SoMa Literary Review

Traffic

By Kat Meads

At 8:36 a.m., Roberta McNamara, caught in the stop/go stop/go nerve test of the Fremont/Milpitas I-880 corridor, deliberately, spitefully and gleefully failed to apply the brakes of her Audi in order to rear-end the newer model Audi directly ahead. The object of her road pique appeared to be (from behind) a full-head-of-hair fellow, casually dressed (at least from the shoulders up). His left hand clutched a cell phone, his right a shiny container of (probably) coffee (but maybe Red Bull)—which proved, in either case, that he'd been steering with his knees, didn't it?

An insurance no-no, that bumper smack, but someone needed to remind the arrogant HE DIDN'T SOLO INHABIT THE UNIVERSE, a little highway courtesy extended to his fellow WE DON'T WANT TO BE HERE EITHER commuters would be appreciated and, by the by, THOSE WHO PERSIST IN STOPPING SHORT DESERVE payback in kind.

Neck jerk, head snap, and telecommunications interruption—those satisfying reactions Roberta could verify from inside the aggressor car. She fervently hoped there had been a staining splash and spill as well. When her vic recovered enough to glare into his rearview mirror, Roberta countered with a wide-eyed, totally bogus OH NO! expression, complete with cheek-cupping, while her foot jiggled over the gas pedal, the mind controlling that foot wondering if it could get away with a second bumper tap "in the confusion."

Reactions less satisfying: the guy opened the door and GOT OUT, traffic in every lane besides their own once again lurching forward.

No creature that valued its life abandoned the relative safety of a car on Interstate 880 to confront or retrieve ANYTHING.

Drugs, estate jewels, $4000 mountain bikes. Whatever got flung or fell by the wayside got left to tire and fender pulverizations. Established fact: paramedics working 880 took out extra disability insurance.

He'd ditched the shiny container but not the cell phone. With it, he tapped on her rolled up window.

Horns bellowed, middle fingers waved, the collar of his indeed casual polo shirt fluttered from cruise-by gusts.

She turned her head.

The tapping persisted.

She pretended to busy herself, rifling through purse and briefcase.

He tapped harder.

So she shifted into reverse and damn if he didn't sprint, SPRINT! toward the back of her car, as if flesh (190 pounds, stripped naked, she estimated) could halt metal propelled by an internal combustion engine.

Was the man thoroughly INSANE?

When she popped the clutch, he leapt, actually LEAPT!, onto the trunk and hung there, spread-eagle, his cell phone sacrificed for better traction, a freeform sculpture of auto and man.

Even as Roberta thought the thought (and not with glee), they were being reported, other cell phones dialing CHP headquarters and the local news stations. On the very next ten-minute traffic and weather update, she, the clinging man and two Audis would officially become a "blockage in the far left lane," soon to be hovered over by competing traffic choppers.

8:43 a.m. Naughty Roberta, late for work again.

Kat Meads is the author of The Invented Life of Kitty Duncan, Sleep, Born Southern and Restless, Not Waving and other books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a California Artist Fellowship, two Silicon Valley Arts Council grants, a Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown residency, the Chelsea award for fiction and the New Letters award for essay. Her short plays have been produced in New York and Los Angeles. Most recently, her essay, "Fighting the Temptation to Fictionalize Marina Oswald" received the Editor's Choice Award for nonfiction in Drunken Boat's Panliterary competition. She coordinates the writing program at UCSC Extension. www.katmeads.com