The drive home from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays is in rush hour, and quite a miserable experience at that. There was a man in a black SUV today that did something that made me think all the way home, almost crashing several times in the distraction.
Well what he did was come up on my right going at least 20 over the speed limit. There was a slow truck in front of him and I suppose he wanted to get in front of me. I was going about 10 over the speed limit and I didn't want him to get past me because just seconds earlier he had tried to wedge his way up the merge lane and get in front of me and I didn't let him. This was just. I was waiting in line. He wasn't. Anyways. He ended up getting past me, and he switched lanes like a madman, his truck jerking to the side, the car movements full of potential violence or some such Dangerous Chases-esque state of being. I let him go, and found that 2 seconds later he switched back in front of the slow truck and turned off into his neighborhood. And I pondered that a long time. That 2 seconds. The trees on that street are right against the sun and at that time of day they glow a green-gold and I almost enjoy coming down that street when I'm not being anal-raped by the maniac behind me. He could have taken that 2 seconds to enjoy the trees. But I doubt he even saw them. I doubt a lot of people on that street see them. Like a cell phone-talker staring straight ahead, looking right at something but not really seeing it. Strange. Those feverish American Power Grabber eyes.
I wondered if this man was poisoned with competition lust. If every day on the road he obsessed over passing everybody he could see before his destination. Maybe it made him feel important or that he was winning some sort of unseen game. Or maybe he was poisoned with the vengeance lust. Maybe he was one of those unhappy souls that has to take vengeance on every action done to them, whether justly or unjustly. Maybe he was sore about me not letting him pass one more car on his little express-asshole merge lane. But this vengeance was not a "just" vengeance, if that is the case. Because yes, as I said, I did wait in line. This was unjust vengeance, certainly. Maybe he is poisoned with a little of both. And there are many denizens like this on the road.
I have this fixation with thoughts on daily driving and the implications of the larger patterns that emerge with vehicle crowds. Nothing could be more illuminating for the Great Struggle than that pulsating river of car bodies. When human selfishness grows embarrassingly visible. And I myself am one of them. I used to be an innocent, magnanimous driver. I wondered how people could become so callous and angry. And now, yes.
I honked at two people today. Probably the two people I will honk at all month. I felt sorry after both. It is survival, but nevertheless, they were caught off guard for just a minute, they made simple mistakes that I too could have made in a second. There is an infinite reflection of hypocrisy within the river. Once you are in it, you are part of it. Whatever that means.
