I crash cars.
Or rather: I crash my body into cars.
Maybe that’s an exaggeration. An aspirational statement. Here’s the truth: only twice in my life have I done this. Take any driver. They all have blind spots. My ambush spot was a rose-hedged traffic circle. Wide quiet streets. Towering oaks. I knelt among the bees with my binoculars. I waited weeks. I didn’t want a lone car. I needed witnesses to corroborate my victimhood.
Bingo. A late-model coupe, trailed by an SUV. The driver wore a pork pie hat and a faraway expression. As he entered the roundabout, I stepped out and stuck my foot with the timidity of a novice hitchhiker. Front wheel rolled over foot, followed by back wheel. The car screeched to a halt, leaving two parallel lines of tread. My foot pulsed like it had sprouted a newborn heart. I collapsed. Pork Pie loomed over me, holding a smoothie. He was an unlicensed driver. He was frightful that I would press charges.
He drove me to the clinic, palming me a bottle of aspirin and a dozen two-dollar bills. I accepted the compensation. After my foot was plastered, I took the bus to my ex-brother-in-law’s house. I read the novel about the symphorophiliacs, the one that later became the James Spader movie. I waited for my ex to express sympathies. She didn’t.
A few weeks later my ex-brother-in-law’s wife yelled me awake. She said it was time for me to go.
I returned to the traffic circle. The roses were dead. It was October. It had gotten cold. A few hours later I spotted my opportunity: a wagon as shiny as a waxed apple, captained by a morose woman in a puffy polka dot coat. A hundred yards behind her, my ex, jogging, pigtails swishing left and right. I ran out and jump-kicked, like I was trying to clear a hurdle. As the car braked it scissored, sweeping me onto the windshield, spinning me onto a bike rack and dropping me to the ground behind it. I smelled exhaust and a metallic tang. It was spectacular. My head buzzed. Felt soft. Tenderized steak, leaking fluid.
Polka Dot arrived, sputtering, her hands clenched. She smelled of geraniums. I smiled at her concern. She put her head to my chest to see if there was a pulse. You can feel your pulse better when someone is feeling for it.
My ex jogged over, threatening a restraining order.
I addressed Miss Polka Dot. How did it look? Did it look like the movies?
Don’t feel bad for him, my ex said.
I stood. I felt blood rush from my gashes. The world was an abattoir. Polka Dot gasped. And when I was about to pitch over, she grabbed me, and lowered me down. On all fours I moved toward the hood of the car and gave it a bear hug. In the distance, I could hear the bleat of sirens. The car had many fine dents. Remnant bird crap. Bug guts. I traced these imperfections with my index finger. It needed a waxing. I put my cheek down. It felt warm, alive. Something wormed in my pants. I was hard.
I was forced into a courtroom and my court-appointed lawyer argued for restitution. I argued over my lawyer and the judge wrinkled his mouth. I said it was my fault.
After I did time, I went back to the traffic circle. The shrubbery was gone, replaced by a tiny green lawn with automatic sprinklers. I sat on the wet lawn for a few hours, watching the occasional vehicle glide by, silent and candy coated and tinted. There were no runners with pigtails. Eventually a cop pulled out. He looked young.
What are you doing? He asked me.
Have you ever been in love? I said.
He crinkled his eyes scornfully. I could tell that much, even though he was wearing aviators. You can’t loiter here.
And then from the periphery, I saw what I was looking for. A jeep, champagne-colored and rusted. It was noisy, spitting exhaust. I started smiling and laughing. Anything seemed possible. The kid cop moved to restrain me and I dashed by him, toward the circling car.
James Yu‘s fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter and Juked, and his nonfiction has appeared in Vice and Mekong Review. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and was an Eleanor Briggs fellow at MacDowell.
Henry Chapman is an artist and writer who lives in Brooklyn. His work has been the subject of solo- and two-person shows at Kate Werble Gallery, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, T293 Gallery in Rome, and Labs Gallery Bologna. Chapman has received support from the Philip Guston and Musa McKim Named Residency at Yaddo, the Elizabeth Canfield Hicks Prize, and the Hans G and Thordis W Burckhardt Foundation. He studied at The Cooper Union and Yale University.