Reading Cars

By Thomas R. Thomas

I can’t read people. I mean, they’re not a billboard – with words. Words I get, but I still can’t tell if they lie since a lie is meant to deceive – unless I know they’re wrong. But I can read a car driving on the road (I know, right? Weird huh?). So this Long Beach police car is caught in traffic, and the other cars don’t get it that he wants to get around them, and because he’s a cop they all slow down and they all block him. And I can tell by the way he’s moving he wants to get by, and it’s not an emergency, you know no siren or lights. But he must always get frustrated because everyone slows down and he can’t just drive normally, and I’m driving behind it all, and I’m laughing because they can’t see it. Those normal people who can read faces can’t (like me) read cars – not like reading a face, but you know, like a book.