The Range Rover and I
Sometimes an ordinary day can turn into something else. It is Monday morning and i am driving down the winding underground ramp which leads to the parking lot of my health club. Parking tab retrieved from machine, the barrier lifts and i just have to take a sharp right to my destination. I have done this for 15 years at least four times a week. I could do this in my sleep. Behind me are other eager beavers heading to park.
Not today. A large , white and utterly menacing vehicle blocks this turn. The brakes on my 16 year old convertible howl in anguish. I always release the seat belt clip when i clear the parking barrier. So the jerk and forward thrust is another shock. I missed hitting my own wind-shield by a few inches, I look up at this white monster car which has tinted windows Something tells me not to get out and tap on the window if i can reach it. I find a piece of gum and chew it then i have a couple of sips of water and i do not look at the monster car. Instead i do a bit of deep breathing. Inhale for 4 and exhale for 7. I am certain three minutes have passed. The white car is not reversing to rectify an obvious error. I cannot reverse up a descending ramp.
This is not obstruction it is a show of bizarre power. The car has a name it is Range Rover . I suspect it could be used to drive to Mount Kilimanjaro or base camp Mount Everest. My Racing Green coloured German convertible also has star power. It is 17 years old and a birthday gift from my indulgent late husband. It also travelled to Morocco in a ship destined for Casablanca. On two occasions when a really bad dude intended to harm me in Marrakech it became the getaway car and saved my life. I brought it home and inserted it in a memoir I wrote. Code name is ‘Baby Jane’. Yes, absurd I know, but that’s how names roll. It goes like the breeze and is kept alive by Angelo the world’s best mechanic. Angelo’s greeting at his garage is a scowl. I have been scowled at for 15years. It his way of saying this is a perfect car and you have mistreated it. What have you done now? He is the boss of the garage so I eat humble pie year after year.
The shiny white menace car has no intention of moving. Intuitively, I know the driver is male. Women are emotional they blow the horn, scream and spin the steering wheel sideways. I tell my self, I am ready, switch on the hazard lights and I get out of my car. First i stand in front of the car and make the universal “what’s going on’ gesture. Both palms up in the air from outstretched hands. Nothing twitches or moves and i do not hear the hiss of a window sliding down. I clear the bulk of the car and reach the driver’s window and try peering in. The tinted glass is almost black and then it slides down. First the crest of hair cut razor sharp and then eyes looking straight ahead.
“Excuse me,” i blurt, ever the female and stupidly apologetic.
“You are in the way” he says sharply still not looking at me.
“I am in the way,” i loose control. “I am in the way? “ it appears i have raised my voice.
“Don’t shout. You saw me you should have waited” Its a full on rebuke.
“ I think you are mad” i pick up steam. “I am going back to my car. Please reverse back I have the right of way.”
“No.” its like a rapier thrust.
“You cannot do this!”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” now he faces me.
He is a powerfully built male in his mid thirties. The face is clean shaven and his eyelashes are absurdly long. I hate him on sight.
“Stop being a bully. This is a public access ramp and most of us have the manners to be courteous drivers.”
He gives a broad smile. “Make me. Come on.”
The smile says many things. It is cocky and drunk with power. He is in the driver’s seat of his beast of an automobile and I am the proverbial female ninny in an almost vintage covertible which is a third the size of his automobile.
“Get out of your car. I think I am going to slug you. Lets duke it out, “ I leer at him with wobbly bravado.
I am shocked at what I have said. it is not entirely a silly joke but my innate response to this brazen display of power.
He snorts. Empties half a water bottle down his throat. Raises the window up and has dismissed me.
Where is King Kong when you need him? he could lift this automobile like a toy and hurl it backwards. The car behind me has a woman driver. She has a worried look. I go to her .
“Look. Guy is a maniac. This is going to take some time.”
“Don’t get out of your car. He could be dangerous,” her face has crumpled with despair.
It is that typical look of fear which women all over the world display when the aggressor is male. When they are in a bind and there is no rescuer around. I clear my car and walk back to his again. I tap on his window. He slides it down.
“Ok. I am sorry perhaps you had a rough morning,” I am smiling.
I have changed my strategy. Plead with him until he moves and then give his plate number to the reception of my gym. Even call the police and cite his behaviour as being anti social and threatening. I have a yellow belt in Judo and not up on body blows and punches. Diplomacy is needed. The Judo belt is three decades old and all i mastered was how to fall. i abhor physical violence of any sort.
“Lets not do this please. I was just joking about duking it out. Could not harm a fly actually i am a crybaby,” I am mumbling like an idiot.
“Then you could break a nail,” he sneers .
“Yes. That too. You are right,” I say hurriedly.
“Well find a solution. You find it,” he jabs his forefinger at me .
I want to grab this finger and hold it in an unbreakable vice with my own. Its a violent thought. He is now looking at me. I think he has sniffed this latent violence which women have been trained to sublimate. He draws his hand back.
casually.
“Well, I’ll think about it. No rush .“ the window goes back up.
I go back to my car and will patience into myself. The outrage lancing me has now become gender based. All the tales of battered women globally are a montage flitting through my mind but not my strong desire to see this man punished. I desperately don’t want some of the disadvantages of my gender to allow a bully to prevail. This is happening in Toronto and not in Nigeria. Look how women have empowered themselves physically in this day and age in developed societies. Uma Thurman was cheered on by men and women in the film ‘Kill Bill”. The woman in the car behind me is counting on me I can tell. A horn is blown from behind us which means others have come barreling down the ramp to screeching halts. The white car does not move. Its a power move.
Then a stocky prime athlete from my gym comes sliding down on foot from behind.
“what the hell is going on. Why aren’t you moving” he is irate.
“Look what is ahead,” I am flooded with relief.
“This Rover?” he looks ahead and squints his eyes.
“ I have asked him to reverse and he refuses” I am now wailing.
“I’ll sort it out. Leave it to me,” he marches around my car towards the Range Rover.
He does it. It takes him about three minutes. There is a verbal exchange. He is not King Kong but obviously our hero. The Range Rover reverses back with our hero giving him directions. For a moment it appears to be male camaraderie of sorts. For that moment decades of women’s rights have dropped into the gutter. This is what happens when a person chooses to exercise unseemly power to intimidate or halt the movement of another. An regular automobile which is of the non combat variety is a weapon of today. That lane change frequency without warning, a parking spot grabbed at the last minute, blowing the horn and letting a volley of abuse fly in the air. No it was not a Bengal tiger which leapt in my path and scared me. It was just a man in a car.