The Buick

I’ve never been a particularly careful driver. I would drive too fast, not pay enough attention to what I was doing, and I never wore a seatbelt.

My first accident was in my father’s Buick, which he had just finished restoring. I took it—no permission asked. None would have been given.

We were living in the house in Dyke, and I had just gotten my provisional driver’s permit.

I would often take the Buick. It was a 1980 Buick Regal, a two-door sedan. It had an eight-cylinder 351 small block, two four-barrel carburetors, and a low-ratio locking rear differential. This car had a shit-ton of high-torque low-end, but it was boaty and didn’t turn well.

I was on a country road—one I had traveled many times. I knew it by heart.

I got stuck behind an older gentleman in an antique Chevrolet truck, driving well below the speed limit.

I did the right thing and waited for the broken yellow line I knew was coming up. As soon as I had it, I passed him—accelerating that old Buick well past the limits of safety and sanity.

The stretch of straight road ended in a tight uphill curve with a posted safe speed of 15 mph.

I gave the car more fuel as I entered the curve—oh, the stupidity of youth and the inexperience of my driving. I thought I was invincible. My sheer force of will would keep that car in the turn, even at ninety miles per hour.

I was wrong. Oh, I was so wrong. I didn’t realize just how wrong I was until I was staring at the ground through the windshield.

As I entered the first turn, curving tightly left, the tires squealed against the asphalt. The rear end began to fishtail. I whipped the steering wheel all the way right as I entered the next sharp turn.

The rear end swung wildly behind me. Smoke billowed from the tractionless rear wheels, my foot still glued to the gas pedal.

When it came to the final left, I cut the wheel back all the way into the turn.

Nothing happened.

I careened over the high side of the curve—over a mini-cliff. It was a several-foot drop—high enough to be terrifying, but thankfully not far enough to be fatal.

Time slowed. I contemplated my short life as the ground rushed forward to greet the vehicle with the embrace of crushing force. My head hit the steering wheel. I tasted blood—metallic, coppery. Things were upside down for what felt like an eternity but was only a split second in real time.

The car tumbled like a weed caught in the wind.

It did another cartwheel, end over end, and landed on its wheels. The force drove me under the steering column. My larger body contorted in an excruciating way, my weight pinned against the accelerator.

I watched—surreally detached from my reality. The car plowed into a large fence post, which came through the already-smashed windshield and removed the back of the driver’s seat with it. The car spun, twisting itself around the field I now found myself in.

I felt pain as another fence post was struck, this time from the side. The car flipped over again, the engine finally dying. I was on the verge of blackness as it stopped.

I exited the vehicle through the hole where the driver’s door had been just sixty seconds earlier. My knees were weak, my stomach churning, my vision blurred. My eyes followed the path of destruction until they landed on that old truck I had passed minutes ago.

The old man slowed and came to a stop as he rounded the curve. He rolled his window down and stuck his head out.

Our eyes locked for a moment.

“That was dangerous, boy,” he yelled, the country drawl emphasizing boy.

Then he rolled the window up and continued on his way.

I don’t recall much of the next few hours. My parents were called. The farmer was called. A state trooper came out. Everyone kept asking if I was okay.

“Yes” was my only answer. I wasn’t. I wouldn’t know that for a long time.

There was a ticket. A court summons. The judge at the local courthouse was lenient, and the farmer whose fence I’d destroyed spoke on my behalf.

I worked every weekend for a month for that farmer to repay the damage. I got good at digging post holes and tamping earth down around them.

My father beat the value of that car out of me. I think he thought it was worth way more than it actually was…