began trying to
nourish outrage as a screen
for apprehension
It might be called road rage.
I talk to other drivers while I drive.
I know they can’t hear but that doesn’t stop.
Think Stupid, I say as I watch other cars at intersections.
I do not suffer fools gladly.
I feel if someone is going to share my road, they share in the responsibility to preserve my life,
I wish other drivers took that responsibility a tiny teeny bit more seriously.
So I remind them.
I talk to them.
I talk then yell.
Thin Stupid, Come on!
I also expect that if someone is going to share my road, the can share in the responsibility to keep traffic moving.
And they can help themselves out a lot if only they studied up just a little before leaving on where they were going.
I talk to them.
I yell at them.
Soon I am screaming at them.
Full of outrage.
Only recently am I understanding that my outrage is a just a screen.
A screen of my own apprehension.
My apprehension over not taking my role in preserving the lives of other drivers seriously.
My apprehension over where I am going.
My apprehension that other drivers are talking to me.
My apprehension that other drivers are yelling at me.
My apprehension that other drivers at outraged.
A hero is someone who backs their car out of the driveaway know all this, and drives a car to work anyway.
*Adapted from the line, “He forced his attention away on to Welch’s habits as a car-driver, and began trying to nourish outrage as a screen for the apprehension, tapping his long brown shoe loudly on the floor and whistling It worked for five seconds or less.” from Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, London, 1956