The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories by Robert Chazz Chute Page B

in and she sat blocking the street, blinker blinking, waiting for what, Jack couldn’t guess.
    A horn honked. He assumed it must be the little white car behind her, urging her forward. The bell had already rung. The last of the kids who were on time had already streamed into the school. Jack glanced at the green numerals of his dashboard clock and huffed with impatience. Was she stalled?
    He was about to pull forward and forget about being a good Samaritan when she wheeled into the lot and accelerated up beside him, frantically cranking down her window. “Are you deaf?”
    “Pardon me?” he said, giving her a confused smile. He looked in her eyes and saw a savage animal. Her bright yellow peroxide hair was mussed, reinforcing the impression of something wild at the wheel.
    “Didn’t you hear me honk? You’re in my way! I want to park right there .” Peroxide Woman pointed at the empty parking space his car was blocking. Jack glanced in his rearview mirror. Half of the lot behind him was empty. She could park anywhere. Why hold people up for one spot that was no closer than any of the others available?
    “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said.
    “ What? ”
    “You win. I’ll never do a good deed for a stranger again.”
    “I’m trying to park!” she screeched. “I want that spot right there.” She pointed again to the spot behind him. We’re late !”
    He stifled the impulse to pull her out of her seat through her window. There still might be a few children straggling down the sidewalk, coming late to school. The van’s windows were tinted, but he detected movement in the back seat. She no doubt had at least one child in there. There were too many witnesses. He took a cleansing breath as his therapist, Dr. Circe Papua, had taught him. “There are lots of parking spots,” he said evenly, “and you’re making yourself late. You, me and the poor guy behind you.” 
    Jack glanced to the forlorn-looking guy in the little white car who sat waiting behind her. The swarthy man wore a hang-dog look on his face that told Jack the man at the wheel was tired. He had the look of a beaten man who expected a fresh beating every day. Jack could see in a moment that this was a man who had seen life and death. His intuition told him the man waiting behind the ranting woman had, like himself, learned the truth of existence in a war zone. Jack recognized  the haunted civilian look when he saw it.
    As he looked back in the woman’s face, the contrast was startling. She was the sort of person who breezed through life with an air of entitlement. Nothing really bad had ever happened to her and she expected that nothing ever would. She could inflict suffering on all those lives she touched, but never experience a flicker of self-doubt. Pain was for other people. She would never consider that she had ever done anything wrong.
    Peroxide Woman gave him the finger. 
    “You’ve caused several car accidents in your life, haven’t you?” he said, his face deceptively serene.
    “Are you a fucking idiot?”
    “You’ve got kids in your car, right? Nice mouth.”
    “Well, next time, listen for God’s sake! I honked my fucking horn !”
    Before he could move his car, she did what she should have done in the first place and tore off for another empty slot behind him. His head heated up and he clenched his teeth. Jack could feel the pressure at the front of his head and there was a familiar, angry tingle in his gut. The rage made his jaws hurt. Before he left, he turned in his seat. He didn’t know what he was going to do with the information then, but he memorized her license plate—ATA 667. He’d remember it: 667, Next-door Neighbor of the Beast. Then he vaguely remembered that some rabbinical scholars had said that the actual number of the beast was not 666, but 667. He’d have to Google that. 
    And he would think a lot about the woman in the green van. He considered waiting to follow her home, but he would have to