Killing Harry: A True Story

Here’s another post from my former student, Anita M. Martinez, who’s kindly holding the fort while I index a volume of medieval European history. This is a great story!

Knowing I’d killed a man was a horrific feeling—one I hope never to experience again. Had he been some sort of perpetrator, I could have felt justified and maybe even triumphant. But Harry was minding his own business, that unforgettable day in September 1994.

“Oh dear God, I’ve killed him!” my mind screamed as I ran toward Harry’s lifeless body, his arms stretched out on the ground. His bright blue eyes glazed over as they stared straight up to the sky. He wasn’t breathing!

“I have to revive this man, or at least try,” I told myself in a panic, wishing to God I’d paid more attention to that Red Cross CPR instructor eighteen years ago. My eyes zeroed in on his white, parched lips. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I could bring myself to administer mouth-to-mouth on a man I didn’t know.  Strange, how the mind can drift to silly things in the throes of catastrophe.

What brought me to this moment? Shortly before I killed Harry, my children, namely my boys, nagged, nagged, and nagged me some more until with an exasperated sigh, I gave in, agreeing to take them to Toys R Us to get a stupid toy truck called the Big, Big Loader. They had just seen the commercial with, you know, one of those jingles that reverberates in your head until you find yourself waking up at four a.m. ready to stick your head in the toilet to flush it away.

Our rusty 1964 Chevy Malibu felt hot as a kiln when I piled the kids in shortly before sunset.  I fastened Erika, my five-month-old daughter, into her car seat with the one and only seat belt her father installed in the car.

As the searing September sun fought its descent, the Malibu chugged westbound on Thunderbird Road. My boys were repeating and repeating and repeating the Big, Big Loader jingle. Sweat trickled from my temples. My thighs glued themselves to the Malibu’s vinyl seats while my nerves came unglued. The sun was in on it too, inflicting a blinding glare as the Malibu bulleted through the intersection at 60th Street.

By the time I hit the brakes, it was too late. With a smoking rubber screech and sickening thud, the Malibu’s heavy grill smacked into Harry and his shiny motorcycle. The force of the crash threw Harry into the opposite lane, a good 20 feet from the point of impact.

My adrenaline pumped so hard when I threw the car door open, that I forgot to put it in park. As if to tip toe from the scene, it lurched ahead, driverless, with my children in it. I chased it, jumped in, and jammed that gearshift into park. Glancing quickly at my bewildered children, I ascertained they were uninjured.

I ran to Harry’s lifeless body. Ah yes, CPR. Simple as “A-B-C”: Airway – Breathing – Circulation. Assessing those white, parched lips, I made the split-second decision to skip steps “A” & “B,” proceeding to step “C.”

Gingerly, I placed my hands somewhere (anywhere!) on Harry’s chest and pressed. Suddenly, Harry came to life, pleading with a twang, “Ma’am, DON’T TOUCH ME!”

I screamed as if I’d seen a ghost and began running in circles like a mad woman. You’d think relief would have been mine at Harry’s sudden revival, but embarrassment at my own stupidity took center stage.

I ran back to the steam-hissing Malibu, peering in like a Jurassic Park dinosaur. The baby’s bottom lip was trembling, so I took her out and held her, telling Henry, Jacob, and my stepdaughter, Kaycee, to stay put.

Several of the female residents on Thunderbird Road emerged from their homes, like zombies at sundown. They circled me slowly, orderlies trying to calm an escaped lunatic.

“Honey, why don’t you hand me your baby?” requested a woman. Another offered me a murky glass of lukewarm water, which I reluctantly sipped (just to appease her). Yet another, with unblinking, cow-like eyes, took apparent pleasure in telling me I had run a red light. She must have been a hall monitor in sixth grade.

Phoenix Fire Station Number 31 was four blocks west, so instantly we heard sirens. The medics swiftly responded to Harry, who still lay in the street. Traffic in both directions had ceased, so everyone saw the show.

Amid the sounds of a wailing siren and chopper blades overhead, I found myself strapped to a board in the back of an ambulance, lying next to my 9-year-old son, Henry, also strapped to a board—a scene straight out of M*A*S*H.  Jacob, Kaycee, and Baby Erika got to ride in the fire truck behind us, en route to Paradise Valley Hospital, where a rotund, red-faced Phoenix PD officer awaited me.

“The guy you hit is alive, but they’re air-evacing him to Barrow’s,” advised the officer, while presenting me with my citation for running a red light. I knew it couldn’t be good (Harry’s condition, and well, yes, the citation, too) so I began to sob. The officer lost his patience.

“Ma’am! DID-YOU-HEAR-WHAT-I-SAID? He’s going to LIVE!”

The days that followed engulfed me with depression and guilt, knowing it was all my fault Harry lay in the sterile confines of Barrow’s Neurological Institute, probably surrounded by plastic tubes and beeping machines.

“Maybe you can bake him a batch of chocolate chip cookies,” suggested my mom.

Buying Harry’s forgiveness with baked goods was never to be. Luckily, he agreed to a $12,000 insurance settlement plus coverage of medical charges. Harry’s thumb sustained a fracture, which was the extent of his injury. (Thank God!)

As for the Chevy Malibu? Believing it was still operable, I sold it to some guy for 100 bucks. He ended up towing it to a wrecking yard on the west side, he told me with disgust. Not only that, but the radiator was flat as a pancake. And no, it DIDN’T run. He wanted his money back.

No dice, friend.

Add fraud to my rap sheet.

🙄

Image: Spanish cemetery. Steven J. Dunlop. Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.