Work Text:
Warning
crosswalks, reckless driving, paranoia, semi-distant caregiver, minor car accident, gore, injury (to the face/jaw of an underage character), unreality, bad smells, profanity, self-deprecation, radiation, disappearance of a family member, mentioned/referenced schoolyard bullying, mentioned/referenced death of parents
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JOURNALIST
Statement of Peter Spankoffski, regarding his experience surviving a hit-and-run. Original statement given October 29, 2019. Audio recording by Kyle Dylan, Head Journalist, CCRP Research Division, Hatchetfield.
Statement begins.
JOURNALIST (STATEMENT)
I don’t like crosswalks. I never have. Back in the day, when my brother, Ted, didn’t pick me up for whatever reason, I had to walk home. Usually he only let me know he wasn’t coming after I’d waited outside for ten minutes. It’s not fun to stand out on the sidewalk in the cold, especially because someone can easily trip me from behind, and as the time goes by, my worries would gradually lean from “Ted is late” to “Ted doesn’t care”.
He loves me. I mean, I’m his baby brother. He’s just kinda solipsistic sometimes. At the end of the day, he’d rather be in bed with a woman than watching TV with little old Petey. So when he didn’t come to school that day, and didn’t text me anything for a full twenty minutes, I was forced to go down the crosswalks again.
There are six crosswalks between Ted’s house and Hatchetfield High. I have counted them. And every single one of them seems to be a target for angry, caffeinated drivers to speed past like they’re in a goddamned Formula One race. The first one is easy because it actually has a crossing guard. I guess the town council just likes to pretend that everyone lives in Pinebrook, since there’s no public transport for schoolkids to get any further than that except on foot.
And a bicycle is out of the question for me. Mine got stolen ages ago and I can’t afford a new one. I mean, I know who did it, but if I confronted him, I’d get my brains splattered across the wall.
By the time I got to crosswalk two, Ted remained distant. He still hadn’t messaged me with any kind of confirmation as to his status. The light took a minute to change, and I was careful to not step into the road too early. I’m tall - you can tell, just looking at me - but it doesn’t help the cars see me at all. I’ve had a lot of near-misses in the past. I’ve even seen people run reds. Most of the time, it’s the same guy running all the lights. I’ve learned to spot his car a mile away because it’s one of the only Mini Coopers in town. He has too much hair, and a crazed look in his eyes, and a bumper sticker that says “How am I driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT.” It’s like he knows he’s breaking the law. It’s a miracle he hasn’t been hit.
Crosswalk three takes ages to get across due to its length. The road’s wide because it needs to accommodate people towing boats. Thankfully, due to the fact that most of the drivers are, y’know, towing boats, they don’t speed. Boats are heavy, and a lot of people are scared to death of denting them. I was lucky enough to pass it on a day where there were no drivers around it at all. I didn’t jaywalk, though. I didn’t have a death wish.
I swear, if Ted had been around when I crossed that last street before the truck came, he would have misquoted a joke about the Salt and Pepper Diner sketch and talked about how “the fourth time is the kicker”. Then he’d have gotten concerned once he realised I wasn’t faking my injuries.
Yeah… I need to tell you about what happened at crosswalk four. That was kind of the whole point of the interview or whatever.
The light was green. I swear it was green, and then halfway through the crossing, it went red. No yellow. No flashing hand on the thing. It just went red immediately, and half a second later, this massive black pickup truck barrelled down the street, and the side-view mirror hit me square in the temple. I felt my jaw break - it was like something had slipped out of place, followed by the absolute worst pain I had ever felt in my life.
I fell. I mean, I couldn’t do much else. I felt my face, and my hand came away streaked with blood. The crosswalk smelled awful. It was like walking right into a sulphur mine. I smelled the burnt rubber from the tyres, the smoke from the exhaust pipes… I knew if I stayed out in the road I’d get hit again. So I crawled. I crawled, because I couldn’t get back up, and maybe if I hadn’t been such a pussy I would have had the foresight to at least get on my knees.
I collapsed on the sidewalk, and presumably I got attended to, because I woke up in the hospital. That was when they told me Ted had gone missing. I’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for three days and he hadn’t come in to see me once. They’d already searched his house. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t at anyone else’s house either. The last they’d seen of him was when he left his coworker’s wedding that afternoon. That was the worst news they could have possibly given me. I’m going into foster care as soon as they can find somebody.
And they still haven’t caught the damn driver who’d hit me.
JOURNALIST
Statement ends.
Mr. Spankoffski’s information seems to be almost completely true. During the fall of 2019, he attended Hatchetfield High, and was a junior there. There were no witnesses to the hit-and-run, but several odd, angular skid marks were found atop the crosswalk later that day, accompanied by deep gashes in the concrete that resembled dermal lacerations. It is surprising that the truck itself was not discovered; it is entirely possible that the car was a sports utility vehicle that was mistaken for a pickup truck due to Mr. Spankoffski only seeing it briefly and from the front.
We have been able to prove the existence of a man named Ted Spankoffski, who was, in fact, Peter Spankoffski’s older brother, and the two of them had lived together for over ten years after the untimely death of their parents in an industrial accident. Ted Spankoffski was indeed reported missing on October 17, 2019, and was never found. Follow-ups on the investigation revealed that he had previously been at the wedding of Paul Matthews and Emma Perkins, and for whatever reason, had decided to go to his workplace. He did not come out of his office, and the lack of working security cameras in the room left his fate unknown. When the office was inspected, Ted Spankoffski was not found, but the room smelled very strongly of something fetid and rotten, and elevated levels of radiation were detected directly behind his desk.
Recording ends.
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