Holy Moly

CW: Road violence

“What the fuck is this guy’s problem?” I said aloud, for no apparent reason. It wasn’t like my six-month-old daughter had much of an opinion of the driver, riding my ass. I flipped open my phone and dialed 9-1-1.

He flashed his high beams at me, which, paired with the colorful sunset, made me feel as if my astigmatism would explode my eyeballs. He shouted out his window at me something I couldn’t fully hear but was glad my kid wouldn’t understand, nonetheless.

“Hi, um, I’m in the middle of a road rage incident.”

“Can you tell me where you are?” The dispatcher asked.

“I’m on 31. Not quite to the big bridge over the river.”

“Are you going east or west? I’m having a hard time hearing you. Stay on the line with me, please.” 

My brain, typically directionally challenged when not under stress, had absolutely zero clue. “Um, towards Dominion.”

“OK, towards Dominion from Ashwood Falls?”

I blinked hard, trying to confirm in my head that the dispatcher’s assumption was right. “Yeah, from Ashwood Falls.”

The high beams stopped flashing at me; I assumed he needed both hands to be an even bigger asshole. The truck sped up, swerved into the right lane and then back towards the side of my car. I dropped my phone, and it flew out of reach.

A breathy voice from my passenger seat said, “Just relax. You’re fine, partner.”

I looked over and confirmed: no one was sitting in my passenger seat. The baby cooed lightly, and I couldn’t decide if I should speed up or slow down.

“Just slow down. Let him go by,” the voice said, knowing what I was thinking. 

The man in the truck glared at me, then veered back towards my car. He wanted to run me off the road, and I assumed, then into the river.

I slowed my car down and put on my blinker to pull onto the shoulder and sighed.

“Skip the blinker, partner,” the voice chuckled. “Don’t tell this guy you’re pulling over.”

“You’re right,” I said to the voice and clicked it back off. My tires growled as I rode over the rumble strips and slowed to a stop just before the bridge. The truck slammed on its brakes and stopped behind me, instead of driving on his merry way as I had hoped.

I looked in my passenger mirror and saw the man grabbing a metal pipe from his truck bed. He stomped towards my car. The baby somehow remained asleep in the backseat.

“Fuck,” I said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“This guy is something else,” the voice said. “Holy moly.”

The man reached for the passenger door and tried to open it. I scrambled to get the car ‌back in gear and drive away. My heart pounded hard enough to break through my chest; it felt as if it was trying to break out of this car and run away like a dog running from fireworks on the Fourth of July. My hands shook, and I couldn’t coordinate grabbing the shifter. Once I finally managed it into drive, I may as well have been shot out of a cannon.

In my rearview mirror, the man stormed back to his truck and tossed the pipe overhead back into the truck bed. He then followed, gas pedal stomped to the floor.

He swooped around me and smashed his brakes. I reacted as safely as I could to his brake check and peeked in the backseat to make sure that the little one was still doing alright. As I continued, he immediately did it again and as I slowed down, he did too, and kept pace alongside me. 

“You’re doing fine, and the baby is fine. Just breathe,” the voice said calmly. I looked over to the empty passenger seat where the voice came from and saw the truck swerve to run me off the road again. This time, he was successful.

My car slid off the side of the road and into the ditch by the old Mikey Barrett Memorial Highway sign. As I realized how steep it was, we rolled onto the passenger side, then onto the roof, completely upside down before coming to a stop on the driver’s side door, nearly right side up in the deepest part of the ditch. The truck drove off in the distance, continuing towards Dominion. The colors of the sunset swirled together as my head bounced all around my shoulders and the airbags punched me in the chest.

“Hello, are you still there?” I heard the dispatcher say faintly; the phone was now near my face, laying on the ceiling. “Are you OK?”

“I’m OK, I think. I’ve been in an accident.” The crying in the backseat was a welcome sound.

“Sherriff’s Department and an ambulance are en route. I want you to stay on the phone with me until they get there. Can you tell me where you are now, exactly?”

“By that Memorial Highway sign,” I said. “Where that wrestler guy died, I think.”

“Got it. The Mikey Barrett Highway Memorial.” The dispatcher paused, then repeated herself. “Just stay on the line with me. I just updated them on your location.”

I unbuckled the seatbelt and fell downwards and onto my shoulder, then pushed the airbag aside. The door opened halfway but wouldn’t go any further. I slid myself out and ripped the door open to the backseat. A single click removed the car seat, and I had to essentially deadlift her out from below. 

“Holy Moly, partner. There’s not a scratch on either of you,” the voice without a face said. “I’ve had worse dives off the top rope. Tough kid and tough you.”

“They should be pulling up any minute,” said the dispatcher. “Are you somewhere they can see you from the roadway?”

I held the phone to my ear but struggled to get words out. “Um. Yes.” 

The ditch weeds scratched my legs as I looked in both directions. I climbed up out of the ditch, car seat in hand and looked up at the sign. Mikey Barrett Highway Memorial, in big blue letters. Attached to it were pictures of the young wrestler, who died in a hit and run, just this side of the bridge. One picture showed him in his cowboy hat with a cartoonish speech bubble and his cheesy catchphrase when he’d tag into the ring. “Holy moly, partner!” Red and blue lights appeared across the bridge.