Over the Hill

  

     When we'd finally persuaded my father's doctor to put restrictions on his license, the best we'd been able to negotiate was a five mile limit on his reach. We interpreted this to mean a five mile radius from his house; Dad informed us that as far as he was concerned it meant five miles from wherever he happened to find himself. Thus, he reasoned, if he had traveled five miles, then driving another five in any direction would be more or less the same as returning to the house. He was prepared to share this logic with the State Troopers should the need arise.

   In most rural communities men of a certain age are possessed of an almost overwhelming compulsion to visit the dump at least once a week. This may have as much to do with getting out of the house and having somewhere to go as taking out the trash or pawing through the junk shed. In some cases, standing around the tip trading lies with a bunch of like-minded fellows for half an hour may be the social high point of the week and if, along the way, one were to come upon the forbidden bag of caramels or cheese-curls, well, so much the better. Clad in his Town ensemble that Saturday morning - work boots, jeans, tweed jacket over v-neck sweater and gloves - my father announced he was off to the dump despite the fact that he'd been unable to muster up anything more respectable than a Ronzio box and a couple of empty seltzer bottles. When I said I'd come along and offered to drive, he told me I was welcome to join him but he'd do the driving, thank you very much. A few feeble attempts at argument drew a heated and disproportionate response, so I clammed up and went meekly towards my fate. When you're used to driving yourself around, the very act of climbing into the passenger's seat can feel odd and awkward, but to climb in next to a man you know shouldn't be driving at all requires a staggering leap of faith and at least a momentary reflection on the cleanliness of your underwear and the state of your worldly affairs.

   My father did not disappoint. Literally right out of the gate he took a left onto 194 and started up the half-mile hill towards Cowshit Corner on the wrong side of the road. At first I thought this lane error was more of a steering adjustment, but after ten or twenty yards I realized he intended to stay in the left lane for the duration despite the fact that there was no way to see beyond the crest of this long, looming hilltop. “ Dad,” I said. “Dad, you're on the wrong... Should we maybe get over...” I started to reach for the wheel, one eye on the rise, right hand on the door. I know he heard me. He offered no response, no adjustment, no chagrined swerve to the right; he gripped the wheel tightly and drove on, steadfast and determined. In that instant I felt my panic recede and a sort of eerie acceptance take its place. In the few seconds it took to review my life with Dad and realize I would apparently rather die in a fiery collision than make any further attempt at altering his course, we had shot up over the top of the hill and survived.

   Before we were married I accompanied Suzanne on one of her frequent business trips to India. One morning we had to scramble to find a car and driver to take us from Delhi to Jaipur because Air India had shut down all flights in and out of Rajastan so that Prince Charles could more comfortably attend to his polo match. An hour's flight, the drive would take six to seven and we set out at dawn with a box of fake French pastries from the Hilton, a couple of cups of undrinkable coffee in south-Asian styrene and – at least in my case, being a morning person – some enthusiasm at the chance to see a bit of the countryside. In those days the road to Jaipur had not improved measurably from the time of the Raj; mostly dirt, dust and sand, the north and southbound lanes were barely defined and any distinction between the two universally ignored. Far from the bucolic scenery I had anticipated, the roadside was a nearly continuous display of fresh, smoldering automotive carnage with crowds of young men and the occasional elephant on hand to push the latest hulks – wheels still spinning in the hot, thick air - out of the way. Indeed, passing the overloaded lorries and tilting buses had developed into something of a macho sport and our driver seemed to want to spice the game up a bit by confining his attempts to those moments he'd swung around to face us with some mindless anecdote. If he wasn't going to look, I certainly wasn't, and I spent most of those long hours with my fists clenched, my eyes shut and Suzanne, an old India hand, asleep with her head on my lap.

    The first indication that our flight back to Delhi some days later might not be any less terrifying than the drive out came before we even boarded. Mashed into a mob at the gate far larger than could possibly fit on the plane, we had no seat assignments, no boarding passes and little hope of even squeezing out the door to the runway before all the seats were taken. Bulling my way through the sea of saris, blindly clutching Suzanne's arm and dragging her toward the door, we were literally lifted up by the masses when the gate opened and somehow propelled as if by tsunami out onto the tarmac. There we were met by a half a dozen Indian soldiers in a sort of defensive line who tried to catch and pat down as many passengers as possible as they bobbed and weaved, darted and feinted in an effort to evade this hapless excuse for security in a mad dash for an empty seat. Once on board we sat for over an hour as groups of surly, plain-clothed security guys in tight-crotched slacks and Naugahyde jackets drifted slowly up and down the aisle trying to decide which of us may have placed a bomb on board in service to the separatists of Jammu and Kashmir. The abject absurdity of this was demonstrated by one fellow who crawled up and down the entire length of the plane banging about under every seat with his truncheon. This was the moment I turned to Suzanne and asked if she agreed we ought to think about getting off that plane. Of course, not wanting to make a scene, we sat tight. We sat tight when the engines finally coughed and sputtered to life and the security detail left the plane; when the jet began a rough and bumpy taxi toward the runway, shaking and vibrating so severely that the air-masks deployed and luggage rained down upon us from the overheads. We sat tight as we somehow left the ground, climbed for thirty seconds and dropped back down again before finally achieving altitude, leveling off and banking north for Delhi. By the time the stewardesses had rearranged the luggage and secured the overheads with duct tape, I had stopped waiting for the bomb blast and gripped Suzanne's hand in my own as we began our descent. Amidst a dangerous swirl of airborne carry-on, sweet tea and turbans, we landed at last in Delhi just a bit surprised to have survived.

 

   As I approach my sixtieth birthday after a lifetime of tempting fate with hubris and poor judgment, carelessness, acquiescence and mistakes habitually repeated, it gets harder and harder to know if I'm in the right lane or to see beyond the crest of that next rise. As for any fateful errors I may be poised to make, well, with one eye on the rear-view and both hands on the wheel I can only hope to shoot up over the hilltop and find a clear road ahead.