Traffic School

He couldn’t sleep. All night long the cars rumbled down North Avenue. He waited for one….rooooar, then BANG, as it hit the pothole right in front of his little pad above the Bu-D-Salon. He smashed pillows over his head but he still couldn’t stop hearing the crashing cars.

And if he did sort of manage to drift off, he saw visions from The Haight, where he’d lived with Lake, for the past five months. 

He thought of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead who had lived just across Page Street and the terrifying Hell’s Angels who hung out at The Psychedelic Shop, a couple of blocks away. 

And then came the images of long, black and angular Super Spade, the black drug dealer he had riffed with every day at Haight and Ashbury. On the very corner itself, with the endless cars cruising by, cars filled with straight people and their cameras taking pictures of the Hippies. “Hey show me the Peace sign, hippie!” And Tommy would flash him his middle finger, as the flash went off.

Yeah, old Super, the hustler. Supe and Tommy had almost become friends, “Hey, Tommy, my main man. You looking for some righteous acid?”

Tommy smiling, “Not today Supe.”

“That’s okay Tom, Catch you on the rebound, baby.” Supe with his killer smile, his large, brown nervous eyes.

Tommy twisted and turned in his bed, the sheets getting wet from his own sweat.

Why the fuck, couldn’t he ever fall asleep?

“Oh man,” he said. “Fuck it.”

He got up, put on his Levis and black t-shirt, grabbed his car keys. Outside he found his old battered Chevy, beat to shit, rusted out, the Forest Green paint now faded like the color of a dead sea.

He turned the key, and was amazed that the car started at once. Where would he go?

He drove down North Avenue, West…had some idea he would go down to the Mohawk Bar, where the Indian high iron workers hung out. The place was open all night, and was famous for its great juke box, drunken fights and stabbings.

Tommy had made pals with a couple of the Mohawks and figured he could drink himself tired.

No more pictures of Super Spade’s detached right hand, found by a Sausalito cop, in some killer’s satin wrap, stuffed in his glovebox.

Supe’s body, or what was left of it, was found in an abandoned hotel in the Fillmore, a place where meth freaks shot up.

A place called Gretta Garbo’s Hotel For Boys and Girls.

And dead black drug dealers.

Tommy was a few blocks North of the Mohawk when he saw the cop behind him, blinking red lights, siren wailing away. It was funny when you heard a random siren. Didn’t bother you at all. But when you knew the siren was calling your name, it cut through your chest, and swirled around inside you like a bullet.

He pulled his heap over, and waited for the cop to come give him a ticket.

The guy had an enormous head, which looked jammed into his helmet. His nose looked like a spud and Tommy could see the broken veins in it. Little red roads which went nowhere.

The cop talked in a monotone. They went through the usual deadening exchange.

“So you know why I pulled you over?”

“No sir?”

“You were speeding son. Doing fifty-five in a thirty mile per hour zone.”

“I’m sorry, officer. I couldn’t sleep. I felt so tired and yet…”

“Let me see your license, son, and your papers.”

This was how it always went down. Cops talking, their words like black rain hitting his face, and permeating his skin. Dripping into his soul.

He said nothing extraneous, wanting to have this over as fast as possible. He was afraid if he spoke he might say something so terrible that Potato Man might pull out his revolver and empty it into his forehead. Just to stop the words aimed at him. Words like poison arrows. His own deadly words, better unspoken.

In the end the cop told him that Tommy would have to pay a fine of 50 dollars and he would have a mark on his name when insurance time rolled around next year.

But there was an alternative. He could attend Traffic Court in a week.

There would be a lecture by Deputy Captain Edward Phillpot and a movie. You attended and your record was clean.

The cop handed him his cards back and ended his spiel by saying:

“You’re lucky, kid. One more time and you gotta pay and your insurance will hit the sky. That is if you can even find any insurance company that will take you, you fucking hippie.”

The potato laughed with a wide open mouth so that you could see the crowns on his back teeth. Then he ambled back to his car.

Tommy sat there waiting for him to leave. He had trouble getting his breath. His forearms shook with rage.

He wanted to smash something, or someone. But who?

The movie was shown in courtroom three of the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse. An old movie screen had been set up and opened in the front of the courtroom.

Tommy showed his ticket to the woman officer at the door and sat on a hard back bench as far away from the screen as possible. The place was filled with people, mainly kids, giving it a festive Saturday afternoon matinee appearance. Tommy had to laugh at how many kids had DA haircuts, long-haired greasers going for the Elvis or Gene Vincent look. It was still the '50s in deadassed Baltimore. Hippiedom hadn’t quite made it across the country yet. In fact, he pretty much thought he was the only person in the courtroom with long hair, hippie style.

He remembered what his old friend Hicks had said when he got to his downtown pad.

“Tom, you look like one of the Byrds. Great hair.”

At the time, Tommy had laughed. Hicks loved the Byrds. “Turn, Turn, Turn” was just about his favorite song but he might not have liked them so much if he had heard them live. Tommy and Lake had gone to a concert on Mt. Tamalpais so they could hear them. But it had turned bad from the start. The famous Byrd harmonies, so pristine on records, were almost non-existent, and a couple of the boys were playing the wrong chords.

Clearly, the great Byrds weren’t all that different from the much hated Monkees who admitted they had studio musicians playing on their records.

That night, headed back across the Bridge to the Haight, Tommy felt like such a sap. The great music of his generation. The young hip, honest performers. Just another hustle. He felt like a fool for even caring about it at all.

He sat down on the hard bench in the back and watched as Deputy Captain Phillpot limped to the stage. He was a dried up little prune of a man with a few strands of greasy hair plastered down on his forehead. The bright light which shone on him came from a gooseneck lamp which was mounted on the lectern. Even from the back of the room Tom could see that Deputy Captain Phillpot was wearing a thick tie with some kind of horse’s head on it. The kind that men wore in the 1940’s as they sat around bullshitting in beer parlors.

“I am Officer Phillpot of the Baltimore Police Department, Traffic Division.”

He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when half the kids in the audience began a long, guttural BOOOOOOO, which rocked the old courthouse.

Tommy didn’t join them but he did break into a huge, happy laugh. Good old Baltimore. The kids hated the cops now just as they had in his high school days six years ago. No Peace and Love here.

Phillpot grabbed his gavel and began to bang it hard on the lectern.

“That’ll be enough of that crap. I hear anyone else laughing I’ll bring ‘em up on charges.”

Everyone quieted down fast.

“Now we are going to show you a film which says it all about speeding, and the kind of trouble you can get into from uh indulging in uh it. I want all of you to keep quiet and pay attention to this movie. If you don’t I will bring you up on charges.”

“You already said that, Phil,” some guy screamed as the lights went out.

More wild and desperate laughter.

First off, Tommy figured the movie had to have been shot in about 1943. The kids were driving an old Buick convertible, two couples. The best looking boy, the one with the long greaser hair drove, but he was too busy waiting for the bottle they were all sharing to pay much attention to the highway.

“Pass me that booze,” he said, in a kind of metallic voice. Probably the mic, Tommy thought. All the old movies made people sound like robots in sci-fi movies.

The boy in the back was stocky, looked like a perfect movie sidekick. He giggled and tried to kiss the girl sitting next to him, the one with the pompadour haircut, which made her sort of look like a witch.

The real action of the story took place in the front seat where the greaser had his Luckies rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve. He smoked one, and drove wildly. His girlfriend, a blonde with her hair in a Page Boy, and a pink headband. She seemed kind of innocent and sweet but the big bottle of booze, which was crudely marked Bonded Whiskey, was making her crazed. She took a huge gulp and laughed wickedly. The girl and boy in the back seat joined her in her wild abandon.

“Go faster, Marko, faster!” she yelled, taking another huge swig.

“Faster, Marko, faster,” yelled half the kids in the audience.

There was a shot of the speedometer which did exactly as she had ordered. 50, 60, 75, 80 miles per hour.

And then a quick cut to a Speed Limit 45 sign.

And then another quick cut to a cop on an ancient cycle hiding behind a billboard which said, “Come to Laguna for Fun in the Sun.” There was a picture of another blonde throwing a beachball to Mr. Muscle-Man. Some of the audience members made weird sexual grunts at the billboard. Tommy laughed again. This was becoming fun. More fun than he had had in a long time.

He turned and looked at the little guy who sat next to him.

“Here we go,” the boy said, under his breath.

There was a quick shot of the cop and Tommy was stunned when he realized the actor who played him was none other than a really young Milburn Stone, the same guy who played Doc on Gunsmoke.

Apparently a few more people recognized him as well, as a kind of hissing went around the court room.

“It’s fucking Doc.”

“Yeah, Doc’s the cop.”

“Hahahha…Hey, Hey, Doc mutherfucker.”

“Where is Marshall Dillon, Doc?”

Doc quickly put on his helmet and roared out into the traffic in furious chase of the drunken teens.

But the wild and wasted kids didn’t want to be caught.

The dark haired, sleepy-eyed hoodlum (doing his best Robert Mitchum) behind the wheel hit the accelerator and the girls cheered him on. The blonde waved the whiskey bottle around and screamed, “Screw him!”

The atmosphere in the courtroom became wildly charged. People leaned forward to see how it would play out.

Shots of the car screaming around a bend, shots of the speedometer going higher and higher, 90, 100 miles per hour.

Shots of the cop hitting his siren as he screamed after them.

At a big intersection the car blasted right through, narrowly missing a truck carrying steel rods. The cop (played by Doc!) barely sliced through.

Doc tried to slide around the truck; he leaned so far over on his bike that his right arm almost touched the black macadam.

For a second it seemed as though Doc had escaped danger. His bike was righting itself. He was almost in control. But there was one thing he hadn’t noticed. The station wagon. An old Woody, which was alongside of him. The driver had long greasy hair. A kind of hillbilly Beatnik. The camera gave the audience what they wanted. Fear. The Woody driver trying to get into the lane. Doc’s eyes rolling around in his head in such a panic he could see nothing at all.

Could he have gotten back in his lane? Possibly, but that meant letting “The Family Man” pull ahead of him. No, that was impossible. Doc had already let the kids get a couple cars ahead. He pressed down on the pedal. The motorcycle shot forward.

A huge collision between cop and station wagon. The cop flies off the bike and sails over a parked bread truck and smashes into a lamp stanchion. The stunt work is really terrible. It’s a dummy, for Chrissakes.

The station wagon with a mom and her kids rolls on its side. But somehow the kids are okay. Mom, though, looks shaky. Still her sons pull her out.

A shot of the cop lying in the gutter, his neck at a horrible angle. Still with his helmet on but it didn’t help. He’s done, finito.

The kids cruise on. But they don’t get far. Cops in ancient cars soon box them in and they crash into a handy brick wall.

In a separate shot they are taken away in handcuffs. Both of the girls are crying. To show how sad they are, the boys' mouths hang open. They still don’t realize what they have done.

The two hundred and some kids in the courtroom know, however. They cheer, whistle, scream:

“One dead cop. Oh yeahhhhh!”

“Way to go, Doc. You asshole.”

“Fuck the heat.”

Tommy cracked up. Not so much at the dead cop, but at the idea that someone thought this would be a good teaching device for Baltimore teenagers, many of whom, from the looks of them, were already well on their way to a life of crime.

The lights came on and Deputy Chief Phillpot was again at the lectern smashing his gavel.

“You think it’s funny, huh? Well, you are all very brave in a crowd but let me hear one of you say a word to me as you leave and you will be charged!”

Much grumbling and mumbling and “Fuck Phillpot” from the crowd as they walked out.

Tommy felt a mass of energy inside himself. Sort of the way he had felt when he first went to Haight Ashbury and was sure, so sure, that there was a new world coming. He lived every day as though it were some kind of celebration.

Excitement, promise, energy…sort of like this…well no, not like this, not actually like this. This was chaos, hatred, confusion but still, wasn’t it potential? All that raw hatred of the cops, wasn’t that how all things started. What if this energy and hatred of mindless control…what if it could be harnessed… isn’t that how he had started?

(But, a voice told him, that is all over. There is nothing here at all. All of these young rebels will soon be married with kids and mortgages and all this will be is a joke they tell one another when they meet for a beer at the corner bar.)

But still…still…

As Tommy headed out of the courtroom he saw Deputy Chief Phillpot at the door. He sort of looked like a minister after his sermon, waiting for some kind words from his parishioners. There was something about that which made Tommy sick. Something that he couldn’t abide.

Was it the three or four strands of hair hanging down from his otherwise bald head? Or was it the horrible tie, the beady eyes?

He wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t just be another stupid delinquent. He wasn’t like the rest of these people. He…

“That was Doc playing the cop, Phil…” he said.

Phillpot looked up at him. His left eye twitched a little.

“Did you call me Phil, boy?”

“Yeah, that’s your name isn’t it? Or maybe it’s Philly…Your pals call you that?”

The traffic cop looked at Tommy and then grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back.

“You aren’t going anywhere, boy. You stay right here.”

“You ‘charging’ me?” Tommy said. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to say anything.

“Shut up,” Phillpot said. “You made a big mistake, son. I want you in here tomorrow morning at nine o’ clock sharp with your father. If you come alone or blow it off you will be charged and I will send officers to hunt you down. Now you show me your license and we are going to remember your name.”

He squeezed Tommy’s bicep hard and stared directly into his eyes.

Tommy tried hard but couldn’t meet his gaze.

The next morning Tommy and his father, Ron, drove from Towson down the York Road toward the city. Over the old street car tracks. His father hated driving over them. He had enough trouble keeping the car straight anyway. Now he cursed under his breath: “Fucking tracks. Why don’t they take ‘em up?”

Tommy said nothing but liked the tracks because they reminded him of the street cars, their wonderful sound as they rolled along. Instead of the horrible exhaust that blew back into the bus and always gave him a headache.

Just another thing he and his dad couldn’t agree on.

He remembered showing up at his dad’s apartment the night before he'd left town. Tommy’s mother had split, met another man at her job at the phone company. And now they were together, leaving the old man alone.

Tommy felt sorry for him, but he never had an opportunity to say so. He was off on his own travels around America, visiting friends in the South and then driving to the Haight, where all hope ended.

Maybe that was why he had spoken up, he thought. Maybe he blamed Phillpot for his own moronic sense of hope.

They turned right at 33rd, left down Charles. The row houses had larger porches here. Hopkins students and even some professors lived here. Johns Hopkins University. A school for smart boys and rich kids from other states. When he was 12 he remembered going on the campus with his cousin, Billy, one Saturday. They were allowed to be there because Billy’s mother, Betty, was a part time secretary for one of the deans. She had to go in and work for two hours and let them roam around on the lawn and down in a wilder part where the trees folded over a small stream.

What was it called? Now he remembered. The Glen. Yes, the magical Glen. Like a place you might go in a fairy tale. A beautiful place with running water and a little bridge and happy elves, and everyone got along well, and if any trouble did come up, they would all work together and solve it.

Happy elves, magical animals.

That day they had played Make Believe had been the happiest in his life.

The thought of it delighted him now, but suddenly it turned bad in his mind. Is this what he had been looking for in the Haight? A happy Make Believe world of friendly elves and magical wizards?

Taking acid, going to hear the Dead, drifting off into a nether world, so close by, he could almost touch it…

His father didn’t say a word on the entire trip downtown but as they got out of the Studebaker Ron looked at him and said:

“You keep your mouth shut in there, Mister Wiseguy. No cracks.”

Tommy only nodded. He was scared but with his dad on his side maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad.

He looked over at his dad, hoping he would look back, smile slightly or nod, give him some sign, but his father was already walking toward the courthouse, head down, almost as if Tommy wasn’t there at all.

Officer Phillpot’s office was on the second floor. Tommy wasn’t sure what he had expected, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this: a small, cluttered office with no ventilation in the back corner of the ancient building.

There was a miniscule ante room where Phillpot’s ancient secretary sat, a woman with dyed red hair and lipstick that looked like mercurochrome. It went maybe a quarter inch past the edges of her lips, which gave her the appearance of an ancient attic doll.

“Who are you?” she said to Tom’s dad.

“I am Mr. Walsh, and I am here with my son Tommy to see Officer…”

“Fine,” she said. “This way.”

She got up slowly as if every motion was killing her and rapped lightly on a filthy glass door.

“Come in,” Phillpot said.

Tommy recognized his voice at once and suddenly thought of a gravedigger he had met once at his grandfather’s funeral. Maybe that is who Phillpot really was. A gravedigger and he was digging Tommy’s grave right now. The thought, Tommy told himself, was absurd but it gave him a bone chill anyway.

Phillpot was dressed in the same suit he had worn the other night. Made from cloth that had a cheap shine to it. And another tie with a horse on it, only this one had the name under it. Native Dancer. Tommy remembered the great horse, one of the few champions to ever come out of Maryland. He had won every race he had ever run with the exception of the Kentucky Derby in 1953. Dark Star had beaten him and broke his old man’s heart. And, even though he won the Preakness and the Arlington and all of his other races afterwards, his dad never forgave him.

“What do you expect?” his dad had said. “What the hell do you expect?”

God, he hated Baltimore. Why had he come back here?

Officer Phillpott cleared his throat a couple of times and then began to speak to his old man.

“And they all laughed when the officer was killed in the traffic accident, sir. An accident caused by drunken, irresponsible teens who were out drunk and…out JOYRIDING…probably in a stolen vehicle!”

Tommy came close to losing it when Phillpott came out with that last bit. He wanted to yell out:

“There was nothing in the movie which said they had stolen a car.”

But he managed to turn his laugh into a cough.

“Then your son, him…” He stopped and pointed at Tommy, his finger almost touching Tom’s nose.

“Him…He made a nasty comment to me on the way out. A disrespectful comment. He mocked me, sir. Called me Phil…in a mocking, superior tone.”

There was a long silence then. Tommy said nothing but in his head he was picturing a little scene. It would play like this:

Silence and then his dad would step forward and say right to Officer Phillpot’s face, “I know he sounded like a wiseguy, sir. He does that sometimes. He thinks he knows more than he does. I’ve tried to work on that with him, and he has gotten better. Which is, sir, my point, I guess. You see, Tom is not a bad boy. He’s young and adventurous. He went all the way out to California to see what the hippies were about but when he realized they were not the kinds of people he was raised to be…well, he came back to his home. He intends to get a job soon, sir, and I hope you will forgive him this offense and give him a second chance. I mean, sir, we were all young and silly once, right?”

And after his father said this, or something like it, the cop would slowly nod his head and say, “I am moved by your loyalty to your son. I hope you realize what a great dad you have here Tommy.”

And Tommy would shake his hand and say:

“I am truly sorry, Officer.”

And that would be the end of it. Except when they walked out of the courthouse Tommy would feel his dad’s big, well-muscled arm encircle him in a hug.

All of this flew by in Tom’s head, like a speeded up film of football players racing for a touchdown in Movietone News.

Which made what Tommy’s father’s real voice say seem false somehow. He wasn’t saying anything like what the script said.

No, he was saying something totally different. And his voice wasn’t strong at all. Or forgiving. Or warm.

Instead it was a whiny, crybaby voice, like a snot-nosed kid talking to his brutal father.

He said:

“I don’t know what to do with him, Officer. He left school and ran off to live with these filthy hippies in Haight Ashbury. The kinds of people his mother and I always warned him about. The ones who burn the flag, and eat out of garbage cans. Then he comes back here ‘cause he’s broke and tries to weasel money out of me and his grandfather.”

Tommy felt as though someone had lashed him across the face.

“Dad, I never asked you or Pop for a cent.”

Officer Phillpot grabbed him by the arm and squeezed again.

“You shut the hell up, boy. Now!”

Tommy stared down at the filthy old rug in his office.

“He won’t listen to anyone,” his father said, almost crying as he spoke. “He’s always been this way. He has to do everything the hard way. I can’t go on with him much longer.”

Silence again as tears rolled down his father’s face. Tommy had a sudden desire to leap on him and choke him to the ground.

“Dad, that’s all lies. I finished college. I have a right to go where I want.”

Officer Phillpot looked at Tommy’s father with widened eyes.

“Maybe he needs to learn the really hard way, Mr. Walsh,” he said.

Still holding onto Tommy, Phillpot pulled him through the little office and through a big steel door Tommy hadn’t even seen.

His father, weeping, trailed behind them.

And, like magic, they were out of the little office and into a short hallway filled with cells. Tommy saw a black man stare out at him and smile. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, not at all. More like a “Welcome to Hell” smile.

They came to an empty cell. Phillpot grabbed a ring of keys he had hanging off of his belt and deftly unlocked the cell door.

“Get in there, kid,” he said.

“Why, what have I done?”

“You offended me. Plus, you have deeply hurt your kind father.”

“But…”

“Get in there, boy. You heard me, right?”

The words were surprisingly soft, and sounded somewhat self-amused.

He felt Phillpot push him gently inside the cell.

Then the Deputy Chief locked the door with a decisive click.

Tommy looked out at his father who wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Dad,” he said. “Dad, you can’t leave me here.”

His father looked up at him, tears rolling down his cheeks.

He turned and faced Phillpot.

“Do you really think this is what is best for him, sir?”

“Dad, for Chrissakes…Dad.”

“You shut up. Taking the Lord’s name in vain,” Phillpot screamed at him.

Tommy wanted to fall on his knees and beg, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Finally, Phillpot looked at his father and nodded his head.

“I recommend giving him one last chance, Mr. Walsh. One more and none after that. One more incident and we put him in this very cell and I throw away the key, sir.”

His father nodded his head, slow, sorrowful. When he finally spoke, his voice was a simpering, revolting whine.

“Well, if you think so Mr. Phillpot, then Mrs. Walsh and I will give him this one last chance, sir.”

Phillpot nodded and handed Tommy’s dad a card.

“My number is on there, sir. You call me any time. If he has even one slip, you call.”

Tommy said nothing. But he felt as though any moment he might vomit.

The Deputy Chief let him out. And stared him down.

Father and son, Tommy thought. Father and son.

But not his father and himself. No, in this little movie, Phillpot was the dad, and Weeping Ron was his whimpering son.

They drove up the York Road, past the Modern Music House, where he had worked while he was in college, selling records, The Beatles, The Stones, the Kinks…all of it new then, when there was this feeling that anything could happen.

And now he knew that anything could. But just not the way he had hoped. Instead of a revolution in consciousness there had been a new way to make money. Instead of Perry Como there were The Rolling Stones. Now he suddenly remembered liking Perry Como.

He began to sing a little:

“Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, never let it fade away.”

His father looked over at him, and gave a weak little laugh.

“That song. You used to like that song.”

He couldn’t bear to hear his father’s voice.

“You totally capitulated to that cop, dad.”

His father stopped at a light at Rodgers Forge. Tommy kept staring at him, waiting for some sounds to come out.

“That’s not true, son,” his father said. In a weak voice, like a man on his death bed. “I had to say those things or he would have kept you in jail.”

Tommy couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You practically begged him to put me in jail. You whined and acted like a baby. You fucking cried in front of that cop. You didn’t stand up for me at all.”

His father looked at him and his eyes begged forgiveness.

“I acted helpless so he could show you mercy. If I had said you were a good kid he would have had to say that you were no good, that I didn’t know what I was talking about. But when I uh…acted weak it gave him the opportunity to show you mercy.”

Tommy looked at him and saw someone new. A terrified little man. Authority of any kind made him cave. It occurred to him, then, that his dad was the kind of man who would have given up the Jews to the Nazis.

Maybe, he thought, I’m taking that too far.

So he looked at his old man again, and tried to see something else in him but he could not.

“You don’t believe a word of that shit,” Tommy said.

“No, Tom, I do. Really. Because of what I said…”

No, not possible. Tommy couldn’t hear this again. He slapped his father hard across the face.

His father shrieked a little and then began to cry again.

“Tommy,” his father said, “I have his card. I have his card and can call him at any time.”

Tommy felt strangely empowered like he never had before. He slapped his father again.

“Shut up,” he said. “You can just shut up now.”

He opened the door and got out of the car.

“Where you going, son,” his father said.

“I’ll be over later to pick up the car. Leave my keys under the mat. I don’t want to see you.”

His father looked at him with tears in his eyes.

“You’ll end up back there,” he suddenly screamed. “You’ll end up back down there in Phillpot’s jail. I’ll call him and he’ll help me. He will.”

Tommy slammed the door.

“Thanks for the ride, dad,” he said.

He went into Harry Little’s Sub Shop to use the telephone. His old friend Scott lived nearby. He looked out through the dirty window and saw his father looking in at him. His face was still red where Tommy had smacked him.

Yeah, still red, Tommy thought. But not red enough. The cowardly son of a bitch. Not nearly red enough.

He turned away from his old man, hung up the phone, and hurriedly ran out of Harry Little’s, by people waiting for the light to change. Let the assholes wait, he thought. He ran across the street, narrowly missing two turning cars. One of the drivers leaned out her window and yelled, “Red light, hippie. Even for you.”

Tom stopped on the other side of the street, and caught his father’s wet eyes looking after him. Then he turned back to the woman who had nearly hit him, and blew her a kiss.