Seventy two year old Artie Vandershut pulled his silver gray, Mercury Grand Marquis off the interstate
ramp onto a major city street. He came off the ramp doing 45 miles an hour, hugging the right lane.
He flicked the left turn signal to indicate he was going to merge into traffic lanes. His rear
view mirror showed a big, heavy pickup truck almost on his bumper. The truck wouldn’t let him in. Artie could either
speed up or drop back
"Damn," he muttered, "Here’s another sonovabitch that needs a hard lesson. Just because they
drive heavy road monsters they think they own the goddam road." Artie slowed and pulled over until the truck passed.
It blew acrid exhaust fumes in his face.
"Lesson time," he muttered.
Pulling back into the lane, he followed the truck. Reaching under the front seat,
he grabbed a silenced Colt .45 revolver loaded with Teflon coated, magnum rounds.
When they came to a light, Artie pulled alongside, just a few feet behind the truck driver’s
door. He cocked the pistol and waited. When the light changed, he fired twice. The first shot took out the truck driver’s
window, the second took apart the driver’s head.
The driver slumped forward onto the horn. His foot slipped off the brake and the truck rolled
slowly into the car ahead.
"That’ll show ’em," Artie muttered. "These guys gotta learn respect."
The rear view mirror, showed traffic jamming up behind. Keeping to the speed limit, he moved
to the next traffic signal and turned right. Suddenly, terrible pain struck his gut. Pulling to the side of the road,
he parked, leaned back, hoping it’d quickly pass.
His tumors were raging out of control and he knew he was dying. As the pains got stronger,
he knew he’d be soon be confined to bed. The Big C would claim another victim.
Artie had been a mild mannered man. But a reckless idiot in a heavy pickup truck had driven
his beloved Annetta off the road. She’d rolled over twice. Before anyone could get to her, the car had exploded and
burned.
He pledged revenge on all assholes who recklessly drove their vehicles to intimidate. Then the pains
came. The diagnosis came soon afterwards. The doctor said he’d be able to function for a while, but then he should
look forward to being with Annetta—if the minister was right and there was life after this world.
There were still two things to be done: getting rid of the weapon was one, confessing was the other.
After the pain subsided, Artie put the car in gear, and drove slowly through downtown to the Center
Street Bridge. Reaching the bridge, he pulled over and waited until the road was clear and no one was in sight.
He quickly tossed the pistol and bullets into the water. Then he headed for the nearest post office where he dropped a letter
to the editor of the local newspaper. The letter stated the road rage reign of terror was over. Though he remained anonymous,
Artie confessed his crimes, and said he would stop punishing bad drivers. He told how he realized his actions caused
pain to people besides bad drivers, and that was an awful thing to do. The city and the cops could now relax.
Thinking of the codicil he would write, and how he would phrase it, he fell back in the line of cars.
Suddenly, a teenager zipped into the line ahead of him. Artie had to slam his brakes to avoid rear-ending him. He fumed.
Here was another jerk who needed a lesson. He reached beneath his car seat for his pistol, then remembered he’d thrown
it into the river. Enraged, he followed the kid down the street, riding the kid’s bumper and blowing the horn.
The kid sped up, but Artie, stayed right behind him.
The teenager turned into a driveway and stopped. Artie followed, slammed his brakes and bumped
the kid’s car.
Artie got out of the Merc brandishing a baseball bat. Yelling about rude drivers, he slammed the
kid’s trunk, and cracked the rear window. The kid threw his door open, hitting Artie’s stomach. Shoving the
bat aside, the kid punched Artie with hard jabs in the stomach and the face.
Neighbors saw the fracas, and called 911.
Artie fell and hit his head against decorative bricks. Unconscious, he died on the
way to the hospital.
The police determined that the youth acted in self-defense, and didn’t prosecute.
Artie’s reign of terror was over. No one ever related the anonymous letter received by the newspaper
to Artie Vandershut, the man who died as a result of his own seething road rage.
AUTHOR'S BIO:
Irv Pliskin was an Army Air Force navigator who flew bombing missions over Germany during World
War II. His bomber got shot down over Germany in January, 1945. Consequently, he was held in Germany as a POW until the war
with Germany ended in May, 1945. Returning to civilian life, he formed his own advertising agency, New View, which was situated
in the New York City metropolitan area. He ran the agency and wrote advertising copy for several decades.
His nonfiction works have appeared in Flooring Magazine, Bulletin of the 8th Air Force Historical Society, Mindprints, Aggrapina, and DRAhead. His war memoirs have appeared in Long Story
Short Magazine, which continues to feature a new installment every month. He also has an ongoing series in Keepitcoming.net.
His fiction works have appeared in Long Story Short, and numerous other magazines.
For several years, Irv has also been the moderator of Pam Casto’s, Yahoo flash fiction
exercise site, FlashXer. In that capacity, he issues flash fiction prompts three times a week, and keeps the site running
smoothly.
Copyright © 2006 by APOLLO'S LYRE.
All rights reserved. Copyright to individual articles held by authors.
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