by Miron Huhulea

Created on: January 03, 2009

Speed Demon

He looked like a frustrated cop who had been dismissed from the force for excessive brutality and now abused coke in his mother's basement and cruised around the old neighborhood talking on his phone - and I'd given him the finger.

He had been speeding along a row of parked cars coming out of a blind curve, but I'd seen him and was ready for him; I was able to slow down and get out of his way and still had time enough to chastise him. This was the road my family lives on.

Out on the main road I'd driven two stoplights when he pulled up behind me full of implacable hate, putting his bumper almost on top of mine. He must have done a one-eighty and caught up to me. Uh-oh, I thought. What kind of a psycho drops whatever he's doing and goes out of his way to chase someone down?

I looked at him in the rearview mirror and sighed. His eyes seemed to hate me all the more for it. I didn't want this. I didn't want a war.

Turning onto the Southern State parkway I made a feeble attempt to lose him: I didn't signal and turned late onto the entrance ramp. But he followed me like he'd been ready for it. Maybe it was a no-brainer - I had Jersey plates.

When we got to the top of the entrance ramp where the merging lane is very short I let him get next to me, hoping he would pass. That was a mistake. Instead of passing he pulled up alongside and wouldn't let me merge. I yelled and gesticulated to him through the window: "What the hell? What the hell do you want from me?" He just kept trying to muscle me down the exit ramp. For what? I wondered. A talk?

I tried to come to terms with the situation. Here was this guy, who'd been speeding down a residential road lined with parked cars yakking on his cellphone, whom I'd given the finger in chastisement (because when you're driving there are very few options available for communication), who was now responding with some kind of pit maneuver he might have remembered learning years ago at the police academy. But is it fair to punish someone for pointing out your criminal apathy?

No. No it is not. You just have to take that finger and live with it.

I ran out of merging lane. If I went any farther it would have to be onto the exit ramp. So...I capitulated. I sighed and accepted the outcome. Meanwhile my brain did a quick calculation, a thoughtless, emotionless calculation that I did not participate in: it measured the length of the triangular strip of paint that separated the lane and the exit ramp from the concrete border and the grass beyond.

Someone behind him was honking, someone probably trying to exit. He felt me capitulate. He relaxed, confident of his victory. I started going down the exit ramp thinking: "Holy crap! Now what?" And then, without my foreknowledge, I dashed across the strip of paint he had left unguarded and was gone in the right lane.

I looked into the rearview, my heart pounding in my ears. He was driving down the exit ramp followed closely by a minivan, still staring, waiting for the slightest provocation to continue with his insane pursuit.

He imparted a feeling of dominating aggression. But he also imparted a feeling of defeat, and not just because he had been ultimately unable to exact his revenge. As he disappeared slowly down the exit ramp there was also a feeling of sadness about him - as of one who was home, for good or ill, and was too tired to ever leave that home.

Learn more about this author, Miron Huhulea.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.