The Man and I had left the mountain and were traveling east on Interstate 40. We were each in our own van, not trying to follow each other, but with a prearranged meeting in mind.
I pulled off in Kingman, AZ to top off my gas tank and empty my bladder.
I’ve never spent much time in Kingman. I’ve used it as a gasoline and bathroom break stop on trips between Las Vegas, NV and Phoenix, and I spent a few hours there with Mr. Carolina and the boys when we were traveling together to Oklahoma City, but I’ve never spent the night. When I was there with Mr. Carolina and the boys in early November of 2012, there seemed to be a lot of tension in the town. People yelled out of car windows at other drivers, and the vibe wasn’t friendly. I did, however, collect enough money by flying a sign to get the oil change my van desperately needed, so there was some love in the town.
On the day in the fall of 2018 when I drove through Kingman alone, I stopped at the traffic light at the end of the off ramp, waiting for it to change to green so I could turn and make my way to the Flying J. Just after the light changed, but before the vehicles ahead of me started moving, a small SUV rolled up next to me in the far left turn lane. The SUV slowed down as it pulled up next to me, but kept rolling slowly.
A head popped out of the front passenger window. The passenger seemed to be male, was definitely young, and had dark curly hair. The passenger looked right at me and hollered, “What’s up, you fucking chicken nugget?”
I wasn’t offended so much as startled and mystified.
Why me? Why was the kid yelling at me? Probably for no reason other than proximity. My window happened to be next to his window as the vehicle he was in slowed, so he yelled at me.
But why call me a chicken nugget? Nothing about me really says “chicken nugget” as far as I can tell. Are people in hippie vans known to eat a lot of chicken nuggets? I never got that memo. Do poor people eat a lot of chicken nuggets because the poultry chunks are cheap? Was he calling me poor because I was driving an old, banged up van?
I know I’m probably overthinking this. The kid probably yelled at me simply because I was there. He probably opened his mouth and let the first thing that popped into his head pop out. He probably just said something to make his friends in the vehicle with him laugh. What he said probably meant nothing at all.