Jerome Kaino by Jerome Kaino

Author:Jerome Kaino [McKendry, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781743487082
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

8

Crash

We’re driving down Dominion Road in Di’s 3-Series BMW and we’re about to head into Burger King for a quick feed. My mate says something and I look at him as I reply. I look back just in time to see that the car in front of me — a stationwagon driven by a young woman — has stopped. I hit the brakes and swing left, but I have that awful feeling you get when you know it’s too late and that you are powerless to stop what’s happening. The car slides and hits with a sickening thump and the sound of breaking glass. Several thoughts flood into my head. The car in front had stopped at a pedestrian crossing — have I shunted her car into someone? Kids maybe? And what about the driver? And maybe she has kids in there? What if I’ve killed someone …

My mind is still going a million miles per hour as it becomes clear no one is injured. The driver of the other car has climbed out and she looks shocked and angry, but okay. There’s a person on the crossing, safe and looking on curiously. But I’ve moved on to wondering how I’m going to tell Di about what I’ve done to her pride and joy. And at the back of my mind, I am wondering where I stand with regard to the breath alcohol limit.

My mate and I push the lady’s car into a Mobil petrol station about 50 metres away. Her car isn’t too bad — just damage to the bumper and the back panel — but Di’s is a bloody mess. Besides the mashed-in front, the left front wheel is at a funny angle from where it bounced off the kerb. We push it to the Mobil, too, and we are standing there puffing with the effort when a police car pulls in, its lights flashing. The cop who speaks to me is a good sort, a young palagi guy who doesn’t seem to recognise me. He listens to my account of what happened — I’m definitely not trying to pretend it wasn’t my fault — and then, of course, he asks if I’ve been drinking. His nose can tell him the answer, I’ll bet. But I nod, and tell him we’d had a big night.

It’s all a bit like a bad dream after that. My mate stays with the car — I think he got a taxi home after the towies came — while I get in the back of the cop car to go to Balmoral police station to get processed.

‘Please blow into this. Nice and steady, and keep going till I tell you to stop.’

There’s a pause. They show me the result: 834 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. The legal limit is 400.

I am a man of faith, and I believe in blessings. But I know from my experience how well disguised many of our blessings can be. That incident brought me down to earth with a crash, quite literally, but it eventually made me see what was going on.

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