I used to play basketball on Sunday nights at the elementary school in Garnett, KS. You could set your watch to it, if it was 7:00p.m. on a Sunday evening September-May, we were playing. The only downside to this routine was that i never got to watch the Simpsons, but it my opinion it was well worth it.
One week just like any other, I was on my way to play basketball. It was my freshman year in high school and I could not drive yet, so Wells Unruh would always give me a ride to the gym. It must of been January or February because it was very cold outside and snowing a little. The gym was just across town and the drive only takes about four minutes so you wouldn't think that anything interesting could happen in that short amount of time.....wrong.
At the end of the street we lived on, there was a railroad track intersected by our road, and parallel to the Prairie Spirit Rail Trail, which is an old railroad track converted into a biking/walking trail. As we approached the railroad crossing we noticed through the darkness, and snow falling, a strange object on the Trail. As we got closer we saw that it was a car sitting on the rail trail directly in front of the intersecting railroad track. Although we were a little confused at why there would be a car on the jogging trail, we decided to stop and take a closer look.
The first thing I noted about the car was that its tires were missing. There was nothing left, but aluminum wheels which the car was sitting on. The next thing I noticed was that the car had seemingly lost its shape. It looked as though someone had smashed every curved angle of the car flat until is resembled the shape of a box. Much like if you were to dent a round pop can on four sides until it was square. Other than the strange damage there was nothing else. No lights, no movement, nothing at all.
The scene was a little spooky. It was dark, cold, snowing, and there was this strange car smashed into a square. Wells was in favor of leaving and going back to my parent's house to call the police, but I insisted we go in for a closer look. Not the first mistake I had ever made, and definitely not the last, but a mistake nonetheless.
I approached the vehicle from the driver's side. The windows were covered in snow so I could not see inside the car. I tried the handle but the smashed door would not come open. So I decided to try the passenger side door. Although this was was bent up as well, with a little effort I was able to pry it open, and thats when I saw him.
Sitting there hunched over the steering wheel was a small Mexican man with a long gray pony tail, a mustache, and the longest goatee I have ever seen. This thing was was down to his center chest, braided, with beads intermingled throughout. I think it was safe to say that this was one of the greatest displays of facial hair I had ever seen.
"Hey man, you OK?" I said shaking the guy's arm.
"Hey, wake up!" I yelled a little louder hoping the guy wasn't dead. And that moment I found out...he wasn't!
"Arrrrhhudhgdaohsdodiosallllllllllllllllladfodidia" The guy groaned as he tried to wiggle out from under the steering wheel that had been bent over the top of him.
"Get me the F#%K out of here now!" slurred the guy who judging by his breath, had sought much comfort from a bottle of Southern Comfort.
"Hold on" I said trying to get the guy out of the car, by pulling on his coat.
I finally got him out of the car against his best efforts. This guy was so trashed he could barely stand. He basically hung on my shoulder. After a couple of seconds he screamed
"It's too god damned hot out here!"
He then tore off his gloves and coat and threw them on the ground. I was trying to get him to hold still in case he was hurt, but he was having none of that. He kept flailing around trying to stand up but couldn't because of his alcohol induced vertigo.
Luckily about this time, the police and an ambulance had arrived, and they carried the guy off to wherever they take drunk old Mexican guys with sweet goatees, after they have wrecked their cars on the Prairie Spirit Rail Trail.
After giving a statement to the police it was determined that the guy had ran his car into the side of a moving train, which had evidently caused said damage to the vehicle.
The next day I took a walk up to the railroad tracks to see where everything had gone down in the daylight. There was big marks in the ground from the car being forced off the road sideways, and there was glass and other chucks of debris that always seems to accompany a car wreck. The car had been towed away, but laying there on the ground among the grass and car chunks was the drunk guys gloves. These weren't just old crappy gloves. These babies where wool Thinsulate gloves with the little flap thing over the fingers that can be pulled back to grab things. To put it in more simple terms, they were the most amazing gloves I had ever seen! I still wear those gloves to this day, and I still call them my drunk Mexican gloves.
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