Yesterday I left work raging about some hourly legal messenger bullshit that in the grand scheme of things isn’t worth my efforts, but at the time I was radiating negative energy like a pissed-off tuning fork, which explains why I attracted an asshole road rager. Riding the same route home for years I know the traffic, I know the lights, I know the bus drivers. So I’m rolling up Olive and a black Honda lays on the horn. Not a little tap, but a long sustained honking horn. Traffic is relatively light and there are red lights ahead for the next five blocks so I’m thinking what the hell is this asshole honking at. So I say, “go ahead buddy get up to that red light”. Then I pass him at the light. I pass him at the next red too and the next. Then at the corner of Olive and Boren I sit on my top tube and wait for the light. Mr. Asshole is a couple cars back and he gets out of his car and walks up to me and says “If I ran you over, that wouldn’t be so funny would it”. and I said “what? What the fuck are you honking at dude? Am I slowing you down? You want to get those red lights a little faster? Oh, hey look it’s a green light” and I rode away, on up Olive. He soon passed me with a gas guzzling engine rev, then got bogged down in traffic again. I waved to him and passed him again. Then at the light at Bellevue he turned. But I would have passed him three more times up Olive Way if he stayed on my line.
So I went home. Took a shower. Changed my clothes. Switched messenger bags. Switched bikes and was riding back downtown to attend a Grinnell College function. But as I was coasting down Pike Street I saw Mr. Asshole Honda waiting to turn off 10th Avenue onto Pike. I did a double take and he flipped me off.
Which makes me wonder if he just hates cyclists and didn’t recognize me, without my hat on, and in completely different clothing, wearing a different bag, riding a different bike. Or if he did recognize me and was still pissed. Maybe he remembered and recognized some distinctive markings on my arms from all those times I waved to him riding by him while he sat in traffic.
This scene is repeated daily throughout the bike universe. Most days I don’t even notice these assholes. But yesterday I was sending out energy waves that attracted bullshit. Anyhow, flowing through traffic jams often reminds me of a poem from the zine
VJER #9, May 1997
Cyclist’s Curse
By Zero
You don’t know how sad you are
Sitting there in your Jaguar
Come on then & run me over
If you think you’re hard in your shiny Rover
Come and give me the old double fuck you
In your big bad B. M. double fuck U.
But even if the fire in Hades ends
I’ll see you burn in your Mercedes Benz
Add Comment