Capital Punishment by Stephen Penner

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
     
     
    He dragged the plastic chair across the floor and sat down next to me. I didn't look at him.
    "Do you want to tell me what happened?" he asked.
    I didn't. But I didn't see why it mattered anymore. "I got angry."
    "We all get angry, Michael."
    "I got really angry. Really, really angry."
    He didn't say anything for a moment, but I knew what he was going to say next.
    "Tell me about it."
    So I did.
     
    I woke up late that morning, slept through my alarm. I'd stayed up too late reading the night before, but I couldn't bring myself to put the book down and go to sleep. It was like I didn't want the next day to come. I must have known somehow.
    I pushed myself out of bed and went straight for the shower. When I got out I was a bit more awake, and I figured, if I hurried, I'd only be about fifteen minutes late. I'd been with the firm long enough that Old Man Johnson wouldn't have cared. The problem was, Old Man Johnson was dead and New Man Johnson was running things.
    I pulled on my clothes, brushed my hair and went to grab my wallet, keys, and phone. There was a new message on my phone. It had to be Janie. She was the only one who called me that early. And when she did, there was only one reason.
    "Hey, Mike. It's Janie. Look, um, about next weekend. I know it's your weekend with the kids, but Derek found this great deal to Six Flags, and he went ahead and told them about it, and they're really excited. So maybe we can swap weekends or something. You'll get to see them this month, I promise, it's just, well, you know. Oh, and um, even though Derek found the deal, it's still pretty expensive, and he still hasn't found another job, so I was wondering if maybe you could, you know, help out a little bit. Just a couple hundred. We can take it out of next month's child support or something. Okay, um, great. Give me a call. Thanks, Mike, you're the best."
    I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then I slid the phone into my pocket, grabbed my keys and walked to the front door, where I'd left the envelope with very expensive, right-behind-the-dugout tickets for next Saturday's game against the Yankees. I stuffed them into my briefcase and headed outside. My old Ford sedan only took two tries to start, and I headed to work.
    Traffic was terrible. It always was when I left that late. Ten minutes late out the door meant thirty minutes late to work. And everybody else was late too, so it was all tail-gaiting and no-signal lane changes. Some jerk in a BMW swerved in front of me just before my exit and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting him. That was great, except that the jerk in the BMW behind me smashed right into me.
    "You fucking asshole! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
    That might have been appropriate for me to yell, since I was the one who got rear-ended, but instead it was the short, mustached rear-ender who jumped out of his car and ran up to me before I could even get my door all the way open.
    "Back up." I tried to stay calm as I forced myself out of my car. I wasn't the tallest guy ever, but I was bigger than that jerk and I hoped my several-inch height advantage would convince him to back down. It didn't.
    "You did that on purpose!" he yelled. "You slammed on your brakes on purpose."
    "Yes, I did," losing my patience quickly. "Because somebody slammed their brakes in front of me."
    "Then it's your fault," he shouted. "You admit it's your fault."
    My size wasn't working, and I really didn't want to get into a fist fight with this guy—although the idea was becoming more tempting—so when I saw that the impact had popped open my trunk, I thought I'd try one more effort at wordless intimidation.
    "No sir," I said as I stepped to the rear of my car and pulled the trunk all the way open. "The law is that you have to keep a safe following distance, enough to stop no matter what happens with the car in front of you."
    "That's not true!" he practically wailed. "How do you know that's the