The Guy in Front
A story of love lost and spectator rage
Bill and I used to date in college. We were in the same class at Boston College (Class of '77), although I got out of there a year and a half before he did. He was one of those party animals who saw college as an opportunity to be as wild as possible while getting nothing done. I was there to get a degree in computer science and little else, having come from a comfortable middle-class republican New Hampshire family with a single-minded work ethic. Bill offered me just the sort of rebellion and danger that clean-cut young women (like I was) use to scare our parents. We dated for a while, and after I became convinced that he was completely irresponsible, we broke up.
It wasn't a very contentious breakup. In fact, it was a while before Bill even noticed and even then, his drug hazed slant just said that we weren't hanging out as much as we used to. We drifted apart, and I never expected to hear from him again. Sad, because there have been times that I've missed his wildness.
I got my degree, and with it, I got myself a career in Software Engineering (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one). High pay, lots of slack in the workplace and unfortunately, completely soulless. Just the perfect thing for a person like me who was taught that you are what you achieve.
My career took me to wherever the money was, at first in the Boston area, and for the past several years, the Pacific Northwest. I spent my time out there making a ton of money for the Great Satan. If I was what I achieved, then I had become something quite considerable indeed. It's just that whenever I stopped to think about exactly what I had become, I decided that I wanted to be a little less. So I put my resume out on the net and jumped on the first reasonable sounding job I could find back in the Boston area. Yes, it was still soulless, but at least they didn't buy and sell other peoples' souls like they did at my last employer.
For the next two years, I did everything I could to firmly ensconce myself in the familiar and safe. I moved back to my old neighborhood, where I lived right after college, and resumed custom with all my old neighborhood vendors - some of whom recognized me and some didn't, but that really didn't matter. What mattered was a comfortable place to live, familiar surroundings and 40-hour weeks doing nonchallenging work for an employer who called us "people" rather than "resources." And for the most part, that's exactly what I got.
Then, sometime in the last year, the stress factor in my life notched up just a bit. I couldn't quite figure out what it was: it was as if someone had just flipped a switch. One day, I-495, the majority of my commute, was the familiar old death trap with people blasting down the left lane doing 80 or more, and people in the middle lane doing 55. The next day, it was a parking lot, and it's stayed that way ever since.
In my younger years, I used to have a little problem with what they now call "road rage." Put me in heavy traffic, and I would come completely unglued in about 10 minutes - 5 if the car wasn't air conditioned. My solution when I got out of college was to move to a slightly less populated area, so that I'd be driving on I-495 instead of Route 128. In the years that followed, road rage seemed more and more a thing of the past.
It was all just self delusion. Looking back on it now, I see that the main reason why I hadn't had this problem in years was that I'd always managed to find places to live and work where there just wasn't a lot of traffic. It's easy to be a calm driver when there's no one else on the road. Moving back to eastern Mass wasn't too bad at first, because like I said, I-495 used to move quite well.
Then, someone flipped that switch, and my commute turned into a living hell and that's when I got reacquainted with my road rage. Yes, I have matured a bit over the years. In my younger days, I used to sit on the horrendously misnamed "expressway" fuming about who or what caused the traffic jams. At first, I figured that people were just idiots blocking the road -- probably to torture me personally. When I thought about it some more, I thought that perhaps nearly everyone really did want the traffic to move faster. Most of them did, after all, seem just as upset as I was, and given even the smallest gap in traffic, would turn in a very impressive 0-60 time. I figured there must have been one or two people at the front of the line of cars who were dragging their feet. I always had a mental picture of some land yacht Cadillac with a hat, or little cotton-ball head barely poking up over the steering wheel, slowly swerving from side to side, doing about 30 MPH in a 55 MPH zone.
This sort of person certainly wasn't very hard to find, but I never did find the real culprit - the one in front of everyone who caused all those traffic jams. If I left work early, I figured I beat them onto the roads. The traffic would be dense - bumper to bumper - but still moving at a reasonable speed. If I was a little later, I figured they were already out there, and there were hundreds of cars between me and them. I just never could seem to catch them exactly as they hit the road, which is probably a very good thing, because if I had, I would have done some seriously non-nurturing things to them.
No, over the years, I realized that this was just more of my hot-headedness. I needed someone to blame for something that's essentially an inevitability with no clear culprit. Yes, I got so obsessed with traffic jams, that I spent a lot of time observing and thinking, until I finally thought I understood it. Of course, I could have come to this conclusion a lot faster had I just gone to the library and checked out a book on the subject, but my belief system always told me that figuring it out on my own made me a better person.
Well, maturity doesn't do much to address stupidity, but that's beside the point.
I figured out enough to explain it to myself. There's the few MPH slowdown you get when there's a cop on the side of the road, the almost complete stop you get from gawker's block, the huge snarls from accidents or road construction, and there's the regular traffic jams that happen for no apparent reason.
I figured that when traffic gets really dense, the cars are too close together. People get more cautious (as they should), slow down to reduce the risk, and react, or overreact, faster when someone does something. So, one guy taps his brakes, and the guy behind him stabs his brakes, and the guy behind him slows a bit more, and the whole thing ripples back through traffic until you have stop and go, for no apparent reason. I still managed to find culprits in this: the guy probably tapped his brakes because someone pulled in front of him. The guy who pulled in front of him was probably one of those impatient jerks who keep changing lanes, hoping to move up in traffic.
You'll notice that I always blame this on guys. Just a bias, that's all. I have at least one data point that says it isn't always the guys.
But, it gave me something to consider: all those times when I'd be fighting traffic, what I was doing was probably just making it worse for everyone else. I became the very culprit I was always looking for. There is no guy in front. There are just people like me.
So, my style has changed. Instead of fighting the traffic, I get into one lane, stay in it, and completely lose my temper. Not that it usually makes a heck of a lot of difference at 2 miles per hour, but woe be unto the guy who decides his life would be so much better if he goes from being one car behind me to one car in front of me. Nothing bad happens, but it's still amazing how rude I can be at 2 MPH.
More usually, I manage to contain my rage and drive fairly safely until I can get off the highway and onto neighborhood roads. No, I don't blast through the neighborhood, run red lights or do anything that would provoke the local constabulary. Not normally. I have no desire to run over the local children, and don't feel very sympathetic toward those who do. It's just that by the time I get off the highway, I'm emotionally depleted. I'm perfectly happy as long as no one else gets in my way.
Which is how I ran into Bill the other day. It'd been a particularly brutal day on 495 - 30 minutes longer than usual - and I was just getting off the southbound lane at the Westford exit. I got to the bottom of the ramp, behind some guy in a Volvo, waiting to turn right. "Proud Parent of Honor Roll Student" bumper sticker right next to "Friends don't let friends vote republican." Typical rear-bumper Volvo admonitions. I could even see an old dusty circle in the rear window where the "Baby on board" sign once hung.
I looked up and down the road, saw a big gap in traffic, looked back at the Volvo who was rolling out into the intersection. Okay, my turn. Looked out the left window, yeah, there's still room for me, pulled out to turn right and... turned to look out the front just in time to see a wall of Volvo brake lights signaling the end of my safe driver discount.
Yes, I was at fault, but as I mentioned before, I was also emotionally depleted, and the jerk did have a hole in traffic, and did look like he was going to go, so by the time we'd pulled over to the side, I'd pretty well rationalized myself into sainthood, and I was all ready to go do things to THIS ASSHOLE that'd probably land me in jail for the rest of my life.
I got out of the car and slammed my door so hard (using my foot) that it racked up another few hundred dollars of body work. He did the same. Just before things got really ugly, we recognized each other, and broke out laughing. We did a once over on our cars. He lost some taillights, but for the most part, his battering ram on wheels was unscathed. My car saw a bit more damage, but the damage to the front of the car still wasn't as bad as what I'd just done to the door. We agreed to leave the insurance companies out of it, and I'd cover everything out of pocket.
I chalked this up as one more example of the stupid things my impatience and temper can do to me. Still, meeting up with Bill again wasn't so bad. It certainly fell under the category of old and familiar, even if he had changed quite a bit.
I followed him to a really bad Mexican restaurant, and we sat around nursing margaritas (his were alcohol free), catching up on things. After I graduated, something that he never adequately explained put the fear of god into him. He stopped drinking, stopped drugging, stopped partying, and buckled down to doing real school work. He graduated, went on to law school, and has spent the time since writing contracts for some business insurance vendor.
We caught up on our personal lives, such as they were. I was still single, preferred to rent, and valued my time alone. He'd gotten married, bought a house in the suburbs, became the father of two children, and went on to get involved in coaching soccer. A year or two ago, his wife was killed in a traffic accident, and more recently, he'd moved himself and his children back to more familiar stomping grounds. It seemed that once again, we had nothing in common, except that we were both doing the same thing: clinging to the old and familiar.
We talked for a long time, reliving all those things that you really do look back on and laugh about, talking more or less passionately about what we were doing now, and talking wistfully about where we hoped to end up. We both thought it was funny about how we'd switched roles, and how if anything, I was the one from the wrong side of the tracks now. We talked so long that we closed the restaurant, and it was such a good talk that I didn't even mind that I'd missed a new episode of The West Wing. Besides, I could borrow a tape from a coworker.
Before we left, I screwed up my courage and asked him out on a date - the first official "date" I'd had in the last decade. He accepted. We agreed to meet in the parking lot of my place of work on Friday at 5:00 PM, and we'd make an evening of it.
I've got to say that I spent the next two days in a rather intense state of giddiness. I didn't get much done at work, not that anyone noticed, and for the first time in a long time, I entertained the fantasy that perhaps there was a future with this guy.
I haven't ever done very well in relationships, and this isn't the sort of thing that I blame on guys. It's usually me. They usually have some annoying trait or habit, and after a while, I decide that my life would be a whole lot simpler without them. I've always been acutely aware of all the downsides of a relationship, and never really have been able figure out how the upsides could possibly cancel them out. No, the fact that I am single and always have been is solely my fault. I'm just too impatient with people.
But, I still blame the traffic thing on guys, so they're not off the hook there.
Yes, but maybe this time it was going to be different. I mean, a girl can always hope, even if I had almost forgotten how.
I met him weak-kneed out in the parking lot, dressed as well as I could remember, and ready for just about anything. He offered to drive. In fact, he almost insisted on it, which was fine with me. I don't need too many excuses to pass up getting stuck behind the wheel in the middle of Friday evening rush-hour traffic. Drive on, MacDuff!
We spent the first few miles negotiating the restaurant (we decided to go back to "our place") and talking about how proud he was that his daughters (now in their teens) were responsible enough to look after themselves that evening. I kidded him with "what ifs" over whether they'd turn out like he did when he was that age. Things were going pretty well indeed until there was a lull in the conversation, and I noticed what was going on outside the car.
We were driving down 495, and the first thing that I noticed was that the traffic really seemed to be moving well. I mentioned as much to him. He replied that it didn't seem at all unusual to him. I expressed jealousy over his luck.
Then I looked again and noticed that the traffic was moving quite nicely in front of us, but behind us was another story. I glanced over at the speedo. He was doing 45 MPH on 495. Distracted by being on a date? I asked him.
"No, that's how fast I always go. Faster would be unsafe."
I looked around some more. I couldn't see the end of the cars behind us. Beside us were people driving by, some accelerating, some more cautiously, no doubt speculating that Bill had a good reason for driving so slowly. Maybe an obstruction in the road, a really good accident to look at, or maybe icy pavement. They'd have been wrong. There was no good reason why he was driving so slowly.
What was worse was that he was doing it in the left lane. The people in the middle lane were passing him (with predictably rude gestures), but slowly, and the people in the right lane were moving a little more quickly. Behind us, traffic was jamming up with people jockeying for good lanes.
I was impressed, albeit not in a good way. I always figured it'd take three people, one in each lane, to clog traffic like this, but he was pulling it off all by himself.
Bill noticed me watching all the people passing him. "They're breaking the law, you know, passing on the right like that."
"Well, don't you think you should get into the right lane and let them past?"
Bill shook his head, as if preparing to lecture one of his children. "No. It'd just make it easier to let them drive too fast."
Now, I know that normal rules of social conduct demand that when you're a passenger in a car, you should come down on the side of the driver, no matter how recklessly he executes his duties. You're supposed to be supportive and say things like, "Yeah, did you see how that tree just JUMPED right out in front of us? The nerve of some vegetation!" You say these things in hopes that people will do the same for you, or at least because you don't want to be dumped out of the car in the middle of the boonies and left to walk home.
Unfortunately, and this also explains why I'm still single, I've never had a lot of use for the normal rules of social conduct. Still, I tempered my words because I didn't want to screw up a potential relationship (or have to walk back to my car). "Well, who cares how fast they drive? Just let them by, and they won't be hanging onto your rear bumper like that. You'd think that they're more dangerous when they're behind you, following too close."
He smiled, not really taking his eyes off the road. "They're children. They want to drive recklessly, no matter how dangerously. Women and children could get killed, and all they care about is getting there a little faster." He gripped the wheel with renewed determination. "Someone's got to teach them how to behave responsibly."
I was having a hard time believing this. This was Bill. The guy I knew in college that used to kid that the gas pedal in his car had two positions: On and Off. The one who used to rant for hours about how there should be special driver's licenses to allow people (like him, for instance) who could drive safely at high speed, to drive faster than everyone else. Now, this Pod-Bill is driving a Volvo being the left lane bandit from hell.
I turned around to watch more. Someone darted from the left lane into the middle lane, where there wasn't quite enough space for him. The guy he cut in front of hit his brakes, as did the person behind him and so on. I watched as the braking rippled back through traffic until, about a mile back, people were coming to a complete stop. Just like I figured it happened, but with the one glaring exception.
As I thought about it, a horrible realization came over me. I tried to put some lightness back in my voice. "So, when did you say you moved back to the area?"
"Uh? Oh yeah. We lived in Florida for a long time. Then my wife was killed. The girls and I decided to move back here about a year ago."
Check. "Being a single father... I'll bet that makes keeping a regular 8-to-5 schedule at work pretty difficult."
"You can say that again. Last Thursday, I had to take the morning off for a parent-teacher conference for Lexi."
Uh huh. Last Thursday morning was the last time traffic moved smoothly all the way to work. Check. I put the seriousness back in my voice. "Look, Bill, do you have any idea what kind of traffic jam you're causing?"
"I'm just trying to put a little safety back on the road. It isn't hurting anyone." He clenched his jaw. "Besides, who are you to be lecturing me? You're the one who doesn't watch where she's going."
I slumped back into my seat. I tried to figure out how many cars were behind us. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Hundreds, thousands of people who were going to have a half an hour of each of their lives wasted, twice a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year... that works out to about 10 days a year of wasted time for each person stuck behind bill. Times a thousand people, that's about thirty wasted man-years for every year Bill will be out there trying to save people from themselves. More if it's more than a thousand people who get stuck in this traffic jam every day. That's not even counting the accidents due to road rage, to the traffic just being too dense, and it also doesn't count all the gasoline wasted on people being stuck in traffic. Smog, greenhouse gases, global warming, all sitting right there next to me.
I've often thought that all the advances in life expectancy made in the 20th century have been completely cancelled out by the amount of time spent stuck in traffic or looking for a parking spot, but I never imagined that I'd have so much of that wasted time sitting right next to me.
I thought about what I had to do. It's a good trade, helping all those people. No one will ever understand, and there's not even any point in trying to explain. True heroism is doing what's right for the most people, even when it means never getting any credit, and maybe getting cursed for it. It's doing the right thing, even when the personal consequences are high.
But there he was, the guy in front, sitting right next to me. It demanded action.
I waited for what seemed an eternity. I used the time to try to think calmly. Was I reacting to my old friend, anger? No, I felt perfectly calm. No rage, no irrationality, just cold, hard numbers. People who could be helped, even though I personally had nothing to gain and everything to lose. It was the right thing.
We eventually got to the Westford exit. As he eased the Volvo up to the stop sign, I eased my hand into my purse.
Did I mention I was from New Hampshire?
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