A Crazy Job

It was a crazy job from the get-go, and the only one I’ve ever done that had to be coordinated with the phases of the moon. Barbara had gotten this assignment to reconstruct a highway accident and videotape it on the accident site. She had data on the vehicles involved, speeds and distances, and so on, from the police report and depositions and whatnot. Here’s how it all happened to the best of my recollection.

A man was attempting to change a left tire, on the narrow shoulder of a two-lane blacktop at night, and he had his butt hanging out into the road. He was at the bottom of a hill. It was a clear night, but there was no moon at the time. An eighteen-wheeler came over the hill on the same side of the road and clipped him.

The man who was hit was from a road-service outfit. He had driven a two-ton flatbed truck to the site and parked off the road in front of the guy with the flat tire. That guy was driving a gray, 1974 International Harvester Scout and was hauling a two-wheel dolly behind him, with a red, 1966 Mustang on top of it. The left tire on the dolly developed a flat, and the man called the road-service outfit for help.

I first got involved in this job by calculating some stuff for Barbara. Then she asked me to go find a ’66 Mustang somewhere, and do it in a hurry. She also asked for help with the logistics of getting everything on the accident site at the right time. In less than two weeks, she had to have everything – a flatbed truck and driver, a ‘74 Scout, a two-wheeled dolly, a ’66 Mustang, an eighteen-wheeler and driver, plus a video crew – on some road up somewhere up in the tri-state area. This whole re-creation of the accident had to be timed so there was no moon when we did it. Scott had earlier spotted a ’74 Scout in the same parking garage we used, and he promised to locate the owner and try to make some kind of deal with him. I went to Bob, our CEO, and asked him for $5,000 from petty cash. I told him that if I was lucky enough to find a ’66 Mustang, I would likely have to offer cash on the spot to get it, and I figured I’d have to pay $4,000 to $5,000 for it. He grumbled at me, but he saw my point, and I got the $5,000.

Then I enlisted Dan to help me. He got a lot of car ads and a city map, and I drove. We were in my almost brand new bright red, 1992, five-on-the-floor Camaro, with a five-liter engine. I really liked that car. We nearly covered the city looking for a ’66 Mustang, and it was getting late on the second or third day when we finally came up on this old boy’s house somewhere in the far east part of Houston . He had almost finished restoring a ’66 Mustang. The interior panels for the doors still needed to be installed, but other than that, it was pretty cool. It ran really well, and he had painted it a nice looking metallic gold.

I asked him what he would sell it for, and he said $4,500. With no hesitation at all, I whipped out a stack of $100 bills and peeled off 45 of them, one by one, counting them off out loud as I placed each one into his open hand. He looked kind of dumbfounded but handed over the car title and registration, and we had our ’66 Mustang. We drove it directly to an Earl Scheib paint shop and instructed them to give the car a new red paint job as soon as possible. It was still tacky the next morning, but we deemed it good enough to go. We were in a hurry.

Meanwhile, throughout all this we had to keep calling around talking to truck rental outfits for a two-wheeled dolly, a flatbed truck and driver, and an eighteen-wheeler and driver. We didn’t have cell phones back then, or the Internet. Scott had managed to reach the Scout owner and had bought it from him. It had to be repainted too, so back to Earl Scheib. Then, Scott, who was the video man for Barbara, said the new coats of paint were too shiny, and made the painters do another coat and dust them up while they were still tacky. Boy, those guys hated to have to do that, especially to the Mustang.

Anyway, we finally got everything flanged up just in time. I had arranged for a flatbed truck and driver to come to the Earl Scheib paint shop. The Mustang and the Scout would be loaded onto the flatbed (it had a ramp). The flatbed driver was hauling a two-wheeled dolly. He would drive up to the site, a two-day drive, and we would fly up there and drive out to meet him. Barbara had arranged to have all the video equipment transported to the site. Meanwhile, I had arranged for an eighteen-wheeler and driver to meet us there too. We had just got the Scout and the Mustang onto the flatbed, and I was filling out papers with the driver, when an Earl Scheib employee stepped outside and yelled, was one of us Philip? It seems I had a phone call. Or maybe it was Scott who got the call, whatever. It was from Barbara. She told us the case had just settled, and the client wanted us to stop work. The timing was perfect, because we were all ready to head home for supper.