haven’t done shit but sit here for hours.”
He was pacing around in the road next to my car, pointing his finger at me. The line of traffic was that motionless, that he could do this without worrying about his own car.
“There’s people in this line that have been waiting for miles ,” he said. “You can’t just jump in the fucking line.” He’d seen me execute that little maneuver, you see, to make room for the old lady, and he’d assumed (not irrationally) that he was witnessing the final stages of my inserting myself in front of her, from the side road.
Who knew what the guy had been through in the last few days. His face was bristled with long stubble. His flannel shirt was filthy. The way he wouldn’t stop moving, it looked like he was in the desert, raving at God.
The reptilian thing that takes over at moments like that told me not to get mad, but to keep explaining what had happened. I said, “You have to listen to me, man! I’ve been in this lines for miles. Let me explain—”
Mainly he shouted over me, but each time I repeated the story—the light, the old lady—it seemed like another sentence would slip through his shield of outrage, and slowly he began to calm down. Finally he walked back to his car. At least I thought he was doing that. In reality he was going back to interrogate the old lady about me. I watched them in my rearview mirror. She was shaking her head and clearly saying the word no over and over, looking at my car and saying, no. Was that old …?
My tormenter returned. Others in their cars were watching and listening. It was embarrassing. “She says she’d never seen your car,” he said.
“What?” I turned in my seat and looked back at her with an exaggerated How could you? expression. The woman just looked scared.
The guy kept cursing. “Go back to Tennessee!” he shouted. “You got plenty of gas up there.” I didn’t live in Tennessee anymore. How did he know I once had? The license plate on the rental—I hadn’t even noticed it.
In the end I rolled up my window and blasted the music, and he melted away. There was no option, for either of us. The gas got me to more gas. But I was thinking, the whole rest of the wait, this is how it would start, the real end of the world. The others in their cars, instead of just staring, would have climbed out and joined him. It would be nobody’s fault.
GETTING DOWN TO WHAT IS REALLY REAL
It was maybe an hour before midnight at the Avalon Nightclub in Chapel Hill, and the Miz was feeling nervous. I didn’t pick up on this at the time—I mean, I couldn’t tell. To me he looked like he’s always looked, like he’s looked since his debut season, back when I first fell in love with his antics: all bright-eyed and symmetrical-faced, fed on genetically modified corn, with the swollen, hairless torso of the aspiring professional wrestler he happened to be and a smile you could spot as Midwestern American in a blimp shot of a soccer stadium. He had on a crisp, cool shirt and was sporting, in place of his old floppy bangs, a new sort-of mousse-Mohawk, just a little ridgelet of product-hardened hair emerging from his buzz cut.
In the parking lot, just past the Dumpster on which some citizen had written in white spray paint MEAT MARKET—BITCHES , a chalkboard sign told passersby that the Miz was inside, if any felt ready to party. He was whipping back gratis shots of some stuff that looked like flavored brandy and chatting with undergraduate girls, more and more of whom were edging closer and closer every minute. As he grinned and chatted with them, he looked so utterly guileless and unselfconscious as to seem incapable of nervousness. Granted, I’d already joined him and the owner, Jeremy (who was a good bro of the Miz’s), in doing some generous shots, one of which the Miz had marked with a toast that involved his trademark saying, his motto, as it were—“Be good. Be bad. Be Miz”—prompting a skinny,
He was pacing around in the road next to my car, pointing his finger at me. The line of traffic was that motionless, that he could do this without worrying about his own car.
“There’s people in this line that have been waiting for miles ,” he said. “You can’t just jump in the fucking line.” He’d seen me execute that little maneuver, you see, to make room for the old lady, and he’d assumed (not irrationally) that he was witnessing the final stages of my inserting myself in front of her, from the side road.
Who knew what the guy had been through in the last few days. His face was bristled with long stubble. His flannel shirt was filthy. The way he wouldn’t stop moving, it looked like he was in the desert, raving at God.
The reptilian thing that takes over at moments like that told me not to get mad, but to keep explaining what had happened. I said, “You have to listen to me, man! I’ve been in this lines for miles. Let me explain—”
Mainly he shouted over me, but each time I repeated the story—the light, the old lady—it seemed like another sentence would slip through his shield of outrage, and slowly he began to calm down. Finally he walked back to his car. At least I thought he was doing that. In reality he was going back to interrogate the old lady about me. I watched them in my rearview mirror. She was shaking her head and clearly saying the word no over and over, looking at my car and saying, no. Was that old …?
My tormenter returned. Others in their cars were watching and listening. It was embarrassing. “She says she’d never seen your car,” he said.
“What?” I turned in my seat and looked back at her with an exaggerated How could you? expression. The woman just looked scared.
The guy kept cursing. “Go back to Tennessee!” he shouted. “You got plenty of gas up there.” I didn’t live in Tennessee anymore. How did he know I once had? The license plate on the rental—I hadn’t even noticed it.
In the end I rolled up my window and blasted the music, and he melted away. There was no option, for either of us. The gas got me to more gas. But I was thinking, the whole rest of the wait, this is how it would start, the real end of the world. The others in their cars, instead of just staring, would have climbed out and joined him. It would be nobody’s fault.
GETTING DOWN TO WHAT IS REALLY REAL
It was maybe an hour before midnight at the Avalon Nightclub in Chapel Hill, and the Miz was feeling nervous. I didn’t pick up on this at the time—I mean, I couldn’t tell. To me he looked like he’s always looked, like he’s looked since his debut season, back when I first fell in love with his antics: all bright-eyed and symmetrical-faced, fed on genetically modified corn, with the swollen, hairless torso of the aspiring professional wrestler he happened to be and a smile you could spot as Midwestern American in a blimp shot of a soccer stadium. He had on a crisp, cool shirt and was sporting, in place of his old floppy bangs, a new sort-of mousse-Mohawk, just a little ridgelet of product-hardened hair emerging from his buzz cut.
In the parking lot, just past the Dumpster on which some citizen had written in white spray paint MEAT MARKET—BITCHES , a chalkboard sign told passersby that the Miz was inside, if any felt ready to party. He was whipping back gratis shots of some stuff that looked like flavored brandy and chatting with undergraduate girls, more and more of whom were edging closer and closer every minute. As he grinned and chatted with them, he looked so utterly guileless and unselfconscious as to seem incapable of nervousness. Granted, I’d already joined him and the owner, Jeremy (who was a good bro of the Miz’s), in doing some generous shots, one of which the Miz had marked with a toast that involved his trademark saying, his motto, as it were—“Be good. Be bad. Be Miz”—prompting a skinny,
Similar Books
