Driving the Exxon Valdez II

I’m headed back to Houston. I board a very full and cramped flight from Vermont to Philadelphia. I’ve got a middle seat, an affliction for the wide-of-girth that I can usually avoid. We circle Philly for about 45 minutes. Fearful that I’ll miss my connection, I dash to the counter and forgo a decent sandwich at Bain’s Deli. Dinner will be airline food tonight. A restless crowd waits impatiently for the Houston flight. A half hour ticks by, though the departure time on the board doesn’t change. I know that if I make a run for the deli, the plane will board and I will miss my flight.

Finally the flight is called. Someone decides to board all passengers at once, rather than starting with the rear seats. The crowd is stressed out, tense and not very polite as they scramble on. I have no energy to scramble, and when I get to my seat, the luggage bins are all filled and I’m forced to check my bag. I get to my seat, and there is something wrong with the chair. The seat bottom is collapsed and tilts forward. Of course there’s no chance to move to another seat — this flight is 100% occupied. The plane spends an hour and a half on the tarmac before we take off.

I am not in a good mood when we arrive in Houston, some miserable chicken concoction in my stomach. I stress about the poor signage at the airport, the crowds, the way that USAir hides the baggage carousel, the half-hour wait for a bag that I should have carried on. A bag that arrives wet. I board an Avis shuttle bus packed chockablock with mean, ugly idiots, and I’m deposited at my car. My mood immediately turns 180 degrees. Though the gods of airline seating were cruel, the gods of car rental have decided to amuse me. They have given me a immense, red Caddilac Coupe DeVille.

To appreciate the humor in this situation, you must realize that at home I drive a Honda Civic which could easily fit in the trunk of this leviathan. I decide to give it a name before I turn the key. I reject “Cruella,” “Hindenberg II,” and “Moby” and settle on “Exxon Valdez II”

I enter the EVII. It has leather seats the color of freshly-slaughtered filet mignon. It is enormous. Its hood extends to the horizon. I sit on the sensuous perch, which adjusts in ways I have never seen a car seat adjust and I feel small, like a child in Daddy’s chair. All displays are luminous and digital. When I step on the gas, the hulking tanker moves like Dumbo on benzedrine.

I’m ashamed of myself for loving this car. It goes against so much that I believe in — small is beautiful, love the earth, conspicuous consumption is foolish and vulgar. But I can’t help myself. I am tickled pink as I drive this ecological nightmare. Maybe because it’s the perfect Texas car, or maybe I’m getting in touch with my innner Old Jewish Man. Did I mention that, when you turn off the ignition, the radio stays on until you open the door? I learn this when I stop for directions. I overshot my exit, got lost in Houston and didn’t get to my hotel till almost midnight. But it was a joy to drive. MY CADILLAC!

The class I’m teaching this Monday ends early (the students must attend a farewell party for a coworker), and I have a rare opportunity to visit something in town that might be closed at 5:00. I choose the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. I’ve always loved urban wild spaces, having spent some of my happiest hours of youth hanging in Central Park and Fort Tyron Park and climbing up and down the cliffs of the Palisades. The arboretum is an odd place, a sliver of wilderness tucked into the middle of a very large park which sits in the middle of a city of crystal towers, cement and asphalt. It has some beautiful ponds and wetlands, and a lot of trees whose names I don’t know. They’re not unlike the trees I know in New England, but many are draped with sinister southern parasitic vines and mosses. The sound of Houstonšs teeming freeways ranges from a roar to a distant sussuration, depending on where in the park I hike. It’s really spring and warm and full of interesting smells. Some of the trails are well maintained and wide, while others wind through muddy pine tangles and feel like backcountry hiking trails. Flowers are blooming, there are mosquitoes in the air, mud underfoot, and great smells. I walk for about an hour, until I’m tired and sweaty, then head for the EV2, pressing the tiny remote control that unlocks the doors as I approach it from the woods. I smell the leather. Life is good. I’m headed for a Persian restaurant.