in traffic. Abel would yell out the
window. The other guy would honk
and yell back. In a flash Abel would
be out of our car, over to theirs,
grabbing the guy through the
driver’s-side window, screaming in
his face, raising a fist. You’d see the
other guy panic. “Whoa, whoa,
whoa. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
When Abel walked in that
night, he sat down on the couch and
saw that I’d been crying.
“What happened?” he said.
I started to explain. My mother
cut me off. “Don’t tell him,” she
said. She knew what would happen.
She knew better than me.