Eyeheart Everything (9 page)

We round another sharp turn. We are very near the summit now, behind the shadow of the volcanic cone, and the pelting has suddenly ceased. The sky has gone flat, and the ambient temperature, according to the dashboard climactic comparator, is stifling. Inside the car it’s a cool 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 30% humidity. The terrain through which we’re moving is all black, sooty volcanic coral and hardened patches of smooth black lava, and sulphurous steam rises from vents all around us. Bob switches the air system to “recirculate”, dials in a pine-fresh scent, turns on the fog lights and the running lights and we continue on.

We turn another corner and there ahead of us is the final barrier, and it’s a doozy: a long straight corridor between two high volcanic berms, crisscrossed with rows and rows of those severe tire damage spiky things, the kind they have in Los Angeles parking lots, which retract harmlessly into the ground when you drive over them the right way, but which punch giant inch-wide holes in your steel belts when you drive over them the wrong way, and the wrong way is the way we’re going. There’s thirteen tiers of them between us and what looks like the very last turn.

Bob puts it in park. He’s thinking. He didn’t know they had those things in the South Pacific. He was expecting, maybe, bamboo. He gets out to have a closer look, and I follow him. I kneel to examine the first row of teeth — it’s razor sharp and well-oiled and when I try to touch it, it snaps at me. But I hop over it easily enough. By all appearances we’re less than 100 yards from the top, and I suggest to Bob that we just walk the rest of the way. He looks at me with disgust. What about the beer, he says. What about the folding chairs and stuff, our picnic, all of it is in the back of the car and Bob doesn’t feel like shlepping it all up some hill. It’s been a long drive. He curses, and kicks a stone at the battalion of blades. They snicker and snap.

We get back in the car. Bob says nothing for a moment, then puts it in Reverse, then checks his left-side mirror and sees that it’s maladjusted. He tries to aim it with the servo joystick mirror aimer thing but it’s not responding. He curses. He rests his lower lip on the steering wheel and squints.

Bob switches out of Reverse and into Low, leans on the horn and rages full-ahead. We gain speed quickly and cross the first row of spikes doing almost forty. The car bounces, and we cross the second row, still gaining speed, and the car jumps, there’s a double-popping sound and it kneels, and then the third and fourth bumps we almost feel through the positraction independent suspension and self-compensating hydraulic shocks. The fifth row is softer, the hiss of air escaping from little holes grows louder and the rumble of the air compressor shifts up in pitch as it struggles to reinflate the tires. But it’s not working so well, and when we cross the sixth row the car kneels again, and on the seventh row it kneels some more, we’re no longer accelerating, reflected in the passenger-side mirror I see shredded pieces of former tire flying out behind us, looking limp and defeated and German, we’re losing our momentum, rolling on the rims, and the rims are scraping on the rocks and knives as we cross the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh rows on pure momentum, slowing down, unable to get any purchase, sparks and rocks spitting from below us, and Bob stops and starts, stops and starts, rocking the car forward like you would rock some cheap two-wheel drive car stuck in a mudhole, we scramble over the twelfth barrier this way, ride up against the thirteenth ... scrape against it with the front wheels, which Bob twists to the left and right (effortlessly, due to the power-assisted steering) ... and just when all seems lost, something hooks to one of the wheels and we are launched powerfully forward, across the last row of tire-eating blades, and up along the flattening incline we scramble, and around the last corner, and there, at the other side of a clearing, is the edge of the volcano.

Bob gets out. I get out. It’s silent, the sky is now a dingy red, there’s no sensation of heat or cold, only space and silence. The volcano makes a low quiet sound like an immense old lung slowly inhaling. Bob pulls his HandiCam out of the trunk, points it at me and says “All right, we made it! Let’s say Hi to the folks back home!”

US West Communications Customer:
Martha Q. Customer
1887 Solemn Upswing Grade
Portland, OR 97221

September 9, 1999

Dear Customer Customer:

In order to serve you better, US West is undertaking an exciting new expansion of our service offerings. One important aspect of this expansion is the new Trans-Continental Fiber Tunnel (TCFT). The TCFT Project, funded in part by your federal tax dollars, promises to dramatically enhance the sustained livability of Americans like you throughout the entire US West Extended Customer Service Area. Now that FCC approval of the implementation phase of this joint project has been granted, technicians from US West will soon be visiting your home to install the portion of the TCFT that passes through your children. Please read over the included Q&A text at the end of this letter to find out more. This is an exciting opportunity for all of us, and we at US West want to keep you well-informed.

Sincerely,

All Of Us At US West.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE TRANS-CONTINENTAL FIBER TUNNEL (TCFT):

Q: Through which of my children will the TCFT pass?

A: Yolanda, Matthew and Aimee. Jack will not be affected by this installation procedure.

Q: What steps are being taken to assure the safety and health of my family during this procedure?

A: US West’s trained staff of network engineers, ditch implementors and customer support representatives will be available 24-hours during and after the installation, via our toll-free customer support hotline: 1-800-WE-CARE-0 (zero).

Q: What will the installation look like?

A: Upon completion, the TCFT will resemble a four-inch (10.3-centimeter) diameter aluminum pipe, fixtured to the north-east side breakfast nook wall, passing in a straight horizontal line through your kitchenette area, dining room, and TV room, before exiting your home just to the left of your sofa. The pipe will traverse at an altitude of 38 inches (97 centimeters) from your floor. The pipe will also pass through the upper shoulder area of Aimee (13), the face and rear-cranial area of Yolanda (9) and will graze the ear of Matthew (7.5).

Q: Why is it crucial that the TCFT intersect my home and family in this fashion?

A: Strict design and budgetary constraints dictated by our federally mandated business plan prohibit the complexity of design that would be required to re-implement the TCFT conduit around your domicile. Instead a shortest-path algorithm has been approved by the Federal Communications Oversight Authority and members of your community. If you would like to discuss these impacts of excessive telecommunications regulation with your senator or representative, call our toll-free congressional hotline: 1-800-SMRT-VTR.

Q: Will my regular telephone service be interrupted during the installation procedure?

A: No.

Q: Will the health of my family be negatively impacted by the TCFT installation?

A: This is not directly foreseen. US West recognizes that the health of your loved ones is an important family concern. We offer a toll-free informational service you may use to learn more about family nutrition, troubleshooting basic illness, and how to shop for the best deal in health insurance. Simply dial: 1-800-DOC-TALK.

Q: What is US West doing to compensate families for the inconvenience brought about by the TCFT?

A: US West is always striving to better serve the community. The TCFT project benefits all of us, through increased access to on-demand digital television programming, new interactive shopping opportunities, and an expanded intra-community citizen data system shared by firemen, health officials, and community safety officials. This network, known as NARCNET, promises to dramatically upspeed the processing of 911 emergency calls, and may save lives.

US West understands that the TCFT installation process will be inconvenient for you, and we have chosen to offer a free gift to you and other affected customers in the service area. To claim your free gift, dial our toll-free giftline: 1-800-PAY-OFFS.

This is the one time in my life that I feel able to lift ten times my own weight in sagging plastic bags of old clothing. This is the one time in my life that birds swooping down from nearby trees to pick at my hair do not bother me so much. This is the dawn of a bright, fantastic new day. This is the first time that I’ve ever had the courage to drive my car without first attaching the lap and shoulder belts. I have never felt electricity actually buzzing up and down my back and along my shoulders and the backs of my arms and down my legs and into my hands and feet and fingers and toes before. Today time is composed of moments, and each moment is palpable and exists as a heartbeat, a tick in a perfect clock, orderly, one after the other, and my movements and my thoughts are listening to the beat of movements, and synchronized, and dancing with it, and everything that happens is graceful, orderly and correct. It’s like I am a bell that has been struck, and is ringing a pure tone. I can fly. I can breathe underwater. I can leave my body. I can have sex with supermodels. I can live forever. I can radiate energy, laserlike, from my eyes. I can win at video poker. I can fix my own car. I can withstand extremes of heat and cold. I can climb up trees. I can do anything.

We got some beers and put them in the trunk. We scored some drugs. We filled the tires and the tank and the windshield washer fluid reservoir and we picked everybody up and headed for the ocean. It was a beautiful day when we left. Rebecca was on the rag and made a big deal of explaining to all of us beforehand about how awful it was going to be to be around her, not really apologizing or anything, just warning us in advance that she was unlikely to have or be or create much fun. She had this scruntchy tension in her face, knotted up and squinting through her thick glasses. Kevin was quiet. He brought his guitar but there wasn’t enough space in the back seat for his guitar with everybody else coming, so he put it in the trunk. James was there, and Scott and Sparrow, who together managed to overturn any suggestion of what music to play on the tape deck, so instead we listened to the radio. Keith hates commercials, so he kept flipping channels, reaching over Angie’s knees to hit the scan button, so all we heard was halves of songs, halves of conversations, and little fragments of really annoying commercials. I drove.

Rebecca explained how because she was on the rag she would need to stop frequently to use unsanitary service station bathrooms in order to change her tampons, enough of which she was pretty sure she hadn’t brought, and that using said restrooms was the sort of experience that you would find depressing and humiliating even if you weren’t on the rag, nevertheless, it was very urgent that we pull over at a service station, and not just any unclean-looking one but either an Arco or a Chevron or a BP. So we found a BP and she hopped out, and everybody hopped out and Keith went inside to buy a candy bar, and pretty soon everybody was inside having a candy bar except for me and Scott who grabbed beers from the case in the trunk and went in search of a private place to pound them.

It turned out that this BP had only outdoor plastic chemical porta-toilets, but Rebecca informed us that she didn’t want to create problems or seem ungrateful or bring everybody down, so she would just hold it until we got to the beach. We all got back into the car, and everybody had a soda and Keith spilled his soda on Angie’s lap, and so they got out again and Keith got Angie some paper towels that sopped up some of it, but Angie was cool about it, incredibly cool considering I knew she didn’t really want to go on this trip at all, but came along to be with me, and being there was determined to enjoy herself, which is one of those things about her that I love her for. So she laughed it off, and everybody started joking around a little bit, except for Rebecca, and we all got back on the road and got underway.