Photo by Joe Gardner on Unsplash
We’re traveling with our three dogs in December,
cruise control on seventy-five, three, maybe
four car-lengths behind a silver Honda Odyssey
“You’re following too close,” DeeGee says to me—
me, someone who’s been known to look
into his rearview mirror and shout,
“The jackass is driving in our trunk!”—when,
quicker than you can say Land of Lincoln,
a maroon van smacks the guardrail
just ahead of the Odyssey.
Samuel Johnson once wrote,
No weakness of the human mind
has more frequently incurred animadversion,
than the negligence with which men
overlook their own faults, however flagrant,
and the easiness with which they pardon them,
however frequently repeated. He’s right.
I have no problem pardoning my faults, one being
to criticize others for similar faults, e.g.,
following cars too close.
“The rule is, stay one car-length back
for every ten miles per hour,” DeeGee once said.
Given that our anti-lock brakes say,
“TRUNK TRUNK TRUNK TRUNK”
as we close in on the Odyssey,
she’s probably right.
*
THWACKK! THWACKK! THWACKK!
is the sound a maroon van makes
taking out three guardrail stanchions.
EEEEECKKK! UMMPPUMMPPUMMPP UMMPP
UMMPP: the sound of four tires—three skidding,
one flattening after the van rebounds off a guardrail
and spins to a stop in the westbound left lane.
Empty, thank God.
The van: a Dodge
in more ways than one.
Stopped within inches of the Odyssey,
I tell DeeGee, “Call 911!
We’re near Champaign-Urbana, mile marker
uh.”
Meanwhile, DeeGee (who’d already dialed) says,
“There’s been an accident on Interstate 74,
mile marker 194, westbound,”
as if she’d prepared for this moment.
I pull onto the snow-packed shoulder,
jump out my door and punch my key, locking
DeeGee and our dogs—Chica, Scout,
and Mr. Peabody—in our car.
*
Years ago, as I walked into a gym,
I saw my father walking toward me
through a distant doorway.
Dad doesn’t look so good, I thought.
He’s put on some weight, I animadverted,
before realizing he was me in a mirror.
“Can you give me a push?” a young man asks
as he staggers from the van, cell phone in hand,
face an airbag red. “I’m blocking traffic,” he observes
as westbound cars, vans, and semi tractor-trailers
back up from here to Indiana.
Stupid kid fool. Probably texting, I deduce,
before considering that I send texts at stoplights,
which makes me, if not foolish—
“Sure,” I say, planting my feet
and giving the van a shove.
“You’re not gonna move that thing. Tire’s flat,”
Odyssey man informs me, pointing
to the tire I knew was flat
but had not considered, until now,
unrollable.
*
You’ve seen them: ordinary people directing traffic.
This way! their hands wave.
We think we know what we’re doing!
their hands flutter.
So, when the first patrol car arrives,
I’m feeling pretty extraordinary
when a slight young man who reminds me
of Sheriff Marge Gunderson in Fargo, says,
“Good job, there.”
“No problem, officer,” I beam,
my left hand never skipping a wave, my right
hand in my front pants pocket to stay warm.
“Anyone hurt? Who’s the driver?”
Officer Marge inquires as, thanks to me,
the cars and trucks keep streaming.
Even so, some idiot to the east starts honking.
WAAHH! WAAHH! WAAHH!
“No one’s hurt!” I yell above the noise.
“The driver’s over there,” I tell the officer,
“talking to the guy by the Odyssey!”
WAAHH!
*
Another thing Samuel Johnson wrote is,
He who makes a beast of himself
gets rid of the pain of being a man.
And believe me, the honks are growing painful.
“I HEAR YOU!” I howl. “JERK!” I snap
when, not two honks later,
I see a slim, attractive woman
running down the highway toward me.
“I can’t get it to stop!”
the woman shouts. “It’s you. Mark!”
Yes, the woman is DeeGee. It seems
my warm right hand hit Panic
on the car key in my pocket.
And through it all, not once
did Chica, Scout, or Mr. Peabody bark.
Mark Williams lives in Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review , Rattle , and The American Journal of Poetry . His fiction has appeared in Drunk Monkeys , Indiana Review , fresh.ink , and the anthologies, American Fiction , The Boom Project , and Running Wild Novella Anthology, Volume 4.
