Bruce Cameron

Right Turn on Red

W. Bruce Cameron

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007.

It is a damp spring morning, and the mushrooms are popping up like Starbucks. I am running late for an appointment with my dental hygienist, a charming woman who is always ordering me to brush the back of my tongue, causing great upheaval in my life. No matter how many times I’ve tried to follow her instructions, it still gives me bulimia.

“My gag reflex doesn’t like it,” I complain. “Couldn’t I brush something else? My knees, maybe?”

“Your tongue is like a shag carpet. If you don’t brush it, things get stuck in it,” she lectures. I picture paperclips and doll shoes — the types of things that used to wind up lost in my parents’ shag carpet all the time — and tell her I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.

My lateness is therefore a result of trying, after six months of neglecting my mouth’s shag carpet, to please my hygienist with at least one scrubbing, so I’ve been in the bathroom, clutching the sink and drooling and doing everything in my power to keep from retching. It’s an awful way to start the morning. How do we ever convince women to become pregnant?

In the car, I confirm that my radio is still not working. (I keep hoping my vehicle will forget.) Traffic is light but cautious because of the wet streets, so I am surprised, as I sail through an intersection with the green, to find that I am suddenly sharing the interior of my automobile with a Toyota. I’ve been hit!

The force of the collision cures my radio, which comes on loudly with the voice of one of those political talk-show hosts — my car probably figures it’s the next best thing to an air bag.

I gingerly climb out of the front seat, carefully checking my body for any signs of serious lawsuit. The young man who has had such an impact on my morning is wearing very stylish clothing — jeans with very expensive holes in them — and a scowl. His car is expensive, too, especially since it is now sporting mine as a hood ornament.

“Hey!” he shouts at me.

“I have right turn on red.”

He is so vehement that for a moment I’m convinced he’s right: What was I doing, so thoughtlessly driving through the intersection when the light was green? I could have hurt someone, or at the very least caused additional holes in his pants.

“I saw the whole thing,” offers an elderly gentleman, who has wandered up to join us. He points an accusatory finger at the scowling young man. “You ran the red light.”

“I have right turn on red!” the young man yells again. He shakes his cell phone at us. “I’m calling my attorney!”

“Yeah? I’m calling my dentist,” I counter. I leave a message that I won’t be making my appointment after all, but to please tell my hygienist that I brushed my tongue and didn’t like it.

“My lawyer says to call the police,” the young man hisses at me in a boy-are-you-in-trouble tone. He furiously punches the buttons on his phone, which is nicer than mine by the same measure that his automobile is nicer than my car.

“I ought to ram your teeth right down your throat,” he mutters at me.

“You’d never get past my gag reflex,” I respond.

He pales a bit — he obviously didn’t think I could hear him, possibly because I’d had my radio up so loud.

The older man appears to be enjoying himself — he’s already witnessed an accident, and as if that weren’t entertaining enough, if he’s lucky it will evolve into a fistfight.

When the police arrive, they listen patiently as the young man asserts his constitutional rights, including right on red. “Right on red after stop,” one of them says. “And you always yield to the car with the green.”

“That’s me,” I offer helpfully.

The other cop hands him a citation, and the young man glances from it to me, realization sinking in. I have to admit, I can’t hide a small smile of satisfaction at the expression on his face.

He looks like he’s going to gag.

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