i get flipped off a lot.

it’s actually a big problem. i do stupid things when i’m driving. i get really angry, really easily, and sometimes it makes me do pointless and dangerous things.

a few years ago, i was driving in the left lane of a one-way, two-lane street near campus and the right lane was closed ahead. most of the other drivers were content taking turns merging into the open lane, but the man behind the darkened windows of the enormous black escalade on my right decided to try to squeeze in ahead of me. i tried to force him out by sticking really close to the car in front, but he managed to get halfway into my lane.

logic would dictate that, when driving in west philadelphia, one should avoid escalating confrontations with other drivers over trivial matters, particularly the drivers of extremely large, intimidating vehicles with windows dark enough to conceal everything inside. but he took MY TURN, and i was pissed, and i was going to take it back.

so i created my own lane out of the remaining half of the left side of 34th street and several feet of sidewalk and maneuvered back into my rightful place in the zipper formation. i outsqueezed the squeezer. i was proud.

five seconds later, i reached the red light ahead.

i’m not sure which shocked me more: the terrifyingly large man climbing out of the driver’s side door of the suv that now dominated my rear-view mirror and rushing towards me, or the fact that i was genuinely pleased that i had beaten him badly enough that he was ready to factor the vehicles out of the fight. am i really that much of an asshole? i spent an exhilarating few seconds enjoying my victory.

but all that ended when he reached my window and began punching the glass, menacingly but not hard enough to break it, and informing me and everyone else within thirty or forty feet that i was about to get my motherfucking ass kicked. mustering all of my wit and bravado, i cracked open the window, and said: “um.”

then the light changed and i sped off.

i make a lot of these short-lived enemies while i’m driving. it’s not that i’m a bad driver; i don’t do things that could harm other people. but i do take pride in identifying assholes on the road and, just for a moment, in the most impersonal way possible, making them hate me — or rather, making them hate a faceless and nameless entity wrapped in a white ‘04 buick. it’s a thrill i don’t often find elsewhere.

some of my most intense and most satisfying relationships take place on the road.

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it works in both directions.

i saw you following me, all the way from youngstown to somewhere between cleveland and toledo. normally i get sort of irritated when people try to stay right behind me for long stretches of time — usually they just want to drive as fast as me (very fast) without risking getting pulled over — but i wasn’t speeding when you came around the really loud moving van and tucked in comfortably behind me.

you stayed with me when i had to accelerate a little to get around the guy with the outdated political stickers all over the back of his car, and again when those two asshats who were clearly racing each other passed us on both sides and the one on the right tried to cut across three lanes in front of me but had to hit his brakes. it was like i was driving for us both. all the traffic and every obstacle and construction zone — we were friends and allies in a very hostile environment, and we stuck together.

i looked forward to what would take place when we inevitably stopped for gas together. we’d pull up to opposite sides of the same pump, coyly half-avoiding each other at first but finding excuses to peek around the corner. you’d be wearing a broken social scene t-shirt; i’d compliment it, wondering if you could possibly have heard the song i’d been playing at high volume, over and over for the last hour. you’d ask if i’ve heard that they’ve started recording a new album (i have), and why it is that canada comes up with great supergroups like bss and the new pornographers while the states churn out acts like tinted windows (a band of decent pedigree, but inexplicably fronted by taylor fucking hanson). i would laugh.

but we wouldn’t talk for long. i wouldn’t ask your name, and you wouldn’t volunteer it. our place is on the road.

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instead, as we neared toledo, i passed those two cars on the right, knowing perfectly well that there was no space for you to merge in behind me. maybe i was tired of being happy with the flow of traffic, tired of the speed limit, tired of you. maybe i need to fly past people on all sides, alone and angry and free. contentment is so much more comfortable than happiness.

i always fuck these things up.

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you know it’s time…