The Slow Treatment

It’s Saturday night and we’re cruising around, trying to find someone to buy us some beer. Bob’s driving, I’m in the passenger seat, Steve’s in the back. Suddenly, we’re blinded: "What the hell?" Bright light floods the interior of the Corolla.

Bob adjusts the rear-view mirror, annoyed. This is his third set of wheels, quite different from his previous ones we were accustomed. For one thing, the Corolla isn’t a boat like the Monarch and the Olds. Those gigantic monstrosities could easily handle the ear-bleeding stereo systems he’d install into them first-thing. The Corolla is a sub-compact, similar to his mother’s Chevette that he drove into the ground in only three months right after school. But the Corolla as a genus is built for abuse, and Bob’s is the perfect man for the job.

He had let his friends up at SUNY, the body shop club, get their hands on it. They painted writhing, sizzling flames splaying backwards from the front of the cheerful blue hood, insinuating fantastic speeds no Corolla could ever attain. Upon the hub caps they designed yin-yang symbols that spun to a delirious gray blur as he drove by, symbolizing the zen state of mind only beer and perhaps Yes could induce. The crowning achievement had to be the peace sign, five-foot across, adorning the roof. A police chopper following us would have no problem locking on the vehicle in question.

Steve, in the backseat, is a rather odd fellow. Perpetually wearing a frog-on-acid expression, Steve knew how to network before I even knew what the term meant. He has connections. Bob may have the wheels, but Steve knows the right people. Hooking up with Steve means hooking up with at least a half-dozen unsavory types with the ability to get us youngins any type of contraband we could possibly be interested in.

We all curse, staring over our shoulders out the rear view window. Some idiot’s driving right up onto the peace machine of death, high beams like spot lights upon us. "What the hell is this guy doing?" I wonder out loud, irritated, catching Bob’s thoughtful expression in profile.

"This guy wants to smell what Bob had for lunch," Steve notes tastefully.

We’re coasting up a slight incline, a double-yellow-lined road, leaving our town north for Echo Lake. I must admit to being more than a little nervous. Something just don’t feel right. I’m never one for confrontations, at least dead-cold sober, and this looks like a confrontation in the works. But honor wouldn’t allow us to just let this a--hole behind us push us around, right? We couldn’t just pull over and let him pass us. That’s too much a loss of face. Bob would never do that, especially with us in the car. So, we’re doing forty on a local road, our friend’s closing in at fifty or so feet behind us, and I’m starting to get very nervous.

"What the f--- is going on with this a--hole?" Steve says, a little anxious himself. No more merry jokester. Now that is more disconcerting than a ton of metal speeding up behind you, twenty feet away.

"You know what this calls for," Bob announces expansively to the group. Ahah! I’m thinking, Bob will know what to do. The man always knows what to do in the appropriate situation. My friend will show this j---off behind us a thing or two. But my mind’s blank in the thick of the excitement – what does this call for?

Before I can ask or come up with a witty retort, Bob answers his own question: "This calls for ... the Slow Treatment." And the words come out of his mouth like a giant slackening rubber band, his voice lowering an octave for emphasis.

The Slow Treatment. I’d heard about it often, seen it done once or twice, even had it done to me on occasion. It’s a thing of beauty when done to perfection, and Bob’s the man to do it. This simple driving maneuver is brought out of a skillful driver’s bag of tricks only on the occasion of the most truly annoying of tailgaters. Which this idiot definintely was, we all decided by unspoken assent. Bob has merely tuned in to our minds, as he’d done so many times before, and found the appropriate mode of response to our ever approaching rearward nemesis.

"He’s getting closer," I add, trying to act cool as I shield my eyes to look behind me into the two angry suns gaining on us. There must have been something in my voice to betray my nerves. Steve picks up on it: "Bob, just let this guy pass – "

Bob silences us with a good-natured bark. Steve continues to one of his stock jokes and a dog-like yap-yap from Bob shames him quiet. My friend focuses one eye on the road, one eye in the rear view mirror as his right foot slowly eases up on the gas pedal.

The headlights surge forth, barely five feet off the peace car’s bumper. What is this guy doing? my mind frantically screams, and I’m not sure if I mean the idiot behind us or the idiot in the driver’s seat.

Never in the Slow Treatment does the driver hit the brakes. No, that would be a dead giveaway to the victim in the tailgating car, and an attempt would be made to pass. And in this case, that attempt would probably be successful, considering the Corolla was packing four cylinders – three if you count the one that misfired. But since we’re racing up an incline our speed quickly drops – fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty – in just a few brief seconds.

I’m wondering what’s going through the other guy’s mind – has he hit his own brakes? Is he even considering braking? He’s so close, accelerating so fast, he has to – he has no choice! But what is he thinking?

The intense light invading the interior of the Corolla flickers – brighter, dim, bright, dim, then steady bright. The bastard’s high-beaming us. He’s onto us. What is his rush?

A big silly grin spreads across Bob’s features. Feigning surprise, Bob shakes his head and cranks up the stereo - "And You and I" is playing - and taps his brakes.

Then the idiot behind us makes his move. In mufflerless burst of acceleration, he crosses the double-yellow lines and advances beyond our left flank. The scream of his engine overpowers even Chris Squire's thomping bass melting Bob’s speakers and my eardrums.

But Bob counters, slamming the Corolla’s gas pedal to the floor. I’m pressed back into the vinyl seat. I can barely turn my head to the side, to track the bastard trying to pass us, the only thing useful I feel I should do.

Both vehicles are neck and neck in half a second, speeding back up past fifty. The incline is sharper, putting more strain on both engines, but the crest of the hill is just before us. Now we’re at fifty-five, then sixty, then seventy. The dark trees on the sides of the road are a blur. We’re doing nearly eighty in a twenty-five mile an hour zone, a winding stretch of a dark, double-yellow-lined hill.

A car could conceivably appear over the edge of the hill, doing a peaceful thirty, only to be slammed into by the idiot, killing all involved, the idiot, the oncoming vehicle, maybe Bob, maybe Steve, possibly even my own indestructible nineteen-year-old self.

And even if not, both our cars will be airborne once we crest the peak of the hill, seconds away. Yet neither driver wants to give up now, so close, so close.

We reach the top of the hill, wheels to wheels, both engines screaming, passengers screaming. Then we all spot it simultaneously, but I have to question whether the idiot speeding next to us saw it at all.

Radar trap.

A quarter mile past the summit, nestled in a side street with only parking lights on, sits a local cop. We’ll pass him in less than two seconds.

Bob stomps on the brakes, gritting teeth. The idiot, in all his glee, cuts us off hard, no doubt gloating into his rear view mirror as his car cuts in front of ours topping eighty-five miles an hour. And a half-second later he’s in the policeman’s web, and we’re down to fifty, forty, thirty –

Bob swerves down the first side street he sees, only a block past the crest of the hill, tires squealing in protest, and I’m thrown against the passenger-side door, praying that the rickety old Corolla won’t chose this moment to throw its first human.

By the end of the block our adrenaline is down to mere overdrive. No one says anything for a few moments, save a reverential "Holy s---" from the rear seat. This is echoed by several more, each more pronounced and more triumphant.

I slap the dashboard, ecstatic. Do you know what we just accomplished here? One last thing has to be checked out, I decide. "Bob, turn around! We have to drive by and see! Turn around!"
"No way man!" he shouts between bursts of relieved laughter. "No way in hell I’m going back there!"

But I must find out. My mind is racing as fast as we were speeding a few moments ago. Then, an idea. "Bob, go onto Granville" – that’s the street parallel to the one we’ve been racing on – "and let’s go down a block, slow."

Steve agrees, seeing what I’m getting at, and now Bob, outvoted, has to do it.

But we find out the answer to all our questions when we turn off of Granville and head south towards the radar trap: spiralling red and blue flashing on the trees and the houses up and down the whole block. A multihued cop approaching the idiot's rolled-down window, summons pad in hand. Bob again hits his brakes, bringing the peace machine of death to a complete stop, and kicks it into reverse, backing onto Granville again.

We all realize what happened. Justice, sweet justice.

All in search of someone to buy us a case of beer.