Go.

"This is the reddest traffic light in the county! It puts Tammy Fay Baker, the New Jersey Devils, and their Papi Satan to shame!". I howled, into my charcoal 2016 Honda two-door Civic's serially abused steering wheel.

Barricaded in this three lane stretch of Longfellow Avenue, at it's intersection with Frantz Road. Where I've mastered tucking my double chin into my chest, hiding my tortured outbursts, but I'm no Jeff Dunham. It didn't sound anything like that; just incoherent terrifying belligerency. In the suburban wasteland, venting murderous intent grinds down the edge, but I can't appear as crazy and completely demoralized as I actually am. I quickly jam "that" back in it's rubber room. Especially with my windows down, pavement's refracting heat waves and my air conditioner on the fritz again. Just had to use "Boris's #1 Auto" for the 20% off new customer coupon. So what if he specializes in Yugos? Only idiots go to the Honda dealership?! That racket's a rip-off! I'm such an idiot.

Change green! It's Friday night, beers to drink, video games to play...hearing that out-loud, I'm clearly more productive to the human race trapped behind the wheel in gridlock. Is this light ever turning green!? Wait, is that a...that man's walking down the street naked...!!! Am I seeing this right?!? Oh god it's finally happened, I've gone off the deep end. Other people have to be seeing this.

Hey!? Buddy!? Roll down your window. Yeah genius, you in the red '90's "IROC" Camaro, we hear you revving your engine. Totally radical dude I'm doing the window "rolly down" motion. Yes, the counter-clockwise universal sign for ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW! Yes! Thank god. "Hello good sir, sorry to bother you but look over my car to the right sidewalk here, are you seeing this too? Yeah, across the street, north side of Frantz."

"JESUS! That man's in a gorilla suit! No...that man's naked!" my Longfellow Avenue parking lot neighbor yelled.

"I know right, plus I think our stop light's stuck red. But yeah, he's cursed with some rare Sasquatch-like genetic hair disorder...he's stopped walking...OH GOD! Don't look, don't look! He just plopped a squat facing us and went full-spread eagle. How can he be that comfortable."

"OOOHHH!!! Jesus Christ. I'm going to throw up!!"

"I just told you not to look.", why do people automatically do what you just warned them not to do?

This is like getting naively locked in a hotel conference room for a time-share sales presentation. Where you're so pissed at yourself for get fooled, you contemptuously take all the free stuff your sleazy game show host is giving away, and leave there thinking, at least you got a little value out of all that wasted time grabbing these mystery tickets that don't have anything printed out them but, "Revue Tonight" and address. Fast-forward to standing in the middle of the meat packing district right where 408 1/2 should be. Your cabbie didn't even know there was a meat packing district and then you see it. Ohhh, sign's right there, tucked away in the alley. Good thing you had the wherewithal to look in the alley or you may have missed the hairiest hunks in the tri-county area that and definitely more "barely-legal taboo" than Chippendales All-Male "Revue".

"Hey you okay?", Camaro bro asked, rescuing me.

"Yeah, just aaahhh, never mind---I was going to ask you the same question."

"Ohhh that, I'm allergic to...nuts. You got a blanket handy for that maniac? I'm about to go beat his ass. I can't stand those people. Always flaunting their sexuality in our faces."

"Heat must be getting to me, are you for real? You think he's trying to entice you with some kind of peepshow?". I laughed, he didn't, he sneered.

"---Tough crowd...I have sandpaper in the trunk. Not funny either eh? It's a funny truth though, got 100 grit, so you can sit this one out champ. I'll go, my air conditioner's broke anyway."

"I don't appreciate sarcasm discounting what I know to be true. YOU want to be ONE of them. Prancing around in parades, changing our laws. Stop pretending you don't like "Culture Club 'a Wham!'s" public tease exhibition on the corner...HAHAHAHAHA!", "Rocky IROC" roared as he "rico-suaved" his Ray Ban aviators into "locked & loaded" position.

Clearly, this backwards man has rehearsed this moment once or twice in the mirror. Convincing himself the entire time that if he masters the epic facial application of his bronze ombré lensed aviators, ironically rivaling John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, nothing can stop him. Societal rules no longer apply, he can even wear sunglasses---at night. He's Steven Siegel in "Above the Law". "Are you done?" I asked, interrupting his mirrored love affair with his just out of reach, tall, dark, and handsome careless whisper.

"Why? You need back-up, or just graveling to switch back to the good guys?"

"---Noooooo."

His homophobia's so inflamed it's taking physical form, floating out of his mouth in black mass. I flip my hazard lights, step out, and I stand. Breathing deep, exhaling that conversation's microcosm. Surveying the broader situation backed-up behind us; total obedience was not what I expected. What I was calling a "three lane sea" wasn't that at all. This behemoth stretched back to meet the horizon and I'm the only soul out of their pod in this human stockyard. If everyone else in it looks like the woman behind me, white-knuckled, strangling her periwinkle blue Ford Explorer's leopard-print steering wheel huggie. Well, I hope the light changes soon.

I grabbed the gray bag of sandpaper, shutting the trunk quietly. Crossing between two minivans to my right, I stepped on the sidewalk as quickly as I could, running from whatever's festering back in the gridlock. I stop and breath to shake that "feeling" that ran me off. The opposite of a troubled delinquent, nightly sneaking out of his parent's house to roam dark alleys, seeking "it" out. I double-check both ways before jaywalking through the cross-traffic green light. I can't burst up behind a clearly naked man. What if, completely overwhelmed by the tension of the whole situation, I blindside him, he bounds up like a roid-raging, big-time "wrassler", and tackles me...naked? What if he's mentally disturbed, sobbing uncontrollably while tackling me? Writhing on me, face to face, spit and snot flooding from his mouth and nose, blabbing something to his Mom...naked? What am I doing? Is this really the life I envisioned living? Can't back out now, it's showtime.

"Excuse me, sir? I don't want to startle you."

"Come, have a seat. If my openness bothers you, I'd be happy to take whatever you brought over to cover up. That's what you came over here for correct?"

"I volunteered.", I said, taking a curbside seat to his right and handing him the bag.

He had a radius of energy I can't describe, besides saying, I'm happy I crossed through the green light. "Sorry, all I had was sandpaper. You're definitely making the natives restless over in my neck of the woods, I didn't trust anybody else to come over here."

"A leader, disillusioned---Anything else my good man?"

"Noooo, no, no...yes. Disillusioned...why?"

"Well Nick, as a solitary naked vagrant, simply passing through on my own journey, I'll say that you, yourself, as much as anybody else in the universe, deserve your love and affection. No one can save us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. To do that we can't dwell in the past, nor dream of a future. Concentrate your mind on the present moment. There, within yourself, you will find peace. Do not seek it without as it's a man's mind, not his enemy's, where he'll find evil paths.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts, It's with our thoughts we make the world. The mind is everything. What you think, you become. Health is the greatest gift. With it we have the opportunity for faith in ourselves. Faithfulness is the greatest relationship for it produces the most tangible wealth: contentment. You will only lose what you cling to. There are three things that cannot be hidden for long: the sun, the moon, and the truth...and you may want to get back over to your car before that angry mob flips it over."

"HOLY SHIT!"

Firing off the curb, I bounded through the intersection like a bottle rocket. Never flinching but narrowly splattered by a white Envoy that left 30 plus feet of smoking rubber on the asphalt, swerving to miss me. Sandpaper Buddha was right and I didn't even need to call the erupting soccer mom and insurance agent mob of anarchy to order. The Envoy's horn introduced me with authority.

"STOP this madness now! You people are missing the forest for the trees under a spell of mass hysteria. I can see murder in all of your eyes, and over what? The minute count of how long we've been waiting for the light to turn green. We're pathetic, with only ourselves to blame. Thank christ nobody has a gun. Nobody has a gun do they?...Just nod your heads and I'll move on. We need to stop being goldfish, circling our bowls, waiting for the giant hand to sprinkle flaky food. Praying everyday those humongous fingers give us too much, so we can eat ourselves to death. Because nothing would be better than this cultural wasteland that's mutated us into bottom feeding parasitic cannibal Wendigos.

It's time to expand our minds. Time to realize that iceberg is only 10% of our issue. Together we're the most powerful force on the planet, in the best and worst ways. Right now, we're divided and conquered. A maladapted hysterical mob puppeteered by a contemptuous hivemind. Mass hysteria is the organic embodiment of a memetic virus. Nocebo effects jumping from person to person until the vast majority of the once critically thinking populace are red-eyed monsters, tearing at the throats of anyone who dares speak in opposition. It's the ancient primal instinct part of our brains commandeering our bodies. Millions of years of evolution screaming at us to follow the herd like gazelles. It doesn't stop, just keeps replicating itself until the herd's millions upon millions strong, thundering somewhere. No one knows where, no one knows what we're trampling either, until it's far too late. All for a red light that won't turn green. Where are the police? I don't know. Why is there a naked man in the middle of the street? I don't know. I gave him sandpaper. He covered his twig and berries with it, didn't complain at all. Y'all getting this? I don't want anyone to die. I definitely don't want us de-evolving into thunderdome right here...on my car. It's Friday night and I'm in demand; beer to drink, video games to play. Right there! Laughing, see what happens if we take a step back to breath in some levity. The most beautiful sound in the world...joy.

Right now we're all tiny steaming compost piles. Allowing facebook, a politicized news media, and a corporation pocketed welfare state to douse us with gasoline and strike a match. They're deconstructing humanity's organic checks and balances, rendering us helpless children, lost in the wilderness. We're toddlers throwing tantrums...goldfish, circling our bowls, waiting to die; no recourse for when the feeding schedule system breaks down. We should all get naked and cross the street to sit on the curb with naked sandpaper Buddha. Or maybe we should all get back in our cars and stop waiting for the traffic signal to turn green. Maybe we should respect each other and take responsibility for our own lives, and just...go."