So last night at around 12:30 am there was this huge but kind of muffled boom that sounded like either a thundercloud had exploded or a building a block away had fallen down.
Beat.
“What was that?” I said.
“What was that?” H.o.p. said.
“I heard it too,” Marty said.
We’re sounding like the momma and poppa and baby bear there, aren’t we.
No one else was doing it so I went to the front room and looked out the window knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to see anything out of it but a few yards of city street.
The boom was fading and in its place now there arose a sound like rushing wind. Bizarre!
Marty had followed. “It’s wind,” he said.
“No, look at the trees,” I said. “They’re still.”
The rushing wind sound continued for a bit. Then it died down and was replaced by the winding whining whir of a motor in bad trouble.
I heard people yelling.
I was still dressed so decided to step outside to see if I could find out what was going on. When I opened the front door I was met with smoke. And fumes. Though it smelled like burning rubber, when you live in an apartment building and there’s smoke you go check it out.
Walked up to the corner and somehow someway a car had whipped through the shrubbery of the building, torn up the grassy turf so it was all over the sidewalk, and landed itself in a telephone pole. The police were already there. Whoever was in the auto they apparently weren’t going to handle and would leave to the medics. I don’t know how messed up the driver was because I wasn’t going to get closer and in the way of things, but whoever had hit the telephone pole was not in a condition to be questioned.
A couple was standing on the corner across from me. Another couple of people were talking to the police, probably from the apartment building. That was it.
A policewoman went around and began banging the back of the car with her club. She’d look in the back seat and then bang the trunk of the car again, around the tail lights, with her club again. Then look in the back seat again. She did this multiple times.
I went back inside. Marty went out to take a look. The ambulance had arrived. He departed as they pulled up the gurney to the side of the car.
Hope whoever it was is all right.
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