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Driving, I feel a headache coming on. Maybe I should go to the hospital. But that means calling Mary and admitting I screwed up when I asked Jennifer to meet me for coffee. I come to a traffic light outside town. Pulling the cell phone out of the console cup holder, I see that there’s a new text from Jennifer.
“Speaking of the devil,” I whisper.
A car behind me lays on the horn now that the light has turned green. Now, along with the headache, I feel my blood boil. Funny how my moods can change on a dime. Maybe it has something to do with being plowed in the back of the head with a baseball bat.
Gazing into the rearview, I can see that the car is a brand-new white Tesla. The preppy asshole behind the wheel has got to be a New Yorker enjoying his upstate mansion for a few days before he heads back to his hedge fund in Manhattan. Let me guess, he’s also a Social Justice Warrier because otherwise, he’s not going to be invited to all the upper-crust parties where he can hobnob with the New York senators and congresspeople, the literary elite, and the billionaires. It’s where you get ahead in life by lying to yourself and others. Lying right through your teeth. And then, only after drinking far too many martinis, doing a few lines of primo coke from a straw fashioned out of rolled-up Benjamin, and T-boning his best friend’s wife in the upstairs bathroom, will he go home and puke in the golden toilet.
Note to self: don’t let your vivid writer’s imagination get the best of you, Martin.
I’m presently doing fifty-five in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone. This is a winding country road. It’s also hilly, so I have a hard time seeing what’s coming at me from the opposite direction. It could be another pickup, a motorcycle, or a semi. Both sides of the road are covered with open farm fields and second-growth woods. On occasion, we pass by a McMansion that was just constructed by one of the rich New York emigrants like the jerk who’s presently driving on my tail.
No, that’s not right, he’s up my ass he’s so close. He’s also doing that swerving to the right and left thing to let me know how slow he thinks I’m driving, and how I’m holding him up. Here’s what I would do under normal circumstances when I’m being dangerously tailgated: I might hit my directional and casually pull off to the side of the road, allowing the jerk to pass me by. Sometimes they lay on the horn and give me the finger. Other times, they’re just happy to have gotten around me.
But not this time. This time I want retribution. I slam on the brakes, hoping the Tesla creep backends me and ends up with an accordioned new electric car. Somehow, he manages to stop without plowing into me. Good driver, I’ll give him that. Good reflexes. Maybe he’s young. Or maybe he’s on coke, or both.
Throwing the transmission in park, I open the door and get out. It’s not time to pull out my .45 because I don’t want to scare him into spinning the wheel on his ride and speeding off, which he’s sure to do if he spots my lethal hardware. Instead, I approach his car, my face tighter than a tick, my hands clenched into fists. My heart is pounding not in my chest, but in my throat. Adrenaline is mainlined throughout the bruised veins and capillaries inside my brain. My stomach is hard, and my mouth is dry. Breathing is shallow. I come to his driver’s side window. He opens it, and doesn’t the creep offer me a smile.
“Something bothering you, pal?” he says
“You tell me,” I say.
He’s young. He’s got RayBan wayfarer sunglasses masking his eyes, and a full head of thick blonde hair parted on the side. I see that he’s wearing a pink Izod polo shirt with the collar standing at attention. I can also see that he’s wearing tennis shorts. He’s dressed for summer in the early fall. But when I see he’s got not one, but two tennis rackets stored on the empty passenger-side seat beside him, his preppy outfit makes all the sense in the world.
“You must be from New Jersey,” he says.
“Why do you say that?” I say, acid in my tone.
“Because you drive like an asshole,” he says, not without a chuckle.
“Wow,” I say, “Good one. You must be a lawyer.”
“Correctamundo,” he says. “However did you figure out that one?”
That’s when I pull out the .45 and press the barrel against his temple.
“Because I’d love to blow your brains all over the leather interior of your new Tesla,” I say.
He raises his hands.
“Hey, wait just a second, pal,” he says. “Calm...the fuck...down.”
I thumb back the hammer. He must feel it against his head. For sure he makes out the sound of the locked and loaded weapon.
“You make it a habit to tailgate innocent drivers, Creepy Lawyer Tesla Driver?” I say.
“It’s just that...I’m late for...an appointment,” he says.
“We’re all late for something, Creepy Man,” I say. “That doesn’t give you the right to put me in danger.”
“Hey,” he says. “You’re the one with the gun.”
I look over both shoulders. Thus far, there’s no other traffic on the road. But I’m fully aware that sooner or later someone is going to come speeding past and if they see me holding a gun on this guy, they’ll phone the cops. Still, I want retribution and I want it now.
I press the trigger. He screams. Of course, I never keep a round in the chamber, so I knew it would only dry fire. But the lawyer has learned his lesson. I see a yellow stain growing bigger and bigger on his white shorts.
“Looks like you better get home and change your clothes, Creepy Tesla Driver,” I say.
His Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his thin neck. He nods.
“If I ever see you tailgating me again,” I add, “I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
“Crystal,” he whispers.
I return the gun to my hip holster.
Planting a grin on my face, I say, “You have a nice day now, you hear?”
Making my way to my truck, I jump back behind the wheel, close the door, shift the tranny into drive, and punch the gas. I watch the Tesla in the rearview as I quickly put considerable distance between us. I might have just gotten my brains bashed in by some unknown asshole in an empty parking garage, but for some reason, I feel great.