Honk to End War

Today is different. The auto parts store said we couldn't park or walk on their property anymore. I park two blocks away, and it's 10 degrees and windy. The last 50 yards I climb over snow piles and walk on the outlawn, which isn't that wide.  It would be easy to slip, fall in front of traffic, get run over.

I didn't bring a sign with me.  I grab one from a pile and find a place in the line. I always hold my sign in front like a shield, and when I hear a honk I turn that direction, hold the sign higher and shake it. Today my sign says "Honk to End War."            

The first half hour is quiet.  In the winter we start early, before rush hour because it gets dark early. I don't like being squeezed between quitting time and the dark. I also don't know how much difference it makes. Does anybody read the signs?  The people who run things don't have to be there.              

We're always the same bunch, Vatican II Catholics, Unitarians, retired social workers, all old enough to remember Vietnam. The talk has been the same for years, with add-ins from today's Times and NPR.  The signs say things like "Close Abu Ghraib," and "Stop the Killing."              

At sundown it turns colder and starts to snow. It's still windy. We stand on snow bladed up from the street, and my feet go numb in my boots. To keep from thinking about the cold, I count 20 honks, over and over. About a third of the drivers honk. One man yells an obscenity, and a woman in a black Chrysler flips us the bird. But that's it.  Most people just want to get home.              

The noise is constant. Vans, pickups and semis grind away. Drivers race to beat yellows, gun it on green, gun it on turns. Tires make a ripping sound on the pavement, snap against expansion joints, thump into potholes.  Sometimes I think I can't stand it — the noise and wind and cold.             

When it's time to quit I do it — walk right across the auto shop parking lot and go in, holding the sign. The manager is there alone. It takes her a second to realize who I am. "You can't bring that in here," she says.              

"I'm really cold," I say. "I just want to warm up."              

She sets her jaw. "Look. I told you people you were welcome as long as you stayed on the right of way and didn't block access."               

"Okay. Can you show me your mufflers? I've got a hole in my muffler.  My car's making a lot of noise."              

"I'm sorry. It's closing time. I'm closing the store."             

I look straight at her, making eye contact. "Can you show me your mufflers, please?" I say it quietly. She picks up the phone, dials 911, says a few words to the dispatcher.  The counter stands between us. Looking away from each other now, we wait for what comes next.

John Palen's Open Communion: New and Selected Poems was published by Mayapple Press in 2004. Since then he has had poetry chapbooks published by March Street Press and Pudding House. His first collection of short fiction comes out in January 2012 from Mayapple. Recent work has been published or is forthcoming at Clapboard House, Off the Coast, Bare Root Review, Temenos, Ragazine, and Jelly Bucket. He has published poetry regularly in literary magazines for four decades, including Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Kansas Quarterly, and The Formalist, and in anthologies published by Wayne State University Press and Milkweed Editions. A retired journalism professor, he lives in Central Illinois.