Thoughts From The Cubicle: Honking, Homicidal Urges, Jewish Man Parts the Vehicular Sea

*Bored at my cubicle. Writing from 1700 Broadway, Manhattan. 1/11/24, 3-something pm.*

I’m going a little crazy here. I need a wheel. Like a hamster wheel. I need that thing. I would be running on it right now. I would be running so fast. Then, I would get tired, and I would go over to my water tower drinker thing, and drink some water, and then hop back on the wheel, and run again. What could be more fun than a treadmill? A giant, circular treadmill. I’m so into that. Someone design that right now. Cubicle hamster wheels. For humans. I’m so in. Give me 10% of the profits for the idea. For just one year. You can keep the rest. I don’t need a lot to live on. Just enough. Just enough from my human hamster wheel invention. And people will say, what did you do for your monies? And I’ll say, I proposed the idea of the human hamster wheel, the now world-wide office phenomenon. And they’ll say, that’s great. That was a great idea. Thank you for your great contribution to society.

(I’ve had a lot of coffee.)

I would settle for a treadmill. A standing treadmill desk. I proposed that many times to my senseis in the teacher staff room, when I was teaching in Kumamoto. I once piled up books and actually did stand at my desk, and of course it was awkward and attracted a lot of attention. I was the only teacher standing at their desk in a room of 40, 50 people. And those desks are not cubicles. There are no barriers. You are side-by-side. So there I was, lording over everyone, with my laptop quite precariously placed on a tower of books, typing away. That experiment didn’t last long, I have to say. Too risky, too distracting. I was always doing something to attract attention in that office, not that I was trying to. It just so happened that often I would do things like build a standing desk tower out of books or eat large raw carrots at my desk (like “Bugs Bunny”). It just happened that way. But I enjoyed that brief stint with my standing desk. It would have been even better if I was walking at the same time. Even better, if I was running, on a giant circular wheel. The human hamster wheel.

I have to write comedic material. I have to exercise my imagination. It is very important for my soul and spirit. If I am a very sick man, comedy is the only thing that can save me. I have to laugh. Otherwise, it is great suffering. That must be why New York is famous for comedy. It makes a lot of sense. You have to have some laughs or you’ll lose it. (Your sanity, that is. If you ever had it.) You just can’t take it otherwise.

Last night on my walk to the local grocery store Shoprite, I witnessed another insanity inducing spectacle, as I do on every walk. This absurd spectacle was a thick Jewish man, in full black navy suit, nice shoes, little round hat (kippah), talking on the phone, a man of business, a man who clearly has some sense. This man was across from me at THE most dangerous intersection on my walk to Shoprite, which is fraught with dangerous intersections, because every intersection in NYC is dangerous – but this intersection in particular is dangerous because it’s underneath a train, with pillars that can obscure view of pedestrains, and with many pedestrians, with small lanes separated from big lanes by pillars, and with 5 streets going into it, with one of them coming in diagonally, so the cars have to fork left or right.. There’s a lot happening at this crazy intersection, a lot of ways for it to all go wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, I could spend hours, hours upon hours upon hours reguiling to you the amazing and extraordinary things I have seen these New York city drivers do. There’s almost nothing they won’t do. No action too outrageous, nothing too disgraceful, and nobody to stop them. First, it is horrifying. Then, it is astounding. It is fascinating. But mostly, it is horrifying.

They will honk at the drop of a hat. They will honk not at the drop of a hat. They will honk at you for parking. They will honk at you for turning. They will honk at you for stopping at a stop sign, they will honk at you one single millisecond after the light turns green and you haven’t slammed on the gas, they will honk if they can’t go anywhere for any reason, say, an EMT car that has stopped for a medical emergency and is loading someone in a stretcher onto the ambulance (saw this two nights ago), and they will honk as a form of personal expression. A beautiful, poetic expression, of anger, of joy, of love, of life. On a normal Thursday, last week, over a 24 hour period, I estimated that there were between 200-300 honks happening in the streets around my apartment on Avenue H, south Flatbush, Brooklyn. Between 200-300 honks. With that, you are also guaranteed at least one car alarm a day, and no less than 10 total minutes combined of sirens. I hear every one of these honks, every one of these sirens, and every car alarm. Peppered throughout, there are also random explosions that sound like gunshots or fireworks, but they aren’t – they’re just people’s motors, you know, exploding. That’s fine though, because that makes those people feel special and powerful and cool, and what, am I just going to say someone is an asshole because they make little explosion gunshot noises every day so that they can feel powerful cool and special? No, no. I wouldn’t deny them that, and I wouldn’t deny anyone their little teddy bear that they need to snuggle up with at night to keep the loneliness at bay.

The average length of a honk varies, depending on their purpose, just like with bird calls. Mainly, length of honk corrolates with rage/exasperation level of the driver, and can be used as a guage of the strength of the offense of the offender. (My hypothesis, at least.) Between 0.5-2 seconds is the average, but is not uncommon to hear a honk that is over 5 seconds long. If you get that far with it, that means the offender is really messing up, and/or the honker is really angry. Now, a 5 second honk may not sound that long, guys n’ gals, but let me tell you – it is, and if you don’t think it is, and even if you do, I want you to count to 5 for me right now. Count the Mississippi way, count properly. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, 5 Mississippi. Ok. Now read that again, and play a honk sound in your mind. Imagine that someone is honking that entire time. Time is a relative thing. When you hear someone honk for 5 seconds, you realize that 5 seconds is a very long time. In honk time, 5 seconds is long. I hear 5 second honks often, probably every other day. And I can truthfully tell you that I’ve heard honks of up to 15 seconds. When it’s that long, anything over 5 seconds, you can only help to marvel at it. How angry can they be? How long will they go for? When will they call it? What a honk, what a fucking honk! There is something marvelous about it.

Now, why do these Brooklyn drivers do this? It’s a good question. If they’re here driving in Brooklyn, chances are that they live here in Brooklyn. They must know that there are potentially hundreds of people around who will hear their honk. They are certainly aware of the great detriment to everyone that is rampant, unchecked noise pollution. They undoubtedly have read all of the many scientific articles that have been written about the effects of noise pollution on human health, on child development, on mental health, on stress and anxiety levels, blood pressure, and such. I am positive that they are well acquainted with the facts. And knowing all of this, still, they honk. This is really an incredible thing. What could explain it?

I will tell you, my hypothesis. After careful consideration, and much contemplation, I can say that with high probability… They’re angry. Yes, they are in fact angry. They don’t always have to be, they may just be annoyed, they may even be trying to be helpful, but I would say in most cases, these honks are laden with rage. That is part of it, yes, but there is something else yet, that plays a bigger part. More than rage, I suspect, is that fundamentally, these people are unintelligent. Yes, unfortunately they may just be dumb, downright stupid, plain and simple. It may be general unintelligence, or it may be anger-induced stupidity, as anger does shut down your prefrontal cortex, and prevents you from having any logical, reasoning thought – however, whether they are all the time stupid, or just stupid while the horn is on, at the time of them honking that horn, they are in most cases, dumb. It is a sobering fact, yes, because it means that of course, many of these people that I share this community with, my brothers and sisters of America, don’t have much going on for them in the brain department, but it’s important to know, because then you can understand them somewhat better, and you see that honking isn’t entirely their fault. Like a baby that craps in its own diaper, it just doesn’t know any better. It can’t understand. And the anger, the anger is understandable. There is quite a lot of anger here. Really I have never witnessed so much horrible screaming, shouting, swearing, and fighting in my life. Crushing poverty, abysmal living conditions, and rampant mental illness may have something to do with it, but surprisingly there haven’t been any studies done to link these together, and so we just can’t say for sure. My roommate played for me a recording he took of a couple fighting at his last apartment complex, also in Flatbush, only a few streets over from where I was living. It sounded like they were right outside the door, but he said they were in their room, one floor up. I have never heard such horrible screaming and fighting in my life. And, what would you know, the man murdered someone the next month! Now you know, if that man gets behind the wheel, he’s honking that horn. He’s honking that horn all day and all night.

I was at the apartment one day, it was 10 o’clock sharp on a beautiful, crisp Monday morning, and for thirty solid minutes, there was an extraordinary, unparalleled and unprecedented honk-fiesta happening down in the street outside of my window. I had a wounded leg, or I would have gone down and witnessed up-close what was happening. I had to satisfy myself by watching from the window. I observed this spectacle from my sixth floor window perch, and upon looking out into the street, saw immediately what the problem was. Someone seemed to have either abandoned their car in the middle of the street, or was just sitting in it, parked sideways, completely plugging the street and preventing anyone from getting through. In some other places where there are rules on the road and people know about them, this may be a surprise, but here, that is nothing out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t bat an eye at that. I wouldn’t expect any of the other drivers to be stymied by such a conundrum either, but alas, several cars on either side had been caught in this trap, and were sitting there, throwing up their hands, and honking. Honking frequently, honking aggressively, honking exasperatedly, at this inanimate object that we aren’t even sure if had a human in it or not. I’ll assume there was a human in there, but they were clearly unresponsive. This sideways car was so exasperating, so styming for the drivers of south Flatbush, Brooklyn, that they spent an hour honking at it, honk, honk, honking away at the problem, chipping away at it one honk at a time. I don’t know how the situation was resolved in the end. I couldn’t stand there all day. But I’m sure that with certainty the car was moved only because of the great courage and vigilance of the Brooklyn honking army.

In defense of the drivers of Brooklyn, along with acknowledging their anger, and their low intelligence, I think they don’t actually know that there are any laws, rules, or regulations related to driving at all. Again, like babies crapping themselves, they’re just ignorant. They probably just bought a nice shiny car from the car store that they can’t afford, grabbed the keys, started it up, and drove it right off the lot onto Coney Island Boulevard, and are having a grand ol’ time parking on anything that is pavement, slamming the big button in middle of the wheel that makes a fun loud noise, stopping the car and turning around wherever they are the instant they realize they’ve made a wrong turn, and all of those other fun things you get to do when there are literally no rules on the road at all. But it’s not their fault. They simply don’t know any better, or can’t understand. And who’s going to tell them? Not the gov’ment. The gov’ment has bigger fish to fry. I don’t know what they are frying, exactly. But don’t worry folks, they’re frying something big, don’t you worry about it.

I have never had homicidal rage before. I can tell you that honestly. I am a mild mannered individual. I have never wanted to kill anybody. That is, I had never wanted to kill anybody before I moved to New York City. Oh boy, the fantasies I have now! What I would do to these honkers. What wouldn’t I do to these honkers! Rocket launcher, RPG, car bombs, grenades, AK47, just a straight up katana to the heart, death by shuriken. Climbing onto the hood of the car, smashing through the window, and stabbing them in the chest with a beautiful gleaming katana. I know, it sounds horrible. I don’t like writing this. (Ok, I do.) Drop a grenade from the window, watch it fall with glee, blow them all up. That’s one of my favorite fantasies. Stand in the street, wait a few seconds for the next honking offender, and just unload on them with your AK. I would really love to fire a predator missle at them, you know, from Call Of Duty. You get a 5 kill streak and you get to fire a missle from a Reaper drone, 5000 feet up, a missle guided by thermals, but in this case, it would be guided by sound, and go straight to the worst offender. I know, it’s bad. But you have no idea how much satisfaction it brings me to write this. Well, unless you live in Brooklyn, and then you do. You just don’t understand until you’ve been there. It’ll drive you insane.

It’s not that I want them to die. Well.. I do. But it’s not like I want to kill them. But.. dammit, I do want to kill them. Mostly, I want the honking to stop, immediately, and preferably, violently. To send a message. What I’m trying to say is that, I think, at a certain point you revoke your right to live. Do you know what I mean? Nobody by default deserves to die. They have to do something that is bad enough to warrant their death, like honk for 5 seconds straight, or engage in and perpetuate an infuriating and abominable honking culture. You honk for 5 seconds, 15 seconds, just honk too much, when you really, can’t be honking anymore, and.. ok, yeah, you can die now. You are now eligible for dying. Someone has basically every right to kill you. Honestly, it wouldn’t be unwarranted. What else can they do? If you push people far enough, they simply don’t have another choice. The gov’ment is frying other fish. They aren’t going to stop you. It’s up to me and my sonic predator missle. It’s vigilante justice. Most Brooklyners would have no problem with it, I can tell you that. My roommate told me a story of a lady in the neighborhood dropping her air conditioning unit onto the hood of a maniacal honker’s car from her window. Everybody cheered. Such a heartwarming story. Send that woman a box of grenades.

My homicidal urges always pass, and are replaced with pleading. “Please, stop honking, please. Please, stop, please, I’m begging you. No more honking, please.” I have also tried to mandate a no-honking time. These appeals and mandates are decreed from the window. “Hey, no..! No..! Bad! This is no honking time!” I have also shouted words of encouragement. “Yes, good!!!! Keep honking!!! It’s working!!! Woo!!!!” It’s cathartic for me. Just like honking, you may say. I know it, god dammit. I know. Once upon a time, after a particularly homicidal urge had passed, and I was still fantasizing about vigilante justice, the great idea of Anti-Honk Man entered my mind. Like Spiderman, fighting crime, Anti-Honk Man fights honking. He is the superhero that New York City desperately needs. He would be an enormous viral success. We could have Anti-Honk Woman, gender-neutral, whatever, it could be a dog, Anti-Honk Dog, whoever, whatever is willing to rise to the occasion. Anti-Honk Dog can be the sidekick, and has incredible powers of stopping all honking offenders from ever honking again, by tactfully placing car bombs in serious offenders’ cars, and leaving death notes that say “Death 2 Honkers!!!”, or, less homicidally, slashing tires, paintballing cars, etc. There are many ways that Anti-Honk Dog can carry out vigilante justice to the benefit of all Brooklynites. I had another great idea, (unfortunately, again homicidal) that I believe could immediately reduce honking in NYC by 99.9%, and potentially be a great and subtle form of eugenics, which would be that every car be outfitted with a bomb, that will explode upon the horn being held down for more than 2 seconds at once, and/or more than 3 honks a week. Everyone could have two warnings, like a three-strikes you’re out type deal, where the first time it would say, “Strike one: Your car could have exploded right now!” and then, “Strike two: Next time, you’re dead!” And then the third time, “Say goodbye, motherfucker.” Explosion. Oh my god, it would be great. Except it might kill me, an unoffending pedestrian, so we would need another creative solution. The driver’s chair is blasted with 1000000000 billion volts, instantly vaporizing the driver. Yes, that’s great. Maybe a little too painless for a Brooklyn honker, but yes, it would work.

My god this city has turned me into a sick and twisted individual. I have to get out of here.

I have to finish my story about the Jewish businessman crossing the intersection. I think you will really understand how amazing this is, now that you know about how horrible the honking is, and let me say again, I am a mild-mannered individual, NOT homidical. Brooklyn has made me so. I hear honking when I’m sleeping. I am honked awake, in the middle of the night, in the morning. Honking is my alarm clock. Honking tucks me in at night. Honking while I’m pissing, honking while I’m showering, honking while I’m eating, honking while I’m thinking, honking while I’m strolling about the neighborhood. 200-300 honks a day, remember that number people. 200+ jarring, sonic attacks daily.

Our Jewish businessman was crossing this 5 road dangerous intersection, while on the phone. This guy, as he casually chats, swaggers right up to the intersection. I’m watching him from the get go. He starts to walk out into the street. The cars are coming, full on, but so far he’s only walked on the side street, separated, still where cars could go, but not like it’s the main street, which most cars coming from the diagonal are now barreling through. As he comes to this larger street, he does not glance up, he only somewhat slows his stride, and I’m watching in awe, because it looks like, what this man is about to do, is he’s about to attempt to walk through full traffic, like it’s nobody’s fucking business. And you know what? That’s what he did. This man parted the Red Sea. He waited for a small break in the cars, and he walked out, raising his hand up, casually, keeping it low, like he was saying, “Hey bro, just a heads up, I’m crossing now. Thanks.” And he never dropped his conversation on the phone. This man just halted the world for himself, ground at least seven cars to a stop so that he could cross the intersection on a green light, and that’s a crazy thing. His audacity, his power. I envied him. I watched, jaw agape, watched him walk away, like it was nothing, like he hadn’t just pulled off the most impressive feat in Brooklyn that night. This event alone was amazing to witness, but there was something about it that made it even more so. The truly unbelievable thing was not watching a man simply waltz through a high traffic intersection so casually and confidently as this Jewish businessman did. No, the amazing thing was this. In this situation, of a man halting all traffic, thrusting himself out in front of cars moving through a green light, forcing an unpredictable stop from the drivers, putting his own safety at risk, with at least seven cars involved, witnessing, being inconvenienced – in such a situation where honking is actually, 100% justified, and reasonable, and useful.. There was not a single honk.

This event marked a paradigm shift for me. It’s a different set of rules, out here in New York City. It’s a different world.

On the way back from Shoprite, I was waiting for a truck to stop at and pass through a stop sign. Of course I never expect anyone to actually stop at a stop sign, and never to let me walk through a crosswalk. I understand, this is a different set of rules. But the guy in the truck, he didn’t go through. He had the window rolled down, and he was looking at me, and I looked up at him, and he said, with kindness, “Go ahead.” I was shocked. Like a loser kid who a girl has noticed on the playground, or a beaten-down dog that gets a pet. I could hardly believe it, it was like a dream. “Thanks,” I said. And I crossed, and he didn’t run me over.