The wife and I were sharing her car because my van had the steering box break off from the frame due to excessive rust. Luckily this did not occur as I was driving down the highway. It happened as I was attempting to pull out of the driveway and turn onto the road.
The steering wheel had been acting weird for a couple of weeks and I guess I should've wondered why the steering wheel was upside down while I was driving straight down the road.
Long story short I had to move all my equipment out of the van and fit what I could into the little Honda CRV. It was just enough to do the gig.
I drop the wife off at work and I'm fixing to cross northbound U.S.1 to head south. As I'm looking at the oncoming traffic for a gap I notice a lot of smoke in the distance.
Coming out of the smoke is a trailer tire that had broken off, brake drum and all and it's on a trajectory that's going to smash my drivers side door, ME as it were, so I put the car in reverse and had intended on backing all the way up to let the tire pass but as I glanced up in my rearview mirror I notice a truck coming up behind me so I had to stop backing up.
This at least got me out of the way and the wayward tire traveling at 60mph+ hit the drivers side of the car directly on the front tire and shot up in the air about 40' and crashed back down in the restaurant parking lot 100' away from the car.
At the same time a fellow by the nickname Barley Bay Wayne was making his way along the bike path. He was one of the locals that kind of "fell off the earth" when he got to the Keys and he was passionate about taking care of the stray kitties around virtually any store you go to here in the Keys. He was so adamant about feeding the stray kitties that he was arrested for trespassing several times...long story.
He swears up and down that I blocked the tire from hitting him on purpose. That I "saved his life". I may have saved his life but I really did not know he was there while all of this was happening.
It was rush hour and there was no way of getting the tag number of the truck that was pulling the trailer that lost the tire that hit my car.
I was unsure if the car was even drivable. I got back in fired it up and it pulled back into the parking lot. As I was sitting there trying to get a plan together, a couple pulled up next to me and had the tag number of the truck that lost the tire off the trailer. How lucky was that?
By this time somebody had already called the state police and a wonderful state police woman showed up and took my information. I explained to her that I was working that night and seeing how the car was drivable I was going to go to work at my gig at the Bayside Grille. She said she would look into the driver of the other vehicle and get back to me.
I'm in the middle of the set when the State trooper shows up at the gig looking for me which worried the manager a little bit at first. She was worried they were going to take away her musician in the middle of a Friday night.
The truck that lost the tire wasn't even aware that they had lost the tire until they parked the truck that night at their lot in Miami.
So all of that worked out until the insurance company got involved and State Fart didn't total the car and it ended up falling apart, the repair shop missed a leak by the windshield and that eventually soaked the electronics... getting hit by that tire at that speed was more than that little CRV could handle. It should've been totaled but Insurance companies suck like that.
I can't believe I didn't take a picture of that... I'll be damn I can't even find a picture of that car! I would have sworn I at least took a picture of it when we got it...strange.
Take away here is that rust never sleeps. Just because you didn't get hit by a wayward tire on one day doesn't mean you're not gonna get hit by an entire car later as Barley Bay Wayne found out. We haven't seen hide nor hair of Barley Bay Wayne ever since. I think the Keys got too busy and crowded for him and he moved back north somewhere.
Peace and Love and keep your eyes peeled because you never know what's coming or when.
Comments