Matt Langer

Back when I was a spry, healthy, virile youngster (read: ante vodka and Camel Filters) I was this kinda-big-deal up-and-coming track star kid (seriously!). It was my way of being Sporty and Athletic without ever having to be depended on by teammates (too much pressure) or share a locker room with the manlier bros (too many towel snaps and/or teabaggings and/or “Roman Soldiers”). And even though nothing ever came of it (seeing as my meteoric rise was ruthlessly preempted by a tragic accident) it is nice to remind myself on occasion that I may be the only pack-a-day smoker in the world who can proudly say he once ran a 4:17 mile.

But anyway! About this tragic accident.

So I’m out on this 16-mile run and it’s raining and getting dark pretty early because it’s the middle of winter (meaning I’m wearing jogging shorts over full-length spandex leggings) (meaning this is why I’m afraid to walk into the locker room) and I’ve already run something like 15⅞ miles of this route and I’m exactly one block away from my high school when I go through a crosswalk and come head-to-head with an early-90s Honda Accord doing roughly 45mph.

And what happened next all unfolded very quickly (obviously), but this is what I remember: the bumper throws me up onto the hood of the car and I go face-planting into the windshield and my very first thought is “oh my god this is the kind of thing that only happens to Fox Mulder oh my god this is so fucking awesome”, and then bro behind the wheel slams on the brakes and just as my inertia causes the right side of my face to separate from his windshield wiper I get a glimpse through the glass and realize that the guy who just guided his bumper into my right knee is fucking Tony P.—Tony P.! The same asshole who beat me out for first chair viola in the orchestra!—and then I get launched through the air for about twenty feet until I land on my ass and slide another ten feet or so on the wet asphalt before coming to a stop and immediately trying to stand up when, just as I’m realizing my leg can’t support any weight, I see this UPS truck come crashing over a curb and skidding to a stop on the front lawn of the nearest house and the driver (the only witness to the accident) jumps out and races towards me yelling “Don’t move! You could have broken your back!” and when he reaches me he tackles me and throws me back to the ground (being convinced it’s better for me and my potentially broken back that I remain prostrate on the ground regardless of how I end up there) and despite the best intentions of our parcel-professional-cum-bodyslamming-good-samaritan my head hits the pavement and everything goes black.

When I come to I’m still lying on the ground in the rain only now there’s an ambulance and I’m surrounded by paramedics and over on the side of the road there’s a crowd forming of literally every single varsity athlete in the school all just standing around watching the dork in the full-length spandex get loaded onto a gurney—and then for whatever reason I think to glance down at my Timex® Ironman™: it’s 4:44pm.

And in this moment, having just been mowed down by a shitty Japanese sedan, having just splintered the right half of my promising track career, having just been subjected to the emotionally crippling gaze of the entire basketball team, having just been hoisted onto a stretcher so as to be loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital, the only thing I can think to myself is, “oh shit, now I’m going to miss the late bus.”