It's the smallest of all things

[Undertoad]

This was three months ago and every once in a while I remember it

I made a dumb diagram to show you what was happening



I am the orange car and he is in the big semi/18-wheeler/articulated lorry

We are in the ghetto, going the same way, on a two-lane one-way street. We are about to turn left onto Broad St., a four-lane, two-way street.

We approach the intersection at roughly the same time. The light has been yellow for a while. I slow down and prepare to stop, especially because there's this big truck next to me.

But the truck doesn't stop. He pulls into the intersection just as the light goes red; and he's slowed down considerably.

So now this big-ass truck is in the intersection, and in a split-second I realize he's actually setting a pick for me -- because even though the light has turned, it will take him an extra three seconds for his back end to make it through. This means I can zip into that left lane on the red, if I care to.

So I start the move, and as I do, he glances down at me. At his angle, he sees me clearly. He's seeing that I took advantage of what he did. As I seem him seeing me, I am in some moment of utter clarity, and time has stood still;

~ this is the important part ~

I flash him a peace sign --

-- And he flashes peace right back.

It was like, the exact right gesture for the moment, or something. It said, you have done me a favor and I know it; if this is what you intended to happen, you did it for a driver who was paying attention; so now, I am doing it, and I'm staying in my lane, and I am cool with all this and you are too. It's the sort of thing that professional drivers must do for each other all the time, and to have me, some doof in an old Subaru, pick up the cue, made me proud of myself.

Plus he was black, and to have this type of interracial moment on the way into the shop made it all the more great.

It was the VERY SMALLEST of TINY moments, three seconds in time, and somehow I can't forget it.