WHAT.

Listening: Rainy Day - Guster

Clouds are coming
Air gets heavy
Looks like trouble on a
Rainy day
Sun starts sinking
Can't see my shadow
Looks like trouble on a
Rainy day
Holes uncovered
Walls will crumble
All spells trouble on a
Rainy day.

~*~

So I was sitting in Tim Horton's tonight with Colette, like we do every other night. It's a nice way to break up the tedium of homework and life in general. We go there to complain (about everything) and to sketch, because it's a relatively comfortable atmosphere within close proximity to fresh tea. Ever since I got my license in October and I've been granted relatively free reign with the family car (whom I've fondly named 'Bixby'), we've been able to enjoy the tradition with increasing frequency. We thought tonight was just like any other night.

Boy, were we wrong.

It was going for eleven and I was doodling a picture for Colette while she scribbled across from me. We were sitting there. Minding our own business. And then the shit hit the fan.

"Excuse me?"

I looked up over my shoulder to find a Tim's employee looking at the two of us with wide eyes. Blinking, I asked, "What?"

"Do either of you own a red Toyota?"

Immediately my stomach turned to lead. Bixby. Oh shit, I thought. I knew I should have straightened out that park job. I said, hesitantly, "I do."

"Well," the girl said. "Somebody just backed into your car."

For a second I could only stare at her. Then I put my head down on the table and counted to five. Freaking out is not advisable in these kinds of situations. Over my head, I heard Colette (the more rational of the two of us, at the time) ask, "Is there any damage?"

"The whole right side of the front bumper is caved in," the girl said. "And something is dripping out of it."

"Where's the guy who did it?" I asked without lifting my head, my voice muffled by the table.

"Uh..." A momentary pause. "...He drove off."

"What."

I don't put a question mark behind that word, because it wasn't an exclamation of confusion. It was disbelief. I got to my feet and went to the nearest window, peering outside. Sure enough, there was Bixby, sitting all alone in his parking spot. Facing the store. No one for miles.

Allow me to paint a picture for you, if I may.

THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION.

HOW THE FUCKING HELL did someone manage to back into my GODDAMN CAR?

I was capable only of gawping like a goldfish dropped on a sidewalk. All around me, the Tim's employees (it was a slow night, and this shit was calamitous, at least in my eyes) were saying kind things to me, muttering "What an asshole" and "That's a sin, baby are you okay?". Memo to self: Thank you, Tim's employees. Thank you, for being so kind and understanding, and giving a damn. It meant a lot to me.

The manager came up while Colette and I were staring at the crater carved into my poor car's front bumper. "I called the RNC for you," he told me. "They'd like to talk to you."

All around me, shit was going on. Tim's employees were talking to each other and to Colette, and I was capable only of turning around and blindly following the manager into the office in the back. The door was held for me by not one, not two, but three employees, all of whom were regarding me sympathetically. I managed a smile at them which probably looked garish, said "Thanks," and went through. They were all wonderfully nice to me. I appreciated it so, so much.

Inside, the RNC officer on the phone took the information I had to give her, then started asking questions about the make of the car, none of which I could answer. I asked her to hold on and wandered dazedly back out front, where Colette was talking with the employees. When they spotted me, someone brandished a scrap of cardboard or something at me. "Here," she said. "This is what he wrote down."

"Who?" I asked, taking the slip.

"The guy who saw it happen."

I had a witness! My heart lunged into my throat. "Is he still here? Can I talk to him?"

They fetched him for me. He was an older gent, the father, I believe, of one of the Tim Horton's girls getting off her shift at eleven. He reaffirmed the description of the car that he'd written down--he didn't have the license plate number, but he did have the make and colour of the car, was able to tell me it had four doors and tinted windows, and told me the direction our friend drove off in. I thanked him profusely. Now I wish I'd gotten his name, so I could have bought him a coffee. Another person on Julia's Good Karma List. Please take note, higher power/fate/whatever.

So I went back to the phone with the information for the nice RNC lady. She took it all, passed the story on, and said, "Thanks, Julia. We'll send a squad car over and someone will take your statement."

What.

"Okay," I said weakly, and hung up the phone before wandering back out into the store with trembling knees. Somewhere around there it occurred to me to call my mother. Yeah. That was super. I couldn't get my tongue around the words. I've only been driving for two months, guys. I did not want this shit happening this early (preferably at all).

Mom sounded a little upset at first, but she seemed to calm down once I explained that I'd been parked and in a building when the hit happened. She told me she was sending Dad off to find me. "Okay," I said. Then I sat down and shook some more.

While we waited for the fuzz, Cole and I went outside to check out the situation. Allow me to draw your attention back to the diagram above. I think Colette about had an aneurysm when she saw things up close. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she demanded, gesturing wildly. There were a few moments of her stuttering, and then she exploded, "This isn't even pissing distance for Matt!!"

I think what she was trying to say is that there was no reason for Ricky Bobby to careen into my vehicle. Not in a parking lot that size, and especially not given the fact that the only three cars there were his, mine, and my witness's. That's like trying to hand someone a pencil and stabbing their eye out. What the fuck are the chances? How retarded do you have to be? Seriously.

We went back inside, out of the cold. One of the girls, who was leaving, came up to me. "You know," she said, "I know the first name of the guy who did it."

"What?" I said in bewilderment.

"Yeah. I grew up down the street from him."

"Who is he?"

[NOTE: The name of the driver in this otherwise factual story has been fabricated. I would rather not reveal the guy's name. He's got enough to worry about.]

"Graham," she said.

I mentally recorded that and said thank you to her. There was a handsome young man there, who was just as nice as the rest of them. "That your car?" he asked, and following my confirmation, "That sucks." The majority of my Tim's fan club was leaving for the night--all of them offered condolences and wished me good luck as they left. Cole and I stood in the porch, waiting for the cops.

They turned up before long, and cruised around perusing the damage. Finally they parked, and I went out and met the two of them in the parking lot. For the sake of keeping the four officers I encountered tonight straight for everyone, I will assign them fabricated names. The man I mentally named Mustachio proved to be kind of the lead on the matter; he said a polite hello to me, as well as his partner, Blondie, who was, well, a blonde policewoman.

So I went through the whole story with them again. Gave them the same information I had given to the officer on the phone. Mustachio went to check out the car again. As he did, Blondie looked at me.

"You have a description of the car," she said. "I don't suppose you happen to have one of the driver."

"No." I shook my head. "But one of the girls inside said she knew him, and that his name was Graham."

At that very moment, the walkie-talkie on her belt exuded a flare of static, and then a voice said over it (and I'm paraphrasing here, removing the unintelligible police jargon): "We have a man pulled over here who's got a busted taillight. His car matches the description that was just sent out."

Blondie asked into the walkie-talkie, "What's the driver's name?"

A pause. Then:

"Driver's name is Graham McDonald."

I swear to God my face did this:

Blondie and I exchanged a significant look. Then, with a smug smile, she told them to hold on to the fellow they'd pulled over and went to tell Mustachio. I frolicked to Colette, who was standing on the sidelines, and told her what the hell had just happened.

Eventually things moved inside. My hands were cold as ice and shaking, so Colette fastened them forcibly around her own tea cup and we sat there discussing what had happened while our friends Mustachio and Blondie started the report. My Dad turned up around then, and I gave him the update.

I won't go into detail about what happened after, because it was just the basic formal police-work. Mustachio took my statement, Blondie took my license and registration, and my Dad asked questions. We sat there not saying much until Cop Adonis showed up. I call him Cop Adonis because he was absolutely the most beautiful man alive. He was one of the fellows who'd stopped my dear hit-and-runner. He chatted with us a minute, then went off, leaving us pining after him.

The handsome boy from earlier returned again from the chilly outdoors, this time grinning at me. "Got him, did they?"

"Yeah," I said, smiling. And then it was like I couldn't stop smiling, the whole damn thing was so absurd.

Long story short; the fellow who hit me doesn't have a license. He wasn't the only one in the car when it happened, and they all freaked out and he bolted. The fuzz pulled him over for his broken taillight, and the fourth officer (Brace, I'll call him) noticed that the girl in the front seat appeared to be having a panic attack. They were still talking when the announcement of my hit-and-run--along with the description of the perpetrating vehicle--came over the police scanner.

I thought that shit only happened in movies. What the fuck, guys. What. The fuck.

Anyhow, once the jig was up, the driver knew it. He admitted to hitting my car and taking off. He also confessed that he didn't have a license, and was driving a car that didn't belong to him. Things worked out very peacefully after all. We clued up with the police, Dad got numbers and names to call about insurance, and I drove Colette home.

And that was my night. Bixby is sitting in front of the house being wounded as we speak. Poor little feller. At least things worked out as shockingly well as they did.

I feel like I should go buy a lottery ticket or something.

Icarus is going to bed for a whole frigging year after tonight.