Six Unbelievable Things

A true story. I still can't believe it.

Six Unbelievable Things

Benjamin Trayne

Every now and then, something happens that simply should not have been possible, or at least, it's completely implausible. Screw-ups like the one I'm about to describe usually result in multiple deaths.

So far, I've been pretty lucky, knock on wood. Or protected, thank you very much.

Of course I'm not talking about little things like getting smacked in the face with a handle after stepping on a rake, which in fact I've been stupid enough to do. That of course made me angry; this one made me pray, which, especially at that time, took quite a bit more than one might ordinarily expect.

Many years ago I nailed down my first decent job. It was a job driving a delivery and pick-up van. If I tell you what I was delivering you will know how old I am. Well, okay, screw it. I was picking up roll film, delivering developed film, photographic prints and negatives to businesses that offered my employer’s services. It was an unusual van to start with, because it had a flat cardboard breadbox filled with envelopes on a little table right beside me. Oh yes, and the table was attached to the floor, luckily.

As it was a first job away from home – because I’ve always worked, I was quite young of course, and had been out until four that morning. I'd left my girlfriend's parents' home at three-thirty. I had a half-hour drive to get to work and had to be there at seven. That gives you an idea how much sleep I'd had. To boot, I was developing a cold, one of those that make you feel like you're not really there. Drowsy, sniffles, tired and not particularly “with it.”

Between two towns where I had stops, there was a distance of maybe twelve miles. It was a foggy morning and I'd been out on the road for a couple of hours already, driving a two-hundred and forty-mile, circuitous route.

I remember passing the sign that said “Warrior's Run High School” at about sixty-five miles per hour, absolutely flying down a very long, gradual hill. It was a really straight road with a series of sharp little drops. Each drop was a pleasant feeling, to the point where is was positively mesmerizing. I simply lost track of where I was.

Up ahead, Route 54 was about to cross my path, a three-lane fast highway usually heavy with truck traffic. Where I would cross, 54 was in a broad turn, sharply banked toward me. I'll never, ever forget it. I must have been about twenty feet from the stop sign when I realized it was there, appearing out of the fog.

I was still streaking down the pike at sixty-five miles an hour. There were vehicles (!) on 54 in front of me, including one moving tractor-trailer directly before me, and there was no way in hell I could have stopped. I recall thinking, “I am going to die.” I didn’t even have time to freak out.

My left hand seized the wheel in my final death-grip, my right laid on the horn.

It was all I could do. Didn’t bother to touch the brakes, it was too late for that.

The first unbelievable thing was, somehow or other completely unimaginably, I didn't hit any other vehicles. Crossing the highway at that speed, I didn't even get a look at how close I came.

The second was, when I hit Route 54 which was banked toward me, all of my momentum was directed upward at perhaps twenty degrees or more from dead-level – and I'd been traveling down a long hill. Once through the stop sign, the road continues on a slight downward grade. So, at the upper edge of the banked turn, my van left the ground. It wasn’t a little jump, man, it was a BIG jump. I know some people do this for a living. I wonder though, how many of them have ever done it by surprise.

The third thing was what happened while I was airborne. The envelopes were neatly arranged in parallel rows in the cardboard breadbox. The box floated at least two feet off of the little table. The envelopes were all out of the box, floating six inches above that. My head hit the ceiling. At that point the van was at the top of a pretty big arc; I had felt the suspension drop, as the vehicle took to the air. I recall thinking, “When it comes down and hits, I'll crash! The suspension will be destroyed!” I realized that at very least I was about to lose my job, because I was at that very moment, studiously wrecking a company truck.

The truck came down hard with a deep CRUNCH that convinced me beyond doubt I wouldn't be driving it away. My chin bumped the steering wheel, despite my strength and my now, two-fisted grip.

And yet, every envelope came down in perfect order in the box, which came down precisely where it had been, onto the table. The vehicle was still moving, although most of its momentum had been sapped by the jump, so I tapped the brakes and drifted it off to the right berm, marveling that I could still steer it. The engine was running, and I shut it off.

I just sat there for a few minutes. Mortified.

Eventually I decided I had go out and check out the broken springs or bent axles, whatever I had, sometime. Surely there must be a lot of angry drivers back there, perhaps I'd caused an accident, maybe fatalities and there would be police cars on the way.

That brought up the fourth unbelievable thing.

There wasn't a car or truck in sight. Not one.

No resultant wrecks behind me, and no one coming, either. I knew there had been several vehicles when I went across that highway. They all had gotten the hell out of there, apparently. I still wonder if anybody present, soiled their underwear.

The fifth unbelievable thing: No damage. No flat tires, no dropped corners from a broken spring, no bent axles, no sticky steering, everything worked. I could not begin to understand how that was possible, for any vehicle.

And that leaves the sixth and most unbelievable thing of all.

The vehicle I was driving had always been the object of my scorn because of what it was, but you drive what they give you to drive. Nevertheless I considered it to be an inferior brand. To this day, I can't convince myself to buy one. And yet it had endured all of that, and protected my undeserving hide through my irresponsible should-have-been-my-next-to-the-last-ride behavior. And that's why I know without doubt I was being watched-over. I was allowed to go on living in spite of myself. Because it just wasn't possible.

It was a Chevy.

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