my best friend and i had taken a trip over to tampa a couple hours away. he is one of the most genuine people i've ever met and one of those people you would do anything you could, for any reason, at any time (you know what i'm talking about, and if you don't i feel sorry for you). our good friend and mutual tattoo artist was in town and its rare we see him anymore, much less get a chance to get some work done. the asshole decided to move to NYC like the asshole he is. he's a wanderlust motherfucker like myself and incredibly talented among other things. he was tattooing out of a house over there because he couldn't find a shop to guest spot at and thats where he is from, but guys like us could give a fuck less since tattooing is more therapy and less 'look at how fucking cool i am'. the plan was friendship tats and he got his done, but because of time and some other shit i ended up heading back home with no new ink.
its late at night and my friend and i are both beat and on our way back home and i won't lie i'm a little bummed. its raining, its dark, its florida, and i'm not tattooed. anyone whose ever spent more than a day driving in the sunshine state can testify to the absolute idiocy of our beloved residents when they decide to venture out into the world via auto. we're about half way home and i'm half asleep and josh practically slams on the brakes. i look up and there are kids running around in the middle of the road like chickens with their heads cut off--arms up in the air. we roll down a window and about three of 'em all start yelling at once about an accident and a hurt friend and help. fight or flight mode kicks in and of course we decide to fight. he pulls the car onto the shoulder and we both jump out.
there are three lanes on this highway and as a reminder its past midnight and its raining. in the middle lane sits the car in the photo. there are easily five or six teenage kids, and none of them had thought to call 911. 'how fuckin' stupid can you be' was my first thought and 'fuck this is a bad situation' is my second thought'. my friend and i round up all the genius teenagers still in the middle of the highway (what do you expect from someone who puts neon purple lights ON a dodge neon?) and put them all on the other side of the guardrail on the highway. ignoring the kids who are sobbing or freaking out about their parents who are 'going to kill them' for being out this late, my friend and i are then led to a girl who is bleeding profusely from the head. anyone who has ever had or dealt with a head wound knows they are persistent little bastards in turning everything red. josh immediately takes his shirt off and hands it to her (and this is not a warm florida night), he walks off and i take control of the kids as we realize there is more than one car involved. the girls a little out of it, more from shock than blood loss. i make sure everyone there with her knows a) to keep that shirt on her head and b) under no circumstances let her fall asleep. i had my camera out already, tried to snap a photo of the girl without being noticed, and forgot to turn the flash off. busted. girl starts screaming at me, i tell her i was just trying to set the camera for night so that i could take photos for insurance purposes for the people involved. teenage girl drama/me being sort of an asshole squashed.
after damage control was taken care of we start to hear what happened. apparently some asshole was going the wrong way straight into head on traffic. i hope for this persons sake they were drunk or stoned or fucked up because anyone who ends up on the wrong side of a highway (much less when its dark and raining) best be intoxicated, otherwise you oughta be executed under the principle of possessing the IQ of a jar of peanut butter. so this guy nails the a car full of teenagers head on. two other cars are involved as well. a truck and another car, both on opposite shoulders. so recap: autos on both shoulders and a car in the middle lane of a highway, dark, raining, awesome. the guy in the truck is on our side and me and my friend go to try to make sure hes okay. the guy is just sitting at his steering wheel, staring, not doing a damn thing, and wont even get out of the car. way to be a fuckin' pussy. if you aren't dead you best be doing something. i cross the other side of the highway and its a lady, she had called 911 because, get this, she was sensible. though no emergency vehicles were there yet.
i cross back over and my friend and i are standing on the shoulder and there is still oncoming traffic and a wrecked car in the middle lane. so i turn to him and i say 'dude, we should really try to push that car onto the shou..." and another car slams into the back of the neon, no brakes, no nothing. so now there is screaming, yelling, airbags, burnt rubber, and the neon is hit so hard it flies into the opposite median, a hunk of twisted silver on both ends. i look up and all i see is an older man in a car, slumped over, airbags in his face, smoke, and mangled metal. i run up to the car and i start yelling at him to wake the fuck up, but hes knocked out. there are cars screaming past me, or slamming on their brakes, or swerving onto the shoulder, and josh is yelling at me. i'm pulling as hard as i can on this guys door so i can pull him out and it won't budge. slammed fuckin' shut. i might as well have been playing real life frogger, but in this frogger the frog tries to be a goddamn hero. its evident to me i'm not gonna open this door, and all i see are rain blurred headlights continuously coming at me. back to the shoulder i go.
a safety feature in some cars these days is neutral: that being if you're in a serious accident and your airbags go off your car goes into neutral, i suppose so someone can push the car to safety because you're knocked the fuck out. i'm not entirely sure this is true, but whatever. so i'm standing on the shoulder with my friend, all the sixteen year olds are standing on the other side of the guard rail, and we all watch as this guy, still in his car, starts to roll in reverse into oncoming. some covered their eyes as i still watched sure this man was going to be t-boned and fused with metal right in front of me. the car gently came to rest against the opposite median and back across the highway i went.
shortly later emergency vehicles arrived, flares were lit, reports were made (not by us thank satan), and medical attention was given and received. no one was critically injured. my friend and i were cold, and wet, and tired (him much more so than i) and simply got in the car and left. on our way home, about three a.m. and twenty miles outside the city we come upon slowed traffic. we see more flares. it's an overturned escalade or some other bullshit car i would never buy (but would drive if some rich girl let me). eyeing a tow truck and the hunk of metal on its back we ask a cop rolling by what happened. he tells us apparently the guy had been going the other way, fled the scene of an accident, and ended up there.
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