I’m now carless. Here’s the story:
It was Friday afternoon, June 30, about 5:30 on a lovely, sunny day. I was heading home to pack and otherwise prepare for my departure Monday evening to France for the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles — to which my complimentary plane ticket and hotel room had been provided by the festival. I’d driven into Brooklyn to spend the afternoon with my old friend Julio, with whom I’d had a serious falling-out a decade ago. We’re in the process of rebuilding the friendship; it had gone very nicely, and I was feeling great.
I hadn’t planned to take the car, initially; I’d intended to go over to Manhattan by public transportation, then subway to Julio’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and come back the same way. But events conspired to have me running a bit late, and the car was available and expedient, so off I went.
I had no trouble finding parking in the Heights, unusually. On my way to my parking space, I passed the editor under whom I’d worked briefly in 1967, Alan J. Marks, who first got me interested in photography. Standing on a street corner, he looked typically distracted, and I was driving and a few minutes late to get to Julio’s, so I didn’t honk or make contact with him — just watched him cross the street and walk away. An intriguing touch of personal history, I thought. Julio and I spent a good afternoon in his apartment, talking and looking at his most recent work. Then we went out for an iced coffee, after which I got in the car and drove back toward Staten Island.
It was rush hour on Fourth of July weekend, and I expected to hit serious traffic on the BQE but somehow didn’t. So I made decent time getting back to the island. The weather was so lovely, I found myself thinking, “What a beautiful day! I’m so lucky to be alive.” Spontaneously, I began chanting the Buddhist mantra I use in my practice, which I haven’t recited for some time. It has to do with accepting responsibility for everything that happens to you — embracing your karma, as it were.
I made my usual turn onto Hylan Boulevard, turned left past the firehouse onto Tompkins Avenue in Rosebank. I have some connection to this close-knit little Italian community: I did a community-based history project there under the sponsorship of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in 1996. (Alan Magnotti, one of a group called the Rosebank Boys, was my liaison in the community.) The streets were crowded: It was the last day of school, lots of kids celebrating, people walking around, sidewalks full.
I don’t drive fast as a rule, never on the streets of the island. I was doing about 20-25 mph on this main drag, with the right of way and a green light ahead of me on St. Mary’s Avenue. A block past that, I’d turn right to stop at the A&P and pick up something for dinner that night.
I was right in front of the Rosebank Boys’ former storefront social club/office when suddenly, from Virginia Avenue, a small side street on the right, a matte-black 1980 Trans-Am roared out past a stop sign, no more than ten feet in front of me. I wouldn’t have swerved if I could have — too many pedestrians about. But I had literally not a moment to consider it; I hit the brake and didn’t even have time to think “Oh hell!” before we collided. His speed was such that he spun me 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
I don’t think I blacked out, but I probably closed my eyes. When I next saw the world, I was facing ninety degrees to the south of where I’d been headed — that is, I was now pointed across the street. My chest hurt terribly; either I’d whacked it on the steering wheel or strained it jerking against the seatbelt. The tips of my fingers tingled. Otherwise I seemed unhurt.
Within seconds there were people around us. A man unbuckled my seatbelt and told me turn my car off. (I’d already done that, because it was shuddering and smoke was pouring out of the front of the hood.) He identified himself as an off-duty fireman, and told me to give him my car keys, which I did. He asked me if I had any pain. I told him about my chest and fingers. A woman identified herself as an off-duty paramedic, and asked more questions. Within a few more minutes we had on the scene a fire truck, ambulances, police — we’d blocked the intersection with our accident, so they were diverting traffic. Someone in shorts and T-shirt was taking photos.
Amazingly, I didn’t have a single moment of fear, or panic, or even anxiety. I knew that the car was seriously, perhaps terminally damaged. I had a sense that I was basically okay. But my first conscious thought, before the man opened my door and unbuckled my seatbelt, was, “What a beautiful day! I’m so lucky to be alive.” Then I decided that I had to rely on the kindness and competence of total strangers, and did so without a moment’s hesitation or a twinge of nervousness.
They put me on a board, tucked me into the ambulance, put a saline drip into me, drove me to St. Vincent’s Hospital here on the island — a good hospital (a teaching hospital, as it happens). X-rays, CATscans, the whole nine yards. Three hours later, there I was in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed, in a hospital — my first time ever to be hospitalized.
My pain level was manageable with Tylenol laced with codeine. It hurt to take a full breath, because my chest muscles and breastbone had been bruised, but I could get plenty of air just by breathing shallowly. There really wasn’t any reason to call anyone and worry them, so I just contacted my neighbors, got a late meal from a night nurse, took some Tylenol and went to sleep.
Saturday I basically sat around, practiced getting in and out bed, walked around the ward a bit (pushing my saline drip on that little hanging device with wheels, just like in the movies), and felt calm — euphoric, almost ecstatic, in fact — and continuously grateful to still be here and in one piece. I called some of the people in my local poetry group, two of whom came to visit. So I learned that I’m a guy who has friends who’ll come to visit him in the hospital.
Though some interns stopped by on morning rounds, no doctor came to talk with me about my X-rays, CATscans, etc. Nurses came in from time to time to see how I was doing. I used the time to draft an introduction to a monograph, and to rest. The food sucked. (What else is new?)
Sunday morning I got dressed for the first time. (They hadn’t had to cut my clothes off me, fortunately.) I asked the doctor on duty when I’d be released. She responded that I couldn’t be released until a radiologist had reviewed my scans and X-rays and approved the release. I asked when the radiologist would be in. Not Sunday, she said; possibly Monday. When on Monday? She couldn’t say; maybe morning, maybe afternoon. If the radiologist didn’t come Monday, when would he or she come? Not Tuesday, she answered — that was the Fourth of July, after all. Probably Wednesday.
I thought hard about the scary statistics on iatrogenic disease — illnesses caused by doctors and hospitals. And about the possible effects of three more days’s worth of hospital food. Then I told her that, after consulting with my own team of medical specialists, I was going to follow their advice — by signing myself out, against hospital recommendations, and going to the south of France to recuperate.
An hour later I was home, and slept soundly that night in my own bed. Monday I went to the towing company to look at and photograph the car, which was totalled — as was the Trans-Am, which went to the same lot. I emptied the car (a 1989 Mazda LX) of my possessions, thanked it, and said goodbye. Her name was Fini (for Finland — I bought her from a Finnish embassy employee, through a former girlfriend’s father); she served me well for six years and 60,000 miles, traveled all the way to Tucson and back without complaint, and took the bullet for me in a last act of self-sacrifice. If she hadn’t been so well-constructed, I might not be here to tell the tale.
Thirty-six hours later I was in Arles. The perfect prescription: sun, great food, fresh air, European quality of life, colleagues and friends who took care of me. I took ibuprofen and applied some homeopathic remedies that I got in a French drugstore — arnica cream and pills, mostly. Possibly found a publisher for a book of my essays translated into French. Made a day-trip to the little town where I spent a year and half of my childhood, met the people who live on the grounds of the house I lived in then, saw my old school. La vie en rose.
(To be continued.)
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