(anyhow)
Here’s a story that just popped in my mind, and if people say ‘holy fuck that doesn’t sound true’ well that’s the point, so make a leap of faith:
In the aughts and early teens I lived on a third floor apartment facing a residential street (north and western in chicago if you’re the type that likes to follow along on google maps). So it was a super busy street during the day but empty at night, including parked cars.
One night I was standing at the window (the entire wall facing the street was three big windows) and saw a black SUV just abruptly turn and smash into a parked car. Like so:
The yellow ‘woman’ would be the other witness, and note that we’re on the far side of where the SUV sustained damage.
There were only three parked cars on the street (they had to be moved by 6 AM or whatever like how it works in big cities, so people didn’t bother) and to this day I don’t know if the person was DUI or if they intentionally rammed the car. The driver wasn’t careening around as they came down the street, they just abruptly turned in to the car as if a poltergeist pulled the wheel at that exact moment. Then they pulled out (I heard a crunch) and hit and ran.
So that’s the premise, and I’m looking like wow, pondering if I should snitch. A few minutes later the yellow woman comes out so I go down, thinking it’s the owner. But she says no, she just saw the whole thing as well, and we double checked that we didn’t imagine a black SUV ram into the side of a parked car with its right front bumper, almost as if it was intentional.
A few more minutes the owner comes down to actually move their car and the kid is freaking out because the damage was severe, like, the door was caved in and the wheel looked bent as if the axle might’ve snapped (foreshadowing #2, once again note that the two witnesses, me and yellow, didn’t actually see the extent or specifics of the SUV damage).
Another few minutes and a cop arrives, and we give our statements. I assumed that was that but the cop asked for my information in case they find the driver or car and need a follow-up statement. Yellow woman is a good citizen and agreed but I’m hemming and hawing, half because of some loose no-snitching policy and half simply because it was feeling like an impending hassle. As I’m pondering and trying to figure out if my statement would still help regardless, a black SUV, with it’s front right bumper and headlights and wheel well just fubar, turns the corner, like so:
The cop looks at us like he’s waiting for us to tell him what to do. He asks if that’s the same SUV, we’re the witnesses, it’s our call to make. We furrow our brows for a few seconds an give him the green light, fuck it, I mean, a black SUV with a fucked up right front end just rolling down what is a an empty street at 3 AM about a half hour later, and no, we didn’t see the specific damage but heard the crunch and saw everything else and, come the fuck on right…
As you’ve probably guessed, it was not the same SUV.