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My close calls (are there nine here?) (most a half lifetime ago and I’m over 60-hey, didn’t think you’d get an old guy wanting to bray?):
Four times had revolver pointed at me: once in New Orleans when a bus I was in was being robbed; once in Boston when I kicked a car that almost took me out on a crosswalk- the driver stopped & pulled a gun out of his glovebox; once by a cop who was searching out a B&E call…he tiptoed in to a trendy waterfront place we where in a buddy was babysitting for owners who’d gone on vacation…another was WAY back when I was hitching in OK and a guy (with his girlfriend staying in the car0 told me to leave the backpack on the roadside and walk into the field. I took the backpack and told him he’d have to shoot me in the back…his girl prevailed on him to leave me alone. I shook all night in that field.
Very close (probably the closest, actually) call eating pasta with a basil leaf lodging itself right in the wrong place.
A few driving near-misses where I never had contact but it was Boston. Did a couple year cabdriving stint there too but by then I was wise to the bad times to drive, intersections I guess, but still a couple near-misses with construction vehicles running without flags in freakish lighting / coming around blind corners traffic lights flashing yellow at night. Got in plenty of bumps/scrapes cabdriving but all were minor, thank Heaven.
The driving real near misses were when I was young and foolish, sometimes when I was borderline wrong but the other guy was really wrong…after bar-closing time usually. Nothing good happens after midnight. I think there ought to be two sets of penalties for drivers, harsher ones to age 25.
Jumped over the fence in the middle of Storrow Drive at the Hatch Shell, Boston and landed just wrong on the curved median curb. Rolled into fastlane and rolled back into gutter against curb just as a car whizzed by. Yeah I was drunk and it was night. Went into Rathskeller with ripped shirt bloodied in back but, you know, fit in. I hung out with infamous Billy Ruane (RIP- look him up, loads on the net on him) for an hour maybe.. listening to a punk rock group...danced. “Monoman” says to me on way out (on sidewalk): “You look pretty beat up”. Ruane didn’t notice? Must have been the lighting. Walked three miles home after and about halfway foot didn’t work but I somehow made it. Strained ligaments of the arch. Two weeks on crutches and it was excruciating pain.
Ruane’s friend who went on to marry Marianne Faithful (you read that right-no I never met her-left scene by then) for a couple years (I predicted one after I read about marriage in paper) cold-cocked me with a huge haymaker while my back was turned to him. I fell into arms of hotel security guards we just opened door to (perp was setting me up for taking over his hotel party- had called security himself!). I was bleeding from ear and made it to Billy’s and didn’t bother to check out whether it was internal of external bleeding. Long story. MF has a small inclusion about him in her autobiography. What do I care. Another rich-kid heroine addict, this one from Dover, MA. Pigs all. I was just an easy-going pot-smoking drunk among lions.
Got threatened with death by a Whitey Bulger henchman- long story. His bark was worse than his bite as he didn’t want to go back in can (valuable lesson). Very long story. Cab driving years (if it wasn’t in the cab it was in the Southie cab-driver madhouses).
Walking through Boston Common 3AM got mugged by a couple hoodies. I told them they should have been there night before as I’d done same thing & they really got mad, jostled & checked me everywhere with a knife pointed at me. When I sobered up next AM I had some kind of dreadful thoughts. I never went through The Common like that again, to be sure.
Operating a back hoe I lifted the front bucket fast thinking a load was in it (which would have slowed the action) when there wasn’t much other than a football-sized rock which ejected just at the right arc and missed my head about a foot. That was a “close call”. Almost rolled it another time. Country living has its times.
Hightailing down a big hill (traffic busy) on a bike hit a catch basin down an inch and 180 flipped. Got up and drove home. I suppose that happens to a lot of guys but amazed there weren’t more fatalities, those the days before head protection worn by bicyclists.
Live very sedate, clean life in the country now. Drive like an old lady and appreciate the scenery. Stop and smell the roses, thanking Heaven for good health.