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Seventh Ward Gargoyles 7.26.99
Sitting there in another movie (thirteenth floor) which suggests man is nothing more than electric impulses created not by an all-wonderful god but rather by another computer genius, who himself has been created by a computer genius; the trick being not to let any of the inhabitants of your simulated worlds find out they are all plugged in, and I'm thinking, well, maybe I am a moron.
Driving on Esplanade toward City Park with Hunter in the front seat, Michael, Shelton, and Lance in the back seat, and I make a right turn roll through the red light at Broad, thinking, for just that fraction of a second, that I may be able to make a most challenging U-turn, and in doing so make it to Lake Placid (not NY) by 12:30, but I see the big-headed white woman in the left lane barrelling down Broad in her Dodge Ram, so I pull harder to the right, keeping myself inside the confines of the right lane, posing no threat whatsoever to the old grey-headed black man crawling along in the right lane of Broad in his '69 Chevy, and although I can really sense that I have caused the big-headed white woman to have that exhilarating sinking-right-down-to-your-sphincter feeling, for me, and I dare say, for everyone else, including the police cruiser right on the big-headed woman's tail, this was a very ordinary traffic maneuver for this vicinity, crossing as we were, the line separating the sixth and seventh wards of New Orleans.
Committed to the cause of acquiring new bad habits to fill the huge gap left from giving up cigarettes, I have been talking to people at stop lights, and sometimes while moving, if there seems to be an urgency to the message. If you just let them, people will often tell you how they really feel, ie., "mthrfkr, you almost ran into me," that sort of thing, so when I arrived at the next intersection I knew the big-headed white woman in her Dodge Ram would want to discuss that most harrowing experience she just went through, and I wanted to be there for her.
The old man in the Chevy was still behind me, and the cop was still behind the big headed woman. I looked over and up into the cab of her Dodge Ram, took a deep breath, and rolled down my window. Her passenger-side window was coming down at the same time.
"You moron," she said, "you ran that red light." I would say it was more a right on red California roll, but I'm not getting into technicalities in this situation. I responded in a tone of voice that could almost be mistaken for genuine caring, and said, "Did I hit you?" She said, "No, but you almost did." I gave her a smirk and barked, "Almost!!!" What a worthless concept, don't get me started. At the same time she appears to be getting out of her truck, possibly to come over and kick my skinny ass, or possibly to get assistance from the cops (smirk), I looked up and saw the light turn green and pulled away normal as could be, but everyone else just stayed there. When I made the first right turn, into the heart of the Seventh Ward, I looked into my rear view mirror and saw the big-headed lady, and the police cruiser, cruise on by.
At the stop sign at Dorgenois Lance made me turn around and look at him. "Look Mr. Jim, look, while you was talking, I was doing this to her," and he screws up his face into that of a hideous gargoyle and sticks his tongue out. Always travel with backup.