“They placed a wreath upon his door” – George Jones
I figured out the mystery behind why old men cry: They’re closer to death. It isn’t some blood-brain barrier between machismo and sentimentality and is much simpler and less interesting. Like in “Sling Blade” when Billy Bob Thornton is dubbed some kind of savant for having an uncanny knack to diagnose the problem with lawnmower engines. “Needs gasoline!” he replies in his “mmmm, biscuits” drawl and they all marvel. Were it not for blasphemy, the phrase “it’s not rocket science” would line the Bible like old bookmarks. We need to attach mystery and gravitas to blur the underlying, stark reality. Your days are numbered; so are mine.
This may or may not have been running through my addled brain driving back from Tahoe on Interstate 80 some years back. I was returning from an overnight stay at our family cabin where a bear had broken down the front door. This was during a difficult stretch of years when I’d given up living in New York City to care for my dying parents. Somewhat predictably and not unlike old lawnmower engines, they both gave out at the same time. But I don’t like to think about it too much as it’s coming for me, too. I had leased a fancy new white Mercedes to “do something for myself” amidst the ongoing chaos. It was a mistake; the growl it made in “Sport Mode” was thin compensation for getting called “bitch” by other guys on the road. One such dude happened to be behind me, riding my bumper, that sunny, smoggy weekday afternoon near Sacramento. If you ever wondered about driving conditions on I-80 in Sacramento, a lot can be deduced by the number of billboards that begin with the rhetorical phrase: “ACCIDENT?” And then “Call Ann Phoong at Phoong Law : 1-800-GOT-PAIN.” All accompanied by the image of some hot Asian babe, likely only connected by her penchant for wrapping the message in a tight, sexy package.
But I digress as old men tend to do. The dude behind me was in a newer Acura without plates and he kept right on my tail in the far left lane. I wasn’t being stubborn. Traffic was heavy and fast moving and there was no room to move to the right to let him by. At the first narrow space he jammed into the other lane and drove up beside me aggressively. I caught glimpse of his menacing appearance, shaved head and angry glare. He edged up ahead, swerved left, and cut me off within an inch of my life. I hit the brakes as he looked back for a reaction and I obliged by flipping him off — a reflexive, anxious response I’d later calculate as my only error. This sent him into rage and he slowed to a comparative crawl, motioning to the side of the freeway where he wanted to settle this affront to his honor. This went on for what felt like forever but was probably about thirty seconds. The cars behind me piled up, no doubt wondering what was going on. All I could think to do was keep this guy in front of me where I had him in my sights. Eventually he made some final, violent, disgusted gesture over my impotent cluelessness and sped off toward 5 South to Los Angeles. Luckily he was headed in a different direction.
I bring this event up, unpleasantly ordinary as it is, because it has never left me. I know I did the right thing; the guy was twenty years my junior and intent on destroying me. Even if we’d been evenly matched, pulling over to the side of a busy freeway in that particular area would have been an insane death-wish. I’d read about an eerily similar circumstance involving male motorists on that exact same stretch of road the week before. They did pull over and one was hit and killed by a passing car. No amount of twisted logic or testosterone-fueled bullshit could have justified the move. But still I think about this guy and it feels like it’s happening now, today. I want to kill him. No doubt this reflects some central flaw in my neanderthal thinking. A genetic tendency for insecurity coupled with temper issues mainlined via my paternal lineage and stuffed deep down long ago on the first hole of a San Mateo golf course. It simply won’t go away. Men might have a marginally better understanding and for women this all likely seems juvenile and ridiculous. But chicks, too, have their own quirks. As Elaine on “Seinfeld” explains after noting that boys are sick and being asked what girls do: “We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder.”
How all this relates to male sentimentality in old age is debatable. My paragraphs need not transition, my transitions need not relate. This without even going into the cryptic title or George Jones quote. But rest assured it all fits in some corner of my hyper-vigilant psyche. It’s coming for you, too .. all of this. Like a dude with a shaved head in a plateless Acura. Remember what I tell you: In time you’re gonna pay. And it’s surprising how time slips away.
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