A Word from Richard Risemberg for April, 2001

Car Brats

Car brats is what they are: selfish, whining, impatient, petty little tyrants of the tarmac whose very delusions of grandeur are pathetic in their dullness. Look at me, they all say: I have a newer car than you, I make more noise, I'm in a bigger hurry so get out of my way, it's my road, my lane, my parking spot and you can't have it, nyah nyah nyah. Cheap bastards, too: God forbid gas should go close to two bucks a gallon; that's reason enough for a war. And God forbid taxes should be raised to pay for the roads they drive on, let alone for buses or trains for people who might not drive cars…. You know who they are--because they're you.

Yeah, I've seen you out there, and I know you. You're the one who lives in the bedroom suburb and commands your political marionette to tear down my home, my store, my park so you can drive into town on your damnable freeway, high above our heads. Then you park your car in the lot by your office building, put your nose into the money trough downtown, and suck up my city's cash to take back to your stucco castle and spend it on more big screen TVs and fastfood deathburgers for your bored and murderous kids. You're the one who roars down neighborhood two-lanes at 60 per because the boulevard is too clogged up with your fellow drivers, endangering my son and his friends and keeping them imprisoned in their homes. You're the one who tells all your colleagues that my 'hood, where no one has ever harmed a hair of my head in over forty years, is a cruel and dangerous place, when all you've ever seen of it is a flicker on the tinted windshield of that overpriced pickup truck you call an SUV. You're the one they build those big box stores for, knowing you'll gladly devote three hours of driving time to save two bucks on a can of paint sold you by a low-wage slave whose hunger supports your illusion of economy. Yeah, I know you, all right.

You're the self-important sucker who tries to convince himself that because you're always hurrying, the things you're hurrying to really do matter; you're the obese metallic boor who thinks that just because you're moving fast, you're going far--but all you've ever done is motor to the same office, the same burger joint, the same shelves laden with the same econosize bags of dog food that you find in every bleak stucco mall in every suburb everywhere you drive, no matter how far you dare to go. You're a car brat. Selfish as a kindergarten bully, and not as mature.

Why don't you get out of that soul-coffin of yours some day and see what life is really like? Because you might just enjoy it, bozo.

Selfishness is the essence of driving. You sit alone in your car, surrounded by emblems of status that are no more than sheet-metal deep; you breathe canned air, listen to canned music, repeat the canned opinions of your favorite talkshow puppet, but cringe at the very thought of talking to a real human being who isn't paid either to serve you or to boss you around. You spend a fifth of your life sitting in a tin can on strips of grayish crust that billions of dollars of our taxes have paid to smear on the earth, shuttling back and forth between a lonely house on a lifeless street, and a narrow gray cubicle in an upended glass shoebox, a place where the politburo won't even let you post that Dilbert cartoon you don't dare laugh too loud at. Your life consists of counting numbers at work, counting exits on the freeway, and counting channels from your sofa as you search for the least inadequate simulation of companionship each night, while eating your microwaved dinner. You're a king in your castle, all right, living the American dream and all it never meant in your garage-with-attached-house in Bumfuck Pointe Estates, but you're king of nothing, and you're bored. Selfishness is its own Siberia.

By contrast, the essence of traveling on foot and by mass transportation is sharing, and the sharing goes both ways. You not only share with your community, you share in your community; you not only lighten the burden you impose on the earth and on the public treasury, but you gain a richness of life that you could never buy at Costco or Wal-Mart. Your apartment might be small (or it might not), but your world becomes very large, because your living room extends far beyond your front door. It extends onto the sidewalks where you meet with friends and neighbors without having to make an appointment and find a parking place; into the neighborhood stores where the clerks, who are often enough the owners, remember your name and whether you like whipped cream on your latte or starch in your shirt; on board the bus, where faces and talk abound in the rows of seats, and there's time to look our the window; along the sidewalk where you notice for the first time (though you may have driven this same street hundreds of times in your life) the Art Deco friezes that decorate that row of storefronts, the Mozart concerto (or the Hendrix album) playing on the soundsystem of the newsstand by the subway stop. Life becomes an endless series of delightful discoveries and smiling hellos. Sure, there's an occasional nut case, but he's generally an annoyance, not a threat, and wouldn't you rather he bump your shoulder in a crowd of fellow walkers than ram his Pontiac into your Lexus at some intersection or offramp? And wouldn't you rather know that the sun is shining by its warmth on your face, or that the rain is falling by the sweet smell that wafts in under your umbrella, than from a ten-second report that briefly interrupts the flow of radio commercials? Wouldn't you rather feel strength in your legs than that endless weariness around your heart?

One thing they tried to teach you in kindergarten was to share, and that sharing goes both ways. Quit hiding in your corner. Come out of the car and join us. Life is good.

Richard Risemberg

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