The Tempers This Summer

We stopped at the lights of the Siemens-VDO junction. A car swung in from the right and veered into a straight position ahead of us and slowed, exhausted from the exertion. A grand old mid-size truck trundled in following the same track and braked and froze and shook all over like a dog after a bath. It touched the car's behind a bit. Everybody got out and did a hurried quarrel and two traffic policemen hustled everybody back into their vehicles so traffic could move. Our green came on, and we started. A biker kicked and flew off to a start, grazed a policeman's leg, braked and landed, and heaved back. The policeman, a thinnish fellow, stared disbelievingly at the biker and at his own sullied shin and hit the burly biker hard on the shoulder and reeled from the effort. He recovered quickly and glared, his toothy face drawn and contorted with anguish and anger and some lack of confidence. The biker sat heavy on his bike with his emotions behind his vizor. We passed.