Waiting for the Man (15 page)

The bus was loaded and the media embarked. The police had cordoned off the street and at the end of my block I stopped the van and rolled down a window. A cop greeted me. He was a big man, with a belly that looked a bit ridiculous scrunched into his uniform. “Son, we’re going to escort you out of town,” he said.

“I appreciate that,” I said.

“So if you told me what kind of route you had in mind . . .” he said.

“Holland Tunnel,” I said.

“And then you’re on your own, unless they have plans for you in New Jersey,” he said.

“We’ll see on the other side,” I said.

He smiled then. “Good luck to you.”

And I smiled back and extended my hand and we shook. He walked away and said something into his shoulder radio. I closed the window and moved forward and I was suddenly in the traffic of a regular workday in Manhattan. The police escort consisted of two cars ahead of me, two motorcycles on either side of me and two cars behind. Small crowds of people gathered on the sidewalk to watch me pass by. Various digital devices were held in my direction. I noticed a new cocktail lounge where once there had been a pet shop. And next to it, a school that taught “kinky belly dancing.” I’m sure that had been a dusty carpet store earlier. And I noticed that the traffic lights had been synchronized so that I wouldn’t hit a red. It was a nice touch.

I waved to people. I did some smiling. I passed my favorite lunch place, a small Asian diner with pork buns I wanted desperately to taste again. And then the entrance to the tunnel loomed before me like the open mouth of a hungry dragon. Without the traffic and the lights, I again realized how small Manhattan really is. We had driven there in less than five minutes. I entered the tunnel. The world felt better somehow, a feeling I’ve never really had on the way to New Jersey. I felt a kind of freedom. Everything seemed dark for a second and then my eyes adjusted to the sad jaundice-colored light. I may have smiled then. A genuine smile. An indication of happiness.

I passed the endless suburbs of New Jersey, the communities of winding streets and Little League strip malls, of half-finished developments and neighborhood associations and backyards and weather stripping and lawncare and barbecues, the kind of place I grew up in, somewhere out there, where the high school meets the liquor store and shares a parking lot with a McDonald’s and a dry cleaner, just behind the corporate parks overrun with Canada geese, next to the Hiltons and HoJos, just across the six lane highways from the old-fashioned diner with the fattiest, tastiest bacon and the wide-hipped waitress who knows you by name.

A caravan grew. It remained behind the bus mostly but every so often a small sporty car would come speeding by me and a girl would flash her breasts. It became a strangely common thing to see and it started to make me feel old.

Looking into the rearview mirror, I could see a parade of cars that stretched back toward the towers of Manhattan. Each exit produced more cars, people who just wanted to get in line so they could say they did it, more trying to get in on an event before they’d turn around and go home in time to settle down on their couch and catch the opening pitch from Yankee Stadium. Above me, two helicopters hovered, a camera leaning out the side like a suction pump. The journey looked like the funeral procession of a semi-famous philosopher. Or meteorologist.

I turned on the cell phone and called Dan. “I love a parade,” he said, with some obvious joy.

“Helicopters make me nervous,” I said. And they did. There was no reason for it, just a fear that I’d picked up somewhere and never let go. There was a touch of menace in the sound of the helicopter, the unnatural way they hovered. I don’t like dragonflies either.

“They’re New York,” Dan said. “It shouldn’t last long.”

“First it’s New York, and then it’s the next city, and then the next. It won’t stop,” I said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I heard Dan say. The reception rendered his voice barely above a whisper. American cell phone reception used to be a big topic at the office whenever someone returned from a trip overseas. “But not all news channels have access to choppers. Just so you know. You need a good-sized market. This won’t be a problem in, say, Louisville.”

“Am I going to Louisville?” I asked.

“We’re going wherever you lead us,” Dan said. “This whole thing is like follow the leader.”

The little boy in me wanted to start changing lanes indiscriminately to see what would happen. “I’m going to leave the phone on. Please don’t abuse it.” I put the phone down. I considered turning the radio on and resisted. I hadn’t broken bread with the media since the beginning of the wait and starting at this juncture seemed like bad karma, another reason for the Man to stay away. I drove in silence, my head barren, as if thinking about anything would interfere with the instruction I was sure was coming. I had nothing to do. We’ve mythologized driving without once admitting how boring it really is.

I crested the hills of New Jersey and drove toward the Pennsylvania border. I crossed the Delaware and was met by the sedans of two state troopers. One of them drove ahead of me, slowly, clearing the way, the other got behind the bus and stopped. Out the rearview mirror, I saw the trooper attempt to discourage anyone from following me. Quickly, two more troopers appeared and a roadblock was set up. The convoy was over. I was still in the Eastern time zone.

And then I noted the absence of helicopters. And then I realized I was about to ram the backside of the police car ahead of me and I slowed to forty, unsure of whether or not it was good form to overtake it. I called Dan. A familiar voice answered. “Angie?”

“Hi Joe,” she said. “Surprise, surprise.”

“Did I call your home?” I asked, flummoxed. I slowed down again to avoid hitting the trooper.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Dan kind of hired me.”

This put a smile on my face. “As what?” I asked.

“Secretary, personal assistant, organizer, whatever,” she replied. “I was helping him with the press releases and stuff at home. And, of course, he wants to fuck me.”

“Is he making you do real work?” I asked.

“It’s all legit,” she said. “I think he knows he doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Is he paying you well?” I asked.

“Well enough but not well enough to fuck me,” she said.

“No, really,” I said.

“He’s overpaying me,” she said. “Why else would I come? Plus, it’s like an adventure. I needed a break.”

That Angie had somehow profited from this brought me a perverse kind of pleasure. She was the kind of good person you think only exists on TV until you meet them. As long as she didn’t sleep with Dan, this was a good development, I thought. Though I don’t know why a Dan-Angie coupling bothered me so much. “I need to speak to Dan,” I said.

“
Ciao bello
,” she said, and I heard her hand the phone to Dan.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“Don’t get high school on me,” I said.

“No,” he said. “She’s a champ. She’s an organizational genius. I really need her.”

“Fine,” I said. “I called because this state trooper is breaking his own laws. I’m not going through this state driving forty.”

“Are we going right through the state?” Dan asked quickly.

“Stop it,” I said.

“Yes. It’s getting old,” he said. “The troopers. Seems they don’t want you on the interstate, the turnpike, or any other major road. They also said they would prefer it if you stayed away from major cities. Harrisburg. Hershey. Pittsburgh. Places like that.”

“They think those are major cities?” I said.

“They’re not joking,” Dan said.

“Of course they are,” I said. Where was I supposed to go? How was I supposed to drive west without the use of the interstate system? I wasn’t even sure that was possible. Had all those small towns that the system bypassed died in vain? “I should be allowed to drive anywhere. If the authorities have a problem it’s with the bus and the caravan. They seem to have stopped the latter. As to the former . . .”

“And
that’s
not funny anymore,” Dan said.

“I’m not taking a detour for anyone. I’m not doing anything illegal. As long as I’m not instructed otherwise, I’m staying on this road. And you know what I mean by instruction,” I said. And at that I wanted to feel the Man again. I wanted him in this minivan. Sitting next to me.

“I understand,” he said.

“You’ve dealt with cops before,” I said.

Dan sighed. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said and hung up.

I swerved out of the lane and passed the trooper and he sped up and started pursuing me. I drove by Allentown and Bethlehem chased by a trooper, a large black bus, and another trooper. I would have laughed but something about Pennsylvania had always frightened me. The entire road unfolded itself before me like a bad circus act, the Odyssey the lead vehicle in a parade of elephants wearing tutus, a nice commingling of the news, entertainment, and law enforcement industries. Which just about covers everything, doesn’t it? This was a variation of the O.J. picture. I was the white Bronco. I saw a day when every car in America was behind us, tailing the Odyssey, not knowing why, just doing it because, living another slice of the American experience. I could see tour operators leading picnic buses that would hitch up with the convoy as we passed through their area, just long enough to let clients experience the thrill of the chase before turning back.

For the first time, I understood that I was throwing a flower on my old life. I was different now. New York’s gravity no longer exerted itself on me. I was going somewhere. I was being followed by state troopers in a slow motion chase through woods in Pennsylvania. I had never pictured the state to be so lush. I pulled the brim of my baseball cap tightly over my forehead until it about covered my eyes. I could barely see the road.

Just outside Allentown, where the sprawl thinned out and the countryside asserted itself again, the troopers ended their pursuit and pulled off the highway. And that was that. No troopers. Dan was responsible, I was sure of it. All those killings and rapes and cop beats for the
Post
had given him the skills needed to negotiate this journey effectively. I would thank him later. Finally, the hills got steeper, they had dynamited the road through, you could tell, and I relaxed again, adjusting to my new reality, not only to the journey but to the person I was becoming.

Without the troopers the caravan formed again though not with the immensity it had grown to in New Jersey. I thought that at some point I would drive through the boundary of my notoriety and would be able to continue my craziness with my own silent desperation. I called Dan. “I’m hungry,” I announced.

“Food isn’t a problem,” he said.

“When I eat the food, do I have to hold it in any special way?” I asked. “Meaning, do I have to eat food with product placement in mind? Hold things toward the camera in that unnatural way actors hold things in commercials? Do I need to ensure that labels are visible? Do I chew gum holding the package just so? When I drink some water, should the label face the camera? And should I show pleasure? Should I smile after every sip? Should I wet my hair so I can shake in slow motion?”

“Please,” Dan said. “Get over yourself.”

“So I’m going to stop,” I said. “I thought you should know.”

I heard Dan ask for something. I heard Angie’s voice. “There’s a rest stop two miles away,” he said.

“That’s impressive, Captain,” I said.

“It has restrooms and candy machines but no restaurant,” he said.

“I don’t need a restaurant,” I said and hung up.

And sure enough, there was a rest stop with “no service facilities” two miles ahead. And though we were surrounded by trees, we could smell farmers’ fields newly sprayed with fertilizer. The air was redolent, brown almost. I could almost see the smell. Surely this kind of pollution was bad for the planet as well. Crap was natural. What these farm animals ate most definitely wasn’t. And natural or not, we were breathing it in, swimming in it. The smell was inside every bit of me. The air was thick. And sweet. But mostly sour.

I parked the Odyssey and got out. I opened the back door, took the cooler out, and opened it. And suddenly I wasn’t hungry at all. The odor from the farmlands combined with the smell of the food commingling in the giant cooler made the idea of eating impossible. Like going out for a burger after you’ve visited a slaughterhouse and then fallen into a vat of the still-steaming entrails of the thing you are about to eat. You smell this smell and you know you’re very close to seeing someone make sausage.

The bus pulled into the rest area and stopped. It did not park. Cars from the caravan pulled in and parked around us. People got out with cameras around their necks. They stood at their cars and started snapping photos. I waved meekly.

No one exited the bus. I could see cables run from its roof and down the side, disappearing into the baggage compartments. A smaller satellite dish has been welded to its back. The thing looked absolutely like something the Pentagon might develop for a quarter of a billion dollars. Its dark windows hid the media from me, from the world. I had no idea how many people were on it. That’s Darth Bus, I thought.

A car pulled into the rest area and stopped beside the Odyssey. Two teenage girls ran out, screaming, little groupies. I expected to see their breasts soon enough. They were dressed identically, with lowcut jeans displaying pink thong underwear, powder blue tank tops, their equally blond hair done up in pigtails. They approached me with a terrifying swiftness. And now I was besieged. The girls’ approach was a green light. Others came to shake my hand, or kiss me, or take photos, or get autographs. I stood up on the cooler and stared in the direction of the bus. The girls, especially, were reaching for my shirt, begging for kisses, pressing themselves upon me. But their breasts remained hidden. Cameras buzzed.

Dan emerged from the bus and slowly the media descended. Here was a photo op, for sure. Angie followed Dan and they walked toward me. Dan gently but firmly pulled the girls away. I noticed that each held one of the back pockets of my pants. I felt around my seat for gaps in the fabric. One of the girls was crying with joy. Dan and two large men from the bus pulled the crowd away and created a sort of barrier. The big guys were surely cameramen. Someone must have found the scene ironic. I came to Pennsylvania and became a Beatle.