Brutus

     We call him Brutus.  But only when he's behind the wheel.

     His driving motto is "close the gaps!" It's also his driving dream, that someday all cars on all highways will uniformly exceed all posted speed limits while tailgating each other so closely we can all read those bumper stickers and license plate frames that tell us we're too close.

     Every day he does his part to realize his dream.  The problem is, he's the only one.

     That's why I hate driving with him.  He's yelling "close the gaps," punctuating it with horn blasts, expletives and shaken fists, wildly speeding up then slowing down then lurching forward to close another gap, his tires squealing his brakes screeching his shocks jolting while I'm sucking air, averting my eyes, grabbing the seat and assuming the crash position while playing and replaying scenes from my own snuff film in my head, "Blood on the Highway" starring yours truly.

     He wasn't always this way.  He was the first in my group of high school friends to obtain both a driver's license and a car, a creaky Chevette one of his sisters dumped on him when she left for college. He'd sit erect, hands at ten and two, looking left then right then left again, the Vehicle Code implanted in his head, his every move calculated to preserve his driving privileges and his car.

     Then he got a summer job as a messenger, driving urgent envelopes throughout the city, his pay per delivery.  In those conditions, it didn't take long for Brutus to take over.  I remember my first and only ride-along with messenger Brutus, a Slurpee in one of his hands, a Thomas Bros. map book in the other, the envelope propped against the steering wheel, his shoulder cradling one of those original shoe-box sized cell phones against his ear while his left knee at six steered us back and forth along Wilshire Boulevard at 50.

     That summer I too had a job that required me to drive, a job that also rewarded speed, but there the similarity ended.  I delivered The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, relatively unpopular papers in Los Angeles, so my route was huge, sometimes a mile or two between deliveries.  I'd pick up my small stacks at 1:00 am and was done for the night when I threw the last paper.  The main challenges were to stay awake and to avoid hitting parked cars as I slalomed through the deserted streets.

     I quickly made a game of it, initially trying to complete the route by a certain time and then, as I got better, working each night to shave precious minutes off my delivery time.  I constantly refined my route and my folding and bagging routine, always striving to streamline, my self-administered time-and-motion studies eliminating all unnecessary movements and deviations that would bump me off the one true path. My route initially took me seven hours.  After a few months of continual incremental improvement I could do it in four.

     His job awakened his inner Brutus, mine stirred my inner power weaver.  Both are still with us, though it’s been over 20 years since we worked those jobs. 

     Brutus plants himself in the fast lane and powers straight through, flashing his brights and blasting his horn to clear away slow-moving obstacles.  I weave back and forth, very super G, never expecting anyone to move for me.  Brutus must be noticed, I try to be invisible.  Brutus expects the best from others, and is crushed when they slow him down.  I expect the worst and am elated when by weaving I evade them.  Brutus just wants to get there now, I often prefer the driving to the arriving. 

     I’m beginning to think our summer jobs had very little to do with our driving styles.

     Related posts: "Power Weave" (Nov. 18, 2004) and "The Dexterous Power Weaver" (Nov. 22, 2004).

Comments

[DarkoV]

I vision you and Brutus on a ski slope.
He, the Herman Maier, bulldozing down the runs terminating all in front.
You, the J.C. Killy, legs glued together, seemlessly averting all obstacles.

Two effective styles. Just a matter of inviolteness; minimal/maximal.

[R J Keefe]

Thank you for this day's reminder to give thanks for being Carless in Manhattan.

And that I don't have to think about being tailgated. It's the worst!

[Sarsparilla]

They say each of us has a driving character, a personality quite distinct from the everyday 'me'.
I think possibly we all contain several characters, each recognisable, describably, with its own set of characteristic behaviours: an online personality, for sure. A sexual character, probably. A queueing character, perhaps.

Driving, surfing, sex and queueing. Oh cripes, the lack of contrasts in that line are depressing me now.