The As It Happens Files (13 page)

ML: Mr. Naparstek, when did you decide you’d had enough of honking in the neighbourhood?

AN: Well, it was right before Christmastime of this year. I’d just started working out of my house and was spending a lot more time at home during the day than I had in the past. And also, you know, Christmastime in New York, things get really hectic. Specifically, there was this one—there’s always been a lot of honking on this corner that I live on that I’ve just sort of had to deal with—

ML: Why was it so bad that day?

AN: You know, I’ve actually studied the honking problem on my corner in some detail, and it has a lot to do with the way the lights are timed, and it also has a lot to do with the fact that they’re selling Christmas trees a block north of my house and it creates a lot of extra congestion—and people were just going nuts!

ML: Cars get stuck and they start leaning on their horn.

AN: Exactly, exactly. And there was this one guy and he was right in front of my window. I live in this little block—it’s generally called “Brownstone Brooklyn,” little three-storey brownstone apartment houses—really beautiful block, but what it does is it creates this canyon sort of echo effect, this river of raging honking flowing right in front of our house, and this one guy was just leaning on the horn, just non-stop—not like a
toot-toot, toot-toot-toot,
please move kind of thing, but just a
BAAAAAAHHHHHN!!! BAAAHHHN!!!
Non-stop,
nonstop
leaning on the horn.

ML: So what did you do?

AN: So basically, this guy is leaning on the horn right in front of my window. I’ve got him in my sights. I decided that if he was still leaning on his horn by the time I got back from the refrigerator with a carton of eggs, then he was going to get some eggs on his windshield. And I was really set on it, too. I mean, it was kind of insane. I was very focused. It was like, keep-leaning-on-horn equals eggs-on-windshield. So I got back to the window with the eggs, and I even have double windows—I’ve got storm windows because of all the honking—so I opened the first window and I opened the second window and he’s still down there—
BAAAAHHHHHN!!!
—just leaning on the horn—and I chucked the first egg.

It wasn’t very accurate: it hit the back of his car. Then I took the second egg and hit the top of his car. And it’s like, no, I want
windshield
… and by the time the third egg did hit his windshield, he was getting out of his car and he saw me, you know, leaning out the window, throwing eggs at him—and he just went insane. He went ballistic. He’s
screaming at me, he’s saying, “I’m going to come back tonight, I’m gonna
kill
you! I know where you live.”

ML: Oh dear.

AN: He did! He knew where I lived! I was leaning out my window. People started blasting their horns at him, and he’s still ranting in the middle of the street and he finally drives off. I got his licence plate and everything and it’s like, okay, if he kills me, I have the licence plate.

ML: You’ll leave a note for the police.

AN: Lot of good that’s going to do me. But basically, it was at that moment that I decided,
Okay, throwing eggs at the honkers is not the right response.
Like, that did not work.

ML: No. This is when you decided on poetry as a solution?

AN: Exactly. I decided that I needed a different approach, and I sat down and started writing these little haiku poems about honking—I called them
honku.
And at first, that was it. I was just writing these little poems and I didn’t really have any big plans for them. And a few weeks later, like in the second or third week of January, I printed up
50
honkus
—the same poem
50
times—and I went out and posted it on lampposts throughout the neighbourhood.

ML: What did it say?

AN: It said:

ML: Complete the sentence. Right. They’re all from New Jersey, of course.

AN: Actually, they’re mostly not. That first
honku
was very specifically aimed at rallying support in the neighbourhood against two easy targets—people from New Jersey and SUVs.

ML: Right.

AN: A little bit of a cheap shot, but I thought,
Okay, I want to rally support here,
so I went after two easy ones.

ML: Did the honking stop?

AN: Didn’t solve the problem.

ML: Oh.

AN: Two weeks later I went out and posted a second
honku.

ML: Anad this said … ?

AN: Oh, forget Enron.
       The problem around here
       is all the damn honking.

And then, a couple of weeks later, I go out to post my third one and … First of all, the very first one I started taping up, this woman walked by and she’s like, “Ah. You’re the Poet of Clinton Street. I love your work!”

And I was like,
Okay, that was interesting. That’s kinda cool.
And then I started walking down the street and posting more, and I noticed that other people had started posting their own on lampposts, you know. And they were copying the format and they were like,
“Honku
Number
3”
—and there were a lot of them!

ML: Isn’t New York wonderful!

AN: It is wonderful.

ML: Has the honking problem abated at all?

AN: Not at all. The one result, we were able to get the police out here—there’s a sign right on the corner that says “No Honking. Penalty
$125.”
The cops came out and enforced it for one day.

ML: Did they. Is there a fine for putting
honku
on lampposts?

AN: Yeah, I discovered there is.

ML: Uh-oh.

AN: And I was pulled over by the police as well.

ML:
You
were pulled over?

AN: I was, I was. I was stopped from posting
honkus
a couple of weeks ago and, uh, I don’t remember what the specific fine was but I remember I tallied it up, and if I posted
50
poems, each poem could get fined five times in the course of a day, and it came out to
$10,000.
So I could be fined a maximum of
$10,000
a day for posting
50
honkus
on lampposts.

ML: And the fine for honking is
$100?

AN:
$125.
It never gets enforced.

ML: Dear me.

The honking won’t stop
but it’s not trucks, vans or cars.
Damned Canada geese!
—Cindy Sears, D.C. suburb

You’ll wake the baby
with random night-time honking.
Patience is hard-earned.
—Steve from North Bay, Ontario

Rural Alberta:
moose, gravel and chipped glass—
What is a horn for?
—Peter MacKay, Fairview, Alberta

Take a lesson from
quiet town in New Jersey:
slow down and stay home.
—Barbara Jones Warwick, London, Ontario

On this Yukon road
only the moose are horny;
blaring antler’d bulls.
—Rod Jacob, Whitehorse, Yukon

Pennies in a stream,
rippling leaves, a sycamore—
Moonlight in Vermont.

Honking runaway
Chevy truck, out of control
on the L.I.E.

EJ: I’m on the LIE and I’ve lost my brakes and I can’t stop.

DP: Eastbound or westbound?

EJ: I’m going westbound.

DP: What kind of vehicle are you in?

EJ: I’m in a black Blazer, ’94, four-door—it’s an older style. I have my emergency brake on. I tried to go into Neutral. Should I try to get it into Park?

DP: Uh, I don’t know, ma’am. I can’t advise you on that. Um …

EJ: I—I’m pressing on my brakes and I just can’t stop.

DP: Are you pumping the brakes?

EJ: I’m pumping the brakes. I mean it slowed it a tiny, tiny bit. I’m going about
40
right now.

DP: Okay. Are you in the right lane?

EJ: No, I’m in the left lane right now. Should I move over or stay put?

DP: Well, you don’t want to stop in the left lane if you stop. Can you try to get over? … How you makin’ out?

EJ: It’s not stopping. If I hold my foot really hard on the brake, it slows down, but even with the e-brake, it’s not stopping. I can smell my brakes going. Should I take it off the brake, see what happens? …

DP: Are you—you should be coming to that uphill section soon?

EJ: I just went up a teeny hill. I’m going to … the shoulder—

DP: [to someone else] She’s going to go for the shoulder.

EJ: … because I can’t stop! [very heavy breathing heard]

DP: Ma’am, don’t breathe like that. You’ll hyperventilate.

EJ: I know. I know. I know.

DP: Don’t want you hyperventilating. [horn blast]

EJ: Oh my god!

DP: You’ve got it in Neutral, right?

EJ: No. Shall I put it into Neutral? Shall I try that?

DP: Will you downshift it?

EJ: You mean—downshift it into what? I’m a female, sorry. [panting now]

DP: You have a second gear?

EJ: Yeah.

DP: Try downshifting it into Second.

EJ: Nothing.

DP: Nothing. Where are you now, hon?

EJ: I’m coming up to [incomprehensible] … and the traffic is stopped ahead again.

DP: Are you still on the right shoulder?

EJ: No, I’m not. I’m in the traffic lane.

DP: There should be a police officer right up ahead.

EJ: Yes, I think I see him. [horn beeping steadily]

DP: What lane are you in, ma’am?

EJ: I’m on the shoulder and the right lane. And there are cars in front of me and I’m going to hit them! I’m going to hit someone!

ML: Ms. Jordan, how are you today?

EJ: Aah. Tired, frazzled. Still in shock.

ML: You must be. What a hair-raising experience. Listening to the tape, my throat is constricted.

EJ: Yeah.

ML: Where were you—for us foreigners—where were you when you got into trouble?

EJ: I was on the Long Island Expressway, around Exit
52, 53,
somewhere in there—I’m not a hundred percent sure—and I was in the left-hand lane and I had just passed someone and all of a sudden my car sped up to
85
miles an hour—

ML: It sped up!

EJ: The speed limit there is
55,
so I’m,
Whoa, I’m going a little too fast here,
and I applied the brakes and the brakes wouldn’t work. Tried it again, still didn’t work. I tried lifting the gas pedal, I put my foot underneath it, tried pushing it up. Nothing worked. So I shifted into Neutral, and the engine made horrible sounds. I thought it was going to explode or something, so I went back into Drive, and I put my hazards on and decided to put the emergency brake on. The emergency brake went down like Jell-O, though. There was no resistance or anything, but it did slow me down to about
50,
which was a manageable speed. And at that point, I knew … I wasn’t going to stop, and I picked up my cellphone and I called
911.
I got a terrific operator, luckily.

ML: You did, didn’t you?

EJ: Yes, I did. Good thing. And she asked me, “Did I try this? Did I try that?” And we tried a couple of things together but nothing worked.

At one point, I came to an overpass which cut into the roadway and made the lanes smaller, and the traffic was stopped underneath, and I said to her, “I’m going to hit
someone.” But I happen to be an emergency medical technician here and I have a light that I use to respond to the ambulance—I turned my light on, hoping that someone would see it and get out of the way and I started honking my horn and there was a Jeep Cherokee and he got halfway out of the lane, just enough for me to squeeze by. I still don’t remember going through the underpass; I think I shut my eyes.

ML: And then she said, “There’s a police car—the police car’s going to get in front of you and it’s going to slow you down. It’s okay if you hit him.”

EJ: “Yep,” I said. “I see the police car.” …

She said, “Just line up behind him, and it’s okay if you hit him.”

And he sped up some to match my speed. Then he slowed down and we hit twice. He braked—he used his emergency brake—and after about a quarter of a mile, he was able to stop us.

ML: You were pushing him along.

EJ: Yes. And by the time we got out, my tires were all smoking and everything, and I was scared to death.

ML: How did you keep from falling completely to pieces, I wonder.

EJ: I think part of it was my training. Being an EMT for seven years … we’re supposed to keep our composure.

ML: What happened when you got out of the car?

EJ: I just started crying. And I was just, you know, I thanked him and thanked him and thanked him. I just started making phone calls, calling my friends, calling my family, saying, I love you. You know? And of
course, they’re like, oh my god, are you okay? What happened?

ML: Where’s your car now?

EJ: It’s outside of my house.

ML: Did you find out why all of that went wrong?

EJ: Well, I’ve talked to some mechanics, and a mechanic who’s a friend of mine came and checked it. They feel that both the accelerator got stuck and the brakes wouldn’t work, so that it was twofold. And I’d just had my brakes done about three weeks ago, so we’re a little concerned about that.

ML: What an experience.

EJ: I’m just happy I didn’t get hurt and happy I didn’t have to hurt anyone.

ML: Yeah, we’re happy, too. Thank you.