Musings From the Coffeehouse #3

Near Death and The Big Apple

Last week I traveled to New York to meet with my editor and marketing team about my upcoming novel JUSTICE FOR SARA. My family loves the city, so I arranged the meeting around Mardi Gras, so we could all go. (Our travel just happened to coincide with a blizzard named Nemo, but that’s a story for another time.)

This trip brought to mind our last similarly scheduled trip and what I fondly call the Near Death in The Big Apple incident. Although a repost from several years ago, I decided I needed to share it with you here.

About midnight, we were walking down 42nd street, heading back to our hotel. It was snowing. Cold but magically lovely. A squad car flew by, lights flashing, siren screaming. It was followed by another. Every few moments another squad car raced by. We started counting them. 5 . . . 6 . . . 7 . . .

We reached the corner of 42nd and 5th and stopped, waiting for the light. Here came number 8, really flying.

But coming from the other direction was a cab.

With a sense of horror, I realized neither vehicle was going to stop. Sure enough, they collided. As if in super-slow-mo, both vehicles began sliding right at us, standing on the corner.

As if on a director’s cue and without a word, we all turned and ran. I felt like I was living a scene from one of my novels. Or a Bruce Willis movie. Only, this hadn't been product of my imagination. Or of Hollywood.

I was stopped by the double glass doors of a building. The end of the road, so to speak. In my mind’s eye, I saw the vehicles still sliding, crashing through me and the glass doors I was pressed against.

When I wasn't flattened, I looked over my shoulder. The two cars had stopped, settling directly over where my family and I had been standing. Car parts littered the sidewalk.

It could have been a tragedy. One of those horrendous stories you read about--Entire family killed in freak sidewalk two-car-collision. But it wasn't, thank God. We walked away, all chattering at once about the Big Apple moment we would never forget.