hit

I hit somebody with my car tonight.

Actually, no. He hit me, and that's the part of it I can't seem to remember or get straight.

I was on my way home from a perfectly normal date, completely sober, going slower than the bus in my right lane, on the block near my house that is a complete danger trail, when out between the bus and the car behind it FLIES this kid. Right into my right side mirror. Like he had an appointment with my mirror that he didn't want to miss. Like my mirror owed him money and had been dodging him, and he was tackling it before it could get away.

I screamed. I tried to swerve. I heard the sickening crunch of kid-meets-mirror, followed by kid-meets-pavement-and-ohmygod-did-he-also-meet-wheel?

I jammed on the brake and ran out of the car, visions of deadkid swimming in front of my eyes. I felt sick. I thought I'd vomit. People were running. The kid was writhing. I was screaming and crying and had to put my head between my legs before I could even breathe. People were ushering me to the sidewalk, suddenly - people I expected to brush me off as some crazy, horrible driver, instead comforting me, assuaging me, assuring me.

I took a few breaths. I realized where I was and that this was really happening and ran back into the street, back to the kid. There was no blood. I noticed a slant in his eyes, a disorientation to all of him - I thought I did that.

I was ushered away again. People tried to explain - witnesses came forward, to comfort me - one of them the driver of the bus - that the kid was slow, that he had a condition, that he had been drinking a lot on top of the condition which was incredibly dangerous, that it wasn't my fault, that everyone saw it and knew it wasn't my but his fault, and on and on and on.

And the rational part of me knew this. The rational part knew I'd done nothing wrong and that I'd done everything I could to avoid it. But there was the kid, squirming, and I did it, my car did it, how the hell can I breathe or move and what if he dies, I can't dealwiththisIcan'tdealwiththisIcan'tdealwithTHIS!

He had only hit my mirror, I was reminded. He didn't do any significant damage to himself, the kind he would have done had he jumped in front.

The flashing lights came. I wondered if a reporter from my newspaper would show up - we usually respond to the scanner's flattoned "pedestrian struck" - and wondered how surprised he would be to see me sitting there, on a low brick wall next to a gas station, being offered water and reminders to breathe.

"You're going to need an ambulance, you have to calm down," they told me. I remembered my hard-earned post-traumatic stress training. I breathed. And breathed and breathed until I could figure out what to do.

I called Mike, who was there in a trice, doing everything I as a reporter with a functioning head should have done. He got names and numbers of witnesses, asked the right questions, made sure the right people knew.

I talked to the police. Yes, I was within the speed limit - he ran out between a bus and a car, there was no time - I had a glass of wine at dinner more than two hours ago but nothing else, Officer - I don't remember what speed I was going at, I didn't look, but I was going slower than the bus - Is he all right, please tell me he's all right -

It seemed to take forever. I heard the woman holding the kid saying he flipped through the air and I got angry - no he hadn't! What was she trying to do?

But when he police came back, they said everyone had told them the same story that I had, and that I was in no trouble. A witness said he had been drinking; the kid told the EMT he had been drinking, and when he asked how much the kid said, "too much."

"It's like hitting a deer," the officer said, "there's no way you can avoid this kind of thing. What happened to your other mirror?"

My other mirror, the driver side one, I explained, had gotten hit by a fire truck, and I'm getting the mirror replaced tomorrow. I laughed weakly at the irony, and so did the officer. "Now the other one's gone," he said feebly.

"We've got to demagnetize your car," said Mike.

The lights went away. Everyone dispersed. Mike stood next to me while the visions of deadkid crested in my head, and I sobbed. I collected myself. I remembered to breathe. I got in my car. I shook. I pulled out slowly, Mike carefully trailing behind in his. I watched shadows on the sidewalks as we went home, trembling, waiting for them to jump out at me.

None did.