~Smack

"This youth that you see here I snatch’d one half out of the jaws of death."

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

On Wednesday, November 7, 2007, at 5:30 pm; daylight saving time just changed, and it was dark; Krista, then fifteen, wore all black and her hair was an unfortunate normal person’s brown instead of her usual dyed yellow or neon pink. Watkins Drive in Riverside has apartments on one side, a small fenced concrete canal that parallels the other side, beyond which is the park that Krista and her friends were previously hanging out. What they were doing at the park is anyone’s guess.

Playing with a Jewish dreidel, eating strawberries with sugar, picking four leaf clovers? They all went through the canal and climbed/crawled out of the hole in the fence and onto the street, Watkins Drive. I can imagine her scraping her knees, ruining her pants and hunkering down like a Hobbit crawling out of its hobbit hole. The street had three lanes: one in each direction; one center. Three of her friends immediately crossed before her then two were behind. Krista crossed the first lane, the center lane and half of the second lane, and made it to the center of a Ford truck when it hit her going 35-40 mph head on. She rode up on the hood for a bit, and then was catapulted off when the driver slammed on his brakes. There was a tremendous bang. The driver never saw Krista and pulled over not knowing what he hit. Brett said it was such a loud noise that it sounded like two cars had collided. He said that when he heard the noise, he immediately turned around and Krista was on the ground in the gutter, crawling.

I was at Luke's in Orange County about 45 miles away when Brett called, "Suzie, something really bad, but not too bad, but pretty bad, but not super, super bad, but kind of super bad just happened. Krista was hit by a car. She is on the ground and her leg hurts and her back and head are banged up."

My heart sunk to the pit of my soul; it felt as if I were hit by a truck. There is a music video by Simple Plan (see below), a real tear-jerker, where a girl is hit by a car and is killed, and at the same moment, every one in her family, wherever it was that they stood when the girl was hit; in their kitchen, bedroom, or office, was thrown as if they too were impacted by the same car. That is what it feels like when your troubled baby girl, who you have little control over, who you know is drinking and smoking weed, is hit by a truck. It is such a mind fuck too, when they are hurt, while doing everything wrong. It is said that dying is the one thing you must do alone. But it is not. When someone dies, everyone she knows leaves a part of themselves here on Earth and goes with her to die. The police and ambulance weren't there yet but had been called and were on the way. Brett’s casual explanation and tone had a strangely calming effect. I appreciated his cavalier attitude. Luke and I jumped in the car and began the hour and a half journey during commuter traffic. Racing down a freeway and weaving in and out of traffic to get to your dying daughter is one thing; but sitting absolutely still and hemmed in on every side with traffic stopped in front and behind as far as one can see is another. I braced myself for the impending truth: Krista was dying. I was sure of it. And there was a trapped feeling, like being in a coffin, where I couldn’t move and was going to die.

I called Zoie, who was with Krista, to see if the ambulance had arrived and Zoie was hysterical and crying, "Her head is bleeding and her back is all bloody, both her legs and arms are broken and her back is broken."

Zoie, thirteen, saw the whole thing and was not doing well. I was so fucking scared. It did in fact take one and a half hours to drive the forty five miles. I lived for an hour and a half, knowing, positively that Krista was dead or dying.

That ride in the car was what I imagine Purgatory to be like: an insane uncertainty and an endurance of the worst possible reality.

"I’ve looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes."

Douglas MacArthur

When Luke and I arrived at the hospital, the girls at the front desk rushed me in. I was told that Krista had been examined and her wounds scrubbed. The hospital had performed a CAT scan on her head and X-rays on her legs and back. My Mom, Krista’s dad, and my sister TT were already there. She was in the emergency room still in shock, hooked up to tubes, awake, yet high on morphine, and still in a lot of pain. Her head had a big, ugly gash, her back was monstrously flayed the size of a square manhole.

This patch of exposed flesh went from as far left to as far right as one could define as the back, and then from just above the butt crack up to the blades of her shoulders. It was raw and bloody; the worst road rash I had ever seen. Her legs were bruised, her precious face was not. She could not remember a thing about the accident, but had to be reminded that the reason she was in the emergency room hooked up to tubes and in pain was that a truck had hit her. My stomach lurched to see her back. Extraordinarily, she had only hairline fractures on her knee and spine, spleen bruises, and no brain damage, but she was banged up and in shock. The doctor said she was incredibly lucky and had she been smaller, she would be dead.

I felt like I was the luckiest person on earth and that I was given a second chance with Krista, and that she was given a second chance. Miracle is too weak a word, but that is what is was. A joyous feeling came over me, as if I were hit by a car and lived life afterwards in a fresh new way. When I learned she would live, I felt entirely relieved. I was as grateful as one could be. She had to stay in the hospital five days and four excruciating nights. You never want to go to the hospital without your own heavy painkillers because the nurses may or may not come when you call within one or two hours. I stayed every night and day. The nights in the hospital were like an insane asylum. You could hear a lady across the hall crying and calling for help constantly. The nurses would bust in our room and turn on the brightest lights possible about every three hours to poke and prod. And Krista had her boom box blaring The Doors.

“You men eat your dinner

Eat your pork and beans

I eat more chicken any man ever seen,

yeah yeah I’m a back door man

The men don’t know

But the little girl understand…”

Back Door Man, The Doors

I slept on a little cot next to her bed and had to jump up and help her every few hours. She couldn’t hold her own cup; she needed help to the bathroom which took one hour each time. In the hospital she had some excellent nurses the first few days, but over the weekend she got some terrible bitches. And Krista was a bitch too. The doctor had her on a liquid diet for two days and changed her from morphine to Vicodin on that second day, which did not work to alleviate the pain at all. We had twenty hours of pure hell. Her pain was unbearable to her so she made life unbearable for all those around her. By the third day, she was starved and under-medicated with no doctor in sight (her original doctor was the only one who could make changes to her meds or diet, and he could not be contacted). When the doctor finally came and gave her the stronger pain pills (Norcos) and food, she made a 180 degree turnaround. Comfortable, relaxed, nice. But erstwhile, she yelled at nurses to give her her damn medicine, when they poked her arm, she bitched and yelled. One nurse left a piece of packaging from the sterile needles on Krista’s bed.

“Next time you come in here, I would appreciate it if you didn’t leave your trash all over the place,” she told the nurse curtly.

“Fire her MOM. Get her out of here!” she would say about the first and second nurse.

The doctor finally came around and heard all of the nurses’ horror stories about the monster in room 901. He stormed in while I had one of Krista’s legs up in the air helping her get out of bed. She couldn’t bend her knee and her back was stiff, so getting out of bed took time and effort and was painful. It took twenty five full minutes just to get her out of bed and to the bathroom. Her knee and ankle and spine were in intense pain when she moved. She walked with a walker. Her back would be stuck to the sheets from her oozing, weeping back, so it took several minutes to simply peel the sheet off her back. By the way, where her jeans were, there was no road rash at all. I recommend wearing jean overalls with a tight jean jacket if you plan on getting hit by a car or truck while walking in the street. The doctor walked in and immediately started going off on Krista. He was yelling at her. His face was boiling red with rage.

He was short and barking mad. “You are manipulating your parents and my entire staff. You are NOT the Boss. I am the Boss. I say what meds you take, how much and when.”

He was acting like such a baby, I was waiting for him to ball up his fists and jump up and down, and stomp his feet demanding his Super Man training pants and not the Hulk ones.

“NOW! NOW! NOW!” he shouted.

What a freak. There was a study done on patients who were given an entire bottle of painkillers when hospitalized as opposed to being administered one by one by the nurse. They found that patients who self medicated used fewer painkillers than those who waited desperately and tensely for nurses by doubling up when they finally came and asking for more and more.

“I decide what goes on in this hospital. I am the doctor-not you,” the little Napoleon screeched.

Then he barked at me and Steve, Krista’s dad, “Go out in the hall NOW. I need to talk to you alone.”

Had I left NOW as he demanded, Krista would have fallen to the ground because I was holding her up while she was halfway out of bed. When he had walked in, we both froze in amazement. But even still there was no way I would have gone out to the hall and bowed the Nazi. I couldn’t move or say a thing. I was so drained from being up most of the night to help Krista with her meds, pain, bathroom, etc. I had little sleep, was overwhelmed by the stress and upset that Krista was acting like such a miserable bitch. I have never felt so weak and powerless and for this ass to walk in like this and steamroll the entire family was demoralizing. I thought there is no hope now for anything. There is no hope for healing, for pain; because now he probably won’t give her any meds.

“I want you to go out in the hall now,” he repeated.

Shockingly, Steve obeyed. I stared at this little troll with my mouth agape so shocked at his behavior. At the time, my clouded mind couldn’t think and I don’t know if I’d have known anyway, that there were other painkillers and that there was food. I was too delirious to know that Krista could have been calmed with the right pain medicine and a little nutrition. I would have been even more appalled at his behavior had I known that within ten minutes of the correct meds and a small sandwich, Krista relaxed into the most peaceful human you could imagine.

“Get the fuck out,” Krista screamed. I can’t imagine what the other patients must have thought since earlier she was crying and begging for the nurse and saying it hurts so bad I can’t bear it and I was desperately in the hall seeking a nurse in the empty echoing halls. Other patients and visitors looked at me in pity. It was like that scene in Terms of Endearment with Shirley McClain when she went up to the nurses and freaked out in order to get her daughter some medication. The Dr. gave up on me obeying him and went in the hall to talk to Steve who then came in to get me. I made the little troll wait since that was all the power I had in the world.

Steve had to come twice to get me, “He just wants to talk to you.”

So I finally gave in and went into the hall to talk to the little Fuhrer.

“You may be too close to the situation to see what is happening. She is manipulating everyone. She is on enough morphine (he had just given it to her) to knock out a horse but needs to learn to control herself.”

Bullshit. I’ll step on you like a bug and put you in my pocket if you don’t settle down you stinky little elf. I wanted to say.

“So what you are saying is she is a pampered princess experiencing little or no pain and is simply throwing tantrums and being a monster not in reaction to pain and fear from being hit by a truck, but as a result of bratty rudeness?”

“Well no she is experiencing pain, but needs to control herself,” troll said, while his long fangs dripped with saliva.

“So you get hit by a truck and go without food or proper drugs and when you act like an idiot it has nothing to do with those circumstances,” I asked.

Thank god he gave her Norcos and food. I would have given her food myself but I thought the diet was due to drug interactions, nausea, throwing up in your mouth while asleep, etc. What a dumbass I was.

Krista and I had fought the morning of the accident. I told her to get the hell out of my car and I pulled over. It had to do with her orientation at her new continuation school. It was during a particularly ornery time in her life, and she was a rude bitch to the teacher at the orientation. After the accident she could remember nothing of the day and was as curious as was I if she had been high or drunk. She remembered nothing of the day from when I dropped her off around 11 am at Brett's until the accident. However, she did remember our fight, me telling her to get out of my car, but did not remember what prompted my anger. And she remembered going with me for my patch test for hair color at the Beauty School at RCC. So in her mind, I was a ruthless, angry bitch that kicked her out of the car and made her walk, but I had good hair. And she was an angel who did her chores and spoke with respect to her elders. She came home to a hospital bed in my living room with a lot of movies to entertain. As horrible as it all was, we had good times watching movies, laying around. I slept on the couch next to her at night so it felt like camping. Pedro, our Chihuahua lay on her belly every day and night while she recovered. He rarely got down off her bed and she and he could not stand to be apart.

She recovered quickly but I didn't. I got some horrible flu with a cough that lasted an entire month-I’m pretty sure it was the Plague or the Swine Flu. Krista got a staph infection. Huge boils which the doctor (our regular nice doctor-not the yeasty little bastard at the hospital) scared the hell out of me explaining that it could be related to flesh-eating disease. There was wallpaper border around the top one foot of the wall. It was pretty classical, very Greek looking. But who pays much attention to what subject matter of wallpaper border?

Krista stared and stared and finally asked the doctor, “Are those urns on your wall?”

He smiled and giggled, “I never really paid attention. Well yes I suppose they are.”

“That is fucked up,” Krista said lightly.

He was amused. The guy who hit her with his truck never called or sent flowers; I don’t know what I expected. And to this day she limps and has pain in her knee and has memory issues, nightmares, and headaches. But she is alive. And she mellowed out after the accident, partied less, stayed home more, used cross walks.

Krista and I have always worried that if she were in a terrible accident I would be a terrible nurse and a bitch. I am a terrible nurse when she is sick or hurt. It is ridiculous how she over-reacts and I get pissed. I am mad if I have to take her to the doctor. I was mad when she broke her foot and ankle. Mad at every flu, boil, bite, cold, pain and ache. And likewise, she was melodramatic at every slightly painful experience. She exaggerates miserably.

“I’m dying Mom, I’m sure of it,” she said the last time she had a sore throat.

“Oh my god will you go gargle and leave me alone, I’m trying to drink my herb tea,” I shouted.

But here is the thing. When it was the real deal and she needed me-I stepped up. I held her cup to her mouth, slept every night by her side, got up in the middle of the night to give her meds, help her to the bathroom. And I was nice because when people you really love, especially your children, are alive, it is a good thing; a very good thing indeed.

"Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time." George Carlin

1ST Picture: Black Angel, Iowa City, bronze statue, 1912

2nd Picture: Dreidel, wood, Jewish Toy

3rd Picture: Death and the Devil Surprising Two Women, Daniel Hopfer, 1500-1510

4th Picture: Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, Premonition of Civil War, painting by Salvador Dali, 1936

5th Picture: The Flayed Angel, painting by Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty 1746

6th Picture: Civil War Surgery, photograph

7th Picture: Napolean, Jacques Louis David, 19th c.

8th Picture: Stop That Pickle, children's book illustrated by Andrew Sachat