It’s getting so that I don’t want to take my walks anymore. Today just as I was coming to the end of my walk, I see a car with no lights weaving between the north and south bound lanes. At first I thought it was a drunk driver; however he then attempted to do a doughnut, nearly missing a driver coming behind him, and I knew, a fucking idiot. I’m about a block from him and I need to be on the other side of the street to continue home, another eight blocks. The driver is going back and forth, about two blocks each direction, it’s obvious he’s waiting for the intersection I’m approaching, 55th and Bancroft, to become clear.
As I get to that intersection, thankfully the car is has just begun heading the opposite direction. To my later chagrin, I’m hoping the driver wraps the car around a telephone pole. It stops a block away and I hear a girl on a bike say to the driver “ I told Momma you’re playing around in her car”. As I cross the street, the car resumes its course. Now a group of teenagers a block ahead of me on the same side I’m now on, shouts to the girl on the bike “tell her he’s in a high-speed”.
What I apparently missed while crossing Bancroft was a police cruiser coming the opposite direction. The driver of the car took a diagonal street and the cruiser lit up and followed him. The police apparently (I say this because of the time it took) chased the driver down to Seminary to International to 55th and back down Bancroft. As I was approaching Avenal (about four blocks from where the story starts) the idiot passes me and heads down Avenal (another diagonal street) I look back and see the because of the chirp of the siren and see the cruiser is about two blocks back.
Then I hear and see it. A loud “bzzzzt…bzzzzt”, the streetlights flicker, and there’s a brief blue glow in the sky in the direction the car was headed. The police car passes me and turns down Avenal. I can’t, not go look. I re-cross Bancroft and turn down Avenal. At the corner of Seminary and Avenal, the car is overturned and unrecognizable, it has apparently hit a large duplex, there was also a minivan involved. If I had to guess I suspect the noise and glow was due to the car smashing into the portion of the duplex where the meters are, or maybe it was the pole right there on the corner.
As I’m standing there, friends of the driver started showing up. Apparently the driver was a kid, more likely a teenager since the oldest is maybe 16. With nearly the same compulsion that drew me to the scene, I couldn’t stay to see the aftermath. I really hope that kid’s and the folks in the Minivan are ok. Realistically I fully expect to see the horrid details in a few minutes on the 10 o’clock news. Crap!