We worked at our church festival last night. Four and a half hours in the heat manning the miniature golf game . . . we had a great time. Owen did amazingly well, and the kids helped in between going on rides and playing games themselves.
It was all good until about 9:50.
I was sitting in the back of our booth area on a milk crate holding Owen, who was super tired. I turned to look out toward the rides and saw headlights. I didn't think much of it until I realized they were coming toward us. I still didn't think much of it--figuring, I guess, that it was something festival related.
That's when I saw the guy sitting on the roof of the car out of the sunroof, waving his arms and screeching. Then I realized the car was swerving and going pretty fast. Into a festival crowded on a church parking lot. And right toward Owen and I. I stood up as the car turned about two feet from our booth. There was a lot of engine reving, screeching and cheering, and general ridiculousness coming from the three guys in the car. They were continuing to rev the engine and go back and forth a little bit. I turned to Doug, rolled my eyes, and said, "That's charming."
Then we saw the pink flash of Emma's tank top and the lime green of her shorts streak out near behind the car. And she had no idea it was there.
The rest is a little confusing. I remember screaming Emma's name and for her to stop and come back. I remember hearing my voice and not recognizing the hysterical screech in it (for some reason, I keep hearing the way my voice sounded when I yelled . . . it was different enough to stop Emma in her tracks). I remember seeing her freeze like a deer and stare at the car. I remember yelling, "Douglas!" as he ran out of the booth yelling at the car to stop before it backed up. Because they weren't just going to back up, they were going to gun it and back up (we could hear the engine reving). And Emma was in the line of the car about 20 feet behind it.
I remember hearing Doug yelling at the car to stop, slow down, don't move and I clung to Owen and watched as Doug swooped Emma up and brought her back into the booth. By now, a small wall of security had approached the car and they were trying to convince them to leave the lot. "You don't want to get arrested tonight!" I remember hearing the security guy say to the driver. And I remember thinking, "Why shouldn't he get arrested?" I remember asking Doug if he saw Jake, who had been on a ride 50 feet from us. Thankfully, Jake was on the ride the whole time and never even saw what happened.
Doug brought Emma back into the booth and she ran over to me. I was sitting back on the milk crate because I didn't really feel like standing up and I was trying very hard not to freak out. I gave her a hug and asked her if she was okay.
Her eyes were wide. "Was it my fault?" she asked me, trying not to cry.
"No, no," I told her. "Those guys in the car weren't being very safe. It's not your fault at all."
"I didn't do anything wrong?" she asked.
"Well," I told her, "you ran away from the booth without telling me or Daddy where you were going. That was very wrong. But other than that, it's the guys in the car who were wrong."
"But I was going to get Jake," she said.
"It doesn't matter," I reminded her. "The rule is that you tell us before you go."
She nodded, relieved. "I think that guy was kind of falling out of his car," she said. "Why was he doing that?"
"I don't know," I said. "Sometimes people do really stupid things."
She nodded again. "You know," she said, "I don't think he was wearing his seatbelt."
I told her that he probably wasn't.
After we got home and put the kids to bed, I started shaking. I realized how close we had come to being hurt . . . Owen and I if the car hadn't turned, and Emma could have been really hurt--even killed--if the driver had backed up the car the way he had been erratically driving in the lot.
And then I got REALLY pissed off. I don't know if they were high or drunk (mostly likely one or both) or just being assholes, but their funny little "let's drive like maniacs into a festival full of people--most of them children" stunt could have seriously altered the life of my family. I'm still angry. I can't get the sight of her tiny little body frozen in the path of that car out of my mind. It still makes me shake. My instincts were that it was a bad situation. I'm frightened by my feelings of rage toward the guys in the car and how easily I would have hurt them given the chance. I'm not a violent person at all, and I told Doug this morning that the anger that I still feel and my need for some kind of vindication is unsettling. I find myself angry at security, who I'm sure knew it was best just to get them out of the lot, but the police showed up not 45 seconds later. If they had just stalled them instead . . . maybe they could have been arrested.
I'm glad that Emma, in her innocence, can think only of the people in the car and be concerned about them not wearing their seat belts. I wish I could join her there because my thoughts are that I hope they drove just as crazily as they were in the parking lot into a wall not wearing their seat belts. And I don't really like those thoughts.
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