You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The One Way Driver.
One way driver
You know it’s crazy I’ll tell you it’s crazy
Sometimes stories take a a life time to develop. Sometimes stories take one minute to become a moment that lasts forever.
On a boy’s trip to Chicago recently, we had moment upon moment that stacked on top of one another would rival the height of the Sears Tower (or whatever they call it now.)
This moment takes place in a monster Suburban. It is formidable and dark. We look like the Secret Service rolling around Michigan avenue.
We are driving like rules don’t apply to us.
Lights? Who cares. Stop signs? That’s for other motorists.
We are on a mission from God.
So my buddy is behind the wheel. This guy is one part comedian, one part zanex induced heart attack ready to happen. He is wired tight, his musculature system wired to his every impulse.
He thinks it, his body twitches in that direction. He thinks it, he blurts it out, unfiltered, like raw coffee dumped into a glass and inhaled with a straw.
He is super charged, adrenalized, unpredictability.
This guy prides himself on being a good driver. I’m not sure what he is using for a comparison. Drivers in India? Drivers in Tai Pai?
He is the least courteous driver west of the Mississippi.
He sits behind the wheel of our Secret Service like Suburban, driving it like it is some kind of Sherman Tank rolling through a battle field.
When he drives, he has rights and priveleges that other drivers do not have.
He’s from California. I know it’s the Left Coast, but I would think the highway laws are pretty much the same.
NOT.
Let’s just say our buddy has attitude when he’s rolling down the road.
So I will watch him over the course of a four day blitzkrieg as he weaves across the center line, cuts off other drivers, flips the bird to old ladies and truck drivers alike.
In his mind, the only objective is to get from A to B. And the best way to do that is to drive straight and fast.
So we are leaving the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Chicago. It is a beautiful 4 star hotel in the middle of the windy city. It is surrounded by four lane streets like Michigan and Illinois.
The boulevards are broad like the city that nurtures them.
There are 1000’s of pedestrians going to work. Hundreds of taxis driving through a maze of anything goes. There are buses and ambulances and other drivers.
And then there is the mysterious dark Suburban holding a cargo of 7 derelicts and more golf bags than a Japanese tour group.
My boy at the wheel is hung over like a Sushi salesman at a California Pizza Kitchen.
I don’t think he’s driving as much as he is clinging to the wheel trying not to slump against the driver side door.
Nobody knows where the hell were going. The target is USC V N.D.
I’m not even sure where South Bend Indiana is from my seat in the way back.
This vehicle is so big, I’m in a different area code than the driver.
It doesn’t help that the Windy City seems to be one big traffic cone – rerouted – construction nightmare.
“Which ways Indiana?” someone yells.
“I don’t F-in know,” someone retorts.
“GPS it”
The GPS apparently doesn’t know where Indiana is either.
Recalculating. Recalculating, it screeches.
My buddy next to me, still reeking of vodka and hot wings has his phone in his hands.
I trust him only slightly more than the driver of the Suburban.
“Go right at the light,” he shouts taking command.
“Right at the light?” the driver reiterates like a parrot that’s sipping Pirate rum.
“Yes. That’s what she says. Go right at the light. Indiana’s that way.”
The suburban is hauling ass. I don’t know what the speed limit is on Ohio avenue, but it sure seems like stuff is flying by at a pace that is border line unsafe.
I watch a frogger amount of citizens crossing streets. I see traffic coming and going. The city is pulsing to life and then there is the Suburban; full of gas, full of golf clubs; with a knee jerk synoptical impulse steering the load.
“Ok, go right here,” the GPS man screams.
For no explainable reason, the driver turns left.
My brain instantly says WTF
And for good reason. My eye balls are filled with a new moment.
It’s called ONE WAY STREET.
“What the hell you doing man!”
“you’re going to get us killed!”
It sounds like a battlefield inside the Suburban.
Angst and nervousness and adrenaline kick into high gear.
“ONE WAY STREET!!!!”
From the back seat, I gaze through the front windshield. All I see is four lanes of cars coming at us, closing the gap. It is a phalanx of metal and bright lights and suddenly honking horns. There is no lane. We are a salmon swimming against an angry mechanical river trying to return to Indiana to spawn.
This is not going to end well. We are a suburban. Our vehicle is two area codes big. There is no sliding by or saying excuse me. This is going to be a major, tv station response, breaking news metal on metal mess.
I see cars flashing brights.
“We’re gonna die!!!!!
But the driver remains cool as the other side of the pillow. Somewhere inside that booze soaked melon of his, synoptical charges and impulses align like a symphony playing the Star Spangled Banner.
As if he planned this entire event for our viewing enjoyment, he grabs the huge suburban bus like wheel and jerks it hard to the left.
The Suburban full of life and fear and golf clubs swerves violently onto two wheels as the massive neutron star of automotive muscle hangs a perfectly executed U turn.
Buildings are a blur on all sides of the gigantic SUV.
Lights and traffic and pedestrians and all of it blurring by.
Before you can say “Hey dumb ass…..”
We are going the same direction of traffic, zooming forward, trouble behind us like a strong tail wind. We catch the green light in the intersection and somehow zoom onto the interstate ramp.
“That’s the way I planned it,” the driver says in a nonchalant tone.
He smiles that Cheshire cat grin knowing he dodged a bullet. He is a world series of poker player wearing big glasses and showing no emotion.
I laugh out loud.
F-in Ass H***”
Somewhere in the background I hear Serie screaming “RECALCULATE. RECALCULATE”
“Shut that stupid bitch up,” he screams in the front seat.
The next thing I know we’re on the interstate heading through Gary Indiana.
It’s a city that smells like and unwashed body farm full of decaying corpses and rotting onions.
We should mail this place back to the Chinese as part of our debt reduction strategy.
All in all; we get to South Bend in record time.
Nobody dies. No insurance cards are exchanged. We are teeing off with more moments to laugh about.
Life’s Crazy™