A Car Crash or A Happy Accident?
Getting hit by a car is the worst part about moving
Moving sucks. You pack all your net worth1 in a few cardboard boxes. You begrudgingly wrangle up your buddies in your group chat. You show up later than you told your girlfriend you would to get the Uhaul. You find all your friends waiting on the soccer field next to your old apartment, they load up your couch and book collection, with only a few boxes collapsing under their weight. You lose your cat, you find her. You do it all over again at your girlfriend's house, only her stuff is more organized so it goes faster. You see a coyote walking in the street and all the neighborhood dogs lose their shit like, opp detected. Then you get everything to the new place and it's really cute but now there’s a bunch of your combined junk occupying what you thought was a beautiful blank canvas. Your girlfriend buys pizza and beer, you and your boys move around the heavy furniture. And finally you eat and drink on the stoop out front while a random guy with no teeth welcomes you to the neighborhood by telling you, “you aren’t gonna pay for this here Uhaul, no how. They forgot the ol’ ladder thing to wheel out the furniture. You’re gonna go back there and tell them you aren’t paying, right?” And you agree to humor him, but then he explains it all three more times, before another guy comes up to him and tells him to “shut the fuck up.” They both throw their fists up like they're about to go bodies, then burst out laughing and tell you, “nah this my cousin.” Then the guy actually still tells him to “shut the fuck up,” and moves him along. And after all that you still left a couple chairs and a pile of clothes2 at your old apartment you have to get the following morning.
All of this is obviously hypothetical. But on my first morning waking up in my new apartment, I kissed my girlfriend and immediately was out the door with a slice of cold pizza in hand. Why do I have so much crap that is quite literally worthless? I don’t know—sentimentality perhaps. But, moving day(s) is not a day to look inward, it is a day of action. At the old apartment I packed up my last few things fairly quickly. Out the door by 8:30. Before my old roommates could finish their weekend morning coffee, I was already calling the junk guy to schedule a pick up for my lumpy mattress.3
On my way back to my new place I stopped at the Peet’s Coffee, which recently unionized, for an indulgent and celebratory cold brew. Birds were chirping. The sun glistened faintly through the tempered glass windows. Neighbors gossiped at their cafe. I stood waiting for the signal to turn. I took one step into the intersection and heard an engine rev. Before I could fully jump back, the green Camry plunged forward, directly over my foot and the inside of my right knee. I fell into the car, maintaining enough balance to: 1) not go over the hood into the windshield 2) not even drop my coffee.
The car sped into the intersection, but the driver hung a right and immediately parked in the bike lane and flipped his hazards on. My first thought was spoken words. Namely—what the fuck is wrong with you? Why don’t you watch where you’re fucking going? You’re going to kill someone you [redacted]!
“I’m so sorry,” the driver pleaded. “Oh my god I’m so sorry bro.”
My second thought was more abstract. More of the—Fuck cars. If only I went to Peet’s five years in the future after they reconfigured NE Broadway to be less shitty to walk and bike on. They should make right turns on red illegal. How two cyclists were killed by car in Portland that same week—variety. Three ladies drinking coffee at a table outside the cafe were now yelling at the driver, while I walked off towards my car in an angry daze.
“Bro no really, I’m so sorry.”
My third thought was present. Somehow I wasn’t even limping. There was a tread mark on the top of my white shoe, but it rubbed off when I licked my finger. The three ladies were waving for me to come back, “You really got to take this guy’s information!”
“Yes, please bro, take my information.”
My fourth thought was about the driver. He had long curly blonde hair, the black sleeves of his collared shirt were rolled up revealing a Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy tattoo on his forearm.
“Bro, I don’t know what I did,” he said. “I completely didn’t see you. I was on my way to work, I just saw the guy with his turn signal on stopped and thought he was letting me in. But he was letting you in.”
“Yeah, yeah fine, whatever,” I mumbled.
“Here take my phone number, I swear I didn’t see you at all,” he said. “Bro, I’m so sorry, my name is Willy.”
“Yea take his phone number,” one of the women at the cafe said. “I’m a doctor and you should go to the hospital now, we saw everything.”
I gave him my phone and he shot himself a text to save my number as well.
“Are you good bro?” he asked. “You didn’t hit your head did you?”
My fifth thought was doubt. I shook my head, but wondered if I had actually. I paced off and let the driver go. One woman told me she was a lawyer and gave me her number too. Another guy in a three piece suit rolled up beside us in his Cadillac and waved me over, “I saw everything young buck. I’ve got your back should you need me” and handed me his business card.
My sixth thought was about how shockingly fine I felt. Instinctively I paced around the block a few times, perhaps it was just adrenaline. I was seven months out of ACL-repair surgery, I really couldn’t stand starting over on my other knee. But there was no pop this time. When I tore it I was playing basketball and slipped on someone's sweat. Now I literally got hit by a car and nothing.
“You really should go to the doctor,” the woman told me again. “I’m glad you got that boy’s information, we thought you were going to just walk off. I could tell he did genuinely feel bad. He was practically in tears.”
My seventh, eight, and ninth thoughts were—sympathy, pity, and annoyance.
My tenth thought was I guess I should go to the doctor now?
In the waiting room of the urgent care I called the guy coming to get my mattress and told him it might have to wait, that some things had come up. Then I called Willy the driver.
“Bro, so glad you called bro,” he answered.
“Yeah, I’m at the doctor about to get this checked out. And I need your insurance information.”
“When I left you there I felt so fucking bad,” he went on. “I drove maybe two blocks and had to pull over, I was crying so much. I literally called out of work on the spot. They said I might get a no-call/no-show for it but it was just too much.”
“Yeah, that really sucks.”
“Bro, for real I’m an empath,” he said. “When I hit you it just felt so bad. I’ve never done anything that bad before, I swear.”
“Can I get your insurance information?”
“Oh man,” he paused. “I really am so sorry I hit you bro.”
“Yeah it’s alright, but what’s your insurance?”
“Is there any way we can keep the insurance out of this?” he asked. “I gotta be truthful, I don’t really have insurance like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t have insurance bro,” he said. “Is there any way I could get you back in weed? Weed or Magic the Gathering cards. I have a few boxes of them, do you play Magic? They’re yours bro.”
“Eh. Could you pay me cash?”
“Yeah, yeah, cash. I got you.”
“I’ll take the weed too i guess.”
“For sure. Bro, you’re my angel,” he said. “Text me the bill and I can come roll up and take you to my bank.”
When the receptionist asked for our insurance, I just gave her mine. She said that I should have called the cops because you just can’t be driving without insurance. About ten minutes later I saw the doctor. He sat me on the exam table, asked me if it hurt, rubbed my knee and foot, asked if it hurt when he touched it. Asked if I heard anything pop when it happened. I shook my head, and he told me, “You’ll probably bruise pretty good. Call back if it gets worse and take some ibuprofen, I don’t think we need to do any imagining.”
I texted Willy the bill—$80. I told him I’d rather not ride in the car with him but that he could meet me at Irving Park after he went to the bank.
We met in between two groups of kids playing a soccer tournament. He asked if he could give me a hug, and so we hugged. Willy ended up giving me $120, telling me to buy myself some dinner. Then he handed me a gram of weed and a pre-roll.
“It’s all the weed I have now, but I could get more.”
I told him it was fine.
“I’m really so, so sorry bro you really are my angel,” his eyes welling up again. “If you want to buy shrooms or Molly, my girl’s got a good connect. I don’t touch the stuff anymore, it gives me too much anxiety.”
We fist bumped. I told him not to hit anybody on the drive home, and I left for my old apartment. My roommate helped me get the old mattress up out of my basement room. I whispered goodbye to my home, left my key on the table, and lugged the springy mass onto the porch. For a second my knee started to buckle, but in the end it held firm. It would bruise and make little clicking noises for about a week but that soon went away too.
The junk guy arrived right on time, his truck bed full of mattresses and broken furniture. I told him my tale—how lucky I was that I didn’t even need to delay the pickup. The man insisted he take it from there and tossed my bed into his heap. He told me he's got me if I needed any more help moving, then asked me for the shroom connect.
Some stuff I wrote recently
New Seasons Labor Union calls for a boycott of all New Seasons locations after a Thanksgiving Eve strike at eleven unionized stores - NW Labor Press
New Seasons management finally gave an economic response, shocker, it’s insulting & disrespectful. Here’s my coverage of a march on the boss workers did at the 7 Corners location earlier this year.
Workers at the Peet’s Coffee where I got hit by a car unionized! - NW Labor Press
An update on the (In)Hospitality Report from a couple months back. Peet’s workers voted to unionize. Sizzle Pie workers are still waiting because their parent company is broke and dysfunctional but still trying to acquire new businesses? Fried Egg I’m In Love workers are still bargaining, next session is coming up in a week and word is there may be some BIG movement at the table. And Sea Wolf Bakery in Seattle voted in favor of unionizing with UFCW 3000 27-5.
Workers at McMenamins Edgefield voted against a union with IATSE Local 28, the union is challenging the results after they claim excessive union busting - NW Labor Press
A little under $2k subtracting student loans and adding in the beat up car you bought from your brother when he moved to San Francisco and the two savings bonds you got as a baby and forgot to cash.
And your bike, and a stack of records, and your old bed frame you still need to throw out before the new roommate moves in.
A story for another time about when I bought this thing used from a Buddhist pick up artist who was seemingly making a pre-manosphere cult compound in Cully.