09.17.10
This is not the first time I’ve followed you down the road, ended up in the same drop-off lane at school. I recognize your mini-van from the vanity license plate. I remember seeing it last year and wondering what it might mean, but now all the pieces have come together. We met, you and I, at a birthday party our children were attending a few weeks ago, and discovered multiple points of connection. After a year of wondering, I finally understand your license plate.
09.15.10
I’m following you down the road as you talk to your passenger. Your Land Rover is impressive - big, new, shiny - and the bumper is scattered with sailing flags and island stickers. In the reflection of your side mirror, I catch glimpses of your sunburned neck and unshaven face, topped with sunglasses and overly long white hair. I wonder if you were born to money or earned it - the worn and faded polo shirt argue for old money, but then again, maybe you are just the caretaker of the estate. You keep braking for no apparent reason, and then I realize that the braking and the gesturing you are doing with your sunburned left arm out the window are happening in concert with each other. Annoying as it is, it also makes me smile.
09.13.10
The baseball hat you wear blurs your features, as does the extra 30 lbs. you carry. In fact, the only thing memorable about you is the way your pick-up careens down the road towards me as you lean across the midline of your windshield, fumbling for something just out of reach on the passenger seat. I see the trailer you are towing serpentine across the yellow line as you head my way, oblivious.
So, yeah. That was me, laying on the horn to prevent you from sideswiping me with your landscaping equipment. Sorry if I startled you, jackass.
09.10.10
I only caught a quick glimpse of you, but… but… argh!
How do I say this nicely? I guess I can’t. Brutal and quick, like a Band-Aid.
Ready? Here goes: while I am sure you are a very nice person, respectable in your profession and moderate in your indulgences? You look, unfortunately, like a Phil Donahue bobble-head hunched over the wheel of that little BMW luxury sedan. The same shock of too-long silvery hair, same navy-blue-jacket-and-tie combo, same eyeglasses… the works.
If I knew you, I’d seriously suggest that it was time to upgrade to a larger vehicle, just to accommodate that oversized, shaggy silver head of yours.
09.09.10
At first I’m not sure that I’m seeing right. You accelerate towards me, and even though the light is dappled under the trees and it’s hard to see through the windshield, something looks wrong to me. Your lank hair and thousand-yard stare give me a fleeting impression of one of those women you see in the news - Andrea Yates, Amy Bishop -after they have done something unspeakable.
I realize what looks so weird - you are holding a phone up to your left ear and taking a drag on your cigarette with your right hand. Your car is moving, but you don’t seem in any hurry to put any hands on the wheel. Our cars pass each other, you lost in your buzzy lungful of nicotine or or the drone of someone’s words spilling through the cell phone. I wonder how many more feet down the road it will be before you decide it’s worth steering.
09.08.10
You turn your head to sneer at me as I brake gently at the stop sign. Before I’ve even reached the intersection, you have dismissed me and gunned your pickup’s engine and are soaring off perpendicularly across my field of vision. Silver and red, high up on customized tires, your truck is not new but it is obviously an extension of your manhood.
Scruffy facial hair, cap, red tank top, cigarette in your hand dangling out the window as you stomp on the accelerator to put me in my place. Steering with one hand as you squeal down the road, happy that you “beat” me through the 4 way stop. These small victories are all you have.
