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It was Friday the thirteenth
– Well, no, it was actually Wednesday
the eleventh -- that Daina called me on the phone and told me she
was going to Denver overnight that Friday to see one of her favorite
writers. So he won't think I'm trying to boost views of my blog by
dropping his name, I'll call him 'Barry David'. He was a syndicated
columnist who wrote humorous articles of reflection and slice of life
discoveries. These articles had lead to a series of books and he had
become a periodic guest on the cable news network I often watched.
Being allergic to newsprint -- No,
really,
I am! -- I had never read any of his articles but did like
his interviews. Still, I didn't like them enough to want to tag
along on a ride to Denver and see him, so I turned down Daina's
offer.
As the coming retirement of Johnny Carson from The Tonight Show
had come to light, I had taken up watching his final broadcasts,
sitting in the center of my couch before heading off for bed. I had
first become aware of him and his show in Nineteen Seventy-Five after
my mother had taken me to the New England apartment while still
working on the night crew in my home town. I would spend the
evenings with father at the family home and watch the first half hour
with him until mother was off work, there was the half hour drive to
the apartment town, then I'd watch the last half hour of his show at
the apartment as mother got ready for bed. Back then The
Tonight Show was an hour & a half and remained that way
until the Nineteen Eighties. While never a regular viewer I had
caught his show often since and he had become a long time figure in
my life. Given his coming retirement, I decided to savor these last
few months and made sure to get myself on the couch and watch his
show each and every night I could.
On Thursday the twelfth, I realized I missed visiting with my former
software start-up company friend, Pat, living in Denver. During the
past year & a half I had been going up to Denver for overnight
visits so I could get my quarterly supply of fat enzymes. To ease my
schedule of taking public transportation for these trips, he had been
kind enough to host me overnight so I could make these trips more
comfortably and visit with him and his family. But as I no longer
needed the fat enzymes to stave off my weight loss issues now that
the antibiotics had addressed that, this also meant I hadn't seen him
in a while to compare thoughts on recent science fiction books and
musical groups we liked. Calling his work number I asked if I could
come up for another overnighter that Friday to visit and he seemed
happy to have me again. I then touched base with Daina once she had
finished her school day and asked, instead of joining her to see
'Barry David', could I catch a ride and have her drop me off at Pat's
house and then give me a ride home the following Saturday? She
agreed and I set my video recorder to tape The Tonight Show in
my absence.
Friday the thirteenth came and after working at the school all day,
then going home to prepare an overnight bag for herself as she'd
be staying with her mother at her family home for the night,
Daina picked me up and gave me my ride. I visited with Pat and his
family, debating about philosophy as well as discussing other life
issues and his wife prepared the family room couch for me to sleep on
as I had often done during these visits. Pat and I retired to the
family room to talk some more before he went off to bed on the upper
floor and I watched a bit more of rare television channels not
carried by my own towns' cable system.
I was still awake but getting ready to go to sleep when Pat's house
got a phone call some time after midnight. I was surprised Pat would
be getting a call so late in the day. Then he came down and told me
the call was actually for me. I picked up the family room's
extension and it was Jeff. I had mentioned to him in passing that I
would be visiting Pat this weekend and he had remembered it. He told
me he had gotten an emotionally distraught phone call from my mother
as apparently I was dead, but they couldn't find my body.
Jeff really couldn't tell me much more about the story himself as he
had a very hard time getting that much of the facts out of my mother
when she called him. He recommended I call her and let her know I
was still alive.
Calling my mother she was furious with me, ''HOW DARE YOU PUT MY NAME
DOWN AS THE EMERGENCY POINT OF CONTACT!'' she yelled at me over the
phone. ''HOW COULD YOU PUT ME THROUGH THAT?'' she demanded and
paused long enough for me to ask what she was talking about. She
wasn't very coherent but I finally pulled out of her that she had
been called by the apartment manager and told that they thought I was
dead as a result of a car accident and asked her permission if they
could break into my apartment as I hadn't been answering the door. I
asked if she had the phone number of the manager and as luck would
have it the manager had given it to her and I decided I should call
her next to find out the full details of what had happened. ''NEVER
HAVE ME AS YOUR EMERGENCY POINT OF CONTACT AGAIN!'' were mother's
last words to me on the call.
Calling the manager she was relieved to hear my voice and know I was
safe and alive. At the time Johnny Carson was on television it
turned out a drunk driver had left the nearby cowboy themed club that
night and rather than curving to the right when driving home on the
road, he curved left, jumped the curbing of the road and planted the
front of his pickup truck through the living room wall of my garden
level apartment. As the manger's apartment was directly over my own,
she and her husband got up to discover what the crash was. The
driver had managed to pull himself out of the passenger window of his
truck and had begun running the rest of the way home. The manager's
husband started to give chase but, given that he didn't have shoes
on, soon thought better of it and turned to come back to the
apartment building where he realized the front of the truck had
broken through the wall where my couch was placed and wondered if I
was all right. When I didn't answer the door after his repeated
knocking he feared the worst and had his wife dig through my
apartment application paperwork to find a phone number to call.
The manager said I should come back as quickly as I could as the
police were there going over the accident scene. I agreed and
thanked her for the information and then figured I should call Daina
and ask her to take me back now, rather than wait until
the next day. This being before the days of ubiquitous mobile
phones, I cracked open the Denver phone book and looked through it
trying to find the likely phone number of Daina's family home.
Finding a number, I gave it a call only to get no answer. Did I
have the wrong number? I didn't see how but finally picked
another phone number with the same last name in the book. It turned
out I had reached Daina's eldest brother and I quickly introduced
myself and told him the gist of the situation and asked to confirm
the first phone number I tried. It was the right number and I
thanked him and went back to calling Daina's family home again, still
without an answer. Had something happened to Daina as well that
night and her mother was out of the house as a result? My mind
raced with what this all meant and what I should do. As it was clear
I wasn't going to be able to get home anytime soon, and since my
longtime friend Jeff kept to late night hours anyhow, I called him
back and told him the story, asking if he could go to my apartment
and see what was going on for me. He agreed and in the meantime I
went up to Pat's bedroom to let him know as well.
Perhaps I should have asked Pat for a ride back home at the time, but
as Daina had brought me to Denver, I saw her as my ride back and kept
trying the number to her family home off and on for the next few
hours, still with no answer. Jeff called back by three in the
morning to let me know they had pulled the truck out of the wall and
the police were done with their work there. They were just going to
leave the hole in my apartment bare with my living room on display to
the elements and any passersby but Jeff convinced them to get a sheet
of plywood and nail it over the center of the hole to at least
partially protect my stuff until I got there. He was heading home
himself as there didn't seem to be anything else he could do. I
thanked him and noted my problems trying to reach Daina so it seemed
I wasn't going to get back anytime soon.
I called her family home periodically throughout the rest of the
night with no answer and finally decided I should try to get some
sleep myself. I didn't get more than a nap, though, and finally
Daina's mother answered the phone soon after seven in the morning.
She was angry that I was calling so early but at my request went to
wake Daina. I told Daina the news and she agreed to come right over
and pick me up. She and her mother had been home all night, but the
only phone in the house was on the first floor next to her mother's
bedroom, so Daina hadn't heard it ringing herself. I concluded
that her mother must be a very sound sleeper.
When we got back to my apartment we first saw the single sheet of
plywood hanging over the hole in the exterior wall and found the
apartment door, which had been broken down, had been pulled back into
the doorway, though it could no longer be latched and locked.
The rest of the apartment was fine, but the living room section was
littered with bits of concrete, wood and plaster. The spine of the
couch had been cracked by the weight of the truck and various parts
of my stereo system had been dinged by the flying debris. My
computer system, right next to the hole, had been completely spared
as the force of the crash had been aimed away from it. In total I
had shy of two thousand dollars worth of damage as I later tallied
for the insurance claim. As my apartment couldn't be secured
anymore, I realized I had to find a place for my electronics and
asked if we could take them to Daina's condo for the time being. She
agreed and with the first load to her place we picked up her camera
to take pictures of the damage as we returned for the second load.
Never before had I gotten an out of the blue opportunity to go to
Denver for an overnight stay, and never has it happened since. Had I
been home that night there was no doubt that I would have been on
that couch watching Johnny Carson as the bumper of the truck would
have broken through the wall and plowed into the back of my head.
The driver side front tire would have continued to roll in and
crushed my spine into my lap. I could never believe it was all
just a profound coincidence and have ended up with the only
conclusion possible to explain how my life was spared...
'Barry David', at least for that night in my life, was the
hand of God.
While I toyed with the idea of writing him soon after to let him
know, the events of life soon pushed that thought aside and I didn't
get to it until many years later when I mailed him a thank you letter
and told him of that night. Though I hadn't included contact
information as part of my letter he must have gotten the address from
the front of the envelope and sent me back a signed postcard saying
''Wow.''
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