The Accident

Part One: The Conditioning

My first ‘job’
Paid cash.

I was underage.

I worked for a photographer
Who was a Viet Nam veteran
That got crippled during the war.

His legs got fucked up.
He couldn’t get around
Without the support
Of a pair of clacketing aluminum braces
Extending from his forearms to the floor.

I basically carried the camera equipment
And helped him to set up.

My friends got me the job
And later on
I found out why he hired
Younger boys...

Why my friends
Received lavish gifts.

But that’s another story in itself.
My tenure as a photographer’s assistant
Did not last very long.

Part of his business
Was to photograph proms
And weddings
And social events.

But
He was also the
Evidence photographer
For the local police departments.

So I lugged his gear
To proms and weddings
And suicides
Car accidents
Murders.

Grisley scenes
For a 14 or 15 year old.

Especially the weddings.

I lasted long enough
To have witnessed
A person that had hung himself
From a tree
In the backyard
Of their family home.

I learned
A law of physics and biology
That night.

I became educated
That gravity will draw bodily fluids
Of a suspended dead corpse
To the lowest extremities
Of which
Being
The hands and feet
A dark
Almost black goo like emulsion
Seeped out of the skin
And gelled
Spilling out even
From their shoes and socks.

I was not prepared for that.
Nor the smell.

The joint we had smoked in the car
On the way over
Took some of the edge off
But it was still haunting.

Other than that
The night went routinely.

We took photos and left.

I saw a man
With the top of his head blown off
From a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

We were at the top of the panelled stairs
When the first cop told us
To look quickly
Turn our heads
Look again
Turn
Look again...

To avoid shock.
To condition ourselves.

When I got to the bottom
Of the stairs
I did as he said.

One cop was pale and gagging
So I knew it was bad.

The scene was so eerily surreal
To know that we were in this person’s
‘Space’
Where they made this very intense final decision.

An intact body reclined
Relaxed
On a worn distasteful nubby plaid sofa
With wooden arms and feet
In a suburban basement.

The grip of a shotgun
Nestled between his knees.

His hands had moved
From the discharge
But the end of the rifle
Was perfectly in line
Just above the lower jaw.

There was not much to see above that
Except bone and organ
Packed in like a jig-saw puzzle
Around the lower jawline.

It was splattered
On the sofa pillows behind him...
On the fake wood panelling
The porcelain lamp with it’s yellowed shade.

I know.

I remember.

I helped take pictures of it all.

Evidence of what really happened.

Just as any prom or wedding.


Part Two: The Accident Itself

Ahead of me
I watched a large cloud
Of dust and dirt
Appear on the median
Of I-95.

I could tell that it wasn’t smoke
Or a fire.
It looked different
Somehow.

We approached.

I was in the fast lane
But I could see the metal of a vehicle
Amidst the fury of dirt and grass
In the island of the interstate.

I put on the flashers
And pulled over
Settling onto the center embankment
Across from the accident.

My wife and kids were in the car.
I told them to wait.

I was the first one there.

The car had flipped over onto it’s roof.

The occupant was upside down
Crunched upon the ceiling interior of the car.

Their head was sheared above the eyes
From the open sunroof.

I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman
Only that they were black and heavy-set.

The top of their scalp
Lay just a foot or so
Away
From the roof of the car
Interior side face up in the sun
Much like the undercarriage of the car.

I could see inside of it
Slowly bubbling
Foaming pink red.

There was a detail in this quiet moment
Before others arrived.
A concerto of death.

The settling of the crunched metal of the vehicle.
Automobile fluids leaking.
Gases being released from the body itself.
The gurgling of life fluids exiting arteries.

There was a death racket
Within the din of interstate traffic.

I noticed all of this before the others arrived
And started screaming and sobbing in shock.
I told them
That the driver was DOA
There was nothing that we could do.

I left the gathering crowd
And got back in my car.

I listened to my wife tell me how
She experienced
That person’s soul leave their body.

She was crying.

I believed her.
She was intuitive like that.

I listened to her howl in pain
Like a wounded animal
Hit by a car
All of the way
From Richmond
To DC.