P365: Day 7

When I was a senior in college, on my way back to school after Thanksgiving break, I was in a multi-car accident. I was with my friend Sharon, and we were in my teeny little 1989 Horizon, a blue tin can on wheels that got more than 300 miles on a full tank of gas, even with a backseat full of leftovers and sweaters and Tastykakes and presents from our boyfriends back home. Björk was in the tape player, "Army of Me," and we were singing along, loudly and most likely off-key. It was very late in the afternoon, past dusk, almost to dark, and then suddenly all I could see in front of me, for what looked like miles and miles, was vertical fireworks, all of them red, screaming red everywhere, as far as my eyes could see. I stopped, but the SUV behind me didn't, and we were pushed into the cars in front of us, bouncing around like a pinball until we ended up against the barrier, a flipper stopping us from crossing over into oncoming traffic in the southbound lanes.

What I remembered most, after the accident happened, were two things: that stupid HMO billboard on the side of the interstate and the bright red glow of taillights. For years afterwards, literally years, I would tense up whenever I saw the incandescent evidence of someone in front of me braking. My hands would clench into fists, I would suck in a breath, and I would automatically duck a little bit, trying to protect myself from crashing that never came. It made me a terrible passenger for more than a decade, not that I am much better now. But for the rest of my 20's, whenever I would approach Binghamton on I-81N, no matter what time of day, no matter what time of year, even if I had been dead asleep in the car for over an hour, I could sense where we were, like some kind of personal Bermuda Triangle, and I would panic. I knew that stupid billboard with that stupid apple was there, and I would brace myself for impact, already seeing the screaming of taillights, fireworks of my fear.