Curbs, crosswalks and traffic cones, yellow cabs and garbage trucks—people threading through like steaming ants crossing streets with surly grit and toughness. Out-of-town courtesy was just another opening.

If they didn’t see the Colorado plates, swarms of New Yorkers saw the hugeness of the big black Silverado, cut off a cab and jumped back, either from fear or the jolting blare of a dirty taxi horn. Or maybe the barked curse.

“You wanna talk to Jesus?” Maria barked right back as she spun the truck around an ever-present orange barrel with a horn bleat of her own. “I can make that happen.”

Jostled in the back seat, I laughed to myself, thinking of the first time I’d seen my daughter-in-law angry, back in Colorado. Six-year-old Dylan—who’d be taking orders from a drill sergeant in a few years—had been acting up at the checkout, grabbing toys and candy with both hands.

“Gimme twenty,” she snapped, whipping off a sandal and slapping it against her palm.

Dylan dropped right there in the checkout lane between the carts and executed twenty rapid pushups among the applauding shoppers.

New York was nothing to a Mexican mama raised among fishermen, tending senile grandparents, washing dishes and stirring pietà in a waterfront kitchen. A sandal, whipped and wielded, was enough to send my French bulldog whimpering behind the couch.

Then, just as suddenly as she’d challenged the cabbie to meet his Maker, Maria hit the brakes.

An elderly woman, bent nearly double beneath two grocery bags, was making her way through the crosswalk.

Maria leaned out the window.

“Take your time, sweetheart. You’re fine.”

The old woman smiled and gave a little wave. Maria smiled back.

Traffic piled up behind us. Horns sounded. Nobody moved.

I watched Maria and shook my head. Thirty seconds earlier she’d been ready to send a taxi driver into the next life.

The sandal was never really about anger. It was about taking care of things.

As effective as a jackhammer a block away.