scantling
I crossed the intersection of two busy roads, and as I did, I saw someone coming the opposite way. I thought I recognized him, and I did that thing where you make brief eye contact then quickly look away. For some reason, I felt terribly guilty about not holding that eye contact. So I looked back, and then, the words leaving my mouth before I could register what I was doing, I asked, “Don’t I know you?”
At nearly the same time, he was asking me the same question. Our timing slightly misaligned, it made it almost impossible to register what the other had said. That is to say, I heard the words, but I couldn’t be sure, so I began to ask, “Excuse me?” or something to that effect.
But then another odd thing happened. Just as mysteriously as the first question had come, this clarifying follow-up stopped dead in my throat. Instead of guilt or shame, which had been so powerful as to stop me in the middle of the street, a kind of rage overtook me. I felt extremely angry this person had asked me the same question.
Or no, not exactly that. I was angry he didn’t wait to ask it, just as he hadn’t waited for me to say the first thing. An absurd thought, I know, because how could he have known I was intending to ask if I knew him? Further, it’s even possible he began to ask his question first. But in the moment, I was furious with him. How dare he speak over me, not once, but two times, back to back!
If he had allowed me to speak first, he wouldn’t have any need to ask me the same question, because the conversation would’ve naturally flowed from mine, providing us all the answers we each sought. But now here we both were, standing in the middle of a busy street, getting nowhere, learning nothing.
I stood directly in front of him then, blocking his path. I decided I’d wait forever for him to answer me. I refused to repeat the question or say another syllable until I received the response I felt I deserved. Nor would I allow him to walk away, as he seemed tempted to do. I mirrored his every step to get around me so perfectly, with such impeccable timing, he couldn’t advance an inch.
It occurred to me then that he was now waiting for the same thing. He’d stopped trying to get past me and was looking at me with what I imagined to be the same look I was giving him, one of absolute impatience. This just made me hate him more. Where does he get off, mimicking me like this? Who does he think he is?
Meanwhile, the light had changed and the cars decided not to wait for us any longer. We hadn’t acknowledged their asinine honking in any way, after all. I knew these geniuses would figure out they should just shut up and drive on, eventually. They certainly weren’t happy about us standing in the intersection of two busy roads. I could tell by the way they smashed their feet down onto their gas pedals, hard, causing the engines to growl and their vehicles to whip by right by us, just barely passing through the edges of our flapping shirts as if they were matador capes.
He and I continued to stare at each other, face to face, only a foot between us, even less. God, he hated me; I could tell by his eyes. He hated me as much as anyone could before doing something about it. And that was key, as I felt the exact same way just then. Even the slightest bit angrier, and I would’ve pushed him backwards into one of the oncoming cars. But my rage stalled just shy of that deadly impulse. And I gathered he felt just the same.
Meanwhile, the light had changed again and we were just as much in the way of the new set of drivers as the last. They’d watched the other lanes struggle to pass us, and I think this made them even angrier than the first batch, as they swerved even closer to us than the others had, driving even faster.
We took a short step towards one another, which did not bring us out of the path of the oncoming cars in any meaningful way. I thought for sure he’d step aside and allow me to pass, considering the danger we were both clearly in, but he didn’t. He refused to yield.
The nerve of the guy! I wanted to hit him, or shove him, or bite his face off like an angry ape. I was only inches from his stupid little face. A lover’s distance from one another, but that’s common for two people about to fight. Though maybe we did love each other in that moment, in a way. In any case, nothing existed for the two of us but the two of us in that moment. Not the revving cars getting as close as they could before making lethal contact. Not the horns bleating in our ears as they streaked by. There seemed to be so many cars too. They came from every direction, as if our hatred for one another gave the drivers permission to ignore the traffic lights.
Within minutes, cars began to pile up, t-boning and sideswiping and careening off one another, up and over the curbs. Although I did not break my hateful stare from his eyes, nor he from mine, I saw out of my periphery body parts flying from both auto and man. The scene had a slow motion quality to it, the way these parts rolled and bent, busted and splattered. People screamed — at one another, out toward the sky for help — but he and I just kept staring at each other, eyes narrowing to such an exaggerated degree that they were nearly shut, the world just a shadowy slit twisted by all the rage in us and it, the hate piling up in our skulls like the cars around us did.
Then, everything went dark and quiet, and I thought for sure we’d been struck, finally, by one of the vehicles, all of which had been pirouetting around us with the graceful elegance of dancers, even if it were only to wind up in a burning wreck a second later. But no, I’d only just closed my eyes fully.
I could still hear the wind, and it felt gentle on my face. And then, I realized, I could hear him breathing too, which had slowed, just as mine had. We were breathing together, like actors locked in an exercise to access our depths, all those feelings normally shielded by flimsy anger, which is always so ready to hand.
I began to feel other feelings then, the entire range of every feeling that was inside of me, like dazzling iridescent creatures on the sea floor. They were all swimming up to the surface now, and I felt their gradient glow wrap around me. Despite the rage that remained there, burning hotter than ever, I felt at once a gratitude toward this man who had inadvertently led to this breakthrough, one I’d been searching for in therapy for decades without ever getting close.
Then, despite knowing he was still standing directly in front of me, which I could sense by the sound of his breathing, and without opening my eyes, I decided to step forward. And I did.
I pulled my foot off the steaming, blood-streaked pavement, and swung it forward. I knew, without peeking, that he was doing the same. I felt my foot touch the earth again; I heard his do the same. Another step forward. He did the same.
I opened my eyes and turned back just as he did. Somehow, we’d made it past the other. Or through.
Our eyes locked again. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked, with a warm smile.
“Yes,” I said, “We ran into each other once. Right here, actually.”
He laughed. I did too.
Then we both turned forward, paying no mind to the carnage around us, and walked on.