What I’m about to pass along happened 10 or 12 days ago. Only now can it be told. Bullshit — I just couldn’t be bothered to write about it until today, and even now I don’t feel all that motivated. But it happened. I was on the Yamaha and nudging my way out of an alley, about to cross northbound traffic on Robertson Blvd. and enter the southbound lanes. I vroomed across the northbound lanes and puttered my way toward the light on Burton Way, “splitting lanes” between two rows of idling engines. I then decided to veer into the far right lane just ahead of a large white SUV, but as I began to turn the SUV honked and blocked me by lurching forward. Slight brake screech. Okay, I said to myself. Some guy wants to play Dodge City.

The SUV driver, a smallish dude in a white tank top who looked a lot (but not exactly) like Kevin Hart, began to scold and sneer like his life, pride, financial future and family history depended on it…”fuck you think you’re fuckin’ doin’, motherfuckah?” I glanced and turned away. But even if I’d been the hair-trigger type a sixth sense was telling me to back off. If I’d said a single word or raised a single eyebrow, this guy might have leapt out of his car and gone all Ving Rhames or Suge Knight on me. Maybe. I definitely felt the readiness. My attempting to nudge in front of him was a major territorial challenge.

What an angry little fucker. Hugely, crucially invested in being Mad Max of Robertson Blvd. Which meant, of course, that he was furious about not feeling the power he sought at work or with his girlfriend or in some other realm. I mainly remember eyeballing him and thinking, “Whoa…definitely not that tall in the saddle, little head, Kevin Hart or his brother or a guy who imagines that he’s Kevin Hart, barely able to see over the steering wheel…he should drive a smaller car.”