hit and run: the art of making decisions.

you never know what each split-second decision will cause, what chain of consequences, unleashed and unstoppable, will determine the course of your life. i felt acutely aware of that tonight, driving home late from a theme party for which i dressed up as a partisan in chairman mao’s red army. i had been checking the minutes on the clock, debating whether i should leave or not. 3:14 was too soon; 3:18 made more sense. small details that seem enormous in retrospect. my thoughts flowed as i snaked along the roads: how i hate driving all the way downtown; how much gas this trip had used up on an ever-diminishing tank; how calmly and carefully i was trying to drive despite the roads being empty, reminding myself to just relax, to stop rushing; how i didn’t want to abuse the privilege of borrowing lorrie’s car, resolving to bike the rest of the weekend. and then, a decision: take the cote-des-neiges bus route, or go around the mountain on cote-ste-catherine, through sleepy outremont?

i figure cote-des-neiges is closest but i miss the left-hand merge lane and get stuck at a red light instead, so then i figure since i’m waiting anyway, i might as well go straight on doctor penfield to take the scenic route i prefer. one light. two lights. i’m alone, it’s quiet. i come up behind a few cars stopped at a red, and as the green light flashes on i think about how i used to visit karen in her apartment on this corner. and then, as i’m cruising through the intersection lagging slightly behind the pack, i realize the car flying down peel is not going to stop, he is running through the red, ohmygod he’s going to hit me. i instinctively swerve but feel the impact smash into the back of the jeep, and i am stunned. the sound is so loud i don’t even hear it. i twist around to see a small green car full of hooting men shoot off down the street, without so much as a pause or backward glance. shock. did that just happen? really??

i pull over to the side of the road and take a few seconds to literally pull myself together, and i step out to assess the damage. there is shattered glass all over the road, a few large hunks of metal debris—but the jeep seems to be in one piece. well, the bumper in the back is wrong, like a broken bone misplaced and jutting under skin, and the tire is badly hurt, flat and mangled—it took the brunt of the smaller car’s force. i’m paralyzed, i can’t think of what i’m supposed to do now. a silver car pulls up ahead—two young guys come out to see if i’m okay. i’m okay. i’m okay! am i okay? yes, my heart is pounding out of my chest and i’m scared shitless but i’m fine. another car pulls over and one of the guys points, that’s them, that’s them—i say no, it was a green car. wasn’t it a green car? two black men step out and i ask, unsure, did you just hit me? a chuckle and a no, but we want to be your witnesses, we want to see that you’re alright. i borrow a phone and call 911, and in a smattering of french and english i give my story and am told to sit tight. one minute later a huge flatbed truck pulls up. my four self-appointed guardians are conferring with one another, recounting their own details, agreeing, disagreeing. i start to shiver and the youngest one runs to the silver car and grabs his coat for me. the tow-truck man looks over the damage and says he’ll send over a service truck to change the flat, so i should be able to drive home.

we wait on the corner for what seems like an eternal suspended moment. i’m cold. i’m replaying the accident, over and over, slow-motion and yet still too fast to grasp. finally the police show up and again the report is relayed, the witnesses are questioned, briefly; nobody could see the license plate. of course i tried to check—i hate it in movies when nobody thinks to and it’s so clear, so obvious—but the car never stopped, and with my impaired vision i can barely read the names off street signs at night at a crawl, let alone catch a speeding plate number 30 feet away and counting. so there’s nothing they can do; there’s no investigation, no case—a classic drunken hit-and-run. the cops smile sympathetically and leave. the two black blokes wish me luck and leave. the two persian men, who had made their own split-second decision to stop and check on me instead of chasing after the culprit, said they would change the tire for me. i start digging through the manual: where are these mysterious tools, how many secret compartments does this trunk have, why won’t the jack come out now that we’ve found it? our fingers are getting too cold to be nimble.

the new service man pulls up and after conferring with his boss over the phone, twice, says he’ll change the tire for $90. the guys look at each other, and me, shaking their heads—total scam, we’ll do it for nothing. more fussing about, but to no avail. they stop a taxi driver, he comes out, he knows the trick and releases the jack. there is a sense of cheer among the men, they are bonding in this mission. we must speak at least half a dozen languages between us and reflect just as wide a breadth of cultural diversity, and for some reason they’ve decided we’re all in this together. the awesomeness of this pierces through the chaos, quickly. then i am discussing my options with the service man; he is telling me if i don’t have a special lock key, i won’t be able to get the tire off, and i will need to be towed. i don’t speak the language of mechanics. i look in the car, i don’t know what i’m looking for and i don’t find it, and suddenly i am completely overwhelmed and too tired to care anymore about a hundred bucks and a stupid lock key, it’s 4:30 in the morning and i just want to go home. so i admit my defeat, thank and hug my friends—because that’s what they have become, sharing my plight these past 45 minutes—and resign myself to a binding agreement with this sad-looking, unhelpful, unfriendly tow man. he tells me if i pay him cash, he’ll take $80 and i say fine, fine, can i please sit in the cab now because i’m freezing here?

he takes a few minutes to hook up the car and i kick myself for not making that left-hand turn onto cote-des-neiges, or driving slower, or faster, because this all could have been avoided with the simple tweaking of a few seconds—but then that same line of reasoning could have put me in a far worse situation, and through the false sense of security that comes with driving a tough truck, i am shaken with gratitude, i was lucky, god damn i was so lucky. and then i realize what i must have looked like to these people and the passing cars, a stranded girl in a chinese communist military uniform amid a sea of sparkling glass at the crack of dawn.

it takes over half an hour to drive home at 45 km/h, but at least there is heat blasting at me and i can start hoping to see the end of this night. the sad man with an unfortunate lack of social grace clearly decides i’m the right person to talk to at 5 am, because he fights through a stutter to tell me about his two recent ex-girlfriends who both cheated on him, leaving him high and dry and missing the children they had brought into his life and abruptly took away. i had been upset with him earlier when he would not try to help get the jack out of my car, or even lend a flashlight to my flailing would-be saviours, insisting on his highly-priced services; now i just feel pity. my truck had been hit by a car; his life had been run over by a truck.

when we finally reached the longed-for driveway in TMR, he surprised me by giving me his personal phone number with instructions to call tomorrow if i found the magical lock key—he said he would come back and change the tire on his own time, most likely for the free therapy session of revealing his deepest pains to a complete stranger. so the ordeal is done; the car is stowed safely, if not soundly, in the garage. i will break the news to lorrie, who happens to be enjoying ignorant bliss in boston. my hands were still shaking when i started writing this; now, i am calm, and the sun is rising against that perfect pale montreal spring sky. another day, as though nothing has ever happened. this was an experience. this was an adventure. the gain of knowing the universe is taking care of me through the support of strangers is worth more than the value of the inflicted damages; nothing was lost here but money.