have.

At last three police cars came. One policeman shone his flashlight into the truck to see if anyone was in it. Another guy looked at the situation and said something along the lines of, "Well, you guys got this? I'm outta here."

"'Kay. See ya," another said.

The first policeman noticed us standing there and started coming towards us. "Did you guys see what happened?" he asked. "Are you the ones who called?"

Mom yelled something from the upstairs window. The rest of us were standing at the end of the drive, ready to answer his questions. He brushed right past us. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't hear you. I have a head cold." He had a large, sort of bald head.

We told him what we had seen. He said that he had been afraid that someone was in there.

I had seen two people at the end of a drive down at the curve. They were walking away from the fire, however, so I assumed that they were just curious neighbors. Melody, from the upstairs window, had seen a guy walking away from the fire yelling, "Hey! Hey!" and then, "Billy!" before disappearing.

We don't know what really happened, but our hypothesis was that someone had stolen the car, so of course they didn't stick around and someone picked them up after the crash.

At last we heard the sirens from the fire engine briefly, and they pulled up. Some sort of inspection or preparation seemed to take a long time. Then a fireman had a hose and began spraying the fire.

The smoke billowed up in a great arc, though as I had the fifty on my camera, I couldn't capture the whole thing. With the police lights reflecting on it, the smoke looked neat, yellow and red and blue and purple.

We could now see that the vehicle was a truck.

The moon was very bright that evening.

We all stood on the drive watching the proceedings, despite the cold temperature. At last they managed to put the fire out. Mom and Dad went back inside. We were still standing there, and a policeman approached us. We looked at each other, wondering. When he came closer, he asked, "Did you guys see what happened?" We told him we had heard it.

"Who knows the most?" he asked. "I want someone to come back to the car with me and write a statement." We looked at each other. I glanced at the dewy grass and my socked feet. Hmm...

"Who saw the most?" he repeated. We all started saying what happened, but no one volunteered. "It's not a big deal," he said. "We just want someone to write down what happened."

When Melody said that she had seen the guy who yelled, "Hey!", the policeman said, "Yes, that's it. That's what I want."

She waited for Dad, and they followed the man down to the road. Soon Melody came running back along the road.

"What does she have in her hand?" Eric asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Wait, she does," I corrected myself as she entered the light of the police car parked at the end of the drive.

The policeman had given her a clipboard with the report on it and told her she could finish it up at the house.

So she sat on the porch and wrote while Mom, worried about her being sick, brought her shoes and Amy found her some unmatching socks.

We assisted her some, and went down to the drive, wanting to go where Dad was. So, Deanna, Eric and I crossed the cold, dewy grass, and my socks became wet and my feet frozen.

The first policeman was standing with Dad when we arrived, and asked if we had been smart enough to put shoes on. "Yep," Eric said. He and Deanna had.

"Oh, there's one," he said, indicating my damp feet. "So, are these your kids too?" he asked Dad.

"Yep."

"Wow." (His language was probably more colorful than that.) "How many is that-five?"

"Three more are asleep inside."

I don't remember what exclamation he made, but then he said, "I have one nineteen-year-old boy and one thirteen-year-old girl, and I would rather have five nineteen-year-old boys than one thirteen-year-old girl. The drama wrapped around that girl!" He started listing things-"she did this, and they hurt me" and so forth.

"They are a blessing," Dad said.

"Oh, she's not a bad kid," he said. "She's a good kid. I'm just glad I don't have to deal with it much. I work nights and I sleep in the day. My wife keeps me updated and I'm like, 'Wow, I don't know how you deal with it. I couldn't.'"

I hurried back, this time along the road so that I needn't get any more damp than necessary, stopping briefly to look closely at the truck. It was actually a black truck, Eric said, but it looked white after the fire.

Melody had just finished her report. "Why did you come back?" she asked.

"I thought you might like a picture," I replied.

She posed with it, and then I took a close-up, so she could remember what she said.

Then we walked with Mom back to the policemen. A tow truck had come, and they had attached a line to the truck to pull it out. Melody offered the clipboard to the policeman, but he asked her to hold onto it a minute.

We noticed that they had knocked over one of the arrow signs on the other side of the curve (to the left on the picture above) which meant they had gone a long way. They had entered the ditch and gone along it for quite a distance, and the crashing sounds we heard must have been going over the big logs in it. (Another thing that the policeman described quite colorfully. Dad said that they cleaned up their language quite a bit when we came down. They could have used some more...)

Then the man looked over Melody's statement. "This is a very good statement," he said. "If I have any questions I have your number, but that probably won't happen."

We think he looked like what you imagine a police officer to be.

The man with the tow truck pulled it out just by pushing something that drew it out by a cable. We could finally see it quite well.

The tires were in very bad shape-one was quite missing-and they didn't turn, so it scraped along the road.

The windshield was gone-probably one of the explosions-as was the hood, revealing the engine.

The tow truck couldn't pull it well on the one remaining wheel, so they ended up getting another machine to put the truck on top of with some difficulty. But we, having been out there for an hour or so, went in to put on pajamas and warm socks, drink hot chocolate in Melody's case, huddle under covers, and get to sleep.

Late the next day (really the same day) we attended a bonfire, and Melody gave a dramatic retelling of that morning's adventure. She drew it out as long as she could, emphasizing every exciting detail.

We're only surprised that they didn't manage to get the mailbox. It was quite an experience, the most dramatic of the things that have happened from living at the curve.