By Al Drinkle
It's hard not to write about politics these days, despite having effortlessly avoided doing so my entire life. While admitting that readers of these pages probably land all over the political spectrum, it would be hard for any of you to deny that politicians everywhere have been especially provocative as of late. But I'll resist the urge to weigh in and will instead share a story from my weekend.
I was raking up fallen leaves in my front yard on Sunday afternoon, piling them into the green bin to make for less work in the coming weeks. The café next door was bustling and it seemed that all of the neighborhood's dogs were being treated to walks in the gorgeous autumn weather. Ladybugs were everywhere, especially in the piles of leaves, relishing in the warmth and sustenance of the season but ominously seeking refuge for the inevitable cold weather ahead.
I'd moved the bin close to the sidewalk and was scooping up yet another pile of leaves when I heard a rhythmic clackity-clack growing louder. I looked up to see a young man with a buzzcut, white T-shirt and grey khakis riding a skinny plastic skateboard down the sidewalk towards me. When I was a kid in the '80s we called his embarrassing mode of transport a "banana board”, and systematically mocked anybody who rode one. As he came closer, the man noisily conjured a bilious wad of phlegm from deep within his chest and unceremoniously spat it forth. The odious gob narrowly missed both me and a lawn sign of political protest before slimily affixing itself to the green bin that I was presently filling with leaves.
“Fuck you!” I shouted. An indelicate response, I admit, and one bereft of diplomacy—but it was pure instinct, as natural as a hand recoiling from a flame.
With great effort and abject lack of elegance, the man interrupted his trajectory and stared at me. I stared back, puzzled by his expression which seemed to inhabit some sort of sleepy realm between apathy, apprehension and disdain. Did he disagree with the sentiments of my lawn sign, but missed his target? Was he trying to hit me because he simply didn't like my face? Was he reading—and taking umbrage with—my thoughts, which had just prior been a contemplation and vehement opposition to certain facets of the political climate?
“Did you just try to spit on me?” More staring as I awaited an answer to this simple question. He balanced one foot on his banana board, glaring mutely but with somewhat less conviction than one would expect given the irreverence with which he had just volleyed a revolting glob of mucus in my general direction. More considerations flashed through my head. Did I know this guy? Had I previously wronged him? Not to my knowledge, and the prospect seemed next to impossible.
The stare off continued. “What now?” I asked with genuine curiosity. He glared. I glared. Ladybugs climbed my ankle. It was like the climax of a Sergio Leone film, until the man finally turned and rode off on his stupid banana board. As he clacked down the sidewalk I examined the side of my green bin, half thinking I had been hallucinating the entire time, but there it was—a viscid wad of spit, mucilaginously clinging to the industrial plastic.
It wasn't until the next day that a satisfactory theory occurred to me. Perhaps the event had nothing to do with my lawn sign or myself, and had everything to do with the young man's personal embodiment of humanity's grandiose sense of entitlement, execrable egotism, and refusal to acknowledge that one's actions might have an adverse effect on anybody else. Perhaps from his point of view, he was simply riding his stupid banana board down the sidewalk when the desire to expel phlegmatic expectorate overcame him. That I was standing right there held no more significance than the fact that there might have been ladybugs under his wheels. If there was a young child in his path, he might have run them down too whilst launching gob, and none of it would have been the least bit personal.
When called on his actions, the man seemed more offended for being awoken from his luxurious moral slumber than I was for my property being pelted by his revolting gob. Through one vile action and his replete, almost idiotic refusal to acknowledge said action, he made a far more succinct and topical political statement than I could ever hope to do so in writing. Clackity clack, clackity clack, clackity clack…
