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Order this writing in the collection book Breaking Silences available for only 1650 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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One for the Book
Pat Dixon
My husband, Herb, is a nut in many ways. He has probably been a nut for most of his sixty-three years. Whenever I tell him this, he smiles in a non-irritating way and says, “At least with my name, I’m a well-seasoned nut,” and then he just continues with what he was already doing. Unlike many couples we know, the two of us still basically enjoy each other’s company and go out together nearly every weekend to do what we call “saling.” I always do the driving, Herb does the navigating, and together we get to as many garage sales and tag sales on Long Island as we can.
Each Thursday night, Herb begins planning our weekend route with various ads he’s clipped from the newspaper and the shopping guides we get. He enters his “data” into his IBM PC, and each Saturday morning by 7:00 a.m. he has a fresh updated “hardcopy” of our various current destinations all printed and ready to go. Herb keeps meticulous track of our route with an array of detailed street maps of the Long Island towns we normally visit, and he lets me know what intersections are coming up and where to turn. Often we chat about shallow things, such as the weather, the traffic, the treasures we’ve found, the trash people are trying to sell, the weirdos who run the sales, or the weird fellow customers we’ve seen. And Herb, whenever an ad has specified what’s for sale, will often speculate about what we’re likely to find next. Over ninety percent of the time it’s all just crap, but at least we’re doing something together, and Herb tells me it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts.
As you can imagine, the number of sales will vary widely throughout the year. In winter, we’re lucky if there are even two tag sales per week, and whenever there’s a religious holiday, the number of sales is almost down to nothing. On July 4th weekend or Labor Day weekend, forget it! For us, unless some major storm interferes, the best time has been the three-day weekend of Columbus Day. Then we go out Saturday and Sunday and Monday. At least Columbus Day weekend was Herb’s and my own favorite weekend until this year.
The chief reason Columbus Day weekend has been special is because it usually lets us get all the way up to the north shore of Long Island where the million-dollar places have their sales. We get to go into huge, ugly mansions where they’re selling off nearly everything, for whatever reason--retirement, death, divorce, business going bust, whatever. Even when there’s nothing but bad-taste designer clothing and chrome furniture instead of what we want, Herb and I enjoy wandering around in what we call “Gatsby-land” and make wisecracks to each other about what we see and hear. Herb repeatedly tells our friends, “It’s better than a play.” And Herb tells me, “Weekend ‘saling’ is cheaper and a lot safer than other folks’ hobbies, like gambling, drinking, drag-racing, or cheating on each other.” Basically, Herb enjoys thinking of rich people as weaker in character than we are, and he enjoys seeing evidence that they’re defective in taste, intellect, heart, morals, and everything else he happens to value.
Herb had a stroke eight years ago and doesn’t drive at all. As I said, sometimes while I’m driving and he’s navigating, Herb and I talk about the traffic. I would rather not do so when I’m driving during the week--because it sometimes leads to trouble. When school is open, at least twice a week he’ll spot some school bus driver doing what most New York drivers do naturally--running red lights--and he’ll write down the school buses’ numbers and report ‘em to the local schools and the PTA. He always gives our own name and phone number, which sometimes leads to obscene calls from drivers he’s reported! If I see stuff on a weekday that he doesn’t, I keep my mouth shut. One lawyer friend has nicknamed Herb “Vehicle Vigilante,” but I’m patient about this compulsion because his daughter by his first wife was crippled thirty years ago by a school bus driver.
On weekends, Herb usually doesn’t see any violations he wants to report, but he often jots down unusual traffic behavior as notes for a book he and his lawyer friend are trying to write--a satire called “How to Drive Like a New Yorker.” The basic two categories, he says, are the pushy drivers and the timid drivers. I’d tend to agree that both kinds are menaces--some causing accidents by their reckless moves to get ahead of people, and the others by provoking ordinary drivers beyond endurance. I’ve seen the latter kind driving 15 miles an hour on a street that’s posted for 35 and aggravate somebody to try to pass them even though it’s a no-passing area.
Unlike me, Herb is usually delighted with bad drivers, even when they’re doing something he’s already seen a hundred times. He’ll laugh while I swear like a sailor and tell me, “Matty, that was category 57-B”--or whatever it is. And if it’s a new stunt that he and his friend haven’t already described and classified, Herb is even more pleased--because that means more grist for their slowly growing manuscript.
Last Monday, the final morning of this year’s Columbus Day weekend, Herb and I were traveling north on a major highway towards the Long Island Expressway. Suddenly I mashed down hard my brakes and hit the horn--and a long, rather pathetic bleat came from our ten-year-old Honda wagon. A shiny black BMW had been cruising along beside me on my left for several miles, and then with no warning it swerved halfway into my lane. As I slowed and pulled to the right, the traffic signals ahead of us turned orange. As the light turned red, the mad BM-er swerved in front of Herb and me, accellerated briskly for about sixty feet, ran the light in front of three lanes of traffic exiting the Expressway, and sped down a ramp marked “NO TURN ON RED.” As I shouted, “You stupid turd!” at the vanishing car, Herb chuckled and then cited the three stunts its driver had achieved in the smooth-flowing manner of a Taoist monk.
“Don’t you give me any of your Taoist bull, Herb Marshall!” I snarled. “That rich dick-head nearly killed the both of us.”
“It’s over with, Matty. Just put it behind you. Nothing really happened, and once more it was your own equally marvelous Taoist reflexes that prevented that fly from doing us any harm. My girl is the best driver on the whole Island. I’ve said so a hundred times, haven’t I? There are no crappy categories in the book about women drivers, are there, love, because I know better than to stereotype, thanks to you.”
Of course that was partly bull. I’m glad, though, that Herb honestly respects my driving abilities and doesn’t get upset whenever we have a hairy close call. About the only time he ever freaks out in the car is when he thinks there’s a bee or wasp in it, and that’s because I’m allergic to stings and could die from one. Just the day before, Sunday, he’d started to shout and flail around while I was driving, but it turned out that it was only a large blue fly. It was a kind of Indian Summer weekend, and I’d noticed several of them against the back and side windows of our garage before I’d backed out the Honda. So I was prepared to expect a fly in the car, and I calmly told him what it really was.
Anyway, after that BMW cut us off, I was feeling a little shaky and suggested that we make a pit-stop somewhere for a coffee and a bagel or something. Herb named a fast-food place that was about ten minutes away, and I agreed.
As I pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, Herb began to fumble through a folder he keeps in the map compartment. I winced silently and made a face for my own benefit. I parked in a handicapped spot near the front door, but Herb took one of his pieces of paper and limped across the lot to where a car was straddling the line between two parking places. I waited by the entrance while Herb leaned his cane against the car and put one of his computer-printed notices under the driver-side wiper. Halfway across the lot as Herb approached me, a young man and woman passed him. The man asked what the paper said, and Herb told him to read it himself--if he could do so. The fellow trotted over to his car, pulled the paper out, and shouted at Herb’s back.
“Hey! Hey, asswipe! How’d you like me to put you in a hospital? Smart-ass f--ing gimp asshole!”
Herb was clearly pleased with himself. He’d gotten under someone’s skin who was clearly in the wrong. I didn’t ask, but Herb told me anyway.
“I gave him notice Number 17--the one that says, ‘I know I’ve taken two parking places, but I know I’m better than you. What are YOU going to do about it--scratch my paint with your key?’ I think I’ve planted a seed of self-knowledge in the fellow. Maybe he’ll think twice before he does that again.”
I just looked past him and said nothing as I held the door open. Inside, after we found a small booth, I asked him to order me a tuna sandwich and an iced tea while I went to the ladies’ room. When I got back, I asked him what sorts of treasures were listed in the ad for our next sale and what we might find instead. He made a few good-natured quips that oriental rugs were listed but that we’d probably only see pinkish monstrosities the color of Pepto-Bismol or old stairway runners woven in Belgium. He added that wealthy people often try to sell their used light bulbs and half-empty rolls of toilet paper. I didn’t mention that he’d often said this before. I did, however, comment as the waitress set our food down.
“Are you trying to make me a widow, you dumb son of a bitch? Just what in hell are you trying to do?”
Herb looked placidly at his two enchiladas smothered in nacho cheese.
“It’s the weekend, Matty. It’s a holiday, and I’m giving myself a well-deserved treat as a reward for following my diet to the letter all this past week.”
“You know how bogus that is,” I said. “Don’t insult yourself by pretending to treat me like a moron. I won’t make a scene about this, but you know how I feel.”
That was enough to make him feel too guilty to enjoy what he ate. He simulated great gusto as he shoveled in each mouthful, but he said little, and I know my own husband. When we’d finished and paid, we walked quietly to the car.
“Where to next, big guy?” I asked as I nosed our station wagon onto Northern Boulevard. He told me to take the next right, go two blocks, and take a left. I did so.
Ahead of us was a line of at least ten cars waiting at a green light. For some reason no one was moving. The light turned orange and then red. We waited. The light stayed red, red, red. After about four minutes, there was considerable honking.
Herb smiled and commented, “One of my friends used to say, ‘If you keep ‘em waiting long, they have to honk their horn.’ Sort of a little poem about New York drivers.”
You’ve told me this before, I thought silently, and I’ve told you before that it doesn’t really rhyme. And I’m sure that you know we’ve had your half of this conversation fifty times already. Then I noticed that several of the drivers--despite the double yellow lines--were driving around into the oncoming lane and were going through the red light, making both right and left turns--despite, furthermore, a sign that said, “NO TURN ON RED.” I expected Herb to cite for me the sections from that book of his that applied to this, and he did so, of course.
After approximately ten minutes, the light finally turned green again. It was now clear that the car at the front of the line was not moving, and several cars again honked and then passed by driving into the oncoming lane.
“We’d better report this defective light when we get a chance,” I said. “It’s a holiday weekend, and the town police haven’t noticed it or else don’t think it matters. They should put someone up there to direct traffic and get an emergency crew to come out to fix it.”
After another ten minutes we were directly behind that front car, a maroon Mercedes, and I could see the top of its driver’s head, barely visible at about the height of the dashboard. Herb and I had often joked about how bad some short drivers were who sat too low in their cars and peered beneath the rim of their steering wheels, obviously unable to see the road itself. My hypothesis was that they judged where the road was by the nearby telephone poles and wires, but Herb insisted that they drove by tactile and auditory clues alone. His friend and he had put five pages on this topic into their book.
“It looks like a little old lady there,” I said. “I wonder if she’s all right.” Behind me, several dozen horns were blaring, and two people pulled their cars out and passed both our car and the one in front of us, one turning right on red, the other turning left.
“It’s green again,” said Herb. “Pull around her, and I’ll take a look.”
“Like hell,” I replied. “That would make me no better than these citizens who are breaking the law. Besides, it’d be just my luck to have a cop catch me in the act. You know my luck.” The light turned red again as I finished speaking.
“I can see her moving,” said Herb. “Her head just moved a couple inches. Stay here, Matty, and I’ll go see. If it turns green and she pulls out, make a right and pick me up around the corner.”
The car in front of us didn’t move. Herb limped up to the passenger’s side and looked into it. Then suddenly he moved faster than I’ve seen him do in eight years--his head whipped around, and he doubled over. I thought he was having another stroke, but it turned out that he was only retching and losing that abominable lunch of his. I shut off the engine and was at his side before I even knew it.
As I held him, Herb weakly told me to look in the car.
Inside was an elderly woman--neatly, tastefully, and expensively dressed, as if for church or temple--although this was a Monday. Her hands were on her steering wheel. Her face was unblinking, unseeing, and expressionless, yet, in an odd way she was animated. Inside her car were several large, blue flies, and inside her dead face and neck--and presumably all the rest of her body--squirmed thousands, perhaps millions, of lively, hungry pale gray maggots.
I swallowed carefully. While twenty or more cars behind us honked with anger and impatience, I pointed out to Herb the obvious bright side: this was a new one for the book.
