Automobile Epiphany:

New York, NY - Peter - Wednesday, June 26th, 2002 : goo

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I surrender my faded voucher, a stub stamped in violet, 6:50 am. The clerk reluctantly torquing the key, hefting the wheel, growling the engine up the ramp to where I stand, I see the car, covered with dust, appear; tire and brake-shoe dust, city dust, headlights dimming as he accellerates, cement squeaky under the matte tire-treads. We swap places, and from behind the wheel I see handprints on the outside of my windshield. I'm waddling through the delivery trucks, double-parkers on the cross-streets, service vans and carpools, piloting my rusty sedan towards 5th Avenue, southbound. The spedometer needle waffles as I slowly accellerate to speed, and its a surprisingly smooth ride, nay a few pot-holes, bumps, pits and pedestrians; scattered gravel, barricades saying Police Line, do not cross. I dodge a biker, a courier, horn feebly balking like an aged sheep, a city bus, and scores of taxi-cabs, glaring by in yellow as if an electrical sunset had choked the congested intersections and crosswalks. Horns. An acapella aurora of sorts.

Pedestrians step from the curb, inch into the roads edge where people curb their pets, further into the face of traffic, holding a hand aloft, gazing uptown. Every gridded block, every corner, they're waving to me, anticipating, holding their hands high as I pass, hundreds of hopeful, beackoning people looking at the cool blue of my vehicle as I swerve by. They see me pass. They hear the music slip out of my radio, they hear my clutch whir and my hand crank another gear around, they see my tires slip over the man-hole covers, and they hold their hands high, higher towards me.

They're hailing cabs.

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