I had my worst bike accident in the five years I’ve been riding in the City on Thursday night—actually, at about 12:30 in the morning on the Fourth of July. I wish I could describe it, but I have no memory of the incident. The last thing I remember is riding off the Brooklyn end of the Williamsburg Bridge, and then I have a hazy recollection of talking to two other bikers about halfway up South Fifth Place, the short block between South Fourth and South Fifth Streets where bikers come off the bridge. I don’t remember giving them my phone, but they called Chi, twice, and she showed up after a bit to take me to the emergency room. They told her they’d found me crumpled against a parked car, and that I’d been saying the same things over and over again. When I became a bit more coherent, I know I said that there was no evidence I’d been hit by a car. I’d had some beers, and who knew, perhaps I could have done this to myself somehow. There was a lot of loose gravel on the road, which is part of the reason my face looks as bad as it does, and maybe I’d lost control and gone over the handlebars. The guys were sure I’d been hit—the back fork of my frame was bent badly enough that the wheel had locked, suggesting direct impact. (The bike is history.) They must have been right. The next day when Chi and I went to retrieve my bike, we found a pair of skid marks that began right beside a scattering of blue plastic fragments from my helmet, so the driver must have slammed the brakes after hitting me. Which means there is someone driving around the City wondering whether they killed someone on Thursday night. On the other hand, there’s the comfort of the city’s fraternity of bicycle riders. Thank you, Jimmy and Andre, for finding me, calling my girlfriend, and staying with me until she arrived.

We took a cab to an emergency room in South Williamsburg, which was, predictably, pointless. The main reason for going, in my mind, was to make sure I didn’t have a concussion—after all, I’d taken the fall off my head and face and been knocked unconscious. In two hours there, the only medical attention I received was being given a hospital bracelet and having an attendant dab my face for about five seconds with a dry pad. The orderly who processed me told me it looked real bad, and that he could “see flesh” (well, presumably, since I’m made of it). The doctor, who finally arrived sometime after three, was also dire, telling me that I had a lot of injuries and was going to have to have a blood test, a chest X-ray, and a battery of other procedures in addition to a CT scan. Stupidly, I haven’t continued COBRA from my last job and health insurance from my new one hasn’t begun yet, so I was concerned about how much everything was going to cost. The doctor informed me that she was a physician, not an accountant. Thanks. Chi went around the hospital and got similar responses. Time passed. It was getting very late. Finally, the attendant came back with a padded X-ray vest. After he walked out, Chi asked if I wanted to leave, and I said yes. I felt like I was in a bad TV hospital drama stomping through the miserable fluorescent corridors, shirt unbuttoned, face looking like raw hamburger, Chi and my brother Philip (who’d met us there) trailing behind, passing the doctor in her white coat as she rose from a little glassed-in workstation to ask indignantly, “What’s going on here!?”

I haven’t had any headaches or vision problems or cognitive issues, just a little neck stiffness, which isn’t really out of the ordinary for me, so I think I’m all right. I only started wearing a helmet about six months ago (after being hit a previous time), and I’m glad I did. Like the bike, it’s a loss, but I suspect it’s the reason I’m basically all right. I’ll never ride in the city without one again. The other obvious lesson, one I’ve always been bad about following, is to ride with extreme caution if you’ve been drinking at all (or don’t ride at all), especially if you’re riding at a time when there’s a greater chance the people in cars have been drinking too. I’ll wait for wounds to heal before I replace the bike, but I’ll go back to riding as soon as I can. I can’t imagine doing anything else.