thirty-one

I left Al’s garage with the cash in my pocket and a can of orange Nehi unopened on the passenger seat. I pulled out of the driveway and onto the street and made a quick right onto 54th or 55th Street. I noticed a few drops of rain on the windshield. I made a left onto busy Eleventh Avenue and drove carefully to 57th Street, where I turned east to begin the crosstown trek.

The rain changed quickly from drizzle to downpour. Huge, angry drops pounded the metal top of the van. It was loud. I couldn’t hear anything but falling water. Slabs of rain dropped so thick I couldn’t see the car in front of me. I leaned forward as much as I could to get a better view. I was so far forward my head was touching the glass but still I could hardly see. I slowed the van to a crawl and the rain got even louder. It sounded like the roof was being pelted with little stones, and sure enough I noticed they were stones! Stones of ice! The rain became big frosty chunks of hail that hit so heavy I was afraid the windshield would crack open.

I had a green light at the corner of Tenth Avenue and went forward slow and cautious. A green truck behind me started honking, rude and impatient. It made me nervous so I sped up a little bit to clear the intersection. It was a risky move considering the lack of visibility but I made it to the other side of Tenth intact. The hailstones fell bigger and bigger, and were now the size of marbles. I slowed down again. I was certain one of the stones would rip clean through the roof and into my head.

I wanted to pull over but traffic was so bad there was no opening to get out of the lane. So I crept on to Ninth Avenue and stopped at a red light. The second it turned green the same guy behind me started honking again, only this time more frantic and repetitive. I started moving but it wasn’t fast enough for him and he would not let up on the horn. I stepped on the gas pedal a little more.

When I reached the other side of Ninth the hail had turned back into rain. But the intensity of the storm would not let up and the sky thundered and flashed lightning. My nerves were burned. I focused every ounce of my attention on not ramming into the car in front of me. I was doing a decent job of it but my pal behind me was relentless. He couldn’t change lanes or pass me because it was too congested, so he chose to torture me instead.

He was honking his horn in the same rhythmic pattern: three quick blasts and then a long droning honk. Over and over. I would have preferred a hailstone through the skull to the drilling he was giving me. It made me nauseous and my head throbbed in pain. I stepped on the accelerator and sped up a bit more than I should have, but it still wasn’t enough for him.

As I approached the Eighth Avenue intersection the light was green but the Don’t Walk sign was flashing red. Green was about to be yellow. My first impulse was to not risk it and stop at the corner, but the beast behind me pressed his cloven hoof on his horn and left it there. The light turned yellow. Then I heard another horn either behind him or to my side, and then another, and another, and so on, multiplying like loaves and fishes. It was unbearable. I was so rattled I pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The van reacted in a big chug forward but the light turned red and I got scared so I hit the brake as hard as I could. My Nehi flew off the seat, my head snapped back, and the evil green truck rear-ended me. The impact was louder than the thunder and it sent my head into the windshield with enough force to crack the glass.

I knew I had to be injured but nothing hurt at first. I picked the Nehi off the floor and then touched it to my head to check for blood. I was expecting lots but there was none. I got out of the van with the soda in my hand.

He was so close to me I could smell the decay in his teeth. A short, swarthy man with bushy eyebrows and a wiry mustache, he wore a blue mechanic’s shirt with the word Toma embroidered in red script over his breast pocket. I wasn’t sure if it was his name or his business. He spoke with Dracula’s accent and cursed me in a mix of English and his native tongue.

He spat and sputtered, swearing and screaming at me. I was afraid for him. His complexion turned red and his eyes bugged out of their sockets. Waiting for a punch in the face, I apologized. I told him I was sorry but he didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. I don’t think it’s possible for one person to express more hatred toward another without violence.

“Sorry’s not to fix my fucking truck, suckdicker! Suckdicker son of fucker whore!”

Traffic had stopped in both directions. All the car horns of the earth sounded their agreement with my new friend’s opinion of me. People got out of their cars or strolled over from the sidewalk with umbrellas to assess the damage and watch the fight. Toma got angrier, shook a fist in my face, and kicked my tires. He stomped and screamed like Rumpelstiltskin arguing with an umpire. I didn’t know what he wanted or what I was supposed to do. Some of the bystanders were shouting stuff too and I got even more confused.

I said I was sorry once more. Toma pushed me hard in the middle of my chest and I slipped on the slick street and almost fell down. I was pressed up against the side of the van and he was right in my face again.

“Sorry’s not to fix my truck, suckdicker!”

I pulled the five hundred bucks out of my pocket and handed it over; this pacified him. He looked down at the money in his hand and stopped cursing. I took a step sideways and stumbled over someone’s galoshes. My feet slid out from under me and my pants pocket got caught on the corner of the open door of the van. I landed on my ass and saw that one of my pant legs was flayed open exactly like Al’s a few minutes before. A woman in a Wonder Bread raincoat helped me up and asked if I was okay.

A man with wet gray hair was saying something to me in Spanish and then Toma started talking to me at the same time. The Spanish man was holding the keys to the van in his hand, waving them at me. Then he swung the van door shut and showed me the keys again. He was mad at me too. I reached for the keys but he snatched them away and yelled at me in Spanish. I couldn’t hear a thing. The storm, the horns, the shouts, they all melted together into a huge menacing roar. I was wet, I was disoriented, and my underwear showed between the flaps of my torn trousers.

So I ran.

I just ran away.

Up Eighth Avenue to 59th Street and into the park. Believe it or not, I still had the orange Nehi in my hand. Thunder shook the sky and I kept pumping my legs through Central Park. Over a little bridge, through a playground, onto one of the roads, and then down a little footpath. The path led to another little bridge but this one I passed underneath. Here I finally stopped. It was dry and I doubled over to try to slow my heart and catch my breath. I gagged on a big gulp of air and puked up a splash of orange soda.

My head hurt and I had a big lump at the top of my forehead at my hairline. It wasn’t bleeding.

I guess I was lucky.