Velociworld

MR. TOAD'S WILD RIDE

I hate traffic. I really hate rush hour traffic. I absolutely loathe rush hour traffic in areas populated by absolute screwheads.

Case in point: some many years ago, when I lived in Savannah, where I was hatched as a young Velociraptor, I used to commute down Bay Street on my way to the ports. There is a stretch, just west of the viaduct (I don't know the name of the viaduct, or if it even has one. It is, merely, The Viaduct) at Ocean Terminal, where one traveled a busy stretch of extremely narrow four lane that proceeded past the flagship ghetto, housing project, in Savannah: Yamacraw Village.

The lowlifes in Yamacraw would raise holy hell every ten years or so about the conditions there. Now, I've seen some subpar housing in my time. Mud huts in Mexico. Thatched roof death traps in Jamaica. Hell, I've seen people carve a fucking cave in the side of the mountain in Madeira and live in that. So on a global basis, Yamacraw Village was what one would properly call Exremely Nice Subsistence Housing, compleat with government assistance. Two thirds of the earth's population would give their left nut, or their father-in-law's left nut, to live in air conditioned splendor like that. They even swept for wharf rats on a regular basis, I am told by a very reliable HVAC friend.

But the caterwauling would prevail, and the Village would be renovated on a consistent basis, only to fall into crackhouse hell within a year or two.

But I digress. Bay Street ran past the Village, and one did not care to tarry, not even for a malt liquor at the Rib Hut. But the drivers on that street, the locals, would drive the commuters insane.

Here's an example: I was heading home one afternoon, anxious to level my mood with a whiskey laced with whiskey, barrelling 45 MPH in that 45 MPH zone by the Village, when the asshole in front of me slammed on his brakes, stopped in the middle of the street. STOPPED. Put his car in park, climbed out, walked around back, and pulled something out of the trunk of his beat-to-shit Cadillac. In the middle of the damned road. Meanwhile, traffic was locking down behind me, the smell of burnt rubber thick in the southern evening.

Despite the mayhem he had engendered, this fucking pimp-assed bastard strolled back to the driver's door, eased in, and pulled away ever so slowly.

There is a reason The Bride and I called this stretch of road Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Stop lights? Optional. Right-of-way? Optional. Run you off the road? Mandatory. Stop in the middle of the road to fetch your crack stash? Mandatory.

I ended up doing three 360's in my Datsun on the Viaduct one morning on the way to work. Fucking crackhead lane-changed me into the concrete side of the 'duct. Got popped and pinged all the way down the Viaduct by cars in both directions. The only car that didn't take a hit? The crackhead, of course.

I was so shaken when I got to work I sought out one of my union clerks and had my first, and only, smoke of the rock.

The Viaduct. And the Village. I'll bet it hasn't changed a whit.