Overwrite Overpass

haven't we been here before
before when
you know, back in December
westbound, not eastbound
we're eastbound now
now I remember
every rest stop
'I Shall Be Released'
over and over again a loop
remember when I said it's over before it began
right
that I'd never see her again
but we're on the other side now
son
brother
going the other way
coming and going
what's the going rate
going and coming
what's the difference
true, what's the diff
this is the other side
the opposite way
no direction home
none at all
my breath smoke in the night
rising halo
the ribbon of road unfurling in the dark
radio silent, CD off
I shall be released
arriving before I get there
but this is the other side
I know, you said that
if you can't erase it
at least record over it
overwrite it
play it backwards
pay it forward
in the rearview mirror
frosted in the skeleton night
still as an anvil
before it lands
I told you so
you didn't want to hear it
I brushed it off
lake-effect snow
on my hair
off your coat
the windshield
wiping the window
back and forth
forth and back
swishing for the clean slate
never slated
barely sated
singsong sing
north of Sing Sing
lunch for one
tea for two
for her and for you
the check, please
let's hit the road
wake up, a little Susie
on the road
you and me
me alone
as I always knew
always will
the ghost of a chance
lost in a dream
as it was in the beginning
is now and ever shall be
world without end
love without beginning

bumps in the road

You drive along a city street, east or west, north or south; it doesn't matter. It might even be a suburban roadway, though not a country road or highway. The vehicle in front of you suddenly swerves to the right, or left, a reactionary maneuver. Is it to avoid hitting a pedestrian in the roadway? A squirrel daring to risk its squirrelly life by threading in, around, or through the moving onslaught of tires that would crush it and extinguish its life? Perhaps the driver in front of you and subsequently you are dodging a sharp object in the road, an object potentially injurious to your tires, and to you and your occupants. Maybe it's a squirrel or woodchuck or bird or rat or raccoon that did not make it to the other side of the roadway, entrails still steaming, flies not yet settling to feast on the corpse. Let's not omit the possibility that it's a human, injured or having reached his or her expiration date, in the busy roadway.

No.

It is none of these.

It's a bump in the road. More accurately, it's the opposite of a bump in the road, whatever that would be called.

The current trend is to dodge, swerve, steer, veer, zigzag, weave, or pivot a vehicle away from the depression of a utility or maintenance hole cover, also known as a manhole. Sometimes, though not as frequently, the cover is raised slightly above the surface. More often, it's below grade, causing unswerved tires to drive over a depression of, what?, 2 or 3 inches max.

Fortunately, the vehicle in front of you merely swerves, like an Olympic skater, rather than slams on the breaks and stops.

You wonder why this trend exists. You consider that each vehicle exercising this transportation mode might be transporting a sleeping child or two in a car seat, and that said child or children might awake, screaming, owing to the less-than-earthquake-intense disturbance. You also consider the notion that a teenager or teenagers riding in the vehicle, earbuds or headphones in place, might, as a result of driving over an indented maintenance hole cover exclaim, "Whatthefuck, Mom. I'm trying to do my English homework here!" 

Or you may not be remotely aware of The Veer at all.

You find it puzzling. It baffles you.

Is this vehicular maneuver limited to vehicles with tires apt to burst, thereby making it imperative for the driver to dodge the utility hole cover?

No, you find that cars sporting expensive, sturdy, resilient, top-of-the-line tires perform this aversion tactic as much as any vehicle with no-tread tires, with tires on their last rubbery legs. 

Is it limited to older cars with lousy shock absorbers?

Au contraire.

Vehicles featuring the latest shock-absorbing, quietening technologies known to humankind are as apt to perform the maneuver as anyone else.

You stop and think: how long has this been a common habit of drivers?

Is it limited to specific geographical regions, drivers with certain income levels, age, education, upbringing, class, religion, lack of religion, occupation, gender, or other defining characteristic?

None that you can discern.

Really: why does that driver in front of you execute The Swerve?

No one seems to know.

Vehicularis interruptus.

It could be a contagion, a broadened application of pothole avoidance.

It might be some vast conspiracy aimed at the local DPW.

Can any conclusion whatsoever be drawn from this ubiquitous (at least in my environs) custom?

Is there any broader lesson, metaphor, or moral that we can draw from this practice?

Is it a far cry, an absurd stretch, to suggest some sort of aversion to jostling, displeasure, or inconvenience?

Or does it posit no meaning whatsoever?

Inquiring minds want to know.

bumps in the road

Have you seen it? A car swerves to avoid a slightly raised manhole or a pothole or a bump in the road. Actually, it is not typically a bump but rather a depression, a recess, an emptiness where asphalt or concrete should be and once was. More accurately, the car does not swerve by itself. The driver swerves it to avoid the offending disturbance. I've done it. Haven't you? Why do we do this? To save wear and tear on our tires? To achieve a less-rocky ride, avoiding In-Vehicle Beverage Spillage (IVBS) or CD skippage? Do we perform this evasive driving maneuver to keep the driver from losing his or her train of thought? (Maybe it should be "car of thought" in this case.)

Can you as a reader apply any metaphorical value to this phenomenon? 

Comments invited.

asleep at the wheel

He was slouched all the way back, the driver, in a seat tilted about as far back as it could go. Eyes closed. During the red light. I mean, he seemed out. He appeared to be sleeping, dozing. I was driving the opposite way. He was on my left. Would he wake up when the light had changed? Or would he live out the words sung by John Lennon in "A Day in the Life": "He didn't notice that the lights had changed." If his eyes really were closed or if he really were asleep at the wheel, how would he know when the light did change? Perhaps he was awaiting and expecting a beep of the horn of the cars in back of him to arouse him from his stupor, assuming he was in a stupor. Maybe he was merely taking a meditative pause. Or performing as a performance artist. Or he is an urban narcoleptic. Better yet, the driver was posing for me, for this very blog post. Yeah, that's it.

The Revenge of the Busness Gods

Late as usual to work, I get in the car. Yesterday I gladly took the bus, but this morning I had already missed the 8:04 bus into downtown, so I proceeded to embrace the auto alternative (AA) (how many countless times since puberty have I quote embraced the auto alternative unquote?). Turn on AC , drive down the avenue, mail the subscription invoice to The Economist magazine with the word Cancel in purple ink written twice on it, via my work-supplied tres au courant Uniball Vision pen. I think The Economist is a terrific and first-rate 'zine, especially the weekly obit, but during my trial run I did not find time to read it; I barely have time to read the cartoons in the weekly issue of The New Yorker I subscribe to.

Rewind the narrative. Leave car running, walk six to eight steps to mailbox, insert mail, return to idling car, which is locked! All doors are locked, with cellphone sitting in plain view on the front seat, passenger side. I have never done this. Until now. It briefly reminds me of the time Violet G., in Dover, New Jersey, left her car running in her in-house garage below our apartment and almost killed us all with carbon monoxide, including newborn One and Only Son. (This was one time FirstSpouse's tendency toward paranoia proved invaluable, infinitely so. I owe her thanks for that. Infinitely so.) Walk up the avenue, and I mean uphill, in the heat, wondering why, and how. And fretting slightly over being ever later to work. Knock on our door. Fortunately, CurrentSpouse is not asleep yet from night-before work. She opens the door.

"What happened?"

"I was at the mailbox, and . . . "

"You mailed your keys," she replied in the fashion that longtime partners have of finishing each other's sentences.

"No, left 'em in the car, running. There's something wrong with me neurologically. I've never done that."

"You're just getting old," she said evenly and without rancor.

Grab her spare key off the rack of keys near the door (just about the only steadily organized aspect of our household). Walk fast and jog part way down the hill. Feck it. Slow down, I tell myself. Enjoy the whole episode. Roll with it. I feel light, almost laughing, not scolding myself for this lapse. "No judgment," as the beloved late Anthony DeMello pronounced frequently in the tapes I used to listen to in 1993, driving anywhere.

This is grace.

No ticket on the car. Nor is it towed away. (Glancing thought: In some cities this would look like a looming terror threat; such are the times.) Open door of idling car. Enter, sweating. Crank AC to max. Soothing.

Drive to work, with good success on the several traffic lights.

Manage a smile, upon entering work, greeting Mary V., at 10th-floor reception desk.

This is my little secret with the world. No high drama, no "poor me," no endless and tedious recounting to co-workers. The grace of anonymity.

Just gratitude to be in The Game (although the bus does indeed beckon me to return).

P.S. Didn't you read "busness" as "business"? I would have.

P.P.S. Change "gods" to "goddesses" if you are so inclined.

(Photo credits: Bus is in 'Yeats Country,' with mystical Ben Bulben in the background; and Pawlie Kokonuts walking in Sligo City.)