FOOD | Julianne Glatz

“…I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

From Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire

My circumstances and those culminating in those final words of A Streetcar Named Desire couldn’t have been more different. But on Memorial Day, I kept hearing Williams’ words in my head. I still do.

In last week’s IT I talked about Esther’s, a restaurant in Fredericksburg, Pa. , that’s become a stopping point on my frequent trips to Brooklyn. But on my last trip I didn’t make it to Esther’s or Brooklyn.

This time I exited, drove a half-mile, and stopped before making a left turn towards Esther’s I looked left, saw a small black car in the distance, looked right, saw no cars, and pulled into the intersection.

Immediately I realized I’d seriously underestimated the black car’s speed. And it wasn’t slowing down: a crash was inevitable.

Minutes – which seemed like hours – after the van stopped, I unhitched my seatbelt, and got out. The van had spun 180 degrees around, and now faced the road I’d turned from. The front and its engine were totally smashed. The driver’s side window had crumbled, and I was covered with its bits. At the time I didn’t know for sure, but I knew it would be bad. I couldn’t pull the key from the lock and the airbags inflated – I never saw the entire front until I went to where it had been towed, but the front was completely smashed in. Even then it wasn’t “official” for a few days, but little as I know about cars, it was obvious even to me that it was totaled. And even if could have been repaired, it was certainly not going to be drivable anytime soon. The black car was several hundred yards further down. Though the intersection had been empty, soon there were flashing lights, EMTs, first responders and onlookers.

A few miles earlier, I’d stuck my wallet in a side door compartment after paying the PA turnpike exit fee. Now it and its scattered cards, cash and other contents were on the pavement. After collecting them, I walked to the road’s side. Blood was staining my shirt; someone quickly bandaged my hand.

Something glittered on the pavement: it was one of my glasses’ lenses. I hadn’t realized it had fallen out. Retrieving it, I saw a credit card I’d missed.

Someone walked by, shaking his head, “Young driver, not wearing a seat belt, going too fast. She [the other driver] probably has a broken nose.” An EMT at my side asked if I needed to go to a hospital. I shook my head, no.

As soon as I’d reached the pavement’s edge, I started calling my family. My first call was to my son Robb: he’d planned to travel from Boston to NYC for the holiday weekend. If he was still there, he’d be able to come more quickly than anyone. My Brooklyn kids don’t own a car; they rent one as needed in their apartment’s garage. But Robb had decided to stay in Boston, getting things done before joining us for our camping trip. Even so, when I told him what happened, he dropped everything and began the six-to-seven hour trip south.

The state trooper joked about his horrible handwriting while giving me a torn-off notebook sheet (with hanging chads) of contact information. The EMT repeatedly asked if I needed to go to the hospital; eventually I realized he was telling me I should. I wasn’t badly hurt, but was shaking from head to toe. And so I had my first-ever ambulance ride.

It was a 30-minute trip to the hospital. My blood pressure and heart rate were slightly elevated, but not alarmingly so; the EMT cheerfully said he’d seen far worse.

The ER staff diagnosed that the bleeding came from a scraped elbow and hand cuts too small to require stitches, or even band-aids. X- rays ruled out concussion; I was directed to the exit/waiting room.

Still shaking, I faced my situation’s complexities. Being involved in a car crash is inherently awful. Being involved in a crash hundreds of miles from home is worse. Being involved while traveling in a van crammed with camping supplies made a solution seem impossible.

The worst complicating factor was the holiday. Having taken my computer bag in the ambulance. I started to-do lists, trying to decipher the trooper’s handwriting. Excepting my computer and my blood-stained clothes, everything else was in the van. I had to get to it.

But my cell-phone calls universally met with answering machines. Car rental agencies were closed. Everything relating to the accident was strung along a succession of small towns: the accident in Fredricksburg was 20 miles west from the troopers’ Jonestown station. I was at Lebanon’s Good Samaritan Hospital, another 20 miles away, the van was in Grantsvillle, some 30 miles west. Eventually someone from the towing company called back: “Yeah, you let me know when you’ll be here, and somebody’ll go open the gates.” Swell.

“I’d planned from the beginning to pay her for her help. But as we talked, I became certain she wouldn’t accept anything, and I was right.

I’d also become convinced that she didn’t really live nearby, and just wanted to help me.”

When my cell phone and computer batteries needed charging, I moved to the empty security desk. Moments later, a hefty security guy, badge proclaiming his name as Jason, stopped by. I asked if the hospital had an information desk, he chuckled, “Yeah, but it’s a holiday. Nobody’s there.” But later he asked if I drank diet soda (Not usually, but I was horribly thirsty), and brought me a can from his private stash.

While I’d been phoning, the young woman at the emergency reception desk deftly dealt with an incoming stream: A severely sunburnt young child, a man’s dislocated shoulder, someone’s sister had collapsed, and so on. Around 5 p.m., she turned to me: “I couldn’t help overhearing. Where’d they tow your van?” I told her, and she said, “I live near there. If you don’t mind waiting until I get off at 7, I’d be happy to take you. And I could take you to a nearby hotel afterwards.” I gratefully accepted.

Sometime later she said, “I should introduce myself: I’m Stephanie.” As the clock crawled towards 7, some folks who I’d seen coming in left, offering me best wishes as they were wheeled out.

I learned a lot about Stephanie during that drive. That she’d graduated from a nearby university and lived with her parents. That she was leaving soon to move to Delaware for a public relations (her major) position, and to be closer to her long-time boyfriend. That her parents were schoolteachers. By the time we reached the van, I felt as if I’d known her for years.

But my respect and liking for Stephanie increased exponentially as we drove through the opened gates. It was immediately clear this wasn’t a car body shop. It was a car graveyard. Stephanie had to make a second pass-through before I found the van: its front was mangled beyond recognition. I’d spent the afternoon feeling lucky I hadn’t been seriously injured; now I was grateful to be alive.

I have bum knees, and couldn’t have retrieved my suitcase and garment bag from the van’s rear. Stephanie clambered over tumbled plastic containers to get them. Then she drove me to that nearby hotel, insisted on loading my luggage onto a cart, accompanied me to my room, and unloaded the luggage.

I’d planned from the beginning to pay her for her help. But as we talked, I became certain she wouldn’t accept anything, and I was right. I’d also become convinced that she didn’t really live nearby, and just wanted to help me. I confirmed that with an atlas after I got home.

Robb reached me shortly before midnight.

The next day, we rented a U-Haul. In 90-plus sweltering, humid degrees, Robb did the yeoman’s work of transferring the van’s contents before heading home. My husband spent frustrating hours at O’Hare as flights were canceled because of violent thunderstorms sweeping the Eastern Seaboard. It took more than 12 hours for him to reach me. The next day we headed back to Springfield.

It’s been hard to stop the endless loop of the accident running through my head; sometimes I still shake when thinking about it. But I also remember the kindness of those strangers: the folks who stopped to help immediately after the accident, the ER staff, Jason the security guard, and most especially of all, Stephanie.

Contact Julianne Glatz at [email protected].

For Julianne’s recipe of Pennsylvania Dutch Shoofly Pie, please go to www.Illinoistimes.com