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Life, actually…

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WHITE KNUCKLES

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Mac McMack leans over sideways in the Yelloworange Traffic Threader, his right elbow indenting the moveable armrest, his left arm, attached to the steering wheel,  making little jerking motions as he weaves through traffic.

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Mac McMack calls out his thoughts to no-one in particular.

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“Damn Cadillacs take up most of the road,” he grumbles, as I, sitting in the back seat, scrunch my shoulder blades together hoping to magically decrease the width of the cab so that it won’t lodge between the passing Caddie on the left and a parked car on the right.

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Mac puffs heartily on a cigarette while I cough and search frantically for the seat belts he has long ago surgically removed.

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“Damn old people complain about a $2.45 fare to take ‘em six blocks,” he says in response to an undecipherable call on the two-way.

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“They don’t understand what it costs to drive one. Spent $157.00 for brakes last week.”

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There is a brief pause while he ponders his observation.

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He thuds through one of the town’s obligatory potholes.

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” Hmmph!” he finally says.

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Mac McMack’s sandy 1950′s ducktail hairdo is about the only neatly-kept part of his being, and he is cutting corners—indeed, driving over curbs—to get where he is taking me.

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The muffler bangs rhythmically on the underside of the cab. Mac starts blowing his horn at a red car that is leaking over into his lane. He never seems to see anything more than half a block ahead—so, unloading-trucks and stalled vehicles immediately cause the cab to stop and Mac to start cussing again.

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He pulls up into a handicapped space at the Post Office so that I can pick up mail. I hurry in, wondering whether my Iranian carpetbag will still be waiting for me when I return.

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Somehow we arrive at the bookshop, I give Mac McMack a tip in gratitude for my life. I quickly get out of his way.

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Last I see of him, he is weaving across three lanes in his Yelloworange Traffic Threader, cursing the universe and all its purposeful obstacles.

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How I wish at this moment that I could return to my hometown as a child, getting on a bus to go downtown, a bus driven by somebody I actually know and feel safe around.

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I kind of wish that Mac McMack could also remember how nice it was at one time in his life to be quietly and politely shuttled around in a yesteryear small town where people who don’t necessarily always like each other at least act neighborly towards each other.

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Because after all they would be crossing each others’ paths for the rest of their lives

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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