Saturday night, I hit a deer.
For my "urbanite" friends who don't know what I mean...
Minus the horns. Its out of season for those.
I was driving to work at 9:30 at night, and on the backroads I take to get to Walmart, there are occassionally animals. Deer, rabbits, etc. Not usually that late at night, because traffic on that road is heavy, thanks to the local indian casino being located on said road.
I'm driving and a deer just gets out of the way - I slow down, and a second deer jumps out, I slam the brakes, the deer hits the car - it twists in air, its nub of a horn strikes teh windshield, and there's a deer dent and spidered glass and my eyes go wide, but the car is running so I pull it over to the side, off the road.
I hit the emergency lights and panic for a second, breathe and think, "Jesus, what if that thing landed in the road?!" But, a Bad Samaritan driver, perhaps upset at losing his/her shirt, goes flying by, making me feel better about THAT.
I start panicking again, so I do what any right minded adult does in a situation like this: Call mommy.
She keeps it together, thankfully, and I ask "Who do I need to call?"
GHOSTBUSTERS Airway Heights Police.
See, I don't live IN Spokane - I live in Airway Heights.
(Dan and G: Airway Heights is to Spokane like Box Elder is to Rapid City.)
I call work first - I say I'm not coming in tonight and they ask why, a tinge of sarcasm and bitterness on the other end. "Because I've just been in a car accident, and I think I killed something."
"Oh."
Good answer.
I call the McGirly, because if she didn't hear about this from me, she'd hear about it from my sister - and the key to not being castrated is to communicate to your significant other.
She's worried, too.
The police call me back, and ask for direction clarification... they went the opposite direction, it turns out, and I sigh in horror as they tell me, "Oh, uh, you're actually outside of Airway Heights... we'd normally refer this one to the State Patrol."
Dad shows up a few minutes later, and I get the wonderful play by play on the deer: "Oh, man, you fucked that thing up. No wait, its getting up- no, nope. You just fucked its world up, Joseph."
THANKS DAD.
The Airway Heights policeman shows up a few minutes later, and asks me some questions I don't remember, looks at my license and registration and goes to type some stuff into the computer. Dad inspects the front of the car - I'm too panicked to move, let alone walk - and my world is not pain, because the headlight is busted out, the hood and driver's side fender need to straightened out... the windshield demands replacing, but that's the worst of it.
The policeman takes pictures of it... but the flash on his camera isn't working. So, he has to go and another cop brings out a workign digital camera.
I ask, "So, uh, I'm not going to get ticketed or anything for hunting out of season am I?"
The cop laughs.
Everything seems okay there, and after an hour and a half, we get the all clear to drive home - the cop gives us the official report information so I can file an insurance claim, and I drive to my parents house...
I'm too shaky and stuttering to talk normally - phone conversation is out the window... so Dad does all the talking for me.
I didn't go to bed when I got home - I couldn't, I was fresh awake, and spend all night sitting up and waiting for the memories of the giant deer body flying into the windshield to fade, but it just got more and more vivid, more clear. I've never 100% trusted my memory as much as I did thinking of that one thing.
With the deer not being dead, the cop had to put it down...
Three shots. Three shots with a standard issue pistol, the first two not killing it, so a delay between the second and third shots made me think it was okay... and in the side window, I could see the police officer standing aside teh ditch, the red and blue lights going, and the muzzle flash preceding the pops.
I finally got to sleep about four in the afternoon yesterday, and the adrenaline finally wore off about 1... and my shoulder exploded into pain.
Today, riding with the McGirly to school, I saw the deer on the side of the road still.
The thing that strikes me the most, its thinking about the angle of it all - I hit it at such an angle that it flew over the car and into teh ditch, its head striking the windshield. If I had thought to swerve instead of smash the breaks, the head would've missed the windshield, and the entire deer's body would've broken through. Swerve to the other direction, I'd have caught the Deer's head in the driver side windshield, gone into the ditch and potentially hit a tree, going into the forest...
I still think about it. I'm going to think about it for a long time.
Thats real life. It happens in an instant, then it happens to you again and again and again, even when its not happening.