A large black man struck my child Saturday night. I specify his race, because this detail will appear later, as a special highlight, in this tale of love and loss. I was traveling home, after a fun-filled afternoon of sunshine and slander, and was paused at the stop light just before Hollywood & Highland. As the light turned green, my attention was on the a-hole cutting over from the middle lane. Suddenly, I heard a scraping noise and felt Riot move beneath me. I turned to see what happened. The scraping continued for an awkwardly long period of time, as the two men attempted to back away from my car, exiting just as gracefully as they entered. They had been pulling out of the mall's driveway, trying to sneak into the flow of traffic before the car behind me caught on to the light change. Major fail. We made eye contact and nonsensical hand motions, communicating that we would pull over up ahead to exchange information.
We turned onto Hawthorne Ave (AKA the street right by the Roosevelt. I had to Google map to find the name. Full disclosure.) This street, with its lack of streetlamps, is really creepy when it is night-time and you are pulling over to talk to strange men in a decrepit Buick. George, the assailant, came over and looked at my car, mumbling the entire time about how he couldn't believe this. "You didn't see me there?" I stared at him incredulously, and tossed in a delicate touch of condescension, "No, I did not see you preparing to hit my car from behind me." "I can't believe you didn't see me." "How would I have seen you? You're the one who hit my baby." "Mumblemumbleexpletivemumble." Good talk.
As he searched his car for his license, his passenger (an even larger and equally black man) came rushing over, looking through my windshield, confusedly. Apparently, George had repeated my utterance that he had hit my baby and this man was searching for said child. As I explained that the car was my baby, he pulled me in for a huge hug of relief. So uncomfortable. "I'm just glad you're nice." Let's not get carried away, sir.
He assured me that Riot's injuries could be 'buffed out'. George added that he could get that taken care of for me. "I'll let Toyota take care of it, thanks."
We exchanged licenses, I took pictures, and then I asked for his insurance information. Hesitation. Forced confidence. "Sure, no problem. Let me just find that for you." He searched the interior of his care. Fruitless. He moved to the trunk. Disgusting. At one point, he was thumbing through a folder full of paperwork - including certificates that appeared to be from some sort of drug/alcohol rehabilitation program. Shocking. "I just can't seem to find it in here. It must be at home. I can call you with that information. You have my license, you have my license plate." "Ok. I'm going to call someone to verify all of this. I just don't feel comfortable leaving without your insurance information." This did not go over well. He went on a rant about how I wanted him to get his car taken away and I wanted him to get a ticket, etc. I informed him that I was unconcerned with these juvenile accusations. I also added that I didn't exactly want him to hit my car in the first place and this was the last place I wanted to be spending my Saturday evening. "Why don't you just follow me to my house and I'll get it for you there?" EXCUSE ME? No thank you. "I have no interest in doing that." I continued my attempt to get a hold of a police officer. George and friend looked at each other, gave a single shoulder shrug and a meaningful glance and got into the car and drove away. That looked well-practiced.
The police dispatcher I was connected to informed me that the man was not actually legally required to show me his insurance information. Cool. Helpful. He assured me that I got the correct information and all was well. I prefer my well a little less car-crash-y, thanks.
As I drove home, George called and explained that he wasn't trying to scam me. "Stacie, I don't appreciate your not trusting me, just because I'm a black man." I'm sorry, what? Right. Well, George, I don't appreciate you calling me a racist, just because I'm white. I informed him that he could be a 50 year-old white woman and I wouldn't trust him in this situation.
The next day, he left a message. I left a message. I texted asking for his insurance information.
Today, I called. He said he had to call me back. He called me back, I said I needed his insurance information. He said he's been calling me for two days. Interesting, considering our accident was less than 48 hours prior to this call. Also interesting because he never called me back yesterday. Regardless. I repeated that I needed his insurance information. He said he'd have to get that together and call me back. Get what together? You're not doing your taxes, you're just giving me the name/number of you insurance company slash agent.
Hours pass. I leave a voicemail letting him know that I would really like to get this taken care of ASAP. His voicemail greeting is just one more element of special to add to this story. It is an expletive laced, generally incoherent conversation between him and another man. Classy. Hours pass. It is now almost 5pm, meaning I will be unable to make any forward progress on getting poor Riot fixed up. I call again. It goes straight to voicemail. I hate life. I politely request that George contact me by tomorrow morning, or I will go ahead and file a police report so I can get things rolling. I feel like that's not going to go over well.
I can't even get in normal car accidents. Loud sigh.
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