I was coming home from a date with Cindy, who at the time lived near Teaneck. The storms began as I left her house with her last kiss still sweet on my lips, and grew in ferocity as I drove south along the Turnpike.

The storms began as I left her house with her kiss still on my lips, and grew in ferocity as I drove south along the Turnpike.

Long stretches of the Jersey Turnpike north of Newark are elevated. For miles it perches high above the Meadowlands. Part of the Sopranos’ opening montage was shot from this highway. Near the airport it branches off. You can continue south, or take the Eastern Extension over Newark Bay and on to Bayonne, Jersey City and the Holland Tunnel. I lived in Bayonne, so east I went.

The ‘pike crosses the Bay via the Vincent R. Casciano Memorial Bridge. Since Newark Bay has a major containership port upstream from the bridge, it rises very high above the water; 135’ in the center. The transition onto the Eastern Extension is tricky, with several merges, tight curves, poor sightlines and many large trucks to contend with. Just as I was entering this maze, the storm went crazy.

Rain deluged down, too much for the wipers to cope with. That stretch of road wasn’t all that well lit, and the nearly continuous lightning killed my night vision; I could only see the road ahead during the momentary flashes of blinding white light. I had long since outgrown my fear of storms, but still the almost continuous barrage of thunder set my nerves on edge, made concentration difficult when concentration was needed.

I safely negotiated the interchange and began crawling slowly up the bridge approach, flashers blinking. I could see very little through the downpour, although there were more of the glaring yellow sodium lights on this stretch of the road. I steered by glancing out the right side window, keeping the railing just within sight. Fierce gusts buffeted my little Omni 024, trying to push me out of my lane. I was quite conscious of the long drop to the ground or water, but the railing was designed to stop a speeding truck, so I figured it would stop me if called upon. I had almost reached the main span of the bridge when the world turned bright green.

Neon chartreuse light filled the car, coming in from all sides. A flash, a timeless instant, and it was gone. I was momentarily rendered sightless by the glare; through the windshield I could see only blackness.

I don’t remember doing anything, but when after a few seconds I could see again, I found that I was stopped in the breakdown lane, the nose of my car just touching the concrete base of the guardrail. The shock of the event must have made me jerk the wheel and stomp on the brake. I could see headlights coming up behind me through the rain. I was not in a safe place.

The car had stalled when I came to a halt without pressing the clutch, but it started immediately. I put it in first and crawled shakily up, over and down. Luckily the Bayonne exit is just past the bridge. In five minutes I was through the toll booth and on familiar streets.

Other than a scuff on the nose where it had kissed the guardrail, my car was unmarked. I don’t know if the bolt had struck the car, or the railing alongside me, but for that second I had been inside the ionized plasma created by the fifty thousand degree temperature of a typical lightning bolt.

Funny thing is, I had heard nothing. No deafening whipcrack or rumble of thunder. The shock wave from a lightning bolt propagates outward; from within, there is only light and silence.