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WEDNESDAY, 3 MAY, 2000, PHILADELPHIA |
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I woke up this morning with an episode in my head that happened simply yeahhz ago, dahlink, and yet haunts me to this day. Obviously. Because it was in my head, stuck like a Debbie Boone song. Today. Yeahhz later. December, leaving Ithaca, NY. Driving down to DC to see some fambly and catch a flight west the next day. Blizzard. Bad windshield wipers. Salty, slushy roads. Many trucks on winding Pennsylvania highways spewing muck on my car. (Back then, Pennsylvania was merely a large chunk of road betwixt me and my destination.) “Pennsylvania’s just a state that gets in your way when you’re trying to go someplace else!” — House of Yes Having to stop every ten minutes or so to manually wipe opaque salty mud from the windshield. Have a bad habit of locking the car door when I get out — generally not a bad habit, but tonight … Pull over on an incline. Liberty, PA. A town name très à propos. Coat is off because heat is blasting. Suzanne Vega in tape player, if that dates this story sufficiently. Get out of car. Mechanically lock door without thinking. Wipe windshild. Puff of wind and wet snow. Door starts closing. Moment to choose: Jam hand between door and frame and break bones? Let door close and freeze to death? Being an international superstar classical pianist, I choose option B. Besides, who wasn’t suicidal in college anyway? Short sleeves. -10°F with wind chill. Peering through window, looking hungrily at keys vibrating cosily in ignition and the coat on the passenger seat. Not feeling the cold yet, but knowing it will come soon. Tape player fucks up. Suzanne Vega begins unfurling out of the machine and down the dash. Tape flutters in the hot wind blasting from vents. I am envious of Suzanne Vega. It is this unique emotion at this particular moment in life which plagued me upon waking this morning — wherefore, I know not. A sinking of stomach, blood rushing to head. Dread, panic and, in some dark corner, perverse acceptance and relief. Break window? What, and have car sitting in snow with no window for four weeks while I’m away? No. Bad idea. Maybe later when limbs turn blue. That’s Plan B. Hitch. Never hitched before. Seems like good time to start. 
My Secret Pokémon Power today is — can write without pronouns or articles. Observe Route 15, in the dark, during blizzard. Traffic is minimal, to say the least. Wait ten eternal minutes for car to come by. Stick out thumb. Car pulls over, of course, because circumstances are cruel. “Nice night for it,” says smalltown lady. “Take me to someone who can break into a car.” “I’ll take you down to ole So-n-So’s garage. He should be around still. You must have a lovely singing voice,” she adds, inexplicably. So-n-So sends out his flunky to drive me back to my purring, warm, inaccessible auto. Slimjims door open. “How much?” “Oh, er, I dunno, say, $6?” Astounded. I slip a case of beer onto his front seat that I happened to have in trunk while he isn’t looking. “Here’s $10. And I left you a present on your seat. Merry exmas.” Checks front seat. Smiles wistfully. “I’m on the wagon,” he says, “wife’ll leave me.” Mortified and cold and tired and stupid, I reply, “Well bye!” and zoom off down the slushy road towards Washington. Brother Pschtÿchque writes, in response to the above: I’m surprised you didn’t mention the story of returning to PA after leaving grandma’s with 2 garbage bags full of opened booze (I normally despise the use of that word, as it sounds so cheap and tawdry, but in this case, it is the only word that applies to your cargo) and rear-ending the Persian, who was instructed by Allah to file with his insurance agent. Wot a hoot!!!!Yah yah yah! Or, ha ha, whattabout the next week when I was doing the same drive and my car broke down in the Blair Witch country of Maryland miles from any exit or farm and I sat on the back of my car in January, frozen fingers holding a sign that pleaded “PHONE?” scrawled on a Pep Boys receipt with purple lipstick. Ohh, what heady, heady days! I howled! 
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