Sun soaked young ladies, too hot on beaches and fawning over the latest sun soaked guy. Overheating in and sweating into dirty jeans; they are shin protection for a flipping skateboard. Walking through neighbourhoods almost aimlessly in a t-shirt, but never getting even slightly cold. These are some of the things that make late August in Vancouver wonderful. But this time around it’s raining. It reminds me that we live in a temperate rainforest. The reminder, this premature Vancouver monsoon season, gets me pining for heat and easy things.
We ran in the rain last night, from one party ending to another in full swing. It was all pretty easy. We had money for cover and could pay whatever the asking price for drinks. We got a ride downtown instead of taking transit or shelling out for a cab ride. We saw old friends who made us happy, and then we saw decrepit street people who made us feel not so low. It was all pretty easy to handle.
The McDonalds walk-thru window served us, and we were sheltered from the downpour. We readied ourselves to run eight blocks. I took off. I am fast, and I quickly made some fair distance on Dave. Once I had fifty yards on him, I could no longer hear his footsteps in the puddles, so I turned to goad him on with loud words. In a moment of ephemeral eternity, I saw him running and a car coming. It did happen in one moment, me turning and him, smashed, thrown to the ground. So very quickly. While I witnessed the car travel two feet before hitting him, I managed to make time slow down enough to think that this was it, curtains.
It does not take much time for a car traveling at 50kph to move forward two feet. While it may take less time to compute some visual stimulus and then come up with an appropriate brain wave, or reaction, I’m not here to use science to prove anything.
Dave then struggled or bounded to his feet (I cant recall for sure in what way he got up), and made his way to the sidewalk. As I raced down the street to him, seeing him walking raised my hopes. When I reached him, a properly concerned fellow was at his side, reassuring him that, yes, “dude, you got fucked up!” And yes Tim, he got fucked up. Tim, whose name I later found out, radiated incredible enthusiasm that may have been due to being blessed enough to witness the incident. Dave’s eyes were open and he was coherent; I asked if he was okay and he answered, “I just got fucking hit by a fucking car. Fuck”. Coherent enough for me.
I ran off, down 2nd avenue, eastbound after the driver. He was stopped in the middle of the road, unsure of what to do. He rolled down the driver side window, shirtless, and asked if my buddy was okay. I answered, “You just drove into my friend. Of course he’s not okay.” Properly concerned, he immediately began defending himself, claiming that the pedestrian he hit jumped in front of him. In a city of jaywalking bums, we all know that if we hit a bum, we are still at fault, even though they have no souls, no credit ratings and often no sense. There is nothing secret about that.
Eventually the ambulance took the two of us to Vancouver General, where I found a fresh twenty-dollar bill on the ground outside of the emergency entrance. It turned out to be a good night after all. And Dave is okay and going back to work tomorrow.
