This one just got rejected–I see why. I rushed it too much to make a deadline. I’ll rework it down the road. Tell me, in the comments below, what you would fix.
Just as the blast of her horn ended, a truck sped past his front bumper pushing a wave of air that jolted the car. Fury tingled in his head and tunneled his vision into a point focused on his rear view mirror, and he watched as she gestured. Her mouth danced as she screamed at him from behind, and he saw a curl of hair flop in front of her eye, unable to resist the violent thrashing of her head and neck as she hollered. She wasn’t going to stop. Before he knew what he was doing, the gear shift had been jammed into “P,” the door was opened, and he was out of the car walking back along the roadway toward her.
v v v
What is this idiot doing? Why is he just sitting there? You can turn right on red these days, grandpa. “Let’s move it,” she said under her breath as she glanced at the clock on the car’s radio. Late again. She tapped the steering wheel in her impatience, slapped it really, like a drum.
A moment came when he could have charged his blue Chevy into the river of passing cars, but he didn’t.
“Come on!” She could see that his gray head was pointed down the road studying the cars and trucks as they approached. Why didn’t he go? “Go!” she said, louder than before. She eased her foot off the brake just enough to let the car inch forward, a signal to him that she was tired of waiting.
Another gap in the traffic, but he still didn’t move.
“Jesus Christ!” She yelled this time. “Are you gonna sit there all day, dumbass?” She turned the wheel hard to the left and craned her neck to see if there was space to pull around him. “Shit!” she complained as a plumber’s van pulled up beside her.
Another chance to dash into the procession. His brake lights glowed, unwavering, red.
“Son of a bitch!” She pounded both hands into the center of the steering wheel, forced it down with all her strength to release her frustration on the weird H logo there and to let the horn yell in its angry goose voice while she screamed insults and slurs that he couldn’t hear but that seemed to her like revenge.
She let the horn go only when traffic began streaming in front of him again.
v v v
The anger was in his eyes and neck, heavy, black tar smothering fear and timidness and civility and granting him permission to do things that he normally wouldn’t do. Savagery replaced everything. He wouldn’t accept this kind of abuse any more. It was the last time he was going to be the one who didn’t react. He was going to cause trouble, make destruction, draw blood and settle the score not just with her but with every jerk who had ever used their insulting horns, their vulgar hand signals or their false security in the driver’s seat against him. Parking his car on a road and blocking traffic was the first offense his outrage allowed him. There would be others. He wanted there to be others. But when he unfolded himself from his seat and turned toward her, when she got a look at him, her complaining stopped and her face changed. Softened. Became like the face of his big yellow dog during a thunderstorm, begging for the chance to be safe, pleading that the threat and the danger should go away.
v v v
“Oh, shit. He got out of the car” she said out loud while her mind raced over the details of this man who now was walking toward her. He was huge, both tall and wide, and she could see anger shooting out of his eyes and into her. He was locked on her face. His massive hands were clenched into fists, and he walked toward her in strides that seemed superhuman. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she heard herself repeating. She purposefully mouthed the words, exaggerating the sounds’ shapes with her lips and tongue, so that he would see that she was saying it, so that he would know that she understood her error, so that he would accept that she wished she hadn’t done it. She felt the urge to cry rising into her throat and her face, thought for a moment that if she let it come, it would help. But he was beside her now, looking down, making her self-conscious. She instinctively clamped her knees together.
v v v
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He could see her mouthing the words through the windshield and then through the driver’s window as he moved beside it. She pressed her hands together in her pleading, a pantomime prayer. Rage still ruled him. He stood looking down at her, disgusted by her sudden transformation from banshee to saint. He wanted her to pay for what she had done and for how she tried to hide it, how she worked to erase it only because he had moved close enough to do her damage. This thirty-something woman with her beat up Hyundai and too short skirt needed to remember him and what she had done to him. He rolled his right index finger in slow, tight circles, demanding that she roll down the window.
v v v
The thoughts flooded through her in a panic—why is he just standing there? What’s he gonna do? Oh God, he wants me to roll down the window. I can’t do that. It’s the only thing between us. I can’t do it! But what if he breaks it? That would be worse.
Almost involuntarily, her hand rolled the silvery crank so that the window opened a couple of inches, inviting sound to enter but nothing else.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said in a voice that surprised her with its calmness. She noticed for the first time his precisely pressed shirt and neatly knotted tie. “Treating people like that is rude. I don’t deserve that, and neither does anyone else. And it’s dangerous. What if I had pulled in front of that truck?”
“I know. God, I know. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m late for work and wasn’t thinking.” She looked directly into his eyes. “I am so sorry.”
“And what if I had been some kind of psycho that came back here with a gun? What then?”
“You’re right, you’re right. It was stupid. I know that. It’s just that I can’t be late again or I’ll get fired.” A tear rolled out of the corner of each eye, and a raspy sob escaped her throat in a gasp. “I really am sorry. I swear to God.”
Without another word, he walked back to his car, climbed in, closed the door, and pulled away into traffic.
v v v
That’s it she thought, he’s leaving. She noticed that her fingers trembled as she reached for a tissue to dab at the moisture in the corners of her eyes. “Holy shit” she burbled as the last of the crying faded away. Her sinuses demanded a quick double snort to clear away the remains of her fear. “That was crazy.” She rolled up her window, chuckled to herself in disbelief, and watched as he calmly pulled around the corner and into traffic.
“What an asshole,” she said as she checked her makeup in the rearview mirror.
Thought this was a very accurate story about certain types of (bitchy) women and (business type?) of men. But not all women. Some are very mature and pleasant. I respect men but it was on the line of going a tad too far into belittling of women territory. Men don’t treat me that way but I still don’t like them doing it to other ladies even if it may be somewhat deserved. I find it amazing how accurate you pictured this type of woman-she reminds me of someone who invites abuse. Someone who doesn’t know how to stop. But men I don’t respect are the ones who end up doing the abuse I feel this man wanted to do, and if married to her might have someday? Gentlemen should instead not marry these women who are happiest as single cat ladies who can lecture their cats and be their queen. They want to live alone even if it means leaving their husband when he leaves because she called him a jerk one too many times, which is why I find it accurate when it’s the last thing she says in your story along with the laughing it off because women like that never learn and like I said invite abuse by their repeated bad provocative disrespectful behavior. When caught they fake cry so much they think everyone else does the same when they don’t.
Thanks Rachel. Great comments! You’re right about who both of the characters are–I had hoped that the fact that his menacing her was useless in the end described my feeling toward him, as a fool, but I think that idea needs more emphasis.