Chapter 37: Muddying Up the Season

The beating on the window got Raymond’s attention first. The stranger was pounding on the window and attempting to open the drivers-side door. Neither were budging. Raymond took control of his faculties and assessed his current situation. The airbags deployed nicely and had stopped him from diving head-first through the windshield. He gave it a couple of pats of appreciation.

Then he began a checklist for any possible injuries. His arms moved without any trouble. The fingers on his hand were all accounted for and without loss of dexterity. While running his hands across his field of vision, they waved over the now deflating airbag, but he noticed a bright red smudge of blood right where his forehead had been. He did a few twists in his seat and could move easily enough even though they were still confined to the seat by the shoulder and waist straps of the seat belt. He shifted his legs, one at a time, and they moved well for being confined behind the wheel, for which he was grateful. Finally, Raymond unlocked the driver’s door, and the stranger instantly opened it and began shouting questions at an auctioneer’s pace.

“Sir! Sir, are you okay? Are you injured? You seem to have a cut on your forehead. You feeling faint or anything like that?”

That verified the source of the blood. He got out of his car and saw the side impact crushing in his drivers side and the passenger side of the Sorrento. His nursing instincts kicked in, and he made his way to the driver’s side of the Sorrento.

A couple of other men had opened the door and were pulling a young woman out of the car. She was unconscious. Her airbags had deployed, as designed.

The sound of children crying got Raymond’s attention next, so he looked in the back seat of the Sorrento and saw one small child strapped in securely to a top-of-the-line baby car seat. The little girl next to him, in a booster seat, was also strapped in and appeared no worse for wear. “Are you okay, little one?” Someone from behind asked, but the only answer back was to go from initial panic into full-on panic and fear.

“What’s wrong with my mommy? Where is my mommy?”

“She bumped her head, but she will be ok. Are you okay? Are you hurting anywhere?” Raymond asked the obviously frightened little girl who seemed to be going through the same checklist he had done earlier, as a result.

“No, I don’t feel hurt or nothing.” She seemed to remember something and then tried to reach up to feel her brother.

“Is Robbie okay?” She heard him crying, speedily unbuckled herself, got on her knees beside her brother, and started talking to him. “Are you okay, Robbie? Nothing hurts, right?” He stopped his out-loud bawling and reached up for his sister. She moved to start unbuckling him from his baby seat.

“No, honey. Don’t take him out of there just yet. He will be safer in there, right?”

She nodded and went to rubbing her brother’s belly. It seemed to calm him down.

“You stay here with your brother and out of the rain. I’ll go check on your mommy, okay?”

She nodded her head again. Raymond was surprised how well she was taking the situation. He saw a few others looking over the now drenched mother. After a few moments, someone produced a couple of umbrellas and covered her up.

“Let me get to her – I’m a nurse.” The bodies separated like Moses parting the Red Sea. She was regaining consciousness. “Ma’am. Ma’am? Can you hear me?” Raymond began snapping his fingers in her face and then right next to her ears. She turned her head when she heard each snap near each ear. That was a good sign.

“Wha ... what happened?” Alicia quickly regained her wits and immediately asked about her kids. “Where are my children? Are they okay? Where are they?” She started trying to stand up.

“Nope, stay sitting down here for a second, Ma’am. Your kids are in the car, and they are fine – a little bit scared but not injured. Now, let’s see about you. Can you tell if you are hurt anywhere we can’t see?”

She took a few moments and went through her own mental checklist. “No, I seem to be okay. My head is a little fuzzy, and it feels like I’m gonna have a whopper of a migraine pretty soon but, other than that...” she paused, “Are you sure my children are okay? I don’t hear them. Shouldn’t they be screaming their heads off?”

The group of Good Samaritans let out a collective sigh of relief and also a polite chuckle. “Believe me; they are fine. Your daughter is acting amazingly well for what happened. She is actually rubbing you son’s belly to keep him under control. It’s the darnedest thing I’ve seen in a while,” Raymond quipped as he helped her stand up and take a few steps toward her wrecked vehicle.

“Dani, are you alright?” She asked as she opened the driver’s side back door and put her hands on both of her children, making sure they were both safe. She also gave several kisses to both of her kids. The tension level in the car dropped dramatically.

“You keep control of your brother while I call grandpa so he can pick us up.” She exited the car and noticed the Good Samaritans making their way back to the waiting cars to get the traffic flowing again. It was right then the rain stopped. Bright rays of sunshine beat holes through the cloud cover and illuminated everything.

Raymond was leaning up against the Sorrento as he felt the adrenaline drain from his body and the soreness of physical trauma begin to catch up. He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the house. “Hi, Carmen, it’s Daddy. Can you get your mommy on the phone for me, please?”

“Hello. Honey, where are you?”

“I got into a car accident on I-35 and Eisenhauer. I’m okay, but the car is not going anywhere for a while,” he answered.

“Is anyone hurt? Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“Don’t worry, honey. I’m fine, but I will be a bit longer before I can come home. As a matter of fact, I might need you to pick me up, ‘cause I don’t really want to walk home from here – especially if the rain starts up again. I’ll call the insurance and get everything taken care of from our end. I’ll let you know if I need a ride or if I can hitch a ride with the tow truck coming home.”

“Okay, Raymond. That sounds like a plan. Are you sure you are okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think I have a small cut on my forehead from the glass but, other than that, I’m fine. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. I love you, babe.”

“I’ll see you soon, and I love you, too.”

Juanita hung up the phone, took in a deep breath, and called out to her kids. “Tim, Carmen, can you two come here please?” They two sat down in their normal seats in the living room. “Your daddy had a car accident on his way home. He says he is okay, and no one got hurt. but he is gonna be a couple hours late since he has to deal with the police and insurance and what-not.”

“Is Daddy okay? Did he get hurt?” Carmen asked. Her fear was presented right out front on her face.

“He says he’s fine. He says he got a little cut on his forehead from the flying glass.”

“Do you know when he’ll be home? Does he know?” Tim asked, also concerned.

Alicia had a little bit of a different conversation with her parents. “No, Mom. I’m fine, and so are the kids. They are a little scared, but Dani is a true champ and is taking care of her brother. They were both strapped into the car seats when I had the accident. I was exiting the highway, and some lightning and a big thunderclap startled me, and I lost control of the car. I hit another car and, luckily, he was not hurt, either. If you or Dad could come and pick us up, that would help. We’re at the intersection of IH-35 and Eisenhauer.”

“That would be great, Mom. Okay, I’ll keep a lookout for Dad to get here. At the very least, he can get the kids to the house while I deal with the police and insurance. Okay, I’ll see you soon and, Mom, thank you for convincing me to buy the Sorrento. We hit each other pretty hard, and the car is wrecked, but no one got injured. I’ll be home soon. I love you, too, Mom. Bye-bye.”

“On your way home and trying to get away from the weather, huh?” Raymond realized he startled the woman. “Oops, sorry didn’t mean to scare you. My name is Raymond Murphy.” His smile disarmed the young mother.

“Oh, no problem. No need for you to apologize; I’m the one who lost control of the car and rammed into you. Alicia. Alicia Lett. You met my better halves, Danielle and Robbie.”

The two exchanged handshakes and their relevant insurance information while waiting for the police and tow trucks to arrive. “I just can’t believe I didn’t t-bone straight into you and cause us both a lot more damage,” Alicia continued.

Just then, they were approached by an older man with salt-and-pepper colored hair that was sticking up from underneath his well-worn cowboy hat. The full and thick mustache framed the strong Texas twang soon to come out of his mouth. Tim recognized him as one of the Good Samaritans. “Hey, are you two kids alright? That was one heck of a crash. Mighty nice bit of driving I might add. Oh, yes. I saw everything what happened there, Missy.”

The older, Webster’s dictionary definition of retired Texas cowboy pointed at Raymond. “He seen you lose control on your way down the off-ramp from I-35. He seent how you was gonna nail him straight on and probably disintegrate his Jeep Cherokee with him in it. He turned his wheel and made himself parallel as much as he could to not take so much of the impact dead on.”

The cowboy pulled out a couple of business cards as well as what looked like a small MicroSD card. “My name is Barnes. Ted Barnes. For my birthday, a couple of months back, the wife got me one of those dash cam cameras for the truck over yonder.” He pointed to the Ford F-150 painted in what seemed to be rust. “So, anyway, I just watched the footage on the replay, and it got everything – even got a nice shot of one of them lightning bolts right before everything went tits-up.” He caught himself and looked at Alicia. “Oops, sorry, Ma’am, ‘bout the colorful language.”

Alicia smiled and waved it off. “I’ve heard and said worse my own self. Thank you, Mr. Barnes. Can we get a copy of the video for the police and insurance?”

The smile from under the mustache was broad and full of mirth. “That’s why I done brought it on over fer ya.”

Ted went on to give the business card as well as the SD card to Alicia, but she stopped him. “Oops. Nope. You better go ahead and give that to him. That way, we make sure my insurance pays for all this. It was my fault, after all.”

“If you insist, little lady, but don’t go beating yourself up about this, later. They wasn’t no way fer ya to have done anything different than whatcha did,” Ted insisted, and Raymond agreed and accepted the SD card.

“Oh, I absolutely agree, Alicia. You almost had it under control, but the rain and probably slick road condition conspired against you. Just be thankful no one got hurt. I know I am.”

Everyone returned to the vehicles and waited for the police and tow trucks to arrive. Raymond noticed the traffic around the intersection was no longer a beautifully organic outburst of societal cooperation. Disgusted by the traffic now being openly hostile toward both he and Alicia, Raymond closed the Cherokee’s door and turned the radio back on.

Alicia was in the middle of another brewing accident. Apparently, the outstanding show of adulthood from her daughter Dani had a bit of a time limit. “Mommie, Robbie spit his milk all over my dress. Now my dress don’t look good for Grandma and Grandpa!”

“Don’t worry, honey,” she countered. “Grandpa is going to be so happy to see us after this accident that he will love you bunches more. Can you do Mommie a favor and go ahead and get back in your car seat?”

“But we aren’t going anywhere. Why come I have to buckle up in the booster seat?”

“Well, honey, there are still people driving all around us, and the streets are still really wet. What if someone else slid when they tried to stop and hit us again?”

Alicia could see that idea swirling around in her daughter’s head, right behind her eyes. “Okay, but you need to buckle up too, Mommie.”

“You are absolutely right, dear. I’ll finish getting you two squared away, and then I can read to you a little bit if you’d like.” Dani was happily nodding yes for a rare moment of book reading during the day with Mommie.

A few minutes later, the first San Antonio Police patrolman drove up to see if any additional help was needed. The officer interviewed everyone separately to, hopefully, come to the correct story of what happened. With Alicia taking responsibility and the majority of insurance red tape previously cut, the paperwork was finished, though. The officer had everyone’s stories as well as the video of the accident from Ted’s dash camera. Before the police arrived, Raymond had used his laptop to copy the video and send a copy to the email address from Alicia’s business card via his cell phone’s data connection.

The tow trucks took longer than usual because of the higher amount of work due to the weather. Alicia’s father showed up to pick up his daughter and grandchildren. While they waited for the tow trucks, he gave his own business card, as a thank you for not taking advantage of his daughter in this situation, to Raymond, and said to call if he ever needed anything.

The rains had turned from monsoonal downpour into efficient misting – just enough to irritate someone walking in the rain but not enough to force a dash under coverage. The sun had gone down on the day, and the cab pulled away from the curb when Juanita spotted her husband walking up to the front door. She raced to it and beat him there, and she engulfed him in her loving arms on the front porch. They held each other with no words for nearly a minute. Carmen came barreling into the living room when she heard the front door open. She was shifting back and forth waiting anxiously for her chance to make sure her father was okay. Juanita wiped away a few tears from her face and slid to the side to let her mini-me make sure for herself that her father was not injured.

Tim stepped out of the hall and patiently waited for the others in his family to slowly slip entirely inside the house. When they were out of the doorway, he put a towel on the floor to soak up the rain that had dripped on the hardwood floor. He then draped another towel over his father’s shoulder. He followed up the towel with a few pats on the back. Tim also needed to make sure his father was okay.

Tim took his seat on the sofa where he normally sat and waited for the women of the family to get over their fears and allow their father to tell his story of what happened.

Eventually, the family sat in the living room, in their normal places, and waited for the man of the house to come back from dressing into some clean, dry clothes which he had announced was the number two thing he wanted to do. Number one was to get something to eat. So, while he dried up and changed, Juanita quickly reheated some dinner and had it ready for him when he returned. He beat her back to the living room by just a minute.

“I’m okay. A lady with two kids in her car came off the highway onto the intersection at Eisenhauer road. The ramp was very wet and, right when she turned onto the road, there were, I think, three different flashes and bolts of lightning that lit up the cloudy skies. The thunder that came right after was big and loud, and you could tell it was at least three claps. I guess she got spooked and accidentally turned onto a patch of oily water and kept plowing into the intersection.

“I saw she was coming at me head first so I was able to steer into a parallel with her and we hit side to side rather than her t-boning me. She would have most likely exploded her car, and it would have sent me to the hospital, at the very least, taking a straight-on shot from a car on the side like that.”

“Was she and the kids okay? No one got hurt too bad, did they?” Juanita asked.

Raymond finished a drink of soda from his dinner. “No. I actually got the worst of it with the little cut on my forehead.” He tilted his head forward where his wife and daughter could now see the small bandage.

Tim was the only one who had seen it when he came through the door. Tim was now the tallest person in the family with Raymond following and Juanita coming in third. There was a good chance, once Carmen finished growing, that Juanita would fall to the shortest person in the family. She was still the day-to-day leader, and everyone did what she said, though. Serious decisions were debated away from the kids and announced at a later time.

“So, tomorrow, I’ll call the repair place and the insurance to get that all squared away. I figure it might take a few days longer than normal to get this all figured out since there are probably a lot of claims coming,” Raymond said. “I’ll probably go ahead and take a day off to get it figured out. They had us hurry up and wait at the hospital for people coming in from the coast, but we didn’t see but a few. Most went to the non-military hospitals. I guess we’re serving as back up for those.” He finished his food and a second soda. “So, what went on here today? How was your day off from school?”

Tim looked at his sister, who looked like she wanted to talk, so he subtly nodded for her to go first. “It was wonderful! I got up and ate breakfast like normal then watched the news and, when they said no school for us, I went back to my room and back to bed but only for a little while before Tim’s friends showed up, and they all started working out in the backyard. They were dropping weights and punching the big bag.” She leaned forward as if telling a secret. “They were really loud, and it sounded like a lot of thunder but then, when it stopped raining this afternoon, they left before it could start up. Those guys were strong, but I can tell Timmy’s stronger then all of them put together.”

“Well, I’m not that strong, Carmen.”

“Uh, huh. Yes, you are.”

“I’ll make sure to tell them you said so.”

Carmen stuck her tongue out at Tim, and he returned the expression.

“Okay, that’s enough, kids. Carmen, shouldn’t you go to bed? You might have to go to school tomorrow,” Juanita asked the youngest Murphy.

“Well, I dunno if we are or not. Is it gonna keep raining?”

Raymond looked at his watch then the clock on the cable box. “Why don’t we all just watch the news and find out together.” He picked up the remote control from the coffee table and turned up the volume, just catching the beginning of the news.

“Good evening. I’m Don Miller, standing in tonight for Megan Matthews. Let’s get right into the important topic of the day, and that is Hurricane Edmond. He officially came ashore a little after one this afternoon, and the preceding bands of rain began pouring down, from the coast all the way to us here in San Antonio. The initial rains that started here last night are still reaching inland and are getting ready to begin hitting the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex with absolutely biblical amounts of rain. First, we go to San Antonio Military Medical Center, where Marcos Ramirez has been keeping track of what’s been happening to our city while we try to stay dry from this monster of a storm. Marcos?”

“Yes, Don, you have categorized this hurricane perfectly; it is indeed a monster. Officially, at the San Antonio International Airport since yesterday, we have had four and a half inches of rain in the San Antonio area. While that is where the official reading is taken, we have received reports from our weather net friends in the area who show anywhere from one inch to already well over a foot of rain has fallen in some parts of the area.”

“There have been hundreds of fender benders and stalled cars at rain-soaked intersections and roadways all over San Antonio. One of the biggest accidents happened on the northeast side of town this afternoon where a mother of two lost control of her car and sideswiped another driver in the middle of the intersection at I-35 and Eisenhauer Road. Luckily, police reported no serious injuries, but we do have video sent to us by a viewer of the accident.”