Certainly not!
"And you wouldn"t change lanes without looking!"
Never admit you"ve done this.
And what of the more personal situations, the ones where money is exchanged? With so many options to get it right, people are always ready to brandish a laundry list of "no excuse" peccadilloes. No excuse for slow waiters, for faulty coffee lids, for mangled manicures-for actual bad laundry service. The question is never "Should I be annoyed?" but "How annoyed should I be?" Those cell phone bars are never not there. If you want a dead zone, move to New Mexico. But there is one annoyance common to all New Yorkers. One grain of sand slipped into every oyster, one irritant that joins us together at our intolerant edges like a giant puzzle of irritation. Local tragedies fade, scaffolding comes down, and not to worry: someone will always be there to break the b.u.t.tons of your cashmere sweaters and clip their fingernails onto your lap. But somewhere in that varied cacophony of callousness there is the single constant that unites us all: everyone has been victimized by the smell of a taxicab.
Picture it in your mind"s nostril: you get in a cab in time to catch twin thugs named Vomit and Cologne a.s.saulting a defenseless pine-tree air freshener. This is a scent that does not waft in real time so much as seeps into your memory to replace every pleasant aroma you have ever smelled with its pungency. You bury your nose in your scarf, but not before last night"s Vomit throws an especially acidic right hook. Putrid as it is, you say nothing. Like a stranger on the street witnessing a lovers" quarrel, you"re not sure you should interfere. But your annoyance bar is spiking. The backdraft from a cigar smoker is both avoidable with some fancy footwork and punishable with a judgmental glare. But there is no escaping the concoction of armpit and cheese rot currently molesting your face. Your mind does a quick calculation, multiplying the degree of stank by the distance between here and your destination, dividing the whole thing by your fear of overreacting. The idea that you might offend the driver is irrelevant. If he"s going to tool around this town in an air bubble of p.o.o.p, he should know there are consequences.
Perhaps you make a dramatic sniffing sound for effect. You think: Okay, a lover"s quarrel is one thing, but when someone busts out the olfactory equivalent of nunchucks, maybe it"s time to call in the authorities. Two blocks later, you demand that the cabdriver pull over, and you apologize but not sincerely. He comes slowly to a stop. Despite the fact that you can see the door handle at your side quite clearly, you fumble for it as if there"s been a fire and the cab is filled with smoke. Your cabdriver notices you doing this but does not care. He doesn"t know you and is thus unfamiliar with the authority of your nose or the infrequency with which you jump out of moving vehicles. It is about as likely that he will take your behavior as "constructive criticism" as it is that people working the deli will mourn the loss of your business when you storm out after waiting ten minutes to buy a six-pack of beer and a package of gummy frogs.
You glance back, checking for the next surge of oncoming traffic. The instant you"re sure you won"t kill yourself, you spring out the door. You do this before you can enter into a screaming match over the $2.50 minimum fare. If you can still see the location from where you hailed the cab, you don"t have to pay when you get out. Everyone knows that. It"s in the fine print of the gum-speckled Taxi Rider"s Bill of Rights. But now what? You"re still late for wherever you"re going, guilty as usual of thinking the laws of time and s.p.a.ce will bend for you because you"re paying them extra to do so.
As you hail the next cab, you wonder: Did your new guy see you get out of the first? Does he think you"re hostile? In possession of an explosive device? You do anything remotely off-color in this city anymore and people think you"re either homeless or in possession of an explosive device. Go ahead, hover by a streetside ATM too long. Look in the window of an apartment complex that does not belong to you. Switch subway cars while the train is in motion. See what happens. There was a time when New York boasted the highest threshold for weird in the country. Between the blackout of 1977 and the closing of CBGB, you had to do a h.e.l.l of a lot more than look askew at a building before someone suspected you of wanting to blow it up. Now people mourn the closing of a Starbucks on St. Marks Place and applaud the opening of an American Apparel on the Upper West Side. It"s reasonable to register a noise complaint before midnight, and there"s no shortage of dirty looks waiting for you if you fail to recycle whatever that is you"re drinking. Our laws have become hard, our hearts soft. Of course, New York has always been the one place where people are nostalgic for when it used to be worse.
Through it all, the purpose and politics of taxis have remained constant, even if the makes and models of the vehicles have not. Even if the next car door you touch slides open like a minivan"s and you wind up sitting as far away from the driver as a coffin in a hea.r.s.e, the driver/pa.s.senger dynamic remains the same. It doesn"t matter what your new driver thinks of you, just as it doesn"t matter what you think of him. You"re just a fare with hands that raise and legs that step off a curb. Taxicab drivers are like doctors. Professionals. You can"t allow yourself to think they"re pa.s.sing judgment; otherwise, you might never go back. Often you find yourself thinking of them as your personal fleet of anonymity. Do a quick slideshow of every experience you"ve ever had in a cab. What if they were all the same cab? If these pleather seats could talk! The moment you shut the cab door, you can be who you want to be. If you are normally loath to make demands, you are now free to raise definitive questions: Why this route? Can you avoid Times Square? Can you please identify this sticky substance? How in the name of all that is holy can you not smell that? Why this route? Can you avoid Times Square? Can you please identify this sticky substance? How in the name of all that is holy can you not smell that? If you are a gregarious sort of person, you can finally have ten minutes of absolute silence in the presence of another human being without anyone asking you what"s wrong. If you spend your day making decisions, you can stop, releasing yourself with those magic words: If you are a gregarious sort of person, you can finally have ten minutes of absolute silence in the presence of another human being without anyone asking you what"s wrong. If you spend your day making decisions, you can stop, releasing yourself with those magic words: Whichever way"s the fastest. Whichever way"s the fastest. Repeat it again when your driver attempts to brainstorm with you. He could tell you that the West Side Highway is closed and he"ll need to swing around the moon first. Repeat it again when your driver attempts to brainstorm with you. He could tell you that the West Side Highway is closed and he"ll need to swing around the moon first. Really. Whichever way. Really. Whichever way.
You get in the new cab and sniff. You"re in the clear. You say "What?" but your driver establishes that he"s not addressing you by gesturing at his ear and shouting, "I"m not talking to you." When hands-free devices first began to infiltrate the cabs of New York, you found yourself annoyed by this frequent exchange, duped into making an a.s.s out of yourself. I am not the a.s.shole, I am not the a.s.shole, you thought. If he doesn"t want the Spanish Inquisition, maybe he should keep his voice down. But these days this banter only makes you feel stupid. By now you should really know better. And you thought. If he doesn"t want the Spanish Inquisition, maybe he should keep his voice down. But these days this banter only makes you feel stupid. By now you should really know better. And of course of course he"s not talking to you. It must take a lot of restraint on the cabdriver"s part not to whip around and say, "Why, do you speak Punjabi?" You marvel at the round-the-clock friendships and strong familial ties cabdrivers must maintain. You can barely stand to talk on the phone with friends anymore. Mostly because you can never figure out how to end conversations without apologizing for ending them. This goes double for blood relations. To get your taxi license in New York, you must be a phone person first and a person who stops at red lights second. A very distant second. he"s not talking to you. It must take a lot of restraint on the cabdriver"s part not to whip around and say, "Why, do you speak Punjabi?" You marvel at the round-the-clock friendships and strong familial ties cabdrivers must maintain. You can barely stand to talk on the phone with friends anymore. Mostly because you can never figure out how to end conversations without apologizing for ending them. This goes double for blood relations. To get your taxi license in New York, you must be a phone person first and a person who stops at red lights second. A very distant second.
Your next order of business is to smack the off b.u.t.ton on the increasingly ubiquitous taxicab TVs. You must do this before one of the female talking heads can take you to a new karaoke bar or make you wait with her for Shakespeare in the Park tickets. Or put on a s.e.xy ap.r.o.n behind the scenes of a famous restaurant. Shield your eyes from this bizarre display of false modesty and kitchen knives.
No, you hold the knife by the handle.Wait, let me get my hair out of my face. Okay, like this?No, that"s the blade, and now you"re bleeding everywhere.Darn it!
Maybe if you hit the screen hard enough, you"ll get lucky and break it. Try not to think about how many greasy pointer fingers have touched that exact same spot. The idea of the taxicab TV turns every New Yorker into an erratically gesticulating Woody Allen.
"What do you need TV for? You"ve got the best slideshow in the world!" says you-slash-Woody.
"I like it," says the tourist. "It makes the time go by faster."
"You couldn"t do that at home? Who goes on vacation to make it go by faster? Would it kill you to stop and smell the urine?"
"There"s nothing to take pictures of in here."
"Get out," says you-slash-Woody.
You try to imagine exactly for whom these mini movie reviews and weather reports are meant. Often even the tourists find them repugnant. Most foreigners are already so disgusted by the garish hue of our cabs that there"s no point in speculating about their reaction to an all-you-can-eat dim sum festival streaming in their faces as they are held hostage by the vehicle of laziness that made us fat to begin with. They do not share our disgust so much as mock its insufficiency.
Now that you"ve blackened the box, you"re free to turn your focus outward. Roll down the window for the occasional breeze that kicks up when the traffic lights go green. As you rush past the sidewalks of downtown, you wonder why it is that you never see anyone you know from a cab. You rarely leave the house without b.u.mping into someone on foot. Often you"re doing something very unappealing because you"ve become unconsciously dependent on strangers accepting and veering from your craziness. You should probably just learn to pull yourself together. Take care of that in the bathroom. Make eye contact with a mirror before you leave the house. Because how many times have you been caught in the presence of a coworker or a former lover, forced to explain away your picking and spilling and muttering? Where do these people hide when you are prepared for them? Who are these new faces waiting for the walk sign to change? Is there a formula to it? Speed + blocks covered weather = less awkward interaction. Or is it just one of the city"s little mysteries, like how no one has ever seen a baby pigeon? Maybe you just don"t have that many friends. That"s probably it.
Suddenly, you feel exhausted, thinking about your life. All this taking stock can take a higher toll than a trip to the airport. You look up at the lights of the hotels in Midtown and wonder if you shouldn"t just check into one of them. Tell the cab to stop right here, stop paying rent, crush your cell phone, deplete your bank account, stare at the wallpaper. Do not, by any means, check into the Pierre or one of the boutique hotels downtown. Staying in a great hotel when you"re happy is wonderful. Staying in one when you"ve worked yourself up into a taxicab depression feels fatal. The good news is, it"s started to rain. Pedestrians are putting their palms up to measure droplet frequency and reaching for the black umbrellas they just left in restaurant booths. Since you"re already coc.o.o.ned in your banana chariot, you indulge in a little schadenfreude-the ultimate New York comfort food, surpa.s.sing even the cupcake.
The bad news is, now you"re trapped in traffic. There will be no keeping the frustration at bay when you look at your watch and realize that terrible truth: the subway would have been faster. Once this occurs to you, it cannot unoccur to you. You delve deeper into the fantasy of punctuality, speculating about what stop you"d be at right now. Underground You always moves faster than Aboveground You. Underground You always arrives at the platform just as the train"s pulling in and never has to contend with crowded stairs or construction delays. Force yourself to imagine the more realistic alternative. The one that has the would-be pa.s.sengers, jostling and anxious, leaning into the dark tunnel. They"re hoping for a glimpse of a moving light, triple-checking to make sure the illumination in the tunnel is attached to a wall and not a front car. They look like synchronized pink flamingos-one leg up, leaning out with their long necks.
It"s not working. You know in your heart you"d have been there by now. Your driver starts openmouthed munching on potato chips or Cheez Doodles and you burrow a Care Bear Stare into the back of his head. You think: There are a finite number of nacho cheese Doritos in this world. He has to run out eventually. He doesn"t.
"This is good," you say, a full block from your destination.
You"re no physics expert, but at the speed your driver has been going, there"s no way he can come to a full stop on command without killing you both. He taps the meter to make it stop. He faces forward, making eye contact only during the exchange of paper, the proof of your time together. You see his eyes in the rearview mirror. No matter how you pay-cash or credit, with a request for the overhead reading light or a request for a receipt-he looks vaguely disappointed in you.
You"re out of the cab, but you"re not done yet. Chances are, much like the Vomit that stank up your first cab, you"re going to have to come back out the way you came. Hours later, you step onto the street and walk up a block to the next major avenue. You raise your hand to hail a cab. You leave it up there, regardless of spotting available cabs. It"s a strangely lazy gesture, based on muscle memory more than effort. The rain has stopped, but it"s dark outside now. If you"re not drunk, you"re tired, and if you"re not tired, you should be. It"s been a long day. But there is good news. The Fates reward you instantly. The next wave of cars includes one with a bright light on top, like a glowing fez. It veers seamlessly toward you, having mastered the art of whisking. Inside, the cab is odor-free and clean. Or at least clean enough that nothing reflects or sticks or moves in the dark. You provide your home address, turn the TV off with your knuckle, and settle in for some AM radio and irresponsible texting. But don"t get too comfortable.
Around this time, the driver blows straight past your street. It"s after midnight on a school night. Sure, there"s a possibility this is one of those nights where you"re ready for round two, perhaps off to a secret bar or illegal gambling club or something too fantastic for words. In those cases, you might have provided an incorrect address. But tonight chances are you"re going home. This is the new, more wholesome New York, after all. Most everyone"s going home. When you point this out, your driver ardently insists that you gave him the wrong address all those many traffic lights ago. You are annoyed, bars above your head spiking. You may not know much, but, like a kindergartner, you know where you live. The seconds feel alive as you move farther away from your actual destination. Why, you wonder, is it always home they miss? In the daylight, when you"re late to some activity you"d just as soon skip, they practically memorize the floor and suite number. Practically drive you up the side of the building. But when all you want to do is curl up so that you can start afresh tomorrow, you find yourself on an unsolicited tour of your own neighborhood. So you say something nonsensical, like "Why would I have gotten my own address wrong?"
Don"t do that.
You"re right, of course. But there"s no way you"re going to win this argument. All he needs is an excuse to yell at you. He doesn"t know you. He"s seen one hundred other people today just like you. What he knows is this city. He is what keeps it in motion. He is the roller ball. The way you think of taxis, he thinks of people. He hears the slamming of doors, the losing of stray things, the charming beginnings and frustrating endings of relationships, our worst selves and our best. We are a blur of sliding b.u.t.ts and straddling legs and leaning elbows. Of "Can I smoke in here?" and "Can I get five dollars back?" All set to the soundtrack of receipts sputtering out from the taxi hull in a million tiny waves, breaking over every borough, white curls crashing down at the edges of a concrete and canary-colored ocean. And his hearing, like your sense of smell, is impeccable.
Light Pollution
Why not just call it s.h.i.t? "
I have been staring out the window at a blur of wildflowers, and this is the first sentence to leave my mouth in forty-five minutes. A high-speed conveyor belt of daisies and Arctic violets is pulled through my field of vision as we zip along a desolate Alaskan road. In the backseat of an SUV headed south on the Kenai Peninsula, I am as much out of place inside the car as outside of it. A seven-year inhabitant of Manhattan, I am woefully unfamiliar with what the rest of the country drives. It"s difficult to be in any vehicle without staring suspiciously at the dashboard, keeping an eye on a meter that"s not there. Like a limb long since blown off in some unnamed war, but which I persist in scratching. No one in Alaska notices me doing this, and they wouldn"t-inhabitants of the "Lower 48" are notoriously suspicious and amusingly paranoid, mistaking mountains for glaciers and asking dumb questions about avalanche triggers. Why should my reaction to a family-sized vehicle be any different? They"re probably amazed I didn"t try to lick the tires or get in through the windows. I"m a little amazed myself.
The only reason I even know I"m in an SUV is because when I retell this story to friends back home in the weeks that follow, I describe the vehicle as "like a van but nice."
My friend April, in the pa.s.senger seat, twists around.
"Why not just call what "s.h.i.t"?"
"Bear p.o.o.p." I giggle, pushing forward into the gap between the front seats.
I am more like a child in Alaska than I have been in years. Probably more like a child than when I was a child. Everything here is new and tremendous, and this feels like vacating in a way all other vacations have not. Not only am I physically dwarfed by the scenery, but going to Alaska seems like something my family would have done in the "80s but never did. Do people fly across the country just to see it anymore? To tour the homes where presidents were born? Do they go to the zoo and buy plastic visors? Make pilgrimages to houses made entirely of corn? They should. American appreciation vacations have become the purview of the very local or the very foreign. Which is a shame. The song doesn"t go "If you can"t be with the one you love, leave the country."
But back to the p.o.o.p. After a hike in the woods outside Anchorage, I have learned that bear feces is called "scat." Actually, "woods" is a bit of a misnomer. The strip of trees in my parents" backyard, that sacred burial ground for our pets, is "wooded." The voodoo-stick-doll-sprinkled camping grounds of The Blair Witch Project The Blair Witch Project are located "in the woods." I, on the other hand, was tripping on the root structures of spruce trees taller than my apartment building back home, trying to avoid poisonous plants the size of my toilet. are located "in the woods." I, on the other hand, was tripping on the root structures of spruce trees taller than my apartment building back home, trying to avoid poisonous plants the size of my toilet.
That"s where I spotted the sign that (a) taught me my new word for the day and (b) warned me against "engaging a bear," should I cross one"s path. Since the latter bit of information was easily dismissed (I get it: the bear wins; I"m not going to ask it to play poker), I chose to focus on the scatological. At the time I did not make the connection between the adjective for "prevalence of s.h.i.t" and its abbreviation in noun form. Perhaps this is because, for longer than I care to admit, I thought "scatological" was an adjective for "all over the place." On countless occasions, I had accused other people of being "scatological," meaning "mercurial; please try to focus." When in fact I was accusing them of being full of s.h.i.t. This explained a lot. And if you believe something for a long enough time, it"s hard to replace that belief, even if you know it"s wrong.
"I think it"s because it"s not just feces," says Jeff, my friend"s fiance, in the driver"s seat. "It has something to do with the percentage of the s.h.i.t that"s actually in scat. There"s fur in there. Other fur."
But of course. Other fur. Other fur. Why not? Only a few days in and nothing surprises me about Alaska. It is a land of casual extremes, a place located not only on the fringes of the planet but on the fringes of all normalcy. A place where you could wake up one morning to a caribou giving birth in your backyard and you"d go to work anyway. You"re not even sure where your camera is. Life is both worshipped and expendable in equal doses. And the human population is as serious as the scenery. Why not? Only a few days in and nothing surprises me about Alaska. It is a land of casual extremes, a place located not only on the fringes of the planet but on the fringes of all normalcy. A place where you could wake up one morning to a caribou giving birth in your backyard and you"d go to work anyway. You"re not even sure where your camera is. Life is both worshipped and expendable in equal doses. And the human population is as serious as the scenery.
Here is a list of the six types of Alaskan residents, not including native tribes: 1. Military personnel2. State-builders3. Nature enthusiasts (by which I mean raw, in-your-face nature; bird-watching is for house cats)4. Hippie nutb.a.l.l.s who looked at Portland, Oregon, and thought, This is way too urban; I have to get out of here. This is way too urban; I have to get out of here. 5. People who have at one point done something very illegal involving a sawed-off shotgun and freezer bags 5. People who have at one point done something very illegal involving a sawed-off shotgun and freezer bags6. This guy: When I boarded my flight to Anchorage in Chicago, I went to wedge my trashy magazines into the polyester pouch in front of me. There was something more substantial than usual in there between the SkyMall catalog and the safety card. It was a library book. I was intrigued. It was like finding an abandoned toy in a random bathroom stall, but less creepy. I let the pocket snap shut before opening it again. On the spine in big, bold letters, it read: The Amityville Horror: A True Story. The Amityville Horror: A True Story. Nope, just as creepy. Nope, just as creepy.
Pa.s.sengers were still streaming down the aisle, clutching their boarding pa.s.ses and looking above the seats, as if trying to remember the alphabet. I quickly shoved the book into the pouch to my right and tried to forget about it. My seatmate turned out to be a state-builder Alaskan. His grandfather had a small bay named after him. He was on his way home to visit his mother, who made custom shotgun cases.
"She does not." not."
"Well, no"-he looked at me thoughtfully-"she doesn"t make the cases themselves, but you should see what she does with them."
I imagined this man"s mother in a floral muumuu, beating the s.h.i.t out of a sea otter on the front porch.
Apparently, what she actually does is decorate the cases. Causing no small amount of pride in her son, she was recently commissioned to make one for a Jerry Falwell-like figure I should have heard of but hadn"t. At the base, she Krazy Glued a bleeding crucifix of red rhinestones and her logo: A Case of Cla.s.s by Melina. A Case of Cla.s.s by Melina. He handed me her card. He handed me her card.
"I"m Earl," he said, stiffly shaking my hand in such close proximity to his chest, it gave the illusion of palsy.
"Sloane." I shook back, trying on the the-less-you-talk-the-harder-you-are theory of man-speak.
"This your first time going to Alaska?"
"It is."
"Well, she"s a beauty."
"Is she prettier than a boat?"
Earl opened his pouch, took one look at The Amityville Horror, The Amityville Horror, shrugged, and saw it as a repository for chewing gum. shrugged, and saw it as a repository for chewing gum.
"Prettier. But she has a dark side. Weird stuff goes down. I don"t think people think of Alaska like that."
"That"s more or less exactly how they think of it," I said, and proceeded to index every ax murder I knew of on my fingers.
"So, Earl, you can see how the stories become geographically dense and objectively creepier as you move farther north and west."
"I guess so." He frowned thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it ..."
Earl proceeded to tell me about a murder case in which a bakery owner was making brioche by day and picking up strippers at a club near the airport by night. This particular baker charmed the strippers into his prop plane and took them to one of the many secluded islands off Alaska"s coast. Once on the island, the man"s demeanor changed dramatically. He forced the strippers to get completely naked, pulled out a crossbow, and informed them that they had twenty minutes to hide, at which point he was going to hunt them down and kill them. As sure as the dough rises, that"s what he did. This man turned from baker to butcher, murdering about twenty girls in this way.
To be naked ever in Alaska is already to be inconvenienced. The place is exactly as cold as you think it is. But the most shocking part of the story was that the teller knew the subject. Earl and his mother and his mother"s BeDazzler lived down the road from him. On his way to his old logging job, Earl would get a coffee and bear claw (almond, not keratin) from him.
"He made the best jelly doughnuts I"ve ever tasted," Earl said, in complete and total seriousness.
TOMORROW IS THE WEDDING OF JEFF, THE driver of our vehicle, and my dear friend April, the shotgun holder. Here I am referring to the term for the front seat of a car. I think we can all agree this warrants clarification, having nothing to do with killing sprees or unplanned pregnancies. The event has all the trappings of a destination wedding-jet lag, group hikes, a plane ticket for which I could exchange a month"s rent-but in fact, our little community of tourists is small. One hundred twenty out of the one hundred twenty-five guests are native Alaskans. I am one of the other five, a member of the bridal party. We are a nervous band of outsiders. We are quick to highlight our own ignorance, blurting out things like "I don"t know how to play ice hockey!" when someone casually points to a pond. We think if we surrender our pride early, the state will have mercy on us. The paranoia about wildlife is, frankly, a whole other animal. See: Is that a wolf? I thought I just saw a wolf. Oh, wait, that"s a dog. And it"s not moving. I think that"s a lawn dog. Is that a wolf? I thought I just saw a wolf. Oh, wait, that"s a dog. And it"s not moving. I think that"s a lawn dog.
Because Canada, the Great White North, is a very dark place, when our plane descended through the clouds, it was like landing in a secret city. I had the same feeling the first time I flew to England. After hours of ocean, I experienced an awe at the reality of the world. To have so much nothing and then something: when you are a novice traveler, London feels like Papua New Guinea. Compounding this sensation in Anchorage was the fact that the only regular pollution is light pollution. Though "pollution" is a little harsh. Anchorage at night is "movie dark," a perpetual dusk in which the cameras have to capture the actors" faces even though it"s supposed to be midnight.
For the first time I understood why people come back from Alaska with fifty pictures of glaciers or return from a honeymoon in Tahiti with fifty pictures of the same sunset. The world is so beautiful in these places, it is impossible to register that there will be more, more, more. Surely this is it. Negotiate with your ailing camera battery. How can it not stay alive for this? How can you believe that twenty minutes from now there will be an even taller taller forest, an even forest, an even wider wider waterfall? We are only as good as our most extreme experiences. waterfall? We are only as good as our most extreme experiences.
WHEN THE BRIDAL PARTY ARRIVED, WE WERE LESS of a "party" and more of a bunch of separate people flying in from different locations. Still, April insisted on making trip after trip to retrieve us from the airport, scoffing at the idea of taxi services. This gesture seemed saintly by New York standards. Until I realized that it"s generally warmer in one"s car than anywhere else and there is no real traffic in Anchorage. Even if there was, I wouldn"t have minded waiting. The Anchorage airport is a pleasant place to visit. While you can"t eat off the floor, you can drop your scarf on it without hesitating to wrap it back around your neck. Which is more than I can say for JFK. Plus, the Anchorage airport has a gift shop called "Moosellaneous." And a fiber-optic starry night on the baggage-claim ceiling, which one finds particularly hypnotic after a long flight. As I came down one of the escalators, there was a person in a polar-bear plushy suit, wearing a Native American headdress on top and handing out flyers. As he wordlessly pointed me toward the exit, I thought, Where is David Lynch when you need him? Where is David Lynch when you need him?
I was the last to arrive. When April and I walked through her front door, there were clear signs that merriment had gone on without me. Around her condo were scattered open greeting cards with miniature lace dresses glued to the covers, stained winegla.s.ses, and slicks of soft cheese on a plate in the sink. Everyone was asleep, and all the beds were claimed. April showed me to my room, a cot in the laundry room with a sleeping bag unfurled on top. She reemerged with a second sleeping bag.
"Oh, I already have one." I pointed to the cot.
"I know." She also pointed to the cot.
A frigid blast came through a crack in the window and knocked the paper brides on their faces.
IT IS THE NEXT MORNING, AND JEFF HAS GRACIOUSLY agreed to spend his last day of bachelordom driving his fiancee and five of her girlfriends down the coast. Part of me thinks this is the least he can do, as all of us have flown past Canada to get here. This is a common observation among our group, a default fascination triggered by the sight of one"s breath or the glare of the sun at night: Dude, we"re above Dude, we"re above Canada. Canada.
The state of Alaska itself is like one big whale. Chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island exist like barnacles. They could detach from a glacier up north and no one would notice. During my time there, no fewer than three people explained to me that if you took the outline of Alaska and superimposed it over the continental United States, it would stretch across the country end to end. They must teach this in elementary school up there, because it had the same delivery I like to employ for "Well, you know, yellow"s a primary color" and "A tomato is actually a fruit." It makes sense to imagine Alaska in this way, as a giant sheet of shadow pulled over our cities and hills. It is a dwarfing place. It manages to be both roughly lumbering and quietly graceful, light about twenty hours a day but dark on the ground. Every mountain pa.s.sed is so imposing, it would be the the mountain if transplanted south. What I see from across a gas station on a dirt road would be the main attraction in, I don"t know, Missouri. As we drive, the combination of soaring mountains and low clouds gives the illusion of smoke-of a series of forest fires. So much so that the sight of each mountain sets off a small panic in my chest until I grow accustomed to the view. mountain if transplanted south. What I see from across a gas station on a dirt road would be the main attraction in, I don"t know, Missouri. As we drive, the combination of soaring mountains and low clouds gives the illusion of smoke-of a series of forest fires. So much so that the sight of each mountain sets off a small panic in my chest until I grow accustomed to the view.
In a less tangible way, I feel I am in Alaska at a very fragile time. I arrived at the Ted Stevens airport one week after the senator had been ousted from office for accepting illegal campaign donations. Now I insist on tooling around the town of Girdwood as if I have a crush on Ted Stevens. I am looking for his house, which was built with the blood of baby caribou. Or just dirty money. Meanwhile, banners line the paved streets of Anchorage, announcing that the following year is the state"s fiftieth anniversary. I feel the way the Italians and Chinese must feel when we point to the Liberty Bell and say, "Look at this old thing we built. We are pleased with it."
At one point, April"s mother notes that there is something is the air these days besides the usual (just more air). In addition to the mysteriously high number of bear attacks this summer, there are rumors that Alaska"s otherwise unknown governor is on the short list for the Republican vice presidential ticket. She refers to this woman as "our Sarah Palin," which strikes me as pleasantly loyal. Our Sarah Palin Our Sarah Palin. Perhaps it reveals a political pa.s.sivity on my part, but I don"t think of any of New York"s politicians as mine. Not in the "Our little Mikey"s all grown up" way. Then again, I wouldn"t elect a child to office, and perhaps that"s the way it should be. Their feet flail around when they sit, and they have a tendency to stick gum underneath the desks.
Palin"s nomination will serve as a strange social call to arms among the Alaskans I know living in New York, like the way one twin can sometimes feel the pain of another from miles away. Except, in this case, one of the twins considers the other an embarra.s.sment, the worst Alaskan PR tragedy since Jewel started publishing poetry or-as even Earl put it-"the time that moron walked into the woods to die in a bus." Each time Palin winks at the world, one of my Alaskan friends feels a deep pang of shame. But like the rest of the country, right now I know absolutely nothing about Sarah Palin. For now I think, Good for Sarah Palin! Good for April"s mom! Good for Alaska! Good for Sarah Palin! Good for April"s mom! Good for Alaska! Politicians are like Olympians. Every four years they bloom into the American consciousness, but they"ve been there this whole time, putting down roots beneath the surface. I am excited for this sneak preview of what"s to come. I look forward to parties back in New York in which I will know a thing or two about contemporary politics. Politicians are like Olympians. Every four years they bloom into the American consciousness, but they"ve been there this whole time, putting down roots beneath the surface. I am excited for this sneak preview of what"s to come. I look forward to parties back in New York in which I will know a thing or two about contemporary politics.
"And there"-Jeff ducks forward a little and points-"is where we used to camp and fish when we were little."
I scan the solid patch of spruce trees to which Jeff has gestured. I look for a path or even a gap in the foliage. Starting from the sky, there"s a layer of light blue, then a layer of white, then a layer of green, and then a layer of dirt. If the Alaskan state flag were striped instead of starred, these would be the colors, and this would be the order.
"But"-Jeff"s voice trails off-"you can see how overrun it"s become."
My heart goes out to Jeff. To the naked eye, he is far more out of place on this road trip than I am. He is our lone star of testosterone in a galaxy of chick. I spend much of the car ride wheeling through my iPod, on the hunt for songs that don"t instantly conjure footage of hipster girls ironically sipping Pabst with their cheeks sucked in. I must have music that corresponds with the dead-serious consumption of Pabst. Even a band called Grizzly Bear feels too tame. Jeff is millionth-generation state-builder Alaskan. His family helped create the state-specifically, the railroads-which connected oil towns to fishing towns, and fishing towns to gold-rush towns, and so forth. This fascinates me in a way that does not fascinate Jeff himself. He is used to his own background, even used to outsiders" interest in it. Absolutely no one will ever say to me, No way, you grew up in suburbia? Man, that must have been amazing. No way, you grew up in suburbia? Man, that must have been amazing.
I MET APRIL WHEN SHE WAS SPENDING HER POSTGRADUATE years in New York, where I was spending mine as well. April was raised in a city where the fog has been known to freeze and fall on people"s heads. A city where the sw.a.n.k downtown neighborhood is dubbed SoNo (South of Nordstrom). For a place with so much clean air, it was strangely suffocating. She was ready for something a bit more fast-paced in SoCa (South of Canada). New York was her first choice. We exchanged a few sideways glances during a health-care-benefits orientation at work. Then we went around the conference table sharing arbitrary facts about ourselves. I divulged that I had never been stung by a bee. April said she was from Alaska.
"Alaska!" The human resources lady brightened. "Hey, now! I"m sure New York will seem like Jamaica to you."
April gritted her teeth and let out a fake laugh, the kind where one p.r.o.nounces the word "ha." The a.s.sumption of dramatic regional evolution is one of humanity"s odder tics. I, for example, do not listen to every schizophrenic hobo muttering to himself on the subway or cover my ears when the train comes. But must I be diagnosed by the rest of the country as legally deaf? How many times has it been suggested that I will actually have difficulty falling asleep in someone"s peaceful country house? People of central Africa, I beg you: never come here unless you are willing to sit in a locked sauna and have some bozo say the words "I"ll bet this feels like air-conditioning to you."
"It"s a little infuriating," admitted April, as we sat on the metal benches of a corporate office park and ate salad-bar lunches.
"It"s like they want to take away my socks and dunk me in ice water. I never realized how little people knew about Alaska."
Perhaps to appear more knowledgeable than the human-resources lady, I told April the only thing I knew about Alaska. It was an old news story about some local Anchorage kids who decided to sneak into the zoo"s polar-bear exhibit and swim across the moat. Alaska may have a free-for-all Noah"s-ark quality when it comes to breeds of puffin, but a polar bear is a big deal. Those they lock up. The tragedy was amplified each time I heard it. In one version, one of the kids was being mauled and crying for help as the other two jumped back in the moat. Sometimes only one of the boys swam back. Sometimes none of them swam back. Sometimes they were all found dead, floating in the red water. It took on the quality of a morality play, awkwardly undercut with Darwinian themes of stupidity.
April rested her plastic fork in her salad bowl and, in the same tone Earl would employ when discussing jelly doughnuts years later, said, "I had homeroom with those boys."
"Oh my G.o.d."
"No"-she put her hand on my knee-"I"m kidding."
"Oh, phew."
"Actually"-she laughed-"I"m not. But I wanted to get that worried look off your face."
We quickly made the transition from amicable coworkers to voluntary friends. Eventually we moved a building away from each other on the same block in Manhattan. It was like a Broadway musical, if only in set design. Our apartments faced the same inaccessible courtyard, and a typical phone conversation might go something like this: APRIL: Hey, it"s me. Do you smell that?ME: No, smell what?APRIL: Walk over to your back window. I think something"s burning.ME: I think ... Yes, that"s definitely barbecue.APRIL: Good, just checking.
Most people have at least one friend in New York who never gives up the crusade to make their lives feel rural, and April was mine. a.s.suming you"re not one of those "no furniture, no hot water, no problem" people, we all have elements of self-comfort in the beginning. Means of making our lives feel a bit more civilized. But gradually the city fights back, like crabgra.s.s. Not that you know what crabgra.s.s looks like anymore. You stop setting your alarm clock early and start vowing to run only when chased. You make peace with those cracks and corners of your apartment that came ground to the floorboards with rust and dirt. You tack up articles about museum exhibits, only to tear them down months later when you realize the show has moved to Moscow. The diligent sheen wears off your book club until it"s more of a wine club until it"s not even in someone"s apartment anymore until it"s just drinks and a movie and enough last-minute cancellation e-mails to, ironically, fill a book.
But April really went to the museums and the book clubs and the black-and-white movies in the park. She painted her walls, stripped her floors, and drilled nails into the exposed brick. From these she hung matted photos of Alaska so green you got the sense the air quality was better in the s.p.a.ce around the frame. Photos that looked like they were shot for the very purpose of selling picture frames. Whose mountains are so lush? Whose nieces so perfect and healthy? Perhaps those related to a woman who would regularly go into bodegas and inquire about the freshness of the clementines on display outside.
She read in Time Out New York Time Out New York that it was possible to go down to a pier in Chelsea and go kayaking in the Hudson. As if this weren"t miraculous enough, she actually succeeded in getting me to do this with her. With the caveat that she would inoculate me with Purell beforehand and pay for a Turkish ma.s.seuse to scrub me down with steel wool if we capsized. While I eyed the slick rainbow bubbles on the water"s surface, she let her paddle rest on her lap and tilted her face up toward the sun. When she opened her eyes again, she said, "How much further do you think we can paddle out?" that it was possible to go down to a pier in Chelsea and go kayaking in the Hudson. As if this weren"t miraculous enough, she actually succeeded in getting me to do this with her. With the caveat that she would inoculate me with Purell beforehand and pay for a Turkish ma.s.seuse to scrub me down with steel wool if we capsized. While I eyed the slick rainbow bubbles on the water"s surface, she let her paddle rest on her lap and tilted her face up toward the sun. When she opened her eyes again, she said, "How much further do you think we can paddle out?"