I was riding straight through a green light

That’s when the 4Runner turned left in front of me

And I died

The milky pastels of the twilight sky catapulted me into darkness and I asked God “Am I still alive?”

Before she could answer I was awakened by the sound of my teeth breaking off on the asphalt

Three of them

One found its way up through my gums just at the right angle to fracture my skull

Yep — still alive

I lifted myself onto my knees

Felt the back of my teeth only to realize that they weren’t there anymore — my teeth, my beautiful teeth

— replaced so delicately by the taste of blood

Blood

Dripping onto my plaid button up, pooling on the street

Traffic stopped

Two women bystanders shouted out to me “Are you okay?”

“No I am not okay!”

The only thing that came to mind

Then I recalled some PBS shit about how in a crisis situation you should single somebody out from the

crowd and command them to call 9-1-1

So I singled out Yoga Pants Lady and said “You, call 9-1-1!”

Sirens in the distance, but how long?

The whole intersection stood still and silent

One gentleman whose name I don’t recall even though it was printed on the hospital ID tags around his

neck got out of an old Toyota Camry and knelt down next to me

Kindly he asked “Can I get a look at your teeth?”

I showed him

“Anybody got some water?” He asked the crowd

I didn’t get it at first but I went along with it and handed him my water bottle which was honestly

conveniently close to me given the circumstances

“I’m going to need you to rinse but be careful not to swallow in case you have any loose teeth floating

around. Rinse and spit into your hands.”

I rinsed and spit and then showed him my “teeth” again

He looked concerned

“Yeah you’re missing your front teeth”

He turned to the crowd and asked a couple folks to help him locate teeth that might be on the street

Phone flashes turned on and the search party was off to the races

He walked back a moment later with six shards of my pearly whites in his palm and handed them to me

What do you say to someone who is literally handing you your teeth?

“Thanks” is what I came up with

That’s about the time the firefighters showed up

Damn it was loud

The big men in yellow waddled up to me and then bent down

The ugly one said “Smile at me”

I showed him the gap where my front teeth used to be

He took one look and said “Well the good news is they’ve made tremendous strides in cosmetic dentistry

these days”

Um okay dick wad.

They picked my bike up and wheeled it away, which concerned me until they returned to tell me the

newspaper was going to lock it up for me — the newspaper was the building on the corner of the

intersection where this all happened

As the firefighters stood surrounding me, somebody walked up wanting to talk to me

It was him — the driver

I looked up from the pool of my own blood to the man who did this to me

He looked terrified

“I’m really sorry about this — “

The firefighters escorted him away. Thought it might be better if we didn’t talk just then. A good call, and

quite the improvement from the ill-timed humor just before

Finally the ambulance rolled up

They told me to wait for the stretcher, but my knees were killing me and I needed to move

So I stood up

My knees were stiff and banged up really bad, but I could stand

As I got up, I took inventory of what was happening around me

Traffic was completely stopped

People stood outside their driver’s side doors just trying to get a peak at the action

None of us expected this evening to go quite like this, but it’s what we got

They brought the stretcher over, but I waved them off as I marched to the heavenly white glow of the

ambulance, its open doors welcoming me in to the metallic, fluorescent wash of the hospitalmobile.

I sat down on the gurney and noticed there were no mirrors — how the fuck am I supposed to see

myself? My phone.

Opened up the selfie cam

Damn

I had noticed my lip was burning and bleeding, but I didn’t realize I had bit through it in three places — it

looked like raw meat

It was raw meat

The EMT was a little jaded but still had a hint of what I’m pretty sure was sympathy for my fucked up

predicament

How many of these has this joker seen?

We took a selfie

Then he handed me a purple latex glove with the words “TEETH” written on it in sharpie

“Hold onto this and make sure you show them when you get to the hospital”

I held that glove tight

The officer stepped into the back of the ambulance with us

“We wanna get you all taken care of, but before you go, just need you to answer a couple quick

questions. First, and I need you to be honest with me, have you had anything to drink tonight?”

What did this motherfucker just ask me? I JUST GOT RUN OVER BY A 4RUNNER, BITCH.

“No” is what I said

I gave him my recount of the incident, that I had been riding straight through a green light, my front light

was on and so was my rear flasher, that the driver pulled in front of me and I tried to break,
but it was too late.

My bike ricocheted off the car and I went over the handlebars, banked off the side of the vehicle,
and then went teeth first into the asphalt while I was trapped under the running board

He mumbled something and stepped out

Time to break the news — the EMT told me to call whoever I needed to call

I dialed my dad

He picked up and I mumbled through my teeth holes “Hey Dad, I’m okay, but I was in an accident”

My dad always has a way of staying calm when wild shit goes down but I could tell he was worried —

who wouldn’t be?

I don’t remember much of the discussion but I told him which hospital I would be at and to
please not worry Mom

The ride to the hospital was longer than it needed to be

When we finally arrived, the EMT (was Jason his name?) said they were telling them to go around
the back way — he told me he had never gone that way before which was super comforting

I started filming as they hoisted me out of the ambulance into the loving arms of the Medical University of

South Carolina’s emergency ward

The doors parted before us and I was unprepared at best for what I saw on the other side

Old people

Very sick

Bleeding

Some guy whose leg had clearly been in a wood chipper

That kind of shit

The security guard told me to stop filming — he looked peeved

Just due to his attitude I wanted to keep shooting — I just took a Toyota to the face man,
don’t talk to me like that — but for obvious reasons I stopped

There weren’t any free rooms so I waited on the gurney in the hall for a few minutes — felt like an eternity

Then they whisked me into one of their rooms where they stuck me with some IVs
and started questioning me

I kept an eye on the purple TEETH glove which they set down by the sink

The wheels squeaked as they ushered me into their imaging center to do the CT Scan

I got lowered into the tube and waited to hear the loud noises they were warning me about

In the mean time, I studied the interior of this tube I found myself in

Right above me, I noticed a splatter of blood on the inside of the unit — really?

When was the last time this shit was cleaned, bro?

The noises came on strong and next thing I know I’m back in the bay just waiting for my parents to arrive

It was the first moment I spent alone after I died a few hours earlier, and it was weird

The pain was coming on stronger but I didn’t want to take anything,
I don’t really know why other than I don’t fuck with pharmaceuticals much
and I honestly kinda wanted to feel all of it

Call me a masochist

My lip was on fire and the pain in my face was increasing literally by the second,
but still I sat there, processing

Using my tongue, I felt around for the stumps where white horses on the red hill had been reduced by
three counts, careful not to cut myself on the razor sharp remains of fractured ivory

Wow.

I looked over at the sink. No purple glove.

Where the fuck are my teeth?