2. Blitzen, Kentucky #2
Perfect. My soul expands a little from somewhere deep, and I have the feeling I’m in the exact right place in time.
Maybe this … Maybe this Christmas is what I lost sight of at work.
I can’t help but rubberneck at the quaint shops that line Main Street, and the colorful coats that cover friendly townspeople, walking about their daily business.
It’s a busy little town for one I heard was so small.
“Okay, so just pull in that next drive. Careful it’s…” Helen stutters as my Beetle stalls in the middle of the main road for me to adjust and turn. “A bit of a hill there.”
I turn successfully, sputtering up the steep hill with the coffee shop in sight… but also a person. A man carrying a large box appears out of nowhere.
“Stop! Erika, stop the car!”
I do, but it doesn’t.
I hear brakes squealing as I feel a significant bump.
Cans roll from the box I hit—knocked four feet in front of my car—and a very tall, attractive man lies on his back.
“Oh God! Oh no!”
My car door swings open off my sheer will to fly out of it, as I run to the human being I’ve just taken out. Various cans roll past me, down the coffee shop drive, as an extremely handsome man with sandy brown hair and warm hazel eyes leans up casually on one elbow.
Is he posing? Did I just literally kill someone and their ghost is mocking me?
He stares at me as I approach him. I’m immediately self-conscious. The cans keep coming and I hesitate, not knowing if I should run to catch his cans or to his side.
Oh my God Erika… his side . The human! You run to the human first .
I swoop down onto my knees in front of him, to get a good look at the man’s face whose eyes have not left mine.
He continues to stare up at me. His brows shift as he moves his glance up and down me, then warm hazels are back on my face as a humorous grin toys across his substantial lips. “Nice hit.”
I don’t move. I just sit there and stare at the ghost in front of me. A man was walking, and I ran him down like a complete lunatic criminal. His voice is deep, but his tone is jovial. What did I just do?
“I’d say it was a strike, but I believe you missed one.” He tosses a can of creamed corn to me, and I blink as it hits the ground beside me and rolls down with the others. He tilts his head and smiles into my eyes, then sheepishly looks around as if to see if he’s on camera or being punked.
Still on my knees, I follow his eyes as he stands up.
That’s right. The man I just hit and almost killed is standing up and looking down at me while I sit on my knees in front of him, like I’m about to do yoga or pray to him.
“Are you okay?” There they are. Words. The thing you’re supposed to say when you run over a pedestrian.
“I’m intact, but I’m afraid the town can drive isn’t. You may have ruined Christmas, Miss or Mrs. ??”
“Erika, with a K. No. Sorry. Just Erika, I meant.” Like a normal person.
“So, Erika without a “K” then?”
“Oh, God. I’m getting your cans.” Could he please stop looking at me like that? It’s only fair. I almost killed him, but he’s looking at me like he knows what I look like naked.
And stop smiling at me. I can’t help but smile back. I just hit you. You can’t smile at people you just ran over. Or… one shouldn’t smile at people who just ran over them.
Bells jingle a few feet away as the coffee shop door opens for an exiting customer. “Soon the bells will start. And the thing that’ll make ’em ring is the carol that you sing right within your heart.”
That song again… It must’ve also been playing from the coffee shop he came out of. Stunned, I look back toward my Beetle to see if it’s still playing on my mixtape—and the vintage VW Bug is moving—as in no one’s in the driver side—my door is open, and the car is rolling backwards. “Helen!”
I race down the hill, but the man I hit strides faster. He’s already got one leg in my car and the other on the ground stopping the second potential nightmare of the day.
“Next time I am, in fact, driving. Just until you get the hang of a stick shift. Better yet— we’ll take my car.”
Helen is marching up the hill from the passenger side.
“I would’ve stopped it sooner, but I couldn’t get the seatbelt unclicked. I tried to get everyone’s attention, but I’m afraid you were both occupied with the first car accident.” Helen delivers a fake smile with wide sarcastic eyes.
I don’t blame her.
I’m not equipped for a lot of things, apparently. But I’m clearly under-equipped for how to deal with the fact I very nearly took out two people to a Bing Crosby classic Christmas song. I walk back up the hill to join Helen and the perfect stranger who’s been run down, then forced to save my car.
He’s secured my emergency break and made it back up the hill before I can wipe the shock off my face.
“Please. I’m so sorry. Let me get your information. Insurance. Um ... Pedestrian right away coverage, I don’t… know… where I can send replacement canned goods?” I bend down and rip the label off a can of green beans near my feet and look from Helen to my victim.
“Right. Of course.” He hands me a pen from his pocket with the most wicked smile. There it is again . Stop that. I can feel my cheeks warming. I’m so embarrassed that I hit him, and almost killed my only friend in Kentucky, and he’s making it way worse with his good humor.
Is he enjoying this?
“Okay. So, your name is?” I press the thin shred of paper to my palm and pray that’s enough of a hard surface to make the pen write.
“Court.” He watches me attempt to write on the can label like he’s got a front row seat to the next shit show. I feel Helen peek over my shoulder at my efforts. Her finger points down to where I wrote his name as she corrects my spelling.
“K.” It’s Kourt with a “K.”