The huge minivan ahead veered off to the shoulder suddenly, avoiding a stopped truck making a left turn.
Jenny slammed on the brakes and tried to steer out of the way but the wheels locked up on her aunt's '88 Taurus and it hit the truck at an angle, at some fraction of her original speed. The car was too old for antilock brakes.
Jenny burst into tears and covered her eyes in shame, unsure of what to do. First accident, no one prepares you for this. The truck tried to pull away a few feet to clear the road but ended up pulling the green Ford forward instead, it scared her.
The driver got out of the truck and walked back to see how bad it was. After a minute he knocked on Jenny's window. She forgot how to roll the window down, couldn't find the button. She was so disoriented, she didn't realize it was a handcrank so she opened the door and tried to get out.
The man stopped her from leaving by blocking the door with his hand. "Whoa, watch out for traffic," he said. "Right," Jenny got reminded of something that basic and then spent far longer checking for traffic than needed to. It annoyed him.
"You got insurance?" the man asked and Jenny shook her head no. "It's my aunt's car and I don't know where it is," she sobbed. "Don't you have your own insurance?" asked the man and Jenny cried because she didnt. "That's fine," he said, "we'll sort this out."
There was a green puddle under the car spreading out, the height just right for the trailer hitch to impale itself in the radiator and the man couldnt pull it out, so he yanked out the cotter pin and hit the hitch pin with his hand a few times until it flew out ringing on the roadway.
He was about to get back in the truck when he bothered to check the Ford. "Put your car in park," he told her sternly and then drove forward a few feet when she did.
There wasn't a scratch anywhere else on the truck, he shook his head in wonder. Jenny looked at it too and then at the mess of aunt Debby's car that she caused. It wasn't fair, she thought, how come he got a scratch and she ended up with a bloody pancaked mess? It was that minivans fault and she didn't know what now.
"Think I can drive myself home?" she asked after the man told her to shut the engine off, or it would overheat and seize up. "No," he didn't think she could do that, he said.
The man wrote down his insurance information on a piece of paper and for himself, Jenny's house phone number with the funny area code. He was too mad at getting rear-ended and losing his trailer hitch to stare at her lazily skimpy outfit, he needed that particular hitch that morning more than an eyeful of downblouse titty because it was rare, flipped upright and torqued and he didnt have a spare of that kind.
"You got someone you can call?" he asked and Jenny shook her head no, crying anew. Her phone battery was dead and she didn't memorize many numbers. The man felt sorry for her so he stopped leering when she wasnt looking. "You got somewhere I can take you?" he asked and the house was too far away and she didn't know where it was. She wasn't from around here, she told him twice. He kept asking about alternate places. Shop maybe?
And thats when it clicked, yeah her uncle has a shop, how stupid of her to forget. She's staying with her aunt and uncle, she told him. "Well, thats convenient, he could fix the car for you," he told her and that sounded like a good idea. "Where is the shop?" he asked and Jenny didn't know where she was to begin with.
He asked her to describe the place. "Yeah, I know where that is," he told her. Suddenly it didn't feel so bad. The man was offering to tow her there. She didn't know how to begin to unfuck this problem but that was one step in the right direction.
"You ever been towed with a strap before?" he asked. "No," she sniffled, she didnt know what he meant by that. "Alright, look here, what you want to do is keep your foot on the brake pedal lightly." "Lightly," he said again to stress it. "You dont want to rear-end me a second time," he told her. His explanation made sense to her. "Put your flashers on and well take 'er slow," he told her.
"Christ on his throne, what in the world did you do to Debby's car?" uncle Jim cried out when they pulled into the lot. He was pissed and wanted to inspect the damage but needed to take care of business first. He shook the man's hand and thanked him for bringing her by.
"No," the man didn't need any insurance thing. Jim promised to get him a new trailer hitch by noon, "raised 2.5," he repeated himself twice to reassure because it was a rare configuration, and torqued to 150. The man told Jenny, "you be careful young lady," and then drove off.
Jenny dreaded the next. "Fucking day is ruined," uncle Jim muttered and had his helper push the car into a bay. "Push everything to tomorrow," he said and sent him off to town to get a replacement hitch and ball. "What the hell were you doing with Debby's car?" he asked as he looked through it and Jenny was tearing up. He was getting more mad by the minute.
She looked around to try to distract herself. All she saw was a messy shop with greasy tools everywhere. Cracked bucket of random sockets on the floor, half of them rusty. There was a stack of nudie magazines in the corner. Pinned-up posters of women holding up their tits everywhere. One raunchy poster with a crudely pasted face over a woman that was getting fucked by three men simultaneously. Line underneath it written in sharpie said, "I'd like to speak to your manager." Jenny would've blushed if she wasn't so befuddled.
"What the hell did you do," uncle Jim ranted. "What is a matter with you. You're supposed to pump the brakes so wheels dont lock up," he told her angrily. "You twisted the frame, this car might be totaled," he was swearing. Jenny cried, but thought saying sorry wouldn't do it. "There was a minivan," she explained. "Why didn't you keep your distance?" he countered, no excuse would do.
