From Here to Infinity

I experienced road rage the other day for the first time in my life.

It surged through me like a flash of fire and transformed me into a screaming, roaring, honking madman.

I alternately shook my fist and thrust my finger at anyone around and no doubt struck terror in the faint hearts of my fellow freeway travelers.

It wasn’t until I reached my destination, which was Corona, that, like Hyde melting back into Jekyll, I became my usual sour, edgy, uncompromising self.

Like those elements of nature that occasionally combine to form tornadoes, it was a series of incidents that enraged me. Not the least of them was heat. The others are encompassed in one word: traffic.

I was on my way to Corona to give a talk at the public library. I don’t like giving talks in libraries because the audiences are generally composed of old men who sleep and middle-aged ladies who frown disapproval.

I would have preferred a mixed audience that included young people, but since they don’t serve beer in libraries, that eliminates anyone between 17 and 35.

Having agreed to appear, the next question was how to get there. Since I can get lost walking to the mailbox, that isn’t to be taken lightly.

The most direct route, I was told, would be to take the 27 to the 1 to the 10 to the 405 to the 91. It is a distance of about 75 miles as the crow flies but since I wasn’t flying a crow it amounted to 100 miles on my speedometer.

At the end, it was 200 miles of hell.

*

There are roughly 6.2 million registered motor vehicles in L.A. County and they were all on their way to Corona at the same time I was.

Not only were they Corona-bound, they were all in a hurry and as a result were bouncing off each other like bumper cars, which created traffic snarls beyond comprehension.

I had no choice but to drive during the commute hour because the commute hour in L.A. never ends. Traffic streams around the clock. I didn’t take the 27 to the 1 to the 10 to the 405 to the 91 because KFWB warned me not to.

“That’s not the way to go anyhow,” a friend had advised earlier. “We always go the 27-1-10-60-57-90-91 route.”

I said, “Could you put that in non-numerical terms?”

He looked at me as though I had just asked for his wife’s bra size and said, “Why?”

I explained that I simply did not belong in a digital world. I was born into a life of words and would prefer their usage to numbers until it came my time to drift off toward heaven on the 101.

“Well,” he said, “I’m not sure I can. That’s Topanga to PCH to the Santa Monica to the Pomona to the. . . . You’ll have to look it up.”

My wife is not thrown by the Digital Age. “I’ve figured it out,” she said. “We take the 27 to the 101 to the 134 to the 210 to the 605 to the 10 to the 71 to the 91 and, voila!, Corona.”

*

There is in actuality no good way to get to Corona. You can put together all the digits you want but in the end the freeways will defeat you.

Looking back from the cool tranquillity of my writing room, I should have realized there was trouble ahead when the 101, which would be the Ventura Freeway, came to a stop after I had driven, oh, say, 50 feet.

I may have cursed once, but it was early in the game. The problem was a six-car collision caused when a mixed-breed Lhasa apso decided to trot across five eastbound lanes, leaving behind a tangle of blood and steel.

“I’d have just driven over him,” I said.

“Then,” my wife replied sweetly, “I’d have driven over you.”

On to the 134 and a mattress in lane 3. It is always mattresses. One never hears of a chair in lane 3 or a sofa or old Uncle Larry. On to the 210 and another stoppage. Why? Who knows. Drive on.

I cursed again, but this time more than once. I shook my fist. “Easy, Pancho,” my wife said.

The Foothill Freeway, the San Gabriel, the San Berdoo, the Corona, the Riverside. The heat intensified. Cars stalled. Trucks overturned. Mattresses flew like autumn leaves.

I finally cracked. I shook my fist and thrust my finger until it ached and screamed obscenities that have not been invented yet. They were words created by a professional. Do not try them at home.

I reached Corona sweating and salivating. A little old lady frowned disapproval. “You should have taken the 42 to the 710 to the 5 to the 91,” she said. A couple of bruises and a broken wrist. She’ll be all right.

*

Al Martinez’s column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com