These Impotent Fisticuffs

Today, a person was riding my bumper so close on my way to Albertsons that they were almost hitting me for blocks, zigging in and out behind me in the left lane into the left turn lane, scowling, staring me down, hunching over their wheel, all the nonsense, as traffic moved slow but steady in front of us. I don't mean tailgating with feet to spare; I mean tailgating with inches to spare.

When I braked and hard at a red light, the tailgater became even more enraged and got out of their car behind me, looming and yelling out there. They got back in their car, moved into the right lane next to me, positioning their car very close to my passenger side and so I couldn't read either of their plates, jumped out of their car fists balled, and began punching and punching and punching and punching and punching my passenger side window.

I honked the horn, pressing my palm hard down on the center of my steering wheel, a few shock seconds of regressing to my grandfather’s car, the Oldsmobile, the tank, the booming proud trumpet of a horn, only to hear beeps instead. I moved over a bit into the left turn lane to create space between us. Once again I had nowhere else to go with a car right in front of me. The nearest open left turn was long blocks up Virgil. There was no one approaching behind us, no sign of a potential human being in front of us. 

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