Rush Hour Revised
Rush Hour still falls into that category of early stuff that relied heavily
on pure shock value. Remember, this was written before South Park
or Pulp Fiction. Family Guy hadn’t yet pushed that envelope of
standards over the crevasse. My later poems are more clever, but
Rush Hour created an anti-hero for my universe of characters.
Realize that unlike the Postman, the Man with the Magnum doesn’t kill
indiscriminately. He acts upon that impulse we all feel when someone
cuts us off going 90 on the freeway or we have that customer (or
cashier) that really just pisses us off. He is the flawed hero of this
universe, but still flawed, and ultimately, he will pay for his own sins.
Context: This poem was of course written during the infamous rash of
freeway shootings in Los Angeles.
Reality vs. Fiction: Years later, I had an eerie sense that reality would
at least partially imitate fiction when one night, while driving
southbound on the 405, a BMW cut me off. I flashed my high beams
at them (hardly the Man with the Magnum) and they suddenly broke
and acted like they were going to slow down to start something.
Ultimately, they drove on, but for a moment, I felt I might live out my
own fiction…minus the .44 in the glovebox.
About the revision: the old text was a bit too heavy-handed on pure
gore and most importantly, the voice was all wrong for the character.
If you compare the narrative to The Christmas of .44, you’ll notice the
language of the latter is more macho and austere, the way you expect
this guy to talk. Also, the original text has him laughing after his act.
This didn’t jive with the evolution of the character, so I changed it to a
smug, contented smile.
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