I was going to write a blog about my November. I thought it was pretty wild. The Cubs won the World Series. Donald Trump won the election. I got stung by a bee on a CTA bus. But, I’m a procrastinator. I never wrote it. Maybe I will. But not right now. This is about Thursday, December 8, 2016.
I had to be up by 6:30 AM. I woke up at around 5:30 AM when I tried to turn on my left side and got a horrific fucking cramp in my upper left leg. It felt like a star imploded in my leg. The black hole that followed the implosion was trying to suck all my leg muscles into the center of the cramp. It kind of went away after 10 minutes. I stayed in bed till 6:30 AM, but that was mostly out of fear of getting the cramp back with the slightest movement.
When I finally showered, ate breakfast, and got dressed I was already running really late. I have a habit of watching TV while getting ready. I get preoccupied with it. This morning I was stuck watching Insomnia. It’s a Christopher Nolan movie that stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hillary Swank. I’ve seen it before. Recently. Nolan really likes to fuck with the concept of sleep deprivation and altered states in his movies. When I came to that profound conclusion, I realized I couldn’t make it to work in time for the job interviews I had to run. Unless I took a Lyft. It was money well spent. I had a good conversation with my Lyfter, Tatiana. We both had experience in the corporate world and she liked to make eye contact. Conversation flowed.
I moved to hire both people I interviewed. That made me feel good. I could go into more details here, but I won’t. My day job is just my day job.
I had a fun improv class on Thursday evening at the Annoyance. I didn’t stay to play in the Fish Bowl improv jam. I had a long week and I was super tired. I had a deposition early Friday morning and a Christmas party at night. I wanted to go home and try to get the most sleep I could.
On the Brown Line home, I dozed off a few times. I had put my bluetooth headphones in my ears to finish listening to Shane Mauss on WTF, but I never even attempted to listen to it. I knew I would doze and miss most of the conversation. When I got off the train at Kimball I took my time getting off the platform. I took a couple of deep breaths and made sure I was alert and ready to walk. It was also cold AF outside. That just made me super alert and ready to go home. I was going to walk because it was 20 minutes to the next westbound Lawrence bus and I only go three stops. There was a lot of snow forecast for the weekend, so I figured this might be one of the last ice free walks home.
I didn’t cross Kimball. That intersection is dangerous. I went to cross Lawrence. Made it. There wasn’t a lot of traffic. It was close to 10:00 PM. I could have crossed over Kimball on that side of Lawrence, but I didn’t have the light. Plus, that intersection also scares me. A couple people did dart across the street against the light. I was like, naw. It’s not worth it. The light turned green. The little white man showed up. I checked behind me for anyone who might want to turn ahead of me. Nothing. I took a few steps out into the street. Someone yelled, “Oh, shit!” That person was reacting to the taxi cab that was making a right turn directly into me. But, I didn’t know that. I heard a loud thud. My back snapped straight up and I was being thrown.
Back to Christopher Nolan real quick. In his movie Inception, the time within dreams moves super fast. One way Nolan explains this visually it to show a clock speeding up inside the dream with a quick cut to reality where they clock that is moving normally seems to be moving slower.
So, I was totes for sure in reality, but I had a lot of shit going in my mind:
Was I being mugged?
No. No. Fuck. I’m being hit by a car.
Is it going to stop? I feel like I’m getting hit over and over again.
Am I dying? Is this how I die? When do the lights go out? I don’t want to die.
Am I going to be hit by another car when I land? Am I going to survive getting hit and then get run over by another car like something out of a Final Destination movie?
Am I really airborne?
I don’t want to die.
A taxi cab, with a fare, had turned into my body. I got knocked off my feet. Then I fell or bounced off the hood of the cab. I still had a lot of speed and sideways momentum, so when I hit Kimball AVE, I rolled a good 5 feet away from the cab. In thinking about it, my body had to look like one of those figure skaters who meant to do a triple salchow, but only managed to do three quarters of one crooked rotation before hitting the ice.
I watched a lot of figure skating when I was a kid.
I somehow managed to make my legs and then arms take the fall first. The last thing to hit the ground was the back of my head. I fought that, with strain, which lessened the impact. I was wearing a lot of layers because of the cold. I was padded. Still, my hat and my glasses got knocked off at the impact of the car. My keys flew out of my pocket, as well. I took a major hit and I felt it.
The cab driver got out of the car and offered to help me up. My first instinct was to just pop up. In addition to figure skating, I’ve watched a lot of football. I know sometimes the best thing to do is stay down for a minute after a big hit. I basically knew what happened. But I couldn’t believe it. I checked for traffic. I waited for the light to be in my favor. What the fuck? That’s more of an exasperated what the fuck. I wasn’t mad. I quickly got frightened, though. I kind of got into a semi fetal position and looked around for oncoming traffic. I did not want to get run over after being hit. Once I knew there was no traffic attempting to enter that intersection, I started to feel my body. That’s such a fucking doosh actor thing to say. But I did. My left leg was weak, but I could feel it. My back was strained, but I could move it. The cab driver handed me my glasses and keys. I didn’t know if I was bleeding internally, but I was happy my glasses did not break. My hat was stuck in the hood of my hoodie. The driver offered to help me up when I got to my knees. I turned him down. I was too afraid to get up on my own. Out of nowhere, I was worried that getting up without holding onto something would make my left leg cramp again like it had earlier in the morning. So, I walk-crawled on my knees and used the hood of the cab to balance myself enough to get up.
I walked onto the Kimball sidewalk. The one that borders the strip mall. One dude asked me if I was ok. I was blank. I said yes. Another guy told me to sit down. I said ok and sat on the newly built planter. A woman walked up to me crying. She said, “I’ll give you my number. You call me tomorrow. I’ll get you a lawyer that’ll get you real paid.” I said ok and took her number. I was dazed. I had just been hit by a fucking cab.
After I took the number of the person I’ll never call, I texted my writing group about the accident. No. That’s not a normal thing. But they were cool and worried. Meanwhile, the cab driver is on the phone with 911. He’s saying: “No. No accident. I was making turn. Man touched my car. He fell in the street.”
I gave that dude side eye. It was an accident. You hit me. I had the right of way based on the fact that I’m a pedestrian who had the light and checked traffic to make sure I was good to cross the street. Make no mistake. I did not quote the driver to make fun of his language. I’m not that white guy. I quoted him because he chose that language, carefully, to make things sound less serious than they were. I flew in the air simply because I touched his car? What, like when you make one of those science project volcanoes? Just add a little bit of Luke to the baking soda and POOF! BAM! BLOOP!
He went to go wait for the police and ambulance in his cab. His fare had left. He had pulled his cab into the strip mall parking lot. He even offered to let me sit in the cab because it was cold. Pro tip: If you hit a person in the back with 2 tons of automobile, they’re not going to want to go near your car. I didn’t, anyway. Still, I wasn’t mad at all. I was dazed. So dazed that when the fire department and ambulance got there they asked me if I could walk by using a walking motion with their fingers. When I said yes, they were like, oh. Dude speaks english. He’s coherent. We all likely thought I was in shock.
I was taken via ambulance to Swedish Covenant. Nice place. I had extensive X-Rays of my body taken. No broken bones “in the mechanism.” But I had stiffness in my left ankle and lower left back. I have abdominal pain. When I’m laying down I can’t just lift my head. My neck feels like it will cramp. I was told that I would feel progressively worse over the next week as the soreness sets in my body. So far, it has. I get new and creepier stiffness and pain every day. But the hospital staff were great and the TV in my ER room had basic cable.
The doctor and I agreed: I was lucky. When I was discharged, I was given two prescriptions. And then I realized I have emotional distress. By this point, it was after 2:00 AM. I should’ve gotten a Lyft. I decided to walk up California to Lawrence and wait for the Lawrence bus to take me to the 24 hour Walgreens by my house. I was afraid of cabs and ride sharing. I was afraid they would hit me if I called them. That’s not really rational. But it’s what I felt. I hobbled up the street to Lawrence. I was trying to convince myself this was good for me. It would keep me from getting stiffer.
The bus got to Lawrence and Spaulding. That’s one stop aha from where the cab hit me. It’s also where the bus driver and yelled, “No what the fuck is this?!” When the driver eventually had to call the cops, the it was “A white male. Red Hood. Black Jacket. Walked up to the front of my bus and now won’t move. I’m stuck here.”
It was amusing for a while. I took a picture of him in the windshield. But then I started to wonder if there was some cosmic force preventing me from getting past Kimball AVE. I had been up for 21 hours and wanted to get my meds. After 10 minutes or so, the cops showed up. They tried to just shoo the guy away like a pigeon. He walked away from the bus, but then made a move towards the cops. It looked like he was arrested.
PIC:
I got my meds, walked home because scared, and watched the last 35 minutes or so of Columbo while eating Ben and Jerry’s. I figured I owed myself a treat. I went to bed around 4:40 AM. At 23 hours awake and a whole bunch of shit later, Thursday was finally over.