Tony Hendriks - JAMAICAN PALEFACE SUNDAY TRAFFIC is worse all day than Friday afternoon rush hour. But why do Sunday drivers drive so slow? Maybe they're heading to church and feel they shouldn't rush to judgement? Maybe they believe that cleanliness is next to godliness therefore slowness isn't far behind?
People need to understand that the knock on effect of an old banger tootling along 15 mph below the speed limit is a line of cars trailing behind, growing longer by the second, causing jams in the next parish.
So there I am en route to a meeting, stuck behind some fuddy-duddy with a roof rack and decide to overtake. Not the whole line at once, just one by one, using the leapfrog Lada method perfected in Bog Walk and Mount Diablo, but on my first leap the car in front speeds up, closing the gap, so I have to brake in the middle of the road and squeeze back in.
Why do people do this? It's more dangerous than letting me pass. If that wasn't enough the driver then slammed on her brakes and stopped traffic. A petite, brown skin virago, steamed towards me, fuming in a South London accent: "How dare you overtake me like that, you could've killed us all, innit."
I was under the impression it was she who'd nearly killed us and said. "Is grudgeful, you grudgeful woman! Stop your noise, get in your r#$$ car and drive!" This did little to extinguish her fire, but rather lit a fuse, which hissed and fizzled. "Don't you talk to me like that. You're in big trouble mate, there are cameras on this road!" There were, but they were speed cameras and I hadn't broken the speed limit to set them off, just caused this mad woman to kick off.
She got back in her car and followed me from in front, zigzagging, blocking all from passing as if she owned the road. (We were on Beulah Hill. Maybe she was Beulah). Ten minutes later, I reached my destination, parked, looked up and saw her do a U-Turn. She was coming back! I realised something was not right. Why she lost her rag, was it the leapfrog, bad hair or cramps, I do not know but she abandoned her car, causing others to swerve and horns to blast and raged towards me, like a cross between T-3 and the Alien with the extra head coming out of her mouth. Just like that, only scary.
You'd figure having stopped once in the middle of the road and shouted at me, then driven for six miles, she would've had time to cool down. Not this baby. She was raging. "I might have known it was a Jamaican! You °#$@&g Jamaicans come here, think you can drive like you do back home."
This was an interesting comment. Until now I'd assumed this woman of colour was Afro-Caribbean or had some affinity with yard people, but perhaps not. "Why don't you p!$$ off back to your own country!"
It didn't seem the right time to explain to her that I am dual heritage and nationality, mother English, father Jamaican, and have two passports. Maybe I should've because that's when she spat in my face. Just like an Alien.
My first instinct was to thump her but you'll be pleased to know I didn't, for two reasons. First, mother always taught me never to hit a woman unless she had a gun, machete or acid pointed at me or we were having sex and it was all part of some saucy plan. Secondly, picture this. Me, a big, ostensibly white man, in England, she, a petite black girl, screaming, at me. I must thump her? Who do you think the police are going to lock up? Exactly! I folded my arms, leaned back and watched her kick my car fender, door and side window. When they didn't yield to her churlish charms she kicked the back wheel and bounced off, upsetting her even more than the fact I wasn't reacting how she wanted or expected. Finally, and I remember this in slow motion, in a balletic move she knelt down, picked up a brick and heaved it though my windscreen, smashing the glass into a spider web of shards.
It's ironic that she who was berating me for being Jamaican and driving bad is the one who nearly caused two accidents, put the boot into Buhtoo, kicked my car and did what so many Jamaicans do in a quarrel, squat down, pick up a rock-stone and fling it.
Well, good for her, now she's breaking rocks in prison and I have learned my lesson too. Next time I overtake and someone speeds up, I'll ram them and run their backside off the road so there isn't any aftershock.
Tony Hendriks is a comedian. He can be e-mailed at palefaceuk@aol.com and you can find out where he is playing live at www.jamaicanpaleface.com.
