Monthly Archives: June 2010

I was headed back out to the island this morning and I had to stop at the farmer’s market on the way in to drop off an invoice for some work I’d done for him and pick up some tomatoes.

So I’m waitin’ to turn left  and looking down the road I see something big moving across from right to left.

It’s a turtle, big as a pizza.

I grinned watchin’ him.-head up, yearning and proud, he’s trudging full speed turtle speed across the road. He’s safe crossing my lane ’cause I’ve got traffic backed up behind me while I’m waitin’ to turn into the market and it looked pretty good from the other direction as well.

So I watched him trudge, determined and wanting and just tryin’ to get to the other side of the road.

He was a little more than half way across the oncoming lane when a little station wagon came around the bend in the road.

But it wasn’t going that fast and Mr. Turtle was workin’ and movin’, and I was sure the driver would see him and slow down a little so’s he could finish his journey across the road to life on the other side.

A car passed and I turned into the crush and run parking lot of the market, watching as the turtle, head held high, thick legs churning, made it three-quarters of the way across the road.

I was sure he was home safe.

I stopped and parked and looked over just as the station wagon, piloted by a little old lady, ran right over Mr. Turtle smashing him into bloody shards of shell and turtle parts exploding down the side of her car.

It was like a kick in the gut.

WTF?

What was her problem?

Was she maybe turning her iPhone back and forth trying to remember how to bring up the keypad so she could text someone? Was she maybe looking at pictures of her grandkids?

Was she drunk?

Was she maybe just a mean old shitty little woman pissed off and lonely ’cause her husband died and left her with too many years on the bitter side of life?

Whatever the reason, I honestly, physically, stopped myself from diesel duelly burning rubber after her, chasing her down and yanking her from her car and punching her in the face until my hand got tired ’cause I remembered I’d probably go to prison forever if I did that and never see Cutter and Tug and Miss Carol again.

Still.

I was in a hurry.

One of the real estate agents I’d been trying to work with needed some work done at the last minute. Tourons were comin’ in and they’d be flowing until Labor Day and the owners wanted a couple of things before the herd arrived.

I was working replacing the rotted trim on a bay front window on an eight foot ladder and as I was coming down I hurried and forgot that there’s one more step on an eight footer than a six footer.

I stepped off, stumbling the additional foot or so and fell backwards hitting the newel post for the stairs heading down off the deck and onto the concrete.

A couple a inches to the right and I’d a gone down the fifteen foot flight of stairs backwards making for a really sucky day. But I didn’t and it wasn’t and as I stood there sweating and rubbing the small of my back I got to thinking about the almost’s of my life.

There was the weekend shark fishing trip that I climbed drunk up the outside of the bridge in the middle of the night in the middle of the ocean looking for a place to sleep at the helm and almost slipped into the water while everybody else was asleep.

There were the weeks me and my crew had to ride up on the roof of an exterior construction elevator each day ’cause the union fuck head wouldn’t allow us in the car and I almost fell 32 stories.

There was the whole motorcycle racing thing. Don’t get me started.

I think men are, for the most part, ruthlessly uncaring and unafraid but you know what? Standing there on that deck in the afternoon sun I realized I’d changed.

I’d scared myself in the past but nothing and none of that set me back like that almost fall down the stairs. I stood and looked out at the bay and breathed deep and thanked whatever gods kept me from that backwards plunge.

And I slowed down.