Sudden Impact

Considering the things that I do store away in my memory, it's odd when gaps appear. I ran into one of those hazy areas the other day when I was passing a Seven Eleven in our neighborhood. A gentleman coming down the sidewalk had just helped himself to a jumbo hot dog with all the fixin's. That smell put me immediately back at Folsom Field, selling concessions. Hot dogs were a sure thing, especially on cold days. You could make money fast with a steaming hot box of foil-wrapped dogs. The only trouble was that smell. When the day was done, the game was over, and you turned in your apron, you and everything around you smelled like a boiled wiener for the next couple days.
It was one of those frankfurter days that I got hit by a car. I remember that smell, but I don't remember the impact. As near as I've ever been able to piece together, I made the mistake of trying to cross the street without the aid of a light or a crosswalk on a drizzly afternoon when hundreds of cars were pouring out of stadium parking lots. The bumper-sized bruise on my left hip told me where I had been hit, and the large goose egg on my forehead suggested that I had probably made contact with the pavement upside down. I don't know. It's that part of the experience that is missing. My next concrete memory was another smell: wet wool. I was the beneficiary of throngs of concerned passersby, and my face was resting comfortably on some kind soul's stadium blanket. The rest of me wasn't resting comfortably at all. If I had made it across the street, I would have had to wait outside the high school where I was supposed to meet my parents, and I might have gotten wet. Now I was laying in the middle of the street, able to lift my head and not much else, getting wet.
Somewhere in there, an fire truck showed up, followed closely by an ambulance that would eventually take me to the emergency room. I remember the ceiling of the ambulance, and the darkening gray of the sky as I was wheeled into the hospital. I don't recall how my parents figured our where I was. I was in junior high at the time, so I don't think I had any useful identification on me. I must have been able to tell someone my name or address, because I didn't have to wait long to be reunited with my family.
What did take long was recovering from the collision. I have a very full and painful memory of those weeks on crutches. Nothing was broken, but as the days passed the bruise on my hip progressed through a rainbow of shades. Eventually I had to go back to participating in gym, but it was several years before I was comfortable waking down that particular stretch of road, and I still get very nervous at the suggestion of jaywalking.
Many years later, I was walking home from a protest against the first Gulf War, and a car blew a stop sign, clipping me in much the same manner as that wet fall afternoon. This time I had the presence of mind to get my hands out on the hood and roll off to the side without significant injury. I was older then. And wiser. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself.