I finished up class one afternoon last week, made the 48,000 prostrations toward the cemetery that was the nearest parking spot that day, and zoomed away in my Baywatch-era Subaru. East on 10th Ave and a right on Sierra brought me to a the Red Light. At that Red Light, my eyes perceived faint incongruous peripheral motion in my rear-view mirror. Focusing on the mirror, what I saw made my brow furrow and I think my lips may have even pursed a bit. What I saw were gestures, gesticulations in particular, being made in my direction, including the powerless middle finger and the more intimidating simultaneous double-backhand snap with full finger extension. Was this dude howling at gentle little me?

I couldn't really care less if some parrot from the meth infantry wants to cluck at Me, Mirthworm, but this guy was clearly trying to offend me, although from a pathetic safe distance within a dirty white LeSabre. He was the passenger.

In Reno, traffic lights last long enough for me to park my car at the Red Light, get out and stretch my arms and legs, and then maybe replace my wipers and pretend to smoke a cigarette. So I realize that I'm going to have to have Mister Stupid gesticulating at me for the next several minutes unless I kill him. I was in a metal mood, and there is no Gentle Metal. I got out of the car, and made the double-backhand with relaxed fingers and vertical forearms. This indicated "What the f*ck, dude?" I also said words: "Is there a problem?"

The man responded beautifully. He stormed from the big toxic Buick bucket seat like Cosmo Kramer. He stood, with his open door protecting his body like a Riot Shield. He had a hockey hat and hockey hair, and a thin goatee. He was greasy and looked like the raisin version of Kid Rock. "Yeah, I got a f*ckin' problem! You! You ran a stop sign back there and ya coulda hurt me and my mother!"

Was he seriously talking about my "rolling stop" and right turn onto Sierra? That was pretty legit in my book.

"Well, sorry," I said, exemplifying tact and grace, "if I did, then I'm sorry."

"You're from f*cking Colorado," he observes from my license plate, "well you're in RENO now! Now you have to deal with Reno."

"Yeah, we don't have stop signs in Colorado. We just drive across the open fields."

"F*ck you!" I noticed the light had turned green and other motorists were piling up and going around us. His mother was smoking heavily and shielding her eyes, her enormous white sunglasses at least, from the world. I just leaned against my car and relaxed, as though I wasn't about to go anywhere. I wanted to make him more angry. Maybe he would come over and try to kick my ass, and I would get a chance to test out my Crazy on this poor fool. He was verging on physical tantrum. I felt increasingly calm and I knew that when he rushed at me I would simply absorb him in a dynamic helix of arms and then I would simply gouge his eyeballs out of his face. He would shriek and fall to his knees. I would drive to the Nugget for one of those 32 oz./$5 margaritas and wonder what I had just done. The Red Light reappeared and then became green again.

I realized that the imp was not about to rush me. He must have smelled my Crazy from over there. Maybe he saw my pupils swirling. "All right," I said, "I guess you're not going to kick my ass." I got into the car and took off.

I went about one hundred feet to the next Red Light, of course. Hard to escape on these Reno streets. Of course the Lesabre
pulled up next to me. Without the immediate prospect of hippy-induced blindness, Hockeyhead was really screaming at me now, right across his mother. "You bitch!!" he repeated many times.

Tuning him out, I focused on his awful mother, and told her lovely her son was. "You should be proud, ma'am," I wanted to support her, it had obviously been a difficult childhood, "your son is very articulate. He's gonna go far, and probably take you there too. You have a great family!"

"F*cking bitch!" he wailed. Mother turned right, and suddenly all was silent again.

My fingers were dry, and there was no eyeball on my shirt.

Katie told me this kind of thing is common in Reno.