Knights of the Road

Posted on July 13, 2006 in Driving

Between about one and three am, there’s a lull in traffic. A few tail lights and a few headlights bounce between the comet trails of speed bumps. The beauty of it is something like the feeling you get when you walk into an empty house and touch the bare white walls with your eyes.

Shortly after 3 the city gets on the move again. Dozens of headlights challenge your passing. You slay these knights of the road by going on.

* * * * *

I was out along the 405 because Lynn’s flight was delayed and delayed. Thunderstorms over Newark (pronounce this “Nork”) held the jet on the ground. She finally reached LAX at about 2:30 am.

On our way home, along the toll road, a man in white waved his arms at us. We pulled over and received a complicated story from him and his wife about how they needed a bit of water in their “new” car. A previous owner had deeply dented the front bumper. I dialed 911 and left them. It was a chore to explain that we were at an onramp for a road that ended there and then resumed a little ways down the road*.

Several minutes later, the dispatcher called back. She hadn’t understood my directions. “Tell me how you got there,” she said in a tone that made me think that she regarded me as lost in my own head.

“Well, I came up from the 405.”

“The 405 doesn’t connect with the Santa Margarita toll road.”

“Yes it does. I got there via the 133.”

The conversation continued like that — me giving simple clear directions and she putting in turns and exits — until the mercy of the local topography intervened. The Black Hole of Portola Hills cut off the signal and she didn’t call back. Maybe the cops found them before she could torture me more. I hoped until sleep overtook me that she didn’t think I’d hung up on her.