The Crossing
Hampton Street was the main north-south thoroughfare in the city of Heimer, and its crossing with Washington Avenue is at the center of Heimer road system. On a regular workday evening you can see right turning cars stemming the entire lane, and frenzy drivers rushing through yellow lights. It remains the busiest crossing I’ve seen since I moved here. Still, I need to cross it to get to my school.
To cross a road is a perfect representation of public life. The shared resource — the space in particular — is limited, and everyone wants to take it as fast as they can. Like any other aspects of a public life, there are traffic rules and nice manners, but it still falls to each driver and pedestrian whether and how far they adhere to them. Under the rule of law, to step on the zebra line is still a process involving determination and preparedness, since I know the inevitable confrontation with the driver lies ahead.
There was an evening I still remember. I went back from school, burnt out by coursework and my future, and stepped on that zebra line. It was green light. It was my turn to take the road, and everybody played by the rule. It was smooth and nice until I reached the right turning ramp on the other side. I saw a car already in the ramp, but it was still quite some yards away from me. I was not feeling great. It was a long day and I assumed — bold as I was — that somehow that car driver would sympathize. ‘You had a bad day, kid’ I could hear the driver spoke, ’I’ll slow down and let you pass.’ I signaled and stepped into the road.
The driver might have a worse day than I had! The car didn’t slow at all and braked just in time so I could feel it pushing the air up against me without hitting. I still managed to pass, with hand gesturing sorry to the driver, but that was an intimidating strike. It was a showcase of power, that the mere act of a driver’s braking produced enough shock to stun me in the middle of the road. What enormous might that person possessed sitting inside a horrendous beast of seven thousand pounds of metal! Against that student with nothing but 180 pounds of his own flesh, my life was at its mercy.
I figured out later that he most likely had the worst day of his life, just guessing. I was scared though, and didn’t go out in the next weekend. I was thinking of that confrontation. I was reviewing where I didn’t do well. I was analyzing the power difference of both parties. I was formulating alternative strategies. At the end, I concluded, that I should probably yield.
‘Yield’ is a word with such rich connotation and implication. I’ve always seen it used in contexts of vast power difference, going strongly against the weaker party and stomping his or her self esteem, yet the action of yielding sounded like the weaker party did it out of his or her free will. I am always that asymptotically weaker party at the crossing.
No wonder that I’ve seen many other people pressing the pedestrian button and wait for the whole traffic to stop, sparing 30 seconds of everyone’s life for them to present their body, their dress, and their walking style in front of over three dozen other people. I understand. They are protected to use the public crossing during that time. Some people do it for safety; some may rejoice at receiving attention that is so rare to them; some reestablish their self reassurance, destroyed in workplaces or schools, by exerting themselves over all other people, at that particular crossing, within 30 seconds. I understand. This is what sociology people and policymakers describe as a ‘rich fabric of society’.
For me, I cross alongside the traffic going straight. I seem to possess a combination of courage — to confront the right turning and left turning vehicles despite my sheer disadvantage in order to claim my share of this public crossing — and self-belittlement, such that my humble self does not deserve 30 seconds of the crossing just for me. I am an animal tamed by social order but still have some teeth.
note: the road names, the city, the people, the voice ‘I’, and everything are all made up.