JON – June 2016

Fucking idiot.

That was Jon’s first thought when he got the 964 from Central.

964: ‘Accident – unknown injuries.’

As he understood it, an SUV had been trying to overtake a gasoline truck uphill, but that wasn’t the real problem.

The real problem had come when the truck simultaneously tried to  overtake a third vehicle even further in front.

So the SUV had been squeezed off the road to avoid the truck pulling left into the same lane.

In his 11 years as a state trooper, Jon had seen all kinds of accidents where a vehicle flew off the road at 80 mph or more.

And of course this had to happen on the old road, and not the Interstate, so only two lanes.

Such a scenario seldom ended well. And yet …

Jon didn’t believe in divine intervention. Today he couldn’t help but wonder.

He stopped his patrol car hard on top of the hill and assessed the situation quickly.

The derelict vehicle had gone off the road after crossing the wrong lane, then keeled over, and continued down into a wash, stopping only when it crashed into an elephant-sized boulder.

The driver shouldn’t be alive.

But the screaming from below was unmistakable.

The truck was already several miles away, but at least it had called 911, and Jon received the request from Central shortly thereafter since his car was the closest.

His colleagues would deal with the truck.

Here and now, it was all on him.

Jon guessed the driver of the SUV was badly hurt and likely pinned since he kept crying out in agony but didn’t try to exit.

The SUV was leaking gasoline.

Anderson and his team from Gila would be there in maybe 25 minutes.

Not fast enough for me …

Jon was already running down the hill so he could jump into the wash and begin casting gravel and sand on the widening pool of gasoline.

He wished he had had a bigger shovel in the trunk, but there had to be room for lots of other shit.

Jon kept piling on.

He couldn’t see where the leak was coming from, but at least the engine was dead.

“Can’t … get out,” a man rasped from inside the vehicle. “Fuck, it hurts …”

30-something, bald, goatee, muscular arms bristling with tattoos.

Jon had seen convicts with fewer tattoos.

But the problem was that even though the man was obviously very strong, he was still stuck, and Jon didn’t have the tools or expertise to get him loose.

The SUV was upside down, and the whole front end of the car was mangled when the boulder stopped it.

Enough to trap his leg, Jon thought somberly. Probably crushed …

So the door was open, but the man was going nowhere.

Jon squatted down and made sure he could see his face. “Sir … Sir!”

“AAAAA … Aaah …. aaa … ”

The man’s crying lessened, his face becoming more ashen.

“Keep talking to me, sir,” Jon said. “Help is on the way. What’s your name?”

“Gareth,” the man stammered. “Gareth … Oldendorf.”

Jon moved closer. It felt weird looking at the man upside down, but he pretended it didn’t matter.

He had to keep up the conversation until he could get help, to prevent Gareth from losing consciousness.

“Where were you going?”

Gareth Oldendorf grinned, but it was obviously causing him pain. There were beads of sweat on his brow, and he was growing paler by the minute.

Keep talking, keep him awake.

“What do you do for work, Mr. Oldendorf?”

“… Poetry …” 

Jon lifted a brow.

“Well …” Gareth swallowed. “I also work … at a school, but poetry is my real work.”

“Can’t say I have read much poetry,” Jon said. “But my mother writes some every once in a while … ” 

Gareth grinned again, but this time it was just a slight twitching of the lips. “I was actually late for a reading at the library in Gila Bend.”

“I didn’t even know Gila had a library,” Jon said.

“It does. It’s … a nice library.” Gareth’s eyes slid shut.

Jon put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Keep talking to me, Gareth. The medics will be here in 15 minutes.”

Gareth opened his eyes. “…. Never expected to be in a car accident.”

“None of us do,” Jon said.

With another Herculean effort, Gareth continued, “I didn’t want to … the school anymore … but I have to pay the rent, you know. But once I started writing … something changed.”

“What?” Jon asked.

Gareth laughed with difficulty, “I … felt I would live … forever.”

He shook his head as much as he could. “But now … God, I haven’t even finished … my first collection.”

“You will,” Jon said. “You will.”

“If I make it,” Gareth said, “I think I … will write about … this … ”

Jon smiled. “What will you write?”

“Well … ” Gareth tried, his voice fading again. Jon squeezed his shoulder.

“Well … ” Gareth continued, his voice very light, “I think I will write about the desert, how silent it is, how beautiful … how it’s like that.”

“I think you’re onto something,” Jon said, looking up and seeing nothing for miles on end.

The ambulance from Gila felt very far away. 

But the desert was here, waiting with them, and maybe it was … beautiful.

Even though it was just a flat tapestry of gravel pinned with struggling emu bushes.

Maybe … 

“It has to be just as good as some of the other nature stuff,” Gareth said. “I always liked this …

“Bare feet swing over an edge

… and it’s time to depart our haven.

I want to stay … stuck in the dark

with our song, our souls.”

“That’s good.” Jon eyed the gasoline. It was still dripping out from the back. “But what about nature?”

“In the rest,” Gareth said. “They are sitting at a canyon, I think, watching the sunset…. Anyway, it’s not mine … but want to be able to do something that well.”

“You will,” Jon repeated.

“You know something funny … ” Gareth said, coughing, “When I give my readings, the first time people see me, someone in the audience … always goes, ‘But you don’t look like a poet!’”

“None of us do,” Jon said and squeezed Gareth’s shoulder harder.

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Thanks to my poet blogger-friend, Brittny Lee, for letting me quote one of her poems!

Check out Brittny’s blog: Dawning Creations

– Chris

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Cover photo by Norbert Buduczki on Unsplash

Desert photo by Getty Images used with Unsplash+ License

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Song: Mike Oldfield – “Ommadawn”