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Crosswalk
July 21, 2008 7:29 am
The first time I hit a pedestrian with my car, it was rather awkward for both of us. Not only was I new to it, but he seemed a novice as well. The man, who wandered into my blind spot as I was making a right on red, had the tall, lanky build of a fifty-year-old high-jumper. There’s a chance he wore a beret, too, but of this detail I cannot be sure. I pressed the gas, turned the wheel, and a flash of arm struck the rim of my peripheral. There was a dull thud, and I turned in time to see a man do something resembling a half-baked barrel roll over the hood of my car. With impressive agility, he landed on his feet, cat-like, beret still intact. Slightly shaken and, it seemed, a bit embarrassed, he continued on his way to the CVS across the street.
At the time, I was unfamiliar with the protocol of running over a man. In fender benders, I knew enough that you avoid blurting out anything self-incriminating before undergoing the ritual of exchanging insurance information. But, being the pedestrian he was, the man was absent a car. And, as far as I knew, there was no such thing as pedestrian insurance—though I was thinking there ought to be. At a glance, he seemed to be in good condition, a slight limp, maybe, but I still felt obliged to find out for sure. I rolled down my window and said, “Hey! Sorry. Are you all right?” Here, an interesting thing occurred. The man, avoiding eye contact, nodded quickly, and picked up his rusty pace away from my car. It seemed he wanted nothing to do with me. My brain in a fog, I looked both ways several times before making the right turn I had set out to do earlier.
I got halfway to McDonalds before I snapped out of it and decided to turn back to check on the man once again. I found him inside CVS, his head floating down an aisle. As I homed in on him, he began moving faster toward the back of the store. I was getting out of breath when I tried to slow him down, “Hey!” I said. No response. We had both broken into a near full-blown sprint. “Hey!” I shouted. Heads in the greeting card aisle turned, but the man kept on target, his pace steady. I knew he’d heard me. Finally, there was nowhere left for him to run. I had the man trapped between myself and the pharmacy. The pharmacists, in their white coats, hovering over their half-filled prescriptions, eyed me nervously. Then, a funny thought came over me. Do I introduce myself as the man who hit him with his car? Or had these preliminaries sailed on the moment he rolled over my hood? “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. His face went flush and he averted his gaze. His beret was slightly ajar. The man seemed tortured not physically, but mentally by my dogging persistence. I decided not to push it any further. I said, “Okay,” offered another weak apology, and removed myself from the man’s sight as quickly as possible. It was rather awkward behavior on his part, I thought. I could not understand why the man was so bent out of shape. I left slightly offended.
Some years later, I clipped a college kid crossing the street. Once again I was turning right, but this time it was at the stop sign of a busy outdoor mall intersection. Amazingly, I got the same response from the kid as I did from the man in CVS. It just must be the standard, I concluded. As the poor kid hobbled toward the curb, I leaned out my window and asked cooly, “Are you all right?” Already having one hit pedestrian under my belt, I felt sure of myself this time around.
In the midst of a fast and slightly painful-looking getaway, he gave a curt response, “I’m fine.” I watched as he stiffly reached the door of the restaurant across the street. He was probably on his way to meet up with some friends. For a half-instant, I thought of going in after him to see if he really was okay. Instead, I checked for more pedestrians, stepped on the gas, and decided to do the kid a favor. I’d drive away and get out of his hair as soon as possible. And this time, I wouldn’t take it so personally.
