I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon yesterday, eating, walking, gossiping and sharing projects with Sister Writers, June Gillam and Leslie Rose. For some reason I got started venting about an incident that happened a few years back–all part of the ongoing healing process, I guess. So today I thought I would share a poem I wrote at the time. It’s called:
Why I Left My Job
The other driver and I
retreated to neutral corners
to wait for the police.
I had a cell phone
the size of a shoe box.
The other driver had a newer,
tinier model
that fit in the palm
of her hand. She stood
on her corner, talking,
talking, staring
at me, and flapping
her free hand.
My boyfriend didn’t
have a cell phone
so I couldn’t call him.
I called my Mom
on my shoe box.
She said she’d come
but I told her, no,
don’t be silly;
I was okay.
Neither of us mentioned
it was the anniversary
of my father’s death.
But each of us knew
the other was thinking
about it.
A police officer arrived
alone in a patrol car.
The other driver and I
both ventured toward him.
He said he’d speak to each
of us separately.
The other driver
stepped forward quickly
with narrowed eyes
glaring at me, clutching
her purse, as if
she expected me
to snatch it.
They went to her corner.
A man from the house
on my corner
came out and asked
if I was okay.
He had a spiked
dog collar
around his neck
and a ring
through his nose—
a big ring, like
the brass ring
on a merry-go-round.
I’m okay, I said.
Do you want a Pepsi?
he asked.
No, I’m okay, I repeated.
But it was nice of you
to ask.
The police officer came
to talk to me. He asked
my name and I gave him
my driver’s license.
He spent some time
writing on a pad.
He asked me what happened,
and I told him she’d run the stop sign.
I swerved, I said, I tried to miss her
but she pulled right out in front of me.
Just then the other driver sauntered over.
I called a tow truck, she said.
Her voice was cheerful,
almost lyrical.
“I can’t believe it, you know,
twenty years with a spotless
record, twenty years, and now this,
twenty years, what can I say?”
She laughed, shaking her head
so her long dark hair swayed
like in a shampoo commercial,
and in that moment I hated her.
She was at a dance club
or a country club,
coquettish and flirtatious,
on a sunny
patio drinking sangria.
Worse than that:
she was just like me,
seeking some kind of approval
as if the officer should tell her
it was okay that she pulled out in front of me,
no big deal, don’t worry
about it, Ma’am, happens all the time.
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through my nose.
The police officer turned to her.
“We need some privacy, Ma’am.
You had your turn.”
“Oh. Of course.” She sashayed away.
“How fast were you going?” he asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but
I couldn’t have been going
more than 15 or 20 miles an hour.
This is my neighborhood.
This is where I live.
I wouldn’t speed in my own neighborhood.”
The officer nodded and smiled a little.
“You should know: the other lady
admitted she was in the wrong.”
“She did?” I was stunned.
“She didn’t say anything to me.”
I was batting back tears now.
I didn’t tell him she’d been rude
to me; had demanded to see
my license, had even reached into
my wallet trying to grab
my insurance card.
I looked down
at my hands, fingering the zipper
on my purse. “I wanted her
to apologize,” I admitted.
He looked down at his pad.
“She’s not going to apologize,”
he said curtly.
He had me sign his report,
told me I could go.
So I did; I didn’t call
a tow truck. My car
looked fine. But it wasn’t fine.
The damage was
so extensive
the insurance company
refused to fix it.
The car was totaled.
This happened well over a decade ago.
But what happened this year
at my work place—the circumstances
were very similar:
it was my own neighborhood.
My classroom was totaled.
No one apologized to me.
Brilliant!