Johnny America

 

Tu Quoque

by

“Slow down!” Mrs. Ab­bus shout­ed as Krug­man raced around the cor­ner in his fa­mil­iar ma­roon Cut­lass. “Damn you, slow down!”

Then, im­pul­sive­ly, she picked up a stone and hurled it at the ac­cel­er­at­ing car and hit the back left door. It sound­ed like a gun­shot it was so loud.

The car screeched to a halt and, im­me­di­ate­ly, Krug­man got out and ex­am­ined the dent in his door then glared at the fu­ri­ous woman. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“You’re go­ing too damn fast,” she scold­ed him. “There are chil­dren in this neighborhood.”

He shook his head. “You can’t go around and throw stones at people.”

“Your dri­ving is a menace.”

“You’re the men­ace, la­dy, not me. I was mind­ing my own business.”

“The safe­ty of my chil­dren is my busi­ness. And you were dri­ving too fast on this street. Just as you al­ways do.”

“You’re go­ing to pay for the dam­age you’ve done.”

“I’m not go­ing to give you one red cent.”

“We’ll see about that,” he snapped as he climbed back in­to his car.

Ear­ly the next morn­ing, as she drew open the cur­tains in her liv­ing room, Mrs. Ab­bus saw the crude home­made sign stuck in her front lawn. “Be­ware of the Crazy Woman in Your Neigh­bor­hood,” it pro­claimed in drip­ping black paint. Gri­mac­ing, she stormed out­side and pulled down the sign then hur­ried­ly gath­ered up some stones from her gar­den and piled them in front of the porch so that she would be ready when that aw­ful man drove back down her street.

Filed under Fiction on September 24th, 2006

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