Chapter Three C: Accident

Aaron left the Memorial home and drove out to the interstate. He decided to stop at the truck stop for a quick bite before heading north to Jack’s for the Friday night poker game. While he waited for his food, he opened his briefcase and made a few notes regarding what he wanted to ask Hattie about next week. He labeled the cassette from his recorder and filed it in the row of interviews. Then he pulled out an Indiana State map to look at the area surrounding Hattie’s home town of Uniondale. He made a note to get more information about where the Strongman property was located, but knew that Hattie’s description would probably not match with any local maps. He’d look up the tax records and that would help him identify the parcel. He noted that he passed just a few miles from Uniondale on the way back up to Fort Wayne. He definitely needed to check out the Twelve Oaks before next Friday and maybe snap a couple pictures to show Hattie what it looks like now. Many times having a photograph to look at would jog an entire story out of an interviewee. Aaron put away his briefcase and focused on the Chili and Grilled Cheese he’d ordered. He really couldn’t arrive at Jack’s hungry every week expecting Theresa to feed him.

When he left the Union 76 Truckstop, the wind had picked up. It didn’t look like snow in the sky, but the wind was picking it up off the already piled drifts and scuttling it across the road. The Spider would be cold tonight. He pulled into traffic on I-69 and settled in for the drive. It was fully dark now. Although light later in the day than back in December, it still seemed to be dark early. It wasn’t as bad as on the east coast where it was dark much earlier. That was the one advantage of being on Eastern Standard Time this far west. And it wouldn’t make a bit of difference when the East went on Daylight Saving Time in April. Indiana would stay on Eastern Standard time and be in sync with Chicago for the summer. What a weird state, he mused.

His headlights picked up the highway sign for the next exit. Markle, Rte 224. Uniondale was just a few miles east of here. On impulse, Aaron decided to just drive through and see what was still there. Hattie’s story was still running through his head. He exited, turned right on 224, and headed out toward Uniondale. Five miles out of town the sleepy little village loomed out of the darkness. He could see the steeple of only one church in town and a sign that pointed to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. He could see the building just off Main Street as he drove through the town. He crossed what appeared to be an abandoned railroad track and a trucking company and was suddenly out of town. Just past the shipping yard on the right was a relic of a building. Aaron could make out in the reflected light from the truck company across the road the words “Grange, est. 1888” over the boarded up door. Bet there was a story behind that, Aaron thought. Then he was in the peculiar Indiana darkness with a howling wind and snow blowing across the road. The farmland looked rich, the houses set well back from the road. Their yard lights did little to lighten the shroud that was broken only by Aaron’s headlights.

He watched the odometer as closely as he did the road. He didn’t want to fly by the turn-off in the dark. There was the first road at one mile out, W 700 N. Indiana had county road laid out like latitude and longitude in the township. Thirty six square miles per township, six equal one-mile sections bounded on each side by a county road labeled with the number of miles from the meridian lines of the county. He was exactly one mile west of the north/south meridian, traveling north on N 100 W. He was seven miles north of the east/west meridian. Pinpoint accuracy. By the time he mentally positioned himself on the map he could see the road sign for W 800 N ahead and slowed down to make the right turn. He was suddenly faced with a steep climb and the he shifted the Spider down into second to accelerate up the hill. He was finally sheltered a little bit from the wind by a woodlot on his left. He breathed a little easier as he could see a single light bulb burning ahead over the sign to the little cemetery on his right. Across the road stood the tiny old stone church.

Just as Aaron focused on the sight, there was a break in the woodland cover and the wind whipped across the front of the car throwing its right front tire into a snowdrift. Aaron fought to regain control. Over the spinning car, but the drift concealed black ice all across the road. He could see the entire accident as though it were occurring in slow motion. The car slipped off the left side of the road onto the steep bank of a drainage ditch. As the car tilted, Aaron leaned to his right pulling on the wheel until he was lying almost over in the passenger seat. He could see the telephone pole approach, strike the bonnet of the car, shatter the windshield, and rip the top of the car off just above his head and the steering wheel out of his hands. What he did not see was the rock that the front of the car slammed into throwing him into the dashboard with a deafening bang.

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