Hypnosis on the wheels of a steel tank
If you go so far out on the edge that you find yourself drinking a beer with death, when you come back you can do anything.
Easter Sunday 2005--in a downpour in the dark--I was driving a '66 Ford Fairlane up the stretch of 880 that runs from San Jose to Berkeley. The rain was pelting the car like hailstones, and the visibility was like staring into a piece of computer paper stained by long streaks of black ink. I was driving a matchbox car through a file cabinet full of soaking wet newspapers.
Sara sat uneasy in the passenger seat. Her eyes were large, infused with terror, peeled to the glass of the windshield. The static of the radio blared from the speakers between her sharp blasts of "get over to the left!" "you're over the line!" and "honey, watch it!" She tried to talk me into turning around and staying the night in San Jose.
But I was calm, relaxed. Total control.
A '66 Ford Fairlane is a giant, hollow piece of steel that ambles down the pothole-plagued roads of Northern California like a drunk in some early Irish novel. The steering wheel is loose and unreliable. You cannot control this hunk of steel; you can only hope to guide it in the right general direction.
Somewhere before Freemont, at a swerving 65 miles per hour, I approached an 18-wheel tanker in a patch of thick traffic. He was in the right lane and I was in the center. In the heavy rains we were both wavering back and forth in our lanes as waves of water shot out from every tire.
I knew I had to pass the tanker before he caused too much trouble in the congestion, so I lounged forward. 65 mph and I nugded the pedal harder. 70, 75, 80, I was building speed and lurking forward, creeping up on the long, silver tanker.
Just as the nose of the Ford was even with his bumper, I watched him lose control and slide into our lane. His front end was angling toward us as I jerked the wheel and slammed on the breaks, hydroplaning and nicking the side of a small honda on my left. Sara cried out in a series of piercing screams and yells that intensified as the side of the tanker came closer and closer to us in the windshield.
It happened in a cascade of freeze frames that clicked like snapshots as the image of the tanker became larger and larger. Cars in every direction were dodging left and right, water engulfed us like a wave over a surfer. Every nerve in my body stabbed my inner layers like a single, giant double-edged needle. Pure terror shocked my frame into paralysis as Sara's screams bounced from wall to wall inside my head.
Up close, the wheels of the tanker were as big as the Ford. This vision seemed queerly intriguing from my vantage point behind the steering wheel, and in the confusion of flying water, darting cars and piercing screams I snapped into a peaceful, still calm. It was a dreamy calm, icy, dark, dead and unresponsive. Hypnosis on the wheels of a steel tank. My heart rate slowed to zero as my last breath passed through my lungs, into the tubes of my chest and out my mouth. I smiled.
In the next moment the tanker seemed to grab a hold of itself. Like the man who nods off in his chair and quickly jerks his head back into a wakeful state, the truck snapped to attention and skidded in the opposite direction. He regained composure, straightened out and slowed down.
I slowed down to half his speed and watched him gain distance on us. A few long, hard breaths followed from both Sara and I, and we checked to make sure the other was ok. I pulled into the right lane and crawled along at 40 mph for two or three solid minutes before picking up speed again in the flow of traffic.
I approached the tanker, but moved over two lanes before overtaking him. Ten minutes or so after I passed him I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed the tanker taking an exit beneath a sign advertising a fast food joint. His long body eased into the turn as he decreased speed and inserted himself into the wide mouth of the exit ramp.
Easter Sunday 2005--in a downpour in the dark--I was driving a '66 Ford Fairlane up the stretch of 880 that runs from San Jose to Berkeley. The rain was pelting the car like hailstones, and the visibility was like staring into a piece of computer paper stained by long streaks of black ink. I was driving a matchbox car through a file cabinet full of soaking wet newspapers.
Sara sat uneasy in the passenger seat. Her eyes were large, infused with terror, peeled to the glass of the windshield. The static of the radio blared from the speakers between her sharp blasts of "get over to the left!" "you're over the line!" and "honey, watch it!" She tried to talk me into turning around and staying the night in San Jose.
But I was calm, relaxed. Total control.
A '66 Ford Fairlane is a giant, hollow piece of steel that ambles down the pothole-plagued roads of Northern California like a drunk in some early Irish novel. The steering wheel is loose and unreliable. You cannot control this hunk of steel; you can only hope to guide it in the right general direction.
Somewhere before Freemont, at a swerving 65 miles per hour, I approached an 18-wheel tanker in a patch of thick traffic. He was in the right lane and I was in the center. In the heavy rains we were both wavering back and forth in our lanes as waves of water shot out from every tire.
I knew I had to pass the tanker before he caused too much trouble in the congestion, so I lounged forward. 65 mph and I nugded the pedal harder. 70, 75, 80, I was building speed and lurking forward, creeping up on the long, silver tanker.
Just as the nose of the Ford was even with his bumper, I watched him lose control and slide into our lane. His front end was angling toward us as I jerked the wheel and slammed on the breaks, hydroplaning and nicking the side of a small honda on my left. Sara cried out in a series of piercing screams and yells that intensified as the side of the tanker came closer and closer to us in the windshield.
It happened in a cascade of freeze frames that clicked like snapshots as the image of the tanker became larger and larger. Cars in every direction were dodging left and right, water engulfed us like a wave over a surfer. Every nerve in my body stabbed my inner layers like a single, giant double-edged needle. Pure terror shocked my frame into paralysis as Sara's screams bounced from wall to wall inside my head.
Up close, the wheels of the tanker were as big as the Ford. This vision seemed queerly intriguing from my vantage point behind the steering wheel, and in the confusion of flying water, darting cars and piercing screams I snapped into a peaceful, still calm. It was a dreamy calm, icy, dark, dead and unresponsive. Hypnosis on the wheels of a steel tank. My heart rate slowed to zero as my last breath passed through my lungs, into the tubes of my chest and out my mouth. I smiled.
In the next moment the tanker seemed to grab a hold of itself. Like the man who nods off in his chair and quickly jerks his head back into a wakeful state, the truck snapped to attention and skidded in the opposite direction. He regained composure, straightened out and slowed down.
I slowed down to half his speed and watched him gain distance on us. A few long, hard breaths followed from both Sara and I, and we checked to make sure the other was ok. I pulled into the right lane and crawled along at 40 mph for two or three solid minutes before picking up speed again in the flow of traffic.
I approached the tanker, but moved over two lanes before overtaking him. Ten minutes or so after I passed him I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed the tanker taking an exit beneath a sign advertising a fast food joint. His long body eased into the turn as he decreased speed and inserted himself into the wide mouth of the exit ramp.
posted by Frankis Molloy at 9:21 AM
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