I thought about stopping at my house to let my mom know, but it was just a quick drive from the town our school was in, past the 'town' where we all lived, and on to the 'big city' *snickers*. Shouldn't be too long, right?
Got there without a hitch. John bought a Robocop game for his Game Gear, and we headed home.
Not far from the department store, Pete was fiddling with the radio, and I was in the back of the Bronco. Pete messed up the radio, and John reached down to try and fix it. And before you could say 'cliche' he took his eyes off the road. The traffic signal we were approaching had gone red, and a red Nissan Pathfinder was stopped in front of us.
Ironically enough, it was the blind man in the back seat who saw it first, shortly followed by the two in the front of the vehicle. John failed to stop in time, and rear-ended the vehicle, and I found myself in the front seat, after cracking my head against the windshield at roughly 35 mph.
John, thinking quickly, quickly drove off as fast as a car with a crushed engine could, and we managed to find a spot where we went to try and use a phone, but the bastards with all the Christmas lights turned us away. Yeah, great spirit of the season there, you tools.
We continued onward, thinking we saw the car we hit earlier, and eventually made it to a car dealership/garage where we pulled in and managed to find a few folks still working, called John's parents, and began walking the rest of the way home. At the time, whatever the logic behind THAT was, we went for it... AH! John's parents weren't home yet, I think it was. We walked for about an hour before his father came along and picked us up. We lied about the cracked windshield, and eased any fears of injuries amongst our parents, particularly my own, whom had lost a son in '85 in a car accident.
This was my first car accident, and certainly not my last. Nor my last with John. We walked out of them all completely unscathed each time, but John's luck finally ran out two months ago.
The funny thing of it, many years before, John had gotten a palm reading, and the wackjob told him he would die before his 18th birthday, and this was the exact day before. I pointed this out on our walk back in the cold by telling John, "Well, I guess that palm reader was right. Your dad is gonna kill you." I wasn't far off, really.
Ten years... Borrowed time, indeed.
J