fuck that guy...

I rolled down my windows, not to hear what the redneck in the Toyota was yelling at me, but instead so he could see me giving him the international sign for jacking off as his tantrum continued. This only seemed to enrage him more, shockingly so, and I just put my foot on the pedal and kept driving. James Brown was yelling something about a payback and I needed to listen to this instead.

A minute of two later, I came to a light. My pal in the blue Toyota was still there. Still yelling too. And pointing now.

“Pull that fucking car over you faggot!” he screamed. “I’ll kick your ass.”

I laughed.

“Fuck you, you laughing faggot!” he yelled as the light turned green. A mini-van in front of me blocked any progress, as did a tow truck in the lane to my right. This kept the Toyota and the screaming head next to me.

“Pull over, shit head. I’m going to kick your ass.”

Finally, I’d had enough. I looked over and yelled back “No thanks. Got better things to do.”

I got ahead of him, but he floored his car – producing a nice puff of black smoke from his exhaust – to catch back up to me.

“I’m going to kill you,” he yelled.

I blew a kiss this time.

Enraged, he pointed at me. I was starting to feel a little nervous now. I haven’t actually been in a real, honest to goodness fight since high school. I broke one up at a concert in Brooklyn in 2008, but that was a Lucero show, and a redhead was involved, so I had to. She ended up making out with someone else all night, and me, I got drunk. So fights and me, they don’t mix.

“I’ll pass man,” I said as loud as I cold.

“Faggot!” he screamed as he turned right down some redneck byway.

Relieved, I turned James back up. I wondered why someone would want to even fight a complete stranger on the highway. Especially one that you had just cut off. I’d almost understand if I’d cut him off. But he cut me off at 55 mph. Fuck that guy.

For some reason, that phrase, uttered out loud in frustration and nervousness brought back a memory.

One of me sitting in a Motel 6 in Gainesville, Florida. Crying my eyes out. Wondering what the fuck I was doing there. Coming up with no reason for it to have come to this. Me, balling and throwing stuff at walls, just a couple of miles away from the girl of my dreams.

She’d dumped me a little over a week before. On the phone. Without warning. With no reason.

“Love isn’t enough,” she told me.

“Why?” I asked.

She had no answer to that either. To me, it was enough. But, I know it really isn’t now. At least in that instance. Maybe in all instances. I don’t fucking know.

Anyway, sitting on that dirty, cheap carpet in Room 117 in the Motel 6 in Gainesville, Florida, I was weeping. I’d been to our house. Ours in that I was paying half of the rent and paid all of the security deposit. Almost three years I’d been doing that. Never thinking I was just funding my demise.

She was there. Her car was under the carport. The hood was still warm. Yet she didn’t answer the door when I knocked. I tried over and over.

I know she heard me pull in. My muffler on my car died just as I got into town. It was loud. It was a perfect display of my emotions. Loud. Obnoxious. Sad. Broken.

Finally, after crying on the concrete for about an hour, I wrote a note and left. Driving straight to the Motel 6 and getting a room. The same hotel we stayed at when we stayed in when we visited three years ago to look at the school and to find a place to live.

Just like the first time we did this, we couldn’t find a place at all. Looked at lots of cockroaches and shitty apartments.

I stayed positive. She didn’t. Funny how that was our dynamic.

On the last day, she was fretting moving into an apartment. I found a house in the paper. It was the last place we looked at. Instantly, it was perfect. Just like last time. Almost on the way out of town, we found a great old house. She jumped and screamed at it. I smiled. Things were good then.

We made love in the Motel 6 before leaving. Then it was 700-some miles back home.

Now, here I was in the same hotel. No sex this time.

My phone rang. I was excited. Until I heard the voice on the other line.

“Randy?” it said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“This is Amy,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. Have you spoken to Emily?”

“Yes. She called me. She’s scared.”

“Oh what? Me?”

“Yes.”

“You know I’d never do anything stupid.”

“I know. But she’s emotional.”

“And I’m not?”

“I understand, but…”

“But what? I just want to talk to her. She won’t. Not even on the phone. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

“Give her time.”

“But I’m here now.”

“It’s not the right time.”

“Well, tell her this. I need to get into the house. Get some of my things.” I was resigned to what was happening already. Maybe it was a mistake, but it happened. Right at that moment. Resignation.

Funny how it took me almost five years to finally decide to move on.

Fuck that guy.

And fuck that girl.