bg/ish: "I'm caught in the grip of The City... Madness"
Wednesday, 4:30 p.m. I'm heading home from work. Mashing. The Meat Grinder. Market Street. 7th & Market. Red light. Skid stop...
Dude on a BMX is mashing hard, coming in my direction. Too hard. In a blink of an eye he's in the middle of the intersection. I don't have time to even process the thought that he doesn't see the red light. Hardly a skid at all, and I mean from the Dodge Ram mobbing up 7th and into the intersection...
Impact. Dude's life hangs in the balance of a millisecond. The truck hits his rear wheel. A leg breaks. A bike tumbles, mangled. A bag flies. Glasses too. A body hits the pavement. 10 feet away. So close the sound stabs at my brain. I'm stunned. Deep breath. Drop my bike. Dude struggles to get up.
"Dude, stay down. Stay down man. Your leg is fucked."
Grab the mangled bike. Drag it to the corner.
"Has anyone called 911?!?"
"I'm on it!" I wheel around to see a guy on his phone. More people approach Dude. He's rambling something about "BMX" and being "run off the road".
"....right leg..." I'm only catching bits of the 911 call...
Strangers working as a team. Cyclist in bright yellow jacket sets up in front of the downed rider. Takes off the jacket, waves it to alert traffic.
Driver of the truck approaches. "You ran a red light." Has nothing more to say.
More rambling. "Somebody was chasing me!"
I'm not fooled. Dude is high. Dude is tweaking... Crazy. Maddened.
It makes sense. I look around. A small crowd has gathered. I might even hear sirens in the distance. But that doesn't mean anything. My adrenaline is raging. I have somewhere to be. I really do. I'm shaking. Nauseous. I look around again. Light turns green. I dip.
Exit stage right. That scene won't exist to anyone passing by in 20 minutes. There won't be a news story. No. A tweaker got hit by a car in the TL. There's no headline for that...
And if there is, I already wrote it.
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