No Right Turn on Red

One day this summer I went into Don's Mart, just down the street from my apartment. He has orange tables and plastic chairs set up there where people sit and drink convenience store coffee and play Keno. These locally owned stores are worn and grimy and friendly. As I got out of the car a man opened the back of his minivan and started screaming at his kids, who were climbing over the seats. "Get the F--- down. F---ING get the F--- down, NOW." All I could see were their little silhouettes tumbling around inside.

While he screamed the man who owns the laundromat next door leaned against the window and blithely clipped his fingernails, the ice cream truck pulled by playing "La Cucaracha," I stood very still beside my car holding my breath, a boy rode by on his bike with a toddler on the handlebars.

Across the street a cop had pulled someone over; they sit in the parking lot at the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the corner -- the Brothers are rarely there -- and wait for people to turn right on red at the "no right on red" sign.

I shuffled inside, a bit dazed, still, from the scene in the parking lot. The man behind the counter -- Don, I imagine -- said to the young guys ahead of me in line, indicating the cop with his chin, "handcuff him, throw him in the river, heh heh heh." They ducked their heads and laughed, because that was what he was suggesting they do, then left swinging their respective two-liters of Mountain Dew. To me, in a different tone, he confided, "He probably doesn't have a license. He'll have him in cuffs in a minute." He said it reassuringly. He seemed to be looking forward to the spectacle, though he said it happens over and over, all day. They drive without licenses, get stopped for traffic violations, caught, cuffed, spirited away.

Turning right on red is irresistible. Transgression, and all that it sets in motion, is inevitable. Whatever you do, don't turn right on red, don't open that door, don't climb over the seats.