Hit and Run on Campus

            It was about 20:40 on Wednesday night when I checked to see that my tire was still firm and rode my bike onto Kings College Circle. There was a car behind me. I went into the middle of the road because that’s where the smooth bike path between the speed bumps is. The car behind me honked angrily. I started going between the speed bumps when suddenly the car charged up from behind me on my left. The right side of his car was against my bike the whole length of the car as it passed and I was forced into the speed bumps and I lost my balance as I was leaning on the car near the end so that after it passed I fell left sideways onto the road. The driver couldn’t have possibly not noticed that they’d clipped me and that I’d been knocked over by their stunt, but the car just kept on going. I was extremely angry and immediately got up, grabbed my bike and took off to try to catch up with the car. A woman called out to ask if I was all right. I called back, “No! I’m pissed off!” She called out a series of numbers to me that might have been the license number of the car. I should have just gone back and gotten it from her but I was so mad that I pursued the asshole instead, The car that was too far away from me and probably already turning onto College Street by the time I was halfway there. I wondered if there are cameras along the circle that could read the license number of the car.

            This was the first time in my life that I’d ever been the victim of a hit and run. It almost felt like an assault. There was though one occasion several winters ago when I was riding west on Queen under the Dufferin railway bridge and there was a woman in an SUV making a u-turn. She was coming forward and I edged my bike in front of her but she didn’t stop even though I was very visible. She ended up very slowly pushing me and my bike backwards into a snow bank and I fell off onto my ass but the snow bank had been as high as my bicycle seat so I wasn’t injured. I fell back, facing her and her female passenger. They waved at me nervously, completed their turn and drove away. But, as I said, this most recent event felt much more like a real hit and run.

            I went home and since there was no time to cook anything I ate chips with sour cream for dinner while watching an Alfred Hitchcock Hour teleplay starring the husband and wife acting couple, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. She plays Diana, an actress that has married a wealthy British theatrical producer and diamond merchant named Charles Justin. Cassavetes plays Lee, her American ex-boyfriend who comes to audition for the play that she is starring in. He gets the part and he and Diana renew their affair. He begins to plot a way to get rid of Charlie so they can be together and rich at the same time. The roads around Charlie’s country estate are treacherous and winding and so Lee rigs the brakes in Charlie’s Bentley to fail. Charlie however survives the accident. Suspecting that Diana and Lee are having an affair, Charlie closes down the hit play and arranges to take Diana on a European holiday in order to salvage their marriage. On the day they are to leave he picks up the phone and hears Diana and Lee talking about how they will soon be together in Paris. Charlie and Diana will be travelling to Paris separately because he has business in Holland. He goes by boat and will have is car waiting in Paris. Lee goes on the ship, shoots Charlie and tosses him overboard. Lee has already had a fake passport made so he can assume the identity of Charles Justin. After leaving the boat though the Dutch customs officer (played by John Banner, who was the German Sergeant Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes) asks Lee to open the trunk of his (Charlie’s) car. Inside is Diana’s dead body.