I am sitting in a line of traffic on the Kilkenny Road. Construction up ahead. We all sit in our cars in a neat little straight line as somewhere ahead a temporary stoplight lets a few of us slip through and onto our journeys. Must be 50 cars ahead of me. I am in no hurry though, so I let my mind wander as I put the car in first gear, move 10 meters, then stop, put the car in neutral and rest my foot on the brake, over and over.
I can see the car in front of me, the car behind me, and left and right which overlooks the new roadwork efforts, some temporary signs, newly built stone walls in front of homes along the road, and bits of construction equipment, but no workers. The car behind me is a 2005 silver Renault Megan. Looks in good shape. But before I even noticed the car, I noticed the driver, a woman. I only looked in my mirror for a second. I didn’t want to alarm her. You know, here she is stuck in traffic, unable to escape and being stalked by a male driver in front of her. At least that’s what I thought she’d think if she caught me looking in my mirror at her. I thought that she was likely a very nice mother of three small children who finally got some alone time and was on her way into Kilkenny to run a few errands. On her way to just being an adult and not all tied up with domestic chores, dirty diapers, a sweet but messy husband, and a house that never seems to let her rest. Finally, she gets some quiet time and here I show up stalking her.
I reminded myself that I had my sunglasses on. That if I looked straight ahead as every good driver should be doing when they are at the wheel of their car, she would be unable to see that my eyes were actually turned upwards, looking into the mirror, looking at this woman in the 2005 Renault Megan directly behind me – but I wasn’t sure. Women can sense things. I thought that even if she couldn’t directly see me looking into my mirror at her, she could sense that I was indeed ‘eyeing her up’. Then I wondered if that is a crime. Some sort of harassment charge might be levelled against me. I started to think up a good cover story to tell the Garda. Something to get me off the hook. But it still would be embarrassing. My wife, relatives and neighbours would find out and no one would talk to me for weeks. Word would get out, and there would be so many people fearful of ending up in traffic behind a 2012 black Fiat Panda for fear they’d get ‘eyed up’ by me.
But I live a simple life and occasionally a person has to be bad to feel alive. So intermittently, when she looked left or right, I looked back at her. She was petite. I couldn’t tell whether she was attractive or not because she was dressed as if she was about to trek across the Antarctica. She had a man’s stocking cap pulled all the way down to her brown eyebrows. She had a beige coat on. One of those puffy ones that you buy at Dunne’s and are full of artificial insulation. And she had gloves on, not driving gloves, not formal gloves, but gloves that you might put on to play in the snow. How she could drive with those I don’t know.
Then I thought if she might want to kiss me. I thought maybe she was bored with her life. That if I got out of my car and walked back to her, asked her to roll down her window, then said to her, ‘Would you like a kiss?’ I thought yes, that there was a good chance she’d get all starry eyed, take it as a compliment, and lean towards me offering me her lips. We’d kiss, then look longingly in each other’s eyes. The car behind her would honk because traffic had started moving again while we were busy kissing. I’d run back to my car and resume my rightful place in traffic.