(Illustration by Matt Fuller)
It was mid-afternoon on Thanksgiving day. We were leaving one holiday party for other holiday parties where we did not want to be late. Since what we saw somewhat defies belief, let the record reflect we had been drinking only water and taking no drugs.
We were driving north in somewhat hilly southern Illinois on a state four-way road. We were approaching an interstate highway when we slowed to a stop before an intersection with ramps leading off and on the highway. As we came to a stop, a rusted white truck was braking to our right. The truck’s left rear wheel came entirely off the vehicle, which then scraped to a stop on its naked rotor. My passenger noticed this phenomenon at the same moment, then we watched what followed in silent but shared wonder.
The truck had been slowing to a stop when the wheel came off, so the wheel kind of warbled off on its own at a slow clip. A row of two vehicles was stopped at the light ahead of us. The wheel glided between those two vehicles, glancing off the truck to its left, which seemed to give it a little more legs.
The wheel picked up some speed going downhill through the intersection with the off and on ramps. It sailed right past one passing vehicle then slammed into a light standard. However, the light stood on a platform that was just the right height for the wheel to ramp up onto and then off it. The impact with the light standard served to launch the wheel further downhill.
The wheel continued north on the state four-way, veering onto the shoulder and then down into a significant ravine. The climb up the other side of the ravine was much steeper than the descent, and the wheel barely made it onto a gravel road up there. After just a couple turns of the wheel on gravel, it tipped back down the steepest slope of the ravine back toward the state four-way.
Our light had turned green, and we had places to be on a holiday. It was not the time to stop and offer help or to finish following the journey of the runaway wheel. As we turned west onto the highway ramp toward St. Louis, we both saw the same improbable and probably impossible thing. We both saw that wheel come back up and out of that ravine onto the road it had always been trying to travel down, and in a manner inconsistent with physics or topography, the wheel cut a hard right onto the shoulder of the road and headed back north, toward its next holiday party.
We were left wondering what happened to that runaway wheel and the poor guy in the beater truck left stranded on Thanksgiving with three wheels when he needed and expected to have four. I called the local police the next day. I figured that a truck losing a wheel while in motion near a major intersection could have resulted in an incident report, and if so a witness could help the investigation and maybe learn why the truck lost its wheel and what happened next. A dispatcher told me there was a call for service around that time but no incident report. I guessed some cop working on Thanksgiving day made sure the beater truck got towed off the road but issued impromptu roadside holiday amnesty for operating a motor vehicle that clearly was not safe for public transit.
I told the police dispatcher about the journey of the runaway wheel and suggested that they pull surveillance video if they had captured any. I offered the unsolicited advice that people need to laugh, and if the police can share a video that depicts what we saw, then people would laugh.
I keep thinking about that wheel and what its journey might mean. Here is what I have come up with so far. As we all know, it is very good and important advice to never leave a comrade behind. However, should a comrade abandon you and fail to deliver the support that you expected and dearly needed, then let us get up and go. You are on your own now. You are on your own and you have places to go, things to do, a road ahead with many obstacles in your path.
