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Chapter 2: Accidents Happen-1

Chapter 2: Accidents Happen

Flamingo Boulevard was jam-packed as usual. On a good day I could get back to Sunset Cove along Barefoot Beach and my mini-hacienda in twenty-five minutes. That particular day in July was hell and ninety minutes stared me down. Trucks and cars of many sizes and different colors, busses, and taxis were bumper to bumper. At a snail’s pace we slid along the concrete. A Bentley Mulsanne was in front of me with a license plate that read BIGBITCH3. Behind its wheel was a brunette female texting. The Cube behind me was a candy apple red color. Two high school-aged Hispanics lounged in their seats and listened to loud rap music. I was driving a three-year old Nissan Frontier, which was charcoal black, had a few dents, and terrible gas mileage. Steve Grand was on the radio singing about riding a road with a guy he wanted to be his boyfriend.

Putting along gave me enough time to check my pretty boy Latino face in the rearview mirror. I had curly cinnamon-colored hair, matching eyes, a slender nose, an Ecuadorian hue from my mother, no wrinkles around my mouth at thirty, clean-shaven cheeks, and a rounded chin. I was six-feet tall, not bad to look at, but not a supermodel, either. I was average any way a stranger wanted to gawk at me: financially, physically, and intellectually. Casper Reginaldo Dasio at your service. No one spectacular. Mundane. Plenty to work with to get a date, but a chain of men was not following me around as my personal s****l entourage. Too bad.

I was just about to phone Liv to see if she wanted to spend the ninety-three degree evening in my screen-covered pool with a pitcher of margaritas when an abrupt jar sent my Frontier jolting forward, snapping the seatbelt against my chest, between my solid and hairless pecs. Crunching metal sounded in my ears. My neck snapped forward with a quick motion, flew against the seat’s headrest, and caused a slight wobbly spell to take over my consciousness. Horns blared. Jackasses yelled obscenities out their windows; I think it was the two teenagers behind me in their Cube. And glass sounded like it was cracking all around me.

My first instinct was to slam on the Frontier’s brakes, which I executed with skill. The last thing I wanted to do was hit the Bentley and Miss BIGBITCH3. My second instinct was to throw the truck into park, which I carried out with speed. Next, I shook my head and realized that I had clearly been struck from behind; a rear-ender had occurred. It wasn’t my first accident on Flamingo Boulevard, and it certainly wasn’t going to be my last. Amen to that.

A quick glance in my rearview mirror told me that a bumblebee yellow Hummer had tried to squeeze between my rear bumper and the Cube’s front bumper. Mr. Hummer totally misjudged the distance between the two vehicles and nailed me from behind; I would learn later that the Cube was unharmed and the high school kids drove away from the scene.

Road instinct for me kicked in again and I popped the truck into drive, steered it off the side of the road, into Rushdie’s Scuba Gear Underworld. In doing so, rubber smelled like it was burning, the truck barely moved, and the sound of metal continued to peel apart, providing a strange crinkling noise.

Mr. Hummer pulled into the empty lot behind me. I sat in my Frontier and attempted to calm down. My heart raced inside my chest, my neck throbbed, and my hands were jittery. After a few seconds of calmness, I gathered my Millbourne & Mosser insurance card, registration, and license. Ready to battle with Mr. Hummer, I climbed out of the Frontier, stepped into the steeping heat, and…my world changed in an instant.