I was hoping that the old woman dying in my lap in the graveyard was the only death I would live over again in my distorted mind. Her eyes and the dirt on her face still haunt me, 40 years of regretting I couldn’t do anything to help.
But no such luck. Everything bad happens in threes. It was 7 years later that I would have the second experience, looking at death’s vacant stare. Like the other, there was no advance warning. As soon as the event started up it was over.
A bit of background though.
After getting my diploma, I took a job in an industry working with farmers, moving 3 times in 4 years. Twice through a promotion, then jumping ship and going with a new company with Iowa as my territory. The whole state.
My direct clients were the co-ops, grain elevators, and fertilizer companies that farmers thrive through. They bought my product, and I influenced the farmers to use it. A company car was my home really, a new shiny Chevy Celebrity in baby blue. The job came with a big expense account for treating whoever I needed for lunch or the occasional fishing trip to Canada. Nice work if you can get it.
I’d kiss the wife and new baby goodbye, and leave home every morning around 7:00 am. I drove from town to town, stopping to make a client call at each. Lots of driving, lots of roads. People relied on your expertise though, so I always enjoyed it.
You have to remember cell phones hadn’t been invented yet, so you would be on your own with nothing but your thoughts or a country station to pass the time. Rock and Roll from the Twin Cities or Des Moines. If I wasn’t springing for lunch at a small town diner, I knew every burger joint with a “phone from car” payphone nearby. Every salesman knew the best spots.
Eat a burger, call the wife, check for messages. Then off again to the next client, 15 miles away. A big loop out and back, an occasional night out to cover the corners of the State.
Wish we had cell phones and wifi and computers back then. Nah, on second thought that’s a lie. This way of living was a hell of a lot less stressful, at least on normal days. This was proving to be anything but one of those normal days.
This particular morning started no differently. A quick trip to Ames to drop off some product for field trials at the university, then jump on the interstate north to head to the Minnesota border and work my way home south again.
It wasn’t long on the interstate before I got in line behind a pickup, who was in turn following a semi truck ahead of him. The semi was obviously going somewhere in a hurry and the 60 mph speed limit was not to his liking. I was guessing he was on his CB radio and knew if the highway patrol were out and about.
Citizen Band shortwave radio, every truck and farmer had them, the only way to communicate back then. You know, “breaker breaker good buddy” and Smokey and the Bandit. Years before the advent of cell phones, it was the only way to communicate, but really limited in reach or distance.
So we were running between 75 and 80 mph, the semi slowing down when the wind caught him too much. I figured the truck was pulling an empty 53’ trailer as the wind moved it back and forth on the road. He kept it on the highway though, between the lines and off the shoulder.
It might help picturing this if you knew the terrain runs fairly hilly through most of Iowa, one small valley of farmland after another. This particular March day was gorgeous but pretty windy, especially as you came down into the bottom of each little valley. The wind could build up speed, uninterrupted by the bare corn and soybean fields to either side.
The trio of lawbreaking speeders hadn’t been that far out of Ames, riding this roller coaster when the day turned into one of those you wish to forget ever happened, but can’t. A real nightmare unfolds live in front of you.
As I reached the top of one hill and headed into the next valley, the next 5 seconds played out in my mind in slow motion. It happened all so quickly, all in a sudden flash. It seemed like a lifetime watching it unfold right before my eyes.
Up ahead, five feet off the road on the right shoulder, sat parked a behemoth of a Winnibego. One of the best motorhomes money could buy, built right there in Forest City, Iowa. The pride of every snowbird, who would take this home on wheels down to Texas and escape the cold winters. Living near the Gulf of Mexico in some park with a million other seniors.
I briefly caught sight of a gray haired woman off to the side of the RV, walking along a field that was just plowed, stretching her legs.
Then the unimaginable happened.
The semi was thirty feet from the RV when the disaster started. The big rig was losing out to the wind, losing control. The truck had been forced onto the shoulder, set on a different line of travel when the wind gust hit the trailer full force on the side.
The semi hit the back of the RV at 80 mph, shoving it forward while shaving off the left side motorhome. Well, it wasn’t “shaving” it off really, more like a buzz saw splitting a toothpick.. The RV exploded, a giant cloud of shiny white aluminum, plywood, thin support boards and a host of parts. Steps and clothes and propane tanks, kitchenware, pots and pans. Everything was airborne at the same time, then just as quickly littered the shoulder and road all around us.
Like the pickup in front of me, I slammed on the brakes, scattering gravel as I pulled off on the shoulder. I jumped out and ran up to the pickup truck. The driver had his window down and was screaming at his wife over his shortwave radio to send help. Send help fast.
I kept going toward the RV and the old woman, looking over the massive damage, happy to see her alive.
The semi truck had rolled up the highway 50 yards past the RV It was sitting partially in the grass median separating north and southbound traffic, the rig’s trailer blocking the left hand passing lane. No sign of the driver yet.
I noticed the old woman running back toward us, waving her arms in the air and screaming “he’s still in there, my husband’s still in there, in the RV, in the RV.”
I ran towards her, urging her to stay back from what was left of the Winnebago in case there was an explosion from gas or propane tanks, if there were any left. I got closer to the chaos and the RV, or what used to be an RV. I saw the collision had taken out about a third of the motorhome’s left side, from the rear end up to the driver’s seat, the back of which was visible from the road.
But there was no one sitting there.
“He was going to the bathroom, in the back, in the back” the old woman was trying hard to get the words out. “It’s half way down, on the right side, he’s in the bathroom, in the bathroom.” She kept repeating her words over and over, like they weren’t getting through to me. In shock.
When the truck sheared off the side and all its contents, the roof that remained had collapsed down into what used to be the hallway. You couldn’t tell the bedroom from the bathroom from the kitchen, all one big tangle now.
The pickup driver, who turned out to be a local farmer, had disconnected from his wife and ran up to join us. We saw the semi driver trying to walk away from his rig, blood dripping down his face and forehead.
“Her husband’s still in the back of the RV.” I yelled at the farmer, adrenaline pumped up. “We gotta find him.”
“Ma’am we need you to help. Please. Go make that man sit down and see if you can stop the bleeding.” I was hoping she wasn’t in too much shock to help, there hadn’t been another soul by yet.
“We’ll get your husband out.”
We looked at the tangled mess in front of us, and saw the spot she was referring to half way down the back of the RV. The rear axle must have broken in two as the left twin tires were now in the middle of the motorhome, holding it up off the ground like it was floating on air.
The farmer and myself jumped up on what remained of the floor and started digging. At least it felt like digging, grabbing pieces of aluminum siding and flashing and boards in large chunks and tossing it all behind us. Like two mad bulldogs trying to dig out a rat that went down a hole.
We found the door, still shut in the door frame, but the whole door and frame were set at an angle, like some giant had grabbed the top corner and ripped the whole thing off the wall. We threw it on the road like it weighed nothing.
That’s when we saw the old man. He was still sitting on the toilet, same as when the semi hit the back of the motorhome I suppose. He probably never knew what had just taken place when his world around him exploded in noise and debris. His pants and underwear were down around his ankles. He was still sitting up held in place by a roof beam, one end pressed tight against his chest, the other end wedged into the floor.
His eyes hit us both, held frozen open in death. Watery and cold and gray. Vacant . Thin wispy white hair, the bald spot. Held that way forever in my memory.
We heard the wife scream behind us “Get him out, please get him out, please.” She knew he was dead. And there was nothing we could do to change that. I think she wanted to spare him some dignity. That was my guess at the time.
We heard the first of many sirens as a highway patrolman pulled in and slammed on his brakes, running to join us. He immediately saw the former proud owner of a glistening Winnebago that now was strewn like garbage everywhere around us. The dead man on the toilet.
“The truck driver’s over there, hurt and needs an ambulance.” the wife told him. “Please get my husband out of there.”
“Ma’am, we should wait for the EMT’s and coroner I suppose”, was the young officer’s reply.
“Nah” said the farmer. “We’re going to take him out like she asked. You don’t need to help us, but there’s no stopping us either. Would you like to be found like this?”
It was pretty easy to see what the circumstances were, hell there was wreckage everywhere, and what the exact cause of death was pretty damn irrelevant at this point. So the farmer and I set about clearing a pathway, moving the board away from his chest. We both struggled with getting his underwear and pants back on but managed somehow.
The highway cop saw we weren’t backing down and the three of us managed to get him lifted up, then lowered to the ground below us. Laying him down on the shoulder of the highway. His wife covered him with a blanket she’d found, sat down, put his head in her lap and started sobbing. The farmer sat down beside her, arm around her shoulder, trying to offer what little comfort he could.
By then there were cop cars everywhere, and the ambulance attendants out of Ames were tending to the semi truck driver. His windshield had blown out, the front of the truck smashed up. His head was cut up from the broken glass, but was now bandaged up for the trip back to the hospital.
Another ambulance was enroute for the dead man.
I walked up to where a couple of patrolmen were trying to talk to the wounded driver. “Did you happen to witness this?” one cop asked as I walked up.
“Yeah, I was just coming down the hill when it all happened. Saw the whole thing.” I spoke up. “The three of us were heading north, doing about 65 when a wind gust caught his truck and blew it off the road and onto the shoulder. The Winnebago had just parked there taking a quick break. Snowbirds returning home, is what the wife said.”
The semi driver caught my eye, acknowledging my lie about the speed.
“If you don’t need me anymore I need to get home. This has all been like hell.”
The cops copied down my driver license info and phone number in case they would need to get in touch.
I headed back to chat with the farmer. His wife had pulled in about the same time as the last ambulance, and was doing her best to tend to the new widow.
“She’s riding in the ambulance with her husband’s body, my wife will go with her until her kids can come down from Minnesota.” the farmer said. “Least we can do to help.”
“Yeah I’m going to head out, doubt if I can work after all this.” I told him. “I gave my statement to the highway patrol, told them we had been cruising along at 65 or so when the wind caught the semi and pushed him into the RV. Damn freak accident.”
“Sounds spot on”, the farmer now the third accomplice in the white lie.
“Where do you do business?” I asked him. “My name is Kyd by the way.”
“Roger, my name’s Roger,” he replied. “At the co-op there” pointing to the grain elevators a few miles up the road. “Why do you ask?”
“I do business there, and if we meet up one day, maybe we can grab a coffee.”
“You bet. Never seen anything this bad, poor old man, dying on the toilet.”
We shook hands, and I jumped back into the Celebrity to head north. A mile or two up the road I decided to stop in at the co-op the farmer had pointed out. A good customer of mine, and like most of my clients we’d become friendly.
I couldn’t go on driving and working, the emotions from the morning starting to get the best of me.
“Kyd, you look like you’ve seen a ghost or something,” said Darryl, the manager at the co-op. “Let me get you a coffee.”
I proceeded to tell him about what happened on the interstate.
“God, we heard some of it on the shortwave,”he said, “that must have been pretty bad.”
And with that I started crying, and kept crying.
I’m crying still as I write this, the memory of the old man on the toilet clear as day.