Highway to Hell

This is the tale of the day I should have died.

In the summer between my Junior and Senior years of high school I was 17 years old and a very bad driver. I’m not sure that I was the “crazy driver” that Ben labels me as today, but I would definitely pay a lot more attention to the music playing on the radio and how my hair looked in the rearview mirror (yes, I at one time had hair) than I would to the road in front of me.

Over the course of this summer, I would occasionally go up to the Belleville West baseball fields to watch my buddy Jarrod play some of his American Legion baseball games. Now, the field was probably less than a mile from my house so I could easily have ridden my bike or even walked. But, I was 17, lazy, and had my dad’s 1985 GMC S-15 readily available to me so the only real option was to drive. In retrospect, I probably should have walked.

At that point in time I had lived on Route 13 for my entire life. Not only did I live on that street, but the ball field that I was going to was on Route 13 also. It was basically a straight shot to get there. I had walked, ridden my bike, driven, and been driven along that route so many times that I knew it like the back of my hand. As a result, I didn’t need to pay a ton of attention to the road as I knew exactly where I was going, where the turns were, and where cars were apt to stop.

At least I thought.

I started my trek, as per usual, by backing out of my parent’s driveway onto Route 13 and headed east towards the ball diamonds. I know the truck kind of “officially” became mine sometime around my senior year, but I’m not sure if I had taken full control of it yet. I only mention that because the second I shifted from reverse to drive, I began fiddling with the radio. If my dad was still taking it to work, then I was more than likely making the switch from AM to FM. If it was already mine, then I was probably either putting in a tape or toggling between the radio stations looking for the perfect song to blast as I pulled into the parking lot less than a mile away. Either way, I was messing with the radio when I should have been watching what I was doing.

As I mentioned before, I knew this path well and was well aware of where the dangers lay, so I felt very comfortable messing with the radio while barely watching the road in front of me. There were basically only two places that you could turn and those were the only places that I had EVER had to slow down for a vehicle to turn along that route so once I saw that the van in front of me had passed 29th street, I figured that I had enough distance between us that even if they made the right into Highland Hills that I would barely even need to tap my brakes to slow down.

That’s where I was wrong

See, the stretch of Route 13 between 29th street and Highland Hills is a fairly narrow, slowly rising hill which veers to the left. On the left side of the road is a high embankment which leads up to a house but eventually flattens out to an entrance to a trailer court. The right side of the road is decorated with a lovely guardrail that protects you from falling about 25 feet down an embankment and into a small creek. The problem is that people rarely turn into that trailer court from this direction. Typically they take 29th street and make a right off of there. Typically.

Getting back to my story, the van in front of me did not take the left turn onto 29th street so, as I said, I didn’t figure I would need to pay much attention to it. I began looking down at my radio again and fiddling with whatever I was fiddling with when all of a sudden I looked up and the van was at a complete stop about 20 feet in front of me attempting to turn into the aforementioned trailer court. I was travelling at around 35 mph and realized immediately that there was no way I was going to be able to stop in time.

At this point I realized that I couldn’t go straight because there was a van in my way and I couldn’t go off the road to the right because there was the guard rail and 25 feet of free falling into a small creek should I happen to go through it. I really only had one option.

I drove into the oncoming traffic.

I don’t know if I looked or not before I did so because I think it was just a gut (and horrible) reaction, but something should have told me that if the van was stopped to make a left turn, there must be something coming that was preventing him from turning in the first place. Either way, I had driven into the other lane to avoid rear ending a van and ended up coming face to face with a car coming directly at me.

Now, I used to tell this story with a little more gusto and say that there was a Mustang or some other bad ass sports car that was coming at me. I made believe that I realized the amount of monetary damages that I would inflict on the car had I hit it, so I made my next decision based on that. The truth is, I was scared for my life and have no clue if it was sports car, a Yugo, or a freaking fire truck. All I know is that at that point I didn’t care what was going on in the other lane, I just didn’t want to hit another car head on while I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt (yes, I know. Just drop it).

I again went over my options in a split second and noticed that the van was still stopped, the car was still coming at me at full speed, there was no way I could even get to the right side of the road with the guardrail and the possible 25 foot free fall into the creek that I had peed in more times as a kid than I had in my own bathroom, and the embankment to the left right before the entrance to the trailer park would either be like hitting a wall or I’d catch it just right and flip my truck over and still get hit by that car. I was screwed.

Finally, I did the one thing that I didn’t think was possible and I’m still not sure how it happened, but definitely did. With a primal scream that had to have been heard for miles around, I darted off towards the center line.

Now, when I say primal scream, I don’t think I’m quite doing it justice. I think I’ve actually screamed in fear once in my life – and this was it. Sure, I’ve yelped if someone jumped out at me or I’ve gasped if I’ve been surprised, but I had never screamed in fear before this moment nor have I ever since. For the purposes of telling the story, I’ve given a loud scream to put an emphasis on my tale, but I don’t think it even came close to the “oh God please don’t let me die this way because it’s really REALLY going to hurt” scream that came out of my mouth on that fateful summer evening. Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween? Come on. Janet Leigh in Psycho? Give me a break. Those women had nothing on the blood curdling screech that left my mouth that night.

While heading towards that center line I’m not sure if I closed my eyes or not, but I must have. That’s the only way that I couldn’t have seen my truck shrink to the width of a piece of paper, because that’s the only way I can envision getting through what I got through. I still to this day can’t figure out how on a narrow two lane stretch of road bordered by a guardrail and a steep embankment, three cars could literally be parallel to each other with the van taking up the entire right lane leaving very little room for my truck and the oncoming car, both travelling from 35-40mph, to share the center line and left lane without anyone crashing, trading paint, or going off the road, but that’s exactly what happened. For those familiar with the area I’m talking about, you’re not going to believe it either.

As I got through the most terrifying few seconds of my life, I veered back into my correct lane incredulous to the fact that I was still alive. Even if I had escaped with my life, I was certain that I would have caused my first accident and been in big trouble once I got home. Realizing that none of that had happened, I quickly pulled over into the entrance to Highland Hills and stopped. My heart was racing and I had to take a moment to reflect on what in the hell had just happened.

I turned around to check on the van and the other car, but they were gone and left no trace of anything. I hopped out of my truck to look at the scene of the crime, but there were no skid marks, no tire tracks in the grass and no indication whatsoever that anything life threatening had just occurred. I hopped on my wobbly legs back into my truck and, realizing that I had just been part of the closest thing to a miracle that I will ever encounter, broke into a horrible laugh. The laugh was almost maniacal. And the funniest thing was that I couldn’t stop. I put on my seat belt, started the truck, and while still laughing hysterically, drove the rest of the way to Jarrod’s game.

I don’t know what I did to deserve making it out alive that day, but I’m sure as hell glad that I did it. The road to a ballgame had turned into the highway to hell and I was lucky enough to have driven straight past the entrance. I wish I could have met the other drivers to get their thoughts (other than the fact that I should have my license taken away) on the matter, but maybe its better that I didn’t. I’m pretty sure one of them would have punched me square in the face.

So, what did I learn from all of this? Not much. I still fiddle with my radio all of the time and I’m still a bad driver. I do know now that I need to watch out for that entrance to the trailer park, but seeing as my parents don’t live there anymore, I hardly ever take that route rendering that point moot. What I did learn is that when faced with adversity in life, rather than pick a side with obvious consequences attached to either of them, sometimes it’s just better to stay out of it and just ride that center line.

And scream your bloody head off.

Thanks for reading