Taco Negro Is Dead.

Long Live Taco Negro.

September 19, 2024. A quiet, hot afternoon. For once, none of my neighbors on the southern side of Kingfisher Lane are home. Their driveways are empty.

This matters.

It matters because, at 3:15pm, a black Nissan Murano came around the corner on Kingfisher and, heading west, shot forward, jumped the curb (which is really more of a small rise, but anyway), barreled across about 4 empty front lawns – 

And smashed into Taco Negro. 

I work from home and the sound of the impact was so loud but so foreign that I rushed outside to see what happened. The first thing I did see, coming around the corner of my house, was the white roof of the camper that lives on Taco Negro and for a moment I simply could not comprehend what I was looking at. 

Continuing forward, I saw the Murano mangled underneath Taco Negro. The truck was sitting on about a 45 degree angle. The driver, a woman, was still in the driver’s seat. All the airbags had gone off. The radio blared. I screamed a bunch of f-bombs at her, mostly along the lines of What in the actual fuck!?!?!

I ran back inside to get my phone. To document. When I came back she was gone, fled out the passenger side. Several neighbors and witnesses were there, though, out in the street, and they pointed out a man walking east on the sidewalk. He was the passenger, they were saying.

I ran after him. I don’t know what I was actually going to do, but I was mad. Then I heard my neighbor calling after me: DO NOT approach him! He’s already agitated. Just take his picture! 

So I came to my senses and took his picture (thank you, Stacy). I then ran the other way, to try and find the driver but she had simply vanished. 

Back at the scene I found there were no skid marks; no attempt at braking when she destroyed an elderberry tree and the small flowerbed it grew in before destroying my adventure-mobile.

I also found, to my horror, that the impact of the collision shoved the truck across the driveway and into my little blue Honda Fit, parked right next to it. The Honda was now partially on the lawn and the damage to the entire driver’s side looked … significant.

I remember some lawn-care guys coming by, stopping to see if anyone needed help, and one of them reaching into the driver’s side and shutting off the Murano. At least that killed the stupid radio. Oil from the wrecked SUV leaked all over my driveway.

The police showed up quickly. Turns out there were several witnesses to this crash and they all called 911. 

The driver had fled but she left her wallet in the car. When presented with her picture ID, at least one witness positively ID’d her. The wallet also contained an insurance card. The police took a bunch of pictures and gave me a little piece of paper with all the info I’d need for insurance purposes, as well as where and when to get a copy of the police report. 

A tow truck arrived. For the Murano. He was a very nice man and apologized that he might not be able to save my rose bush when he pulled out the SUV. (I thanked him for that even though by this point I was well beyond caring about a stupid rose bush.) He also dumped a bunch of cat litter across the oil on my driveway. 

That was the first time I cried, when he separated the two vehicles. The sound of tearing metal, the crunch of breaking plastic. It was too much. Taco Negro was my dream rig. It was like watching it die.

The tow truck driver did manage to save that rose bush, by the way. So there’s that. 

I feel this need to point out that my neighbor across the street, Stacy, was probably the nicest and told me to call her for any need. She and her daughter are good people.

Because soon after that … everyone left. Even Stacy, and that made sense, because for them, that was it. There wasn’t anything else for them to do. They all went back to their lives and I was left with the wreckage of two paid-for vehicles in my own driveway and no idea what to do next. 

I called my insurance company. Because … that’s what they’re for, right? Well, kind of. They were nice (notice a trend here?) but reminded me I had to actually call the other driver’s insurance, since she was clearly at fault here and that’s how insurance works. 

I had the driver’s address from the accident report (it took me a few hours to realize that the space next to “driver’s license number” was blank). I looked the address up. It was for the local homeless shelter. The line next to that, for insurance, simply said “Shelter.”

I promptly freaked out. She got her car insurance through the freaking shelter? I was so screwed. 

No, it turns out Shelter Insurance is a real company. With an 800 number and everything. They were very nice, too, and while the insurance turned out to be legit, it was also the bare minimum that’s legally required by the state of Arkansas, so in the end I had no choice but to file under my own insurance. 

Michael took over dealing with the whole thing at this point, but I can say that the Honda was towed the next Monday and that guy did about a 35-point turn to get the Honda (yes, it started!) out into the street so he could get it on the flatbed. 

Too much damage to save: the Honda Fit was deemed a total loss.

It took another week or so to get the truck towed, which was both good and simply terrible. Good, because it gave Michael and I some time to figure out how to get the camper out of the truck. And to poke around enough to determine that in spite of some cosmetic damage, the camper was actually OK. Talk about relief!

When it came to removing the camper, the Honda tow guy was the most helpful. He’d suggested the truck would actually fire up, but that even if it didn’t, we should be able to get it in neutral and let gravity roll the truck out from under the camper.

I was really shocked that Taco Negro started. Blue smoke came out of the tail pipe, but it ran. Michael moved it over in the driveway (so that it was no longer in the center) and then we started the process of lifting the camper. It came with these jacks/arms that the camper can rest on, so we got the arms attached, jacked it up a little higher, and then inched the truck forward. 

After it was clear of the camper I drove it out into the street, so that the next tow guy would have an easier time maneuvering it onto a flatbed. It did indeed drive all wonky. The new location meant, though, that it was directly outside my front window. Where it sat for almost a week. So that every time I looked outside, I got a full view of my dead truck.

Finally, a new tow arrived and I could say goodbye for real, for the last time. I know it’s just a vehicle but I bawled. Taco Negro was a good truck. It deserved better. 

So here we are. Waiting for insurance settlements and looking for a new Taco Negro. 

I’ll keep you posted but in the meantime, pour one out for the little truck that could. We had so many fantastic adventures in the Tacoma and made so many memories. Like this one, from Hartman Rocks in Colorado this summer:

Taco Negro was a good truck. 

Long Live Taco Negro.