From your car, you see the back of the old man's head through his rear window. Closing in, you see the white hair. Assume a receding hairline. Next to him now, at the red light, you see a full mane. This pisses you off. No, you are glad for him. As you're trying to decide, the light turns green. His tires don't exactly screech but there is a prolonged, high-pitched YAWP! You should be able to catch him, because you have a stick and his acceleration is so smooth that it must be an automatic. It's one of those boxy Chryslers. Late 80's model. Advantage: you. But you don't reach him until you hit the speed limit. Through some kind of testosteronic telepathy, you both know not so much that he has won as that you have lost.
At the next light, engines idling, you feel a spike in the testes. Surging. You're ready this time. Ready to run the tachometer into the red if you have to. Maybe you laugh internally at the absurdity of male machismo and the infantile way it sometimes plays out. Still, you understand and respect the gravity of the situation. The old man lights a smoke. Funny. He doesn't look like a smoker. Watch the light controlling the cross traffic and the moment it turns yellow, you release the clutch. A good jump. He puts up a decent fight but you watch him in your side-view mirror. You win this one.
There is much you don't know about this racing old man whose sun is setting. Perhaps he served a tour in W.W.II. He may have fought his way out of poverty to buy a house and make a home, provided for his wife and saw to it their 2.8 children had all they needed. He paid for their college instead of fulfilling his dream of seeing the rest of the world. The old man might be on his way home from hospital, having spent the past eight hours at the bedside of his dying wife. The way he sees it, he spent more time than that working every day of his life while she was well and he took it all for granted. So maybe he feels this is the least he can do, keeping vigil. Or he is racing against time. Raging against the Reaper - the way we all should. Or the old man is sad to the point of madness. Never again will he feel a firm breast in his worn hands unless he pays cold cash for it.
He is racing toward oblivion and there's not a damned thing he can do about it. That's why he's racing you on this hot summer eve. Even better, this is why you are racing him: He is you in some cycle of moons from now.
Time for the sugar game. You look at him. His eyes never waver from the road. Maybe he hasn't been racing you after all. He's blind to your existence. It's a weak bladder and he's just rushing home to piss. You think about this and the light turns green and he takes off in a haze of burning oil and rubber. He is two car-lengths ahead of you and you are redlining it, shifting to third at forty...closing the gap. The old man's brake lights blink on and you catch a final glimpse of his silhouette as he turns off without a look. Your momentum carries you right on by. Perhaps the old man is forgotten by the time you get home. Maybe you realize you're not that far behind him and decide to keep on racing.
