Close Call

I almost got killed last night.

And that's the truth and it was totally my fault and I'm still shaking. Because you feel so alive after the Grim Reaper's scythe misses you but you don't stop being haunted by what almost was.

So I was meeting a friend at the Moon House, the Chinese restaurant in the strip center at Santa Monica and Sepulveda that Jay Weston recommended, and there wasn't a spot in the lot.

That's the bane of SoCal...you can own a car, but finding a place to park it? Especially now that so many streets are restricted.

So I pull on to what was once called "Little Santa Monica," but has now been restructured into cul-de-sacs and turn pockets... Let me be clear, it's still a street, still parallel to "Big Santa Monica," but it's got a different characteristic, it's...sleepy.

And on the right side of the street there are no spots.

But the left side is wide open. Which scares me. Because if no one else is parking there, can I? I'm an "i" dotter and "t" crosser, I rebel in this newsletter but out in the world I'm a law-abiding citizen, it was drilled into me growing up, play by the rules. And nothing hurts more than a parking ticket. I mean WHY? I pay them immediately, to forget them. Once upon a time you could get away without paying, especially if you had an out of state plate, but now the whole world's been computerized, they've got your second grade transcript, everything's on your permanent record.

So I pull into a space and start pondering whether I'm close enough to the curb. The rule is 12", but I've got a small car. And I debate it. I could fire the engine back up and pull closer, but then I risk damaging my wheels...everybody in SoCal is worried about the look of their car, see one dented and crumpled on the highway and you steer away, fearful it'll be contagious, they'll hit you and now your car will be crippled.

And after deciding I was close enough, and this is an issue because there's parking on both sides of this one way street, I walk back a few yards to study the sign, determining that it was truly legal to park here, even though I admit when I came back hours later I looked for the ticket, which was not there...

But there would have been no looking if...

Yes, I looked at the sign, decided I was cool, and then did what every modern day citizen does, I pulled out my phone, to read my e-mail, to catch up. And lulled into soporifity by the downsizing and deconstructing of Little Santa Monica I stepped off the sidewalk and started crossing this lazy street, like one in the middle of Kansas, on the prairie...

And that's when it happened.

A green car. I think it was a Chrysler product. I didn't see it coming at all. It didn't slow down for me. It was going about 35 miles per hour, around the speed limit, and I'm looking down, scrolling through my e-mail and...suddenly I was aware of its presence, barely a foot away.

He didn't beep the horn, he didn't slow down, and he would have told the cop I was breaking the law and...

I would have had no input, I would have been dead.

I could see it in my mind's eye, the automobile striking me, throwing me down on the pavement head first. I thought of the ambulance and the ride to UCLA but then I realized I never would have made it, that in a stolen moment, an instant, my life would be over.

There are certain episodes that stick in my brain. Like falling through the ice. Coming over the crest on the original Loges Peak lift. Passing that vehicle in Ludlow, Vermont and finding a truck barreling right down towards us with no room to pull back in, Jimmy's only choice being to accelerate and find a spot with a nanosecond to spare. And now this. The moment via poor judgment when I was almost history. The end. All she wrote.

They say to get back on the horse.

They say to get back on the high wire.

They say to get back on the trapeze.

So that's what I'm trying to do.

But I'm still processing, still digesting, still trying to make sense of how fate dealt me a good hand last night, scared me to death, but it almost wasn't so.


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