Car Crash

by Lech Blaine

  Mum was frequently taken by strangers to be my dad. She had short grey hair and large glasses. Nobody misgendered my father, a 140-kilogram publican. He had a thick white handlebar moustache and fists the size of wicketkeeper gloves.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  Mum hugged me. ‘Baby!’

  Dad shook my hand with a nervous firmness. ‘G’day, mate!’

  Both burned with questions.

  ‘It came out of nowhere,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Lech,’ said Mum, ‘those poor other parents. We’re so lucky. You wouldn’t have gotten in the boot, would you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably.’

  Dad nearly spat his dentures onto the footpath. ‘Get off your high horse, Lenore,’ he said. ‘We’ve put our own kids in the boot!’

  Mum touched the blood on my sleeve softly. ‘Remind me to get this soaking when we get home,’ she whispered.

  We went through the sliding doors. The waiting room was a patchwork of late-night mishap. Babies wailed. A speed freak with dreadlocks and no shirt publicised a grazed elbow to the uninterested receptionist.

  ‘My son was in the crash,’ my father declared in his megaphone voice to a line brimming with injured citizens.

  Every eyeball focused on me, the unblemished front-seat passenger. An elderly man with a mangled face stepped from near the front and ushered me forward. ‘Yaw one lucky bugger,’ he said. ‘Lucky lucky lucky.’

  ‘Step right through,’ said the receptionist.

  The pressurised doors hissed and swung inward. I drifted into a hallway fleshed in pale white linoleum. The next hour was a whirlwind of medical professionals pretending that there might be something wrong with me.

  The radiologist leaked tears on my bloody jumper before taking X-rays of my internal organs. ‘When I heard,’ she said, ‘all I could think about was my son. Same age as you. You boys think you’re bulletproof.’

  I was led back to an observation room, where Mum and Dad sat making diplomatic eye contact.

  ‘How’d ya go?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  The doctor asked a series of questions: what was my full name? The date? The current prime minister?

  ‘Is this really necessary?’ I asked. ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘This is all just a precaution,’ he said. ‘We need to be extra careful when there’s been a casualty.’

  The room went silent.

  Casualty.

  ‘Someone died?’ I said. ‘Who?’

  ‘William,’ said the doctor, after a pause. ‘He passed away on impact.’

  ‘He’s dead?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.’

  My brain felt like it had been scraped out and put back in the wrong place. There was no line of thinking that I could link with a distinct feeling.

  ‘I need to keep going,’ said the doctor.

  ‘No worries,’ I said.

  I watched tears dribble from Mum’s cheek and land on her green cardigan before expanding. ‘Baby,’ she said. ‘I’m just so happy that you’re okay.’

  ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ said Dad, under pressure to pluck some words to follow hers. ‘That’s a cunt of a thing.’

  ‘I’m going to find Dom,’ I said.

  I found the designated driver in a private suite. Dom had the hint of an American accent from a childhood in Wisconsin. He was shirtless, arm covered with white plaster, blue eyes bloodshot from weeping.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  In his confusion, Dom had given paramedics the impression that we had been intercepted by the Holden Viva, not the other way around.

  ‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘It was so quick.’

  ‘Is everyone else okay?’

  ‘I haven’t seen them yet.’

  Dom’s parents arrived. Dry-eyed, I left the reunited family weeping together.

  Hamish was in an operating theatre. Henry, Tim and Nick were in Emergency. Doctors and nurses were preparing for three comatose bodies to be air-lifted to distant cities. My friends lay stretchered beside one another, brains swelling against skulls, breathing devices exploding from throats. Their shell-shocked families were gracious, saying how glad they were I was okay.

  ‘You silly boys,’ said Melissa, Henry’s mother. ‘Why? ’

  I was a mannequin reading from a script of cheap clichés. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  Of that night, the least fatal details stick in my memory. Shiny ambulances at the end of the loading bays. The shadow of agony around swollen eyes. But I can’t remember the faces of my friends, or any final sentences that I said to them before I exited.

  What does a survivor do after walking away from a fatal collision with barely a scratch? There are no assimilation programs for passengers like me. We get released from Emergency straight back into the tedium of the suburbs.

  My parents sat in the front of the black Ford Falcon, cos-playing as a happy couple, while their son stared at the unlit suburbs slipping past. Everything familiar seemed dreamlike.

  ‘Do you want me to slow down?’ asked my father.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  We drove past a gaping racecourse and navigated our way through a maze of roads dedicated to trees. Liquidambar Street. Honeysuckle Drive. Blueberry Ash Court. This section of town was brown from drought and considered highly undesirable due to a surge of substance abuse, but the street signs evoked paradise.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Mum, with singsong frivolity.

  Our six-bedroom home on Evergreen Court was the jewel in the crown of the cul-de-sac. There were no neighbours awake to gossip about my AWOL father’s sudden return from marital purgatory.

  Mum got my jumper soaking in a tub of NapiSan Plus. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea,’ she said.

  My father switched on the TV. We drank discreetly from dusty china cups that hadn’t touched lips since the household patriarch – the tea drinker – had departed to live in the private quarters of a run-down tavern in a rough suburb.

  ‘It’s good to be together,’ he said.

  The family reunion was interrupted by the jingle of a news update. The 1989 Ford Fairlane flashed on screen. A banner below the anchor’s chin said: TEENAGERS IN FATAL CAR CRASH.

  ‘We understand two of the teenagers were in the boot,’ the newsreader announced.

  The montage was tailored for maximum shock value: a gold wreck and a blue one; blood on the shattered windscreen; a close-up of a frothing six-pack; Dom getting extracted from the crushed sedan by emergency workers in yellow hi-vis and white helmets.

  ‘The car burst into flames after rolling,’ the newsreader continued.

  ‘You didn’t say anything about a fire,’ said my father.

  ‘Because there wasn’t one.’

  ‘What a pack of absolute bullshit artists.’

  ‘Are they allowed to make stuff up like that?’ asked Mum.

  The update segued into reports about bankrupt Americans, Asian swine flu and Australian sport.

  ‘You’re up to date,’ said the anchor.

  ‘Stick it up ya date, dickhead,’ said my father, switching off the TV.

  My parents watched me polish off half a loaf of banana bread that Nick had left in our fridge after a rugby union game the previous afternoon.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ I said.

  ‘Goodnight, baby,’ said Mum. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I’m just a phone call away,’ said Dad.

  ‘No worries.’

  There was a two-bedroom granny flat attached to the house, where my musty bedroom sat, at the end of a long hallway. I collapsed onto the mattress and scrolled compulsively from the beginning of Will’s Facebook wall until to the end. I was grinning in his profile picture. We appeared together repeatedly – in a taxi, at a party near the waterbird habitat, drinking Slurpees from 7-Eleven.

  During the summer holidays, he had invited me to stay at his sister’s unit in Mooloolaba. The road trip to the Sunshine Coast was my fin
al long drive with L-plates.

  ‘Keep both hands on the wheel, ya bloody lunatic,’ my father had roared, as I drifted carelessly onto the rumble strips of a six-lane highway at 110 kilometres an hour.

  The unit was part of an old duplex. Will, Henry, Dom, Nick and I sat on tattered couches in the garage and drank beers from an esky until the ice thawed into lukewarm water. We had roughly eleven months to go before a nationwide coming-of-age ritual.

  ‘I wish Schoolies started tomorrow,’ said Nick.

  ‘Patience, mate,’ said Henry. ‘Patience!’

  ‘Remember: it’s about the journey, boys,’ said Will, while peeling the label from a finished stubbie. ‘Not the destination.’

  ‘Let’s go to the beach,’ said Dom.

  ‘Let’s go to the beach,’ said Henry, a budding actor, in a pitch-perfect impersonation of Dom’s accent.

  ‘That’s not what I sound like!’ Dom protested.

  ‘That’s not what I sound like!’ mimicked Nick, in a rendition much worse than Henry’s.

  At the beach, there was a white moon in a navy sky, making the water look like TV static. Night waves sprayed white noise far and wide. I was afraid that my decision to stay at St Mary’s might leave me out of the summer to come. ‘Sorry to be a dog,’ I said.

  ‘Who gives a shit?’ said Will. ‘You’re one of us.’

  Will picked up the guitar and strummed Pearl Jam songs until the sky dimmed into a cartoonish blueness.

  Now Will was dead. What would the audience think of me, the survivor, if I didn’t express grief without delay? At 3:10 am, I posted my first post-crash Facebook status.

  RIP Will … You can pull through boys!

  In the cautious morning, before sleep, I relived the vivid string of minutes that delivered me to the headlights.

  iGrief

  On Sunday morning, I was woken up by my iPhone vibrating against the lavender sheets with a backlog of missed calls and text messages.

  RU ok?

  Thank god your ok

  RIP Lech :(

  One of the rumours spreading across Toowoomba was that I’d been driving the vehicle and had died on impact. Allegedly dead, I made some awkward calls. Girls in my social circle were marshalling mourners across the city. A small group, aimless in their bereavement, had formed a vigil outside the hospital.

  ‘You should be here with us,’ one told me.

  In the hallway, I listened to reports blaring from the TV. ‘It’s a tragedy sure to rock this tight-knit community,’ a sentimental anchor declared to my couch-bound mother from a studio on the east coast. The spectacle was wrung out for the rest of the long weekend.

  I fled to the hospital, driving under blue skies without inhibition about operating a motor vehicle. Outside Emergency, a group of shivering teenagers hugged one another, between checking their phones for Facebook updates.

  ‘Lech!’ shrieked a girl from Downlands.

  My existence was the subject of disbelief. I hadn’t been touched this vigorously since retiring from contact sport.

  ‘You’re a miracle!’

  Vincent was the blond-haired, blue-eyed school captain of Downlands. He gave me a bear hug. I liked Vincent well enough, but I wasn’t a fan of physical intimacy with other men, unless rugby league provided me with an alibi.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, apologising for my visceral resistance.

  ‘No worries, mate,’ I said. ‘Appreciate it.’

  The group provided updates. Henry was at the Royal Brisbane. Tim was at the Princess Alexandra. Their conditions were categorically critical. Nick was in a critical but stable condition at Gold Coast Hospital. Dom was in a serious but stable condition behind one of the tinted windows above us.

  I stood on the sidewalk nodding at terms I didn’t understand. Critical. Serious. Stable. A phrase kept ringing above the din of medical lingo: induced coma. But one passenger was missing from the updates.

  ‘How’s Hamish?’ I asked.

  My question received a collective gasp.

  ‘He passed away,’ said Vincent.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Earlier this morning.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘We thought you knew.’

  ‘Nope.’

  I’d only known Hamish for a few months. At the end of March, to celebrate receiving my P-plates, Tim and I had driven to Brisbane on a whim, to watch a rugby game.

  ‘Passing your test is hands down the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me,’ said Tim, whose birthday wasn’t until spring.

  Downlands First XV were playing St Lawrence’s at Suncorp Stadium, a 52,000-seat concrete coliseum in Milton. Nick was the star Downlands player. Outside the ground, we waited among supporters bussed in from Toowoomba.

  Henry spotted us. ‘Look what the cat dragged in. A couple of Mary’s boys.’ He introduced me to Hamish, whose face was baked with sun from playing cricket.

  ‘Cool your jets, fellas,’ said Hamish. ‘Let’s give peace a chance.’

  I noticed that Hamish watched and listened to events with serious eyes and a sly grin. He seemed comfortable letting those with louder voices lead the conversation. We clicked, and discovered that we both came from the same obscure rural town, Wondai. My parents had run the pub there; his folks were farmers.

  ‘I’m a diehard Wondai Wolves supporter,’ he said.

  ‘My old man used to be the president of the club!’ I said.

  ‘Did we just become best friends?’ asked Hamish, quoting Will Ferrell in Step Brothers.

  ‘Yep!’

  At the hospital, the morning-after vigil agreed to relocate to Downlands. It was like driving into Hogwarts. I slowed to let a rabbit hop from the bitumen onto the grass. At the end of the long, tree-lined driveway, I parked far enough away that none of the grievers could see my battered 1993 Mitsubishi Lancer.

  The courtyard quickly filled with sixty or seventy students, parents and teachers. Bouquets had been laid on the brick steps. Candles burned in the breeze. A priest did the rounds, offering the opportunity to reconnect with God.

  Occasionally, a newcomer arrived and received confirmation that the condolences proliferating across social media weren’t a prank, stunning them into brief seizures of grief.

  The distraught were absorbed into the prevailing mood of sad astonishment. I hovered, shaking hands and nodding as wanly as a war veteran.

  ‘I’m gonna stick strong for the boys,’ I said, over and over.

  Fifty people asked the same question: what happened? I told them the first I knew of the accident was the windscreen filling with trees. I tried to allay suspicions. The car was overloaded, sure, but Dom wasn’t drunk or speeding.

  ‘It could’ve happened to anyone,’ I said.

  My diplomacy was interrupted. A student ran down the driveway with his middle finger lifted to an idling four-wheel drive. It was plastered with logos for one of the commercial television networks. A blonde reporter was halfway to the courtyard. ‘I’m so sorry for your —’

  ‘Piss off!’ the guy shouted. ‘Vultures!’

  The rattled reporter retreated to the car, heels tapping against the bitumen. I cringed at the meltdown, but was determined to show a calm face to the deranged situation.

  ——

  Vincent offered to host a private wake at his place and rode there with me later that afternoon.

  WELCOME TO PRINCE HENRY HEIGHTS!

  To the left was a steep quarry. To the right was a national park. The road narrowed to a tight stretch, like a drawbridge. Vincent’s house was an architectural masterpiece. It was split to accommodate gradients, walls colour-coordinated with the trunks of gum trees.

  The homeowners were blond and soft-voiced, BMIs kept low by organic-based diets and gym routines.

  ‘Let us know if there is anything we can do,’ said Vincent’s father.

  ‘Anything at all,’ said his mother.

  Vincent and I were left to decompress on the patio, where the blue heeler from the cra
sh site materialised.

  ‘Hey, Rosie,’ said Vincent, hugging what was actually a family pet, before descending into a weeping mess.

  Vincent was the youngest of three brothers, but university-educated parents hadn’t shamed the emotion out of him. I patted the cattle dog to do something with my hands that didn’t involve providing comfort to Vincent.

  ‘Keep your chin up, mate,’ I said.

  As night fell, parents dropped a stream of P-platers to the eco mansion. We congregated in the cinema room. Vincent put on the third The Lord of the Rings as a tribute to Hamish. ‘Catapult!’ fellow fantasy fanatics shouted, breaking the spell of sombreness. I’d never seen the movies, but it felt good to be doing something with my lips besides grimacing.

  Our faces were lit in the competing glow of smartphones and a 60-inch TV. Fantasy on the flatscreen, grief in our newsfeeds. I had thirty-one Facebook messages, eighteen wall posts, fifty-seven friend requests. A memorial page for Will and Hamish brimmed with inside jokes and grinning images of the victims.

  At 8:45 pm, I posted my second public statement.

  RIP Hamish, I wrote. My thoughts are with your family.

  Then Vincent made an announcement: Henry was unlikely to survive the night. His brain had pressed against the cranium before bulging back towards the spinal canal. Doctors had drilled two burr holes through his skull.

  I let out a sob, but the emotion behind it dissipated. Someone paused the movie. The room stared at me.

  ‘Let it all out,’ said a girl I’d never met before.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, fleeing to the front porch.

  The entire vigil followed me outside and took turns patting my back while pledging compassion. I tried to produce some counterfeit tears for a tightknit clique of sympathisers. None came.

  ‘You’re so brave,’ said a stranger.

  I drove home alone, the last person awake in the west.

  On Monday morning, I sat in the kitchen slurping Nutri-Grain while flicking furiously through The Toowoomba Chronicle. A box on the front page contained basic facts about the accident beneath the headline HORROR CRASH KILLS TEENAGERS. There was a quote from the regional police chief: ‘In a place like Toowoomba, everyone will know someone affected by this tragedy. It will ripple through the entire community.’