Member-only story
Lady in the Way
The driver’s horn blasts a millisecond before I sense the thump of bumpers.
A pop-up detour traps me on a city street; the way out blocked by a semi-truck unloading, the trucker unimpressed by the urgency of my schedule. Can’t move forward. Can’t move left or right. Must reverse slowly.
The driver’s horn blasts a millisecond before I sense the thump of bumpers — a tremble really. Between yoga breaths, I retrieve my insurance card. I will apologize. The driver will forgive. We will exchange information and move on. We might even commiserate, “Don’t these street repairs make you crazy?”
The man waiting behind my car is well-groomed and wearing a white polo shirt. He is dressed like those men with the tiki torches in Charlottesville protesting the removal of Confederate monuments. I approach him, insurance card-in-hand, and apologize for not looking carefully before I reversed.
“What the fuck, lady?”
“Excuse me?” I say. “Is this how you talk to women?”
“I just hate it when people do stupid things,” he says.
I should heed the warning. I should ignore his remark, exchange information, snap a photo of the scratch on his bumper, and climb back into my VW. But my nature is to fight rather than flee.
