If I were asked to give a list of rules for survival in cities like Chicago, one of them would be very simple: Never toot your car horn except in an emergency. Especially at strangers.
I’ve heard of people being shot at for tooting their horn. Street brawls have erupted because of one little beep. And one summer afternoon, I saw a toot lead to two loonies on Armitage Avenue repeatedly smash into each other after one of them honked his horn.
As our society becomes more short-fused and violent, you never know if the person you honk at might be a maniac.
Consider the recent experience told by Claudine, 26, who works in a photo shop in Lincoln Park.
Claudine and her brother were in her car leaving the parking lot of a hardware store near North and Clybourn.
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The lot, like that neighborhood, was congested. And two men were walking ahead of her toward their own parked car. This meant that she had to creep slowly along.
Now, Claudine was not rushing to a hospital to have a baby. She was not racing toward the airport to catch a plane.
In other words, a few seconds here, a few seconds there, and she would be out of the lot and bucking traffic on the street.
But the men irritated her, so she blew her horn.
She said one of the men stepped aside, but the other turned, walked toward her car, and twanged her antenna.
He didn’t break it or bend it, just sort of a flip.
This angered Claudine. So she stopped, put her car in park, got out and yelled: “What’s your problem. Are you nuts?”
(My list of rules for survival would also include not getting out of your car and getting in shouting matches with strangers. This has also led to considerable mayhem.)
She said the other man shouted back, using the ever-popular f-word.
Just then, Claudine said, someone else got involved. A man who was in a car nearby yelled: “Hey, you, get the (f-word) out of here.”
It isn’t clear to Claudine why he took an interest, although it’s possible he wanted to get out of the parking lot and found his way blocked by Claudine and her car.
Being a modern woman, Claudine was not going to let his use of the f-word go unanswered, so she says she shouted back: “Hey, (f-word) you.”
(My list of urban survival would also include not using the f-word on total strangers, which can lead to an increase in the crime rate.)
This man then stomped over to Claudine, she says, and screamed: “What did you say? Huh? What did you say to me?”
Meanwhile, the two men who had been walking ahead of Claudine got in their car and drove away. A honk of a horn, a twang of an antenna, and their part of the mini-drama had ended.
But now Claudine found herself jawing with this third person, who was quite angry. And she says the following events took place:
– He said he was a cop. It turned out that he was a cop in a tactical unit, which means he goes around in street clothes and handles rough stuff. And there were three other tac-unit cops with him, two men, one a woman.
– He put handcuffs on her and told her she was going to ride to the station in a squadrol. (Actually, she said that he said “paddy wagon,” but I’m not supposed to use “paddy wagon” because it might offend Irish readers.)
– He made her wait almost 40 minutes in the cold until a squadrol arrived, then told the driver to give her a rough ride so she would learn to behave like a lady.
(Her brother, incidentally, apparently a mild-mannered sort, had been dispatched to contact relatives and a lawyer.)
– At the police station, the tactical cop continued treating her rudely, screaming, insulting, using the f-word and acting like he might be suffering from professional stress and in need of some Prozac.
– He slapped her in the face. That’s what Claudine says. And when she told a female officer: “You should be ashamed of yourself, letting him do that to me,” she said the female officer responded: “Shut up.” So much for sisterhood.
– After a few miserable hours, she was released on bail. But she has filed a complaint with the Police Department and is planning on filing a lawsuit.
I didn’t use Claudine’s full name because I can’t be sure she is being 100 percent truthful. Nor do I have the cop’s side of the story. The commander of the 18th District confirms that the cop, first name Steve, is a one of his lads, but he says nobody can talk about Claudine’s complaint because it will have to be investigated.
Of course, now I’ll hear from somebody at the Police Department saying I should have given the cops’ side of it or not printed Claudine’s version. After they refuse to give their side of it, they always whine that way.
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Anyway, Claudine says she has learned something from this experience: “It taught me that not all police officers are there to help or protect us.”
There’s some truth in that. But I hope she also learned something else: Honk your horn at dogs, cats and squirrels.