Entries Tagged 'Cars' ↓

Hey Maaaan, what are YOU doing on my freeway?
I didn’t see the car until it was too late. He–I’m sure the kids who sat in the backseat called him Daddy, or Pops, or something–was apparently trying to get off the freeway without waiting his turn. To do so, he swooped down from the fast lane and jammed his little white Toyota a foot or so off my front bumper. Then he stopped.

I didn’t have time to think. Luckily, instincts were enough to avoid a tragic accident.

That was Tuesday. On Monday, I sat and sucked fumes for an hour, earthmovers to my left and minivans to my right.

So this is progress?

Every freeway is torn up, and along with it, just about every major thoroughfare that serves Orange County. Lanes end mysteriously, potholes are big enough to swallow whole Yugos and concrete pylons stick out into lanes. As a result, the simple act of driving has morphed into a screen test for Mad Max in the Orange Dome.

Like Queensberry at a bar fight, traditional rules of the road are history. No more right of way. Forget passing to the left. Merging? What’s merging?

Thanks to the battle zone conditions, a new driver is emerging from the rubble:

Doin’ the Mario
There he goes, zipping around construction zone corners, zooming up to the traffic then bounding into the lane with the most room.

Most Likely to Be Seen: On the 5 at the Orange Crush, or at the 55/91 interchange.

Mr. End Around
He’s not going to wait like all those other yahoos. Nah. He’ll jump to the front and wait on the island for some poor fool to let him in. Most Likely to Be Seen: At the 91/57 interchange, and especially at the 5/55 connector.

Little Miss Make Your Own Lane
She’s too late to take cuts, and, like husband Mr. End Around, certainly will not wait like a good citizen. So she makes her own way, transforming traffic patterns and wreaking havoc along the way. Damn–traffic sure goes faster when all lanes turn right! Most Likely to Be Seen: Irvine or Newport roads, but sometimes wanders into central Orange County.

“Hey Maaaan, what are YOU doing on my freeway?”
We all know this guy. Can usually be found driving a beat up LUV truck decorated with bumper stickers on the back. Liable to make sudden stops or lane changes for no apparent reason. Brake lights do not work. Most Likely to Be Seen: Everywhere, especially when most other people are at work.

SUVIE Susie
She’s blond, she’s beautiful and she’s the Queen O’ the Road in her big ol’ nasty Expedition. This is the perfect car for the girl who never really learned how to drive. Just put it in gear and go, babe. Whatever’s in front will soon move.

Most Likely to Be Seen: You don’t see Susie. She sees you. If you’re lucky.

MiniVan Marla
Marla didn’t marry as well as Susie, so now she’s stuck in an old-model Minivan with three kids and a dog. It doesn’t have much acceleration and it looks like crap. But no matter. As long as you balance the thing like a sail boat, it’s a nimble little tank. Besides, most people see Marla in the Minivan and make room.

The OC Wedge
In Orange County, minivans and SUVs are like buffalo in the Old West. Get three or four in the same vicinity and they crowd together in a strange migration pattern. It makes for great visibility on the freeway, which is especially handy in spots (5, 55,405, 22, 91) infamous for sudden stops and starts.

The Brain Surgeon
This is the person who decided to tear down all our freeways and roads at the same time. Is it the same guy who decided that a one-lane car pool bridge between the 5 and the 55 was a good idea?

The sun hit asphalt and made it sizzle. I can see the waves of heat coming up off the road, I can feel it seeping through my boots and baking my body up through my toes.

Damn thing always seems straight up over me anyway. I must be stupid to be out here. Dumb. Completely ignorant. Why I’m out here on Interstate 5 walking toward San Diego with red face and blistered lips is beyond me now. I lost the reasons while I was explaining the importance to myself; somehow it all just slipped beyond the grasp of my brain.

I know only that this is where I’m supposed to be.

Perhaps San Diego will be a better place. I hear San Diego is the perfect place for a fella with no home. And when I get there, maybe I’ll get lucky and find shelter, get a job, then a fast car…

Do you like the sound of that one? I do. Truth? Who cares about the truth? I don’t want to think about the truth, that once apon a time I sold myself on the idea that lying on a park bench and begging for scraps was easier then going out and earning a paycheck. I was wrong. Sleeping on asphalt is a hell of a lot harder than flipping burgers. It doesn’t matter ’cause the truth doesn’t matter. After awhile the streets drive you crazy, and then you now you are where you belong. Just another wacked out street person, feeding off society’s leftovers.

I walk to San Diego at a fast pace, to get away from the sun and the people who spit on me and try to knock me down. “Get a job, asshole.”

“Freak. Hope you fry!” Now you’ll run me off the road. It happens. Shit happens. Hope I fry. I said that once, in a more tender time, when I believed life was all about shiny things. Be good and nothing bad will ever happen to you. Fly straight and you’ll have the best things on the block. I said that when I believed that nothing bad could happen to good people.

Poof. Right into thin air. Explain it–make all this craziness make sense. Or shove me back into the closet where no one can see or hear or smell a rotting life. You told me, all my teachers told me that life wasabout being successful, about building families and careers.

Out here in nowhere land, life is to be survived. No one told me about that. They didn’t have a lecture about that, no books or chapters. Not even a movie. No–life only ever about collecting shiny things.

Hey! What happens if you fail? What then? Teach that. Somewhere, somebody–maybe a teacher, a father or a mother–is explaining the little uglies that happen as you sail toward that bright and limitless future. My future’s bright–as bright as the godforsaken sun on my back as trudge toward a preordained end in a back alley or on the side of a darkened interstate..

Failure is the only thing I ever did well because there was nothing better to do after the sitcoms got boring and Jerry Springer got predictable. After that, there’s nothing else to do but get good at being a loser. A man needs to be successful in something. Just one thing–that’s enough for most men. It’s enough to do one thing all their lives and end up being good at it. But there’s some that are good at lots of things–they’re greedy and should be castrated. They took the one thing I could be good at and I want it back. If all of us just stuck to one thing, there would be enough for everybody. It’s only fair. Instead I got stuck with being a good loser.

I’m a bad sport now.

Hope I fry. I hoped you’d fry, but I never got that satisfaction. That’s why I’m out here walking in this inferno, why I see nothing but crazy rage.

You die today. A little piece; a very tiny piece of you sacrificed for the pleasures and promises of this day. For the shiny baubles you buy. I, too, die in much the same way. Just larger chunks. And that makes me mad. That enrages me. I am no less than you, Mr. BMW man. One is one is one is one, no matter how you dress up or what you climb into. I am no worse of a person, a human–just another creature walking around on two legs with an overly-developed brain and a greed thirst. I am more than you who spit on me and call me names because I do not hide from my rage. It is my shiny thing–my thing to hold up and admire. It is my thing to die for. Rage is so much better to die for than shiny sheets of metal and stone.

Rage justifies me. My rage gives me a name.