I live in a quiet neighborhood on a busy street on the edge of San Francisco.
If you've ever driven into San Francisco on the 280 and 19th Avenue you've
driven by my little house. The noise of the traffic put off a lot of other
buyers when
we were looking to buy our home but we are used to it. It's like a gentle white
noise; traffic noise is the urban equivalent of the sound of a river or the
ocean. In a way it's soothing now. The only time it is a pain is Sunday mornings
in the summer when the lawyers, marketing types and software geeks who want
to be Hells Angels come roaring by our house on their pristine hogs on their
way from the Peninsular to the Golden Gate bridge and Marin.
The only other time it disturbs us is the once every year or so when there's
an accident outside our house late at night or early in the morning.
Usually I wake from a half-dream state to the sound of screeching brakes and the
thump of wheels hitting the curb as a car either goes over the embankment or
onto the tram tracks. The car is usually Japanese and tricked out; the driver,
young and male.
Case in point, Wednesday night. I'm just dozing off when there is the unmistakable
sound of an accident right outside. I quickly pull on yesterday's clothes and
go to see if everyone is alright. By the time I get to the window I'm in time
to see the driver and passenger of the car stuck on the tracks abandon their
frantic efforts to drive away from the scene. They scoop up their cell phones
and abandon the car and the scene, running as if the devil himself were chasing
them. Up the street I can see the Mercedes they've hit; the driver staring
in disbelief at his damaged car and the two guys who caused it running away.
By the time I get outside the first tram is blocked behind the car on the
tracks and soon after the first police car arrives. Another driver who saw
the incident gives the police details. Measurements are made and pictures taken
before the poor car is pulled down the tracks by the tram to the first break
in the curb a couple of hundred yards away. I think about the poor owner who
obviously loved this car. Does he know it's been stolen and killed yet? Do
the two thieves feel sorry for their actions? Unlikely; they're probably trying
to find away back home laughing about how close they came to being caught and
the look on the Mercedes' driver's face when they drifted into him at 80. I
check on my own old, Japanese sport scar sleeping safely in our drive before
going back to bed and back to sleep. |
