Wednesday, March 9, 2011

TEMPERS FUGIT

             I am well aware of the fact that I am my own worst enemy. No one is perfect, but I doubt that many people can shoot themselves in the foot as completely or poetically as I can. Chief among my self-destructive tendencies is my temper. Don’t misunderstand me. I am far from a raging lunatic who flies off the handle at the slightest provocation. I do, however, have a short list of subjects that never cease to frustrate me to the point of distraction. And every once in a while those frustrations emerge in a concentrated density that forbids me from doing the intelligent thing. This was one of those times.
            A couple of years ago my boss asked me if I would like to go to a publishing convention in New York City. Being a writer who was willing to grasp at any pathetic straw of potential, I enthusiastically responded in the affirmative. It was then that my boss informed me that my attendance would be unpaid and I would be going on my day off.
            Those circumstances were far from ideal. Motherfucker, I thought to myself. But the experience could nevertheless prove to be advantageous or, at least, educational. In order to avoid the majority of the bridge-and-tunnel morning rush, I resolved to wake up early on the morning of the convention. Once there I would take in the scene and if, after an hour or so, it proved to be a fruitless waste of my time, I would simply leave and bomb around Manhattan for the day.
            Well, you know what they say about God and plans.
            On the morning of the convention I was awoken by the sound of my phone ringing. I answered it and I heard my father’s voice say, “Are you on your way yet?” I looked at the clock and saw that I had slept through my alarm for a good hour. After saying goodbye to my father and cursing some, I casually proceeded to shower and dress. There was no way I was going to avoid the morning rush, so what was the use of hurrying? Once in my car I quickly jumped onto the Jersey Turnpike and headed north to New York. It was fairly smooth sailing until just past Trenton. That was when I ran smack-dab into a veritable parking lot. God blushed at my choice of words. The steering wheel and armrest took some physical abuse as well.
            Now at this point my car, which I had bought cheap and used, was in the frustratingly irrational habit of running for a while and then, suddenly, dying. Completely. While in motion. Yes, Virginia, I had a narcoleptic car. And right there, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, it fell asleep. Luckily I was moseying along at eight miles-per-hour and was able to coast to a stop on the shoulder.
            I promptly called Triple-A and told them that I needed a jump. Why a jump was able to slap a band-aid on an issue unrelated to the battery is beyond me, but, nevertheless, historically it had. I sat in my car on the side of the road, counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, waiting for Triple-A to arrive, chain-smoking cigarettes in a petulant huff with a rumbling thunderhead hovering over my skull.
            After an hour and change the Triple-A truck arrived. I explained to the driver the nature of the problem and asked him to jump the car. He then began to argue with me, claiming that a jump would not work. I reinforced to him my first-hand success at jumping my car. After a couple of minutes of automotive back-and-forth the driver begrudgingly jumped my car.
            And it started. I WIN!
            That was when the driver told me, not so fast, grasshopper; there’s a service charge. I was incensed at this news. This was why I joined Triple-A – so that I didn’t have to pay someone for this kind of shit. After some obscenity-laden protests, I demanded that he get his supervisor on the phone. He did and, after his expert recitation of contractual rigmarole, I realized that they had me over a barrel. I paid the truck driver, told him, “Tip? What tip?” got in my car, peeled back onto the Turnpike and – like a scene ripped from The Simpsons – slammed on my brakes after ten feet in traffic.
            For the next hour I crawled north. I watched the smog thicken, the landscape grow brown, and pillars of smoke multiply. I watched the green of the Garden State dissolve into a web of steel and stone through a red filter of fury. I trudged past the city of Elizabeth and immediately despised every woman who shared that name. I inched through Hoboken and vowed to never listen to Sinatra again. By the time I crept through the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, I would have considered its sudden collapse and my resultant tomb of concrete and Hudson River to be sweet release.
            Finally I emerged from the Tunnel onto the island of Manhattan and, with a beleaguered sigh, turned onto Third Avenue. The West Side traffic was surprisingly sparse and I made the lights for five consecutive blocks before I came to a stop at a red. Oh my god! Am I actually going to get there, I thought. Are there no more obstacles to navigate? Has the last boondoggle been foisted upon my path? Have I truly bested the minotaur and reached the center of this labyrinth? Is it really over?!
            What do you think?
            The light turned green and I calmly depressed the accelerator. Just as I was crossing the intersection, a helmet-less denim-clad douchebag on a motorcycle turned onto Third Avenue, cutting me off and forcing me to hit the brakes. All hope evaporated like cold water on a hot range. I hurled invective at the motorcyclist from inside my car, spontaneously creating new curses out of the linguistic ether. I was the Charlie Parker of profanity. There was nothing between the motorcycle and my car as we both came to a stop at the next red light, mere blocks from my final destination. I rolled down my window, stuck out my head and yelled at the douchebag, “HEY! Did you fucking see me at all when…”
            He never let me finish. He turned his head to barely look over his shoulder, held up his middle finger and yelled back, “Fuck you, Joysey!”
            I’m not sure if everyone, once antagonized past a certain threshold, arrives at a point at which they no longer care about the consequences of their actions. But I know that I do.
And at that point I redlined.
            I got out of my car, approached the guy on his bike and, just as he started to turn his head in my direction – POW!!!
            He began to fall and I turned back to my car without a word. I heard both him and his bike topple to the ground behind me. I continued to my car, still too enraged to take even the most fleeting satisfaction in my righteous outburst.
            But as I was walking to my car, I thought, That’s a long line of cars behind me. And they all have people in them. One of them might be a Good Samaritan – even if he is a New Yorker – and call the cops. And I did just assault someone, which, technically speaking, is a felony…
            Uh…
            I’m gettin’ outta here!
            I jumped in my car, made a u-turn, and sped back to the Tunnel and out of the city.
            It took me half of the drive home before I was able to laugh about the misadventure, but it took close to two years to understand what my temper may have cost me. Who’s to say what publishing figures I would have met at the convention. I might have met someone who worked at a publishing house. Someone with the ability to decide what gets published. Maybe someone who was looking for something particular. And just maybe I would have been that something. I would now be writing this story for a very different reason and with a very different moral. Who knows – I might be on my way at this point.
            But on the upside, I did get a great story about how I clocked a motherfucker in New York. 

5 comments:

  1. Not a bad piece of writing, but you really need some help with your NYC geography. 3rd Avenue is NOT the West side; maybe you ought to get your details in order before you publish yourself. Although, it is the internet and nowadays anyone with a keyboard and mouse can assume they are a legitimate writer.

    Nice try...

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  2. Mr. Eisner,

    Thank you for reading my story. Honestly, I'm grateful for any readers I get. But what did you think of the prose? Did the action escalate in an involving way? Was it funny at all and did the punchline work? That's, ultimately, what matters. Does my geographical faux pas make it a bad piece of writing? Well, I guess so - after all, it is the internet and anyone with a keyboard, a mouse, and an opinion can assume they are THE authority on everything they care to comment on.

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  3. Your prose is average and your subject matter is less than interesting. I hope you're not a professional or you may go hungry tonight.

    Hal Eisner

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  4. I don't understand, Eisner. What's with the vitriol? I'm sure that I'm not the first presence on the internet to draw your ire. But if you loathe me so vehemently, why waste your energy slamming me and my writing? Why not just ignore me? I'm not even famous or successful and the possibility of become so is extremely long. I can't possibly pose a threat to you. What exactly do you get out of this? I honestly would like an answer, but I know you don't have one. So go ahead - bring on the snarky venom you would never have the balls to say to my face.

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  5. What can I say about your writing that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan?

    Mr. Eisner

    ReplyDelete