Road Fever Read online

  “I don’t write intellectually,” the woman said. Instead, she wrote from “the heart.” Here she thumped her chest urgently. It was important to make interconnections between people. Was there an English word that describes the situation where you meet someone and understand immediately who they are? I suggested synchronicity. She wrote the word into a small notebook.

  She was from Buenos Aires and felt there was a synchronicity between writers far from home, as we both were. She had heard of our project. Everyone in the hotel was talking about it. She didn’t understand why the very idea made some people angry. Others thought it was splendidly exciting.

  With my limited Spanish it took a long painful time to tell this woman that I thought there was a “dark weight” that people feel in their lives. We call it—and I had to look the word up in my Spanish dictionary—responsibility.

  Responsibility was good but it was not supposed to be fun. A person who wishes to appear responsible, and therefore good, should not seem to enjoy his job. Garry and I, however, appeared to be having fun. We were irresponsible and therefore bad. We annoyed some people.

  “Ahhh,” the woman said, as if she understood. There was a poem in her book I should read. It was about this very idea. She opened the thin volume to the proper page. The poem was entitled “One Hundred Thousand Miles of Promises.” It was about the road of life.

  “We all,” she said, “make different promises to ourselves. That is good. To break those promises, that is bad.” She smiled brilliantly, shook my hand firmly, and said she would leave me alone to do my work.

  I drove the truck to the airport to meet a flight. Rich Cox, the photographer for Popular Mechanics, was coming down to take a few pictures for the story the magazine wanted to do on our trip. Cox was not on the flight.

  We were leaving a day earlier than scheduled because of problems with the boat in Colombia. Which meant we had only one more day for pictures. I would have scrapped the photos altogether but the Popular Mechanics article was very important to Garry. It was the kind of press his sponsors expected him to generate. We were going to have to do something about photos and do it immediately.

  Garry went to the nearby Albatross Hotel and telexed his office in Moncton: find out what happened to Cox. We thought maybe he was stuck in Buenos Aires, having a long conversation about prohibited electronics with a warty-nosed customs official wearing a maple-leaf lapel pin.

  In the hotel, there were several large framed pictures of the land around Ushuaia: pictures of the town from the water on a clear day with the snow-capped mountains behind rising against an impossibly blue sky, pictures of golden trees in the fall, pictures of Lake Fagnano. A caption at the bottom of each shot read, “Photos by Eduardo.”

  We went to the desk and told the man we needed a professional photographer. Could he get us Eduardo? Surely. It was no problem. One telephone call.

  Half an hour later a short young man dressed in a blue blazer and gray slacks met us in the lobby. He had a mustache, glasses, a neat short haircut, and carried a large bag containing several camera bodies and lenses.

  “Ahh,” I said, “Eduardo.”

  “Yes.” He spoke fairly good English but there seemed to be some problem concerning his name. He was Eduardo, of course, and he had taken the pictures we had seen. Yes, yes, the pictures he had taken were the same: pictures very like the ones we had seen. They were his pictures although not the same ones.

  None of this seemed very clear to me.

  As we were getting into the truck, a local fisherman stopped to chat with our new photographer. I couldn’t help but notice that he kept calling Eduardo “Pedro.”

  We drove an hour to the top of the mountain and took some pictures near Lake Fagnano. Eduardo worked like a professional. It was a cloudy day, and occasionally the sun would break through so that a celestial spotlight illuminated the blue-gray waters of the lake. Eduardo thought he could get some shots of the truck sliding through the mud with this scene out of a Catholic holy card in the background.

  Farther north, men were working to pull another truck out of the snow and back onto the road. The semi’s back end had slipped and crashed through a metal guardrail. The rear wheels were hanging in midair over what looked like an eight-hundred-foot drop, straight down. There were half a dozen trucks backed up behind the wreck, and we stopped for a few pictures designed to emphasize the dangers of our expedition.

  There were, I noticed, holes in the guardrails about every mile or so.

  Eduardo said these twisted bits of metal did not necessarily indicate a death. Mostly the big Scania tractor-trailers only went partway off the road. A wheel might slip but very few drivers died. The last persons to perish on the road did so two years ago, in a taxi coming over the mountains from the northern town of Río Grande. It was a snowy night, the windshield must have gotten covered over in snow, and the car went over the edge. It took searchers two days to find the taxi, which was buried in snow six hundred feet below the road.

  “Nothing to worry about then,” Garry said.

  “Oh no,” Eduardo agreed, “all very safe.”

  At dusk we drove Eduardo back to his house on the outskirts of Ushuaia. The neighborhood was called “Forty Homes” because, Eduardo explained reasonably, there were forty families living there in forty separate homes. The houses were newly built of artfully weathered wood, like condos at Lake Tahoe, but they were closely spaced and set along muddy roads. Eduardo asked us to stop at his photo store, Bariloche Photo, for coffee. The shop, we discovered, was also his house. A curtain behind the counter opened up into a pleasant living room set under a cathedral ceiling.

  Eduardo’s wife, a pleasant-looking woman with freckles, was watching some sort of variety show on television. There was some commotion from above, and a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl bounded down the side stairs and into their father’s arms.

  Eduardo said that his parents were Chileans but that he had grown up in the Argentine ski resort town of Bariloche. He’d been a tourist guide there for a while and had studied English with a stern Scottish woman who said that his accent gave her “a hiddach.”

  “What’s a hiddach?” I wondered.

  Eduardo put his hands to the sides of his head and made a face that indicated he was in extreme pain.

  “Headache,” I said.

  “Yes. That is what she say. ‘You give me hiddach, Pedro,’ ” Eduardo said.

  Garry was playing with the little girl, Lorena. He said, “How come everyone calls you Pedro, Eduardo?”

  “Ah, yes. Ah. I don’t know. Sometimes, I guess, they call me Pedro.”

  “A nickname,” I suggested.

  “Yes. I am Eduardo. My nickname is Pedro.”

  Garry and Loreena were leafing through one of her books: My First English Dictionary. There were colored pictures of frogs and cows with the Spanish and English names underneath. In the front of the book were pictures of flags from various English- and Spanish-speaking nations. Garry showed Loreena the Canadian flag, then gave her a dozen maple-leaf lapel pins. The little girl clapped her hands in delight.

  “I have a daughter about her age,” Garry told Eduardo. “I would like her to learn Spanish. You want your daughter to learn English. Maybe my daughter could write to yours. They could be pen pals.”

  Eduardo said he thought that would be a very good idea. He seemed suddenly very emotional, choked up about the idea.

  It was time for us to leave. Eduardo walked us out to the truck. He kept clearing his throat, as if he had something difficult to say. Finally, at the last moment, during the last handshake, he mumbled, “They called me from the hotel and said some Americans needed a photographer. I am a photographer, but …”

  Eduardo stared at the ground for a long time, as if shamed by what he had to say. “But …”

  “But you’re not Eduardo,” I said.

  “No.”

  This was not entirely a surprise.

  “Don’t worry about it, Pedro,
” Garry said.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING Garry took the truck to a local garage to have the fluid levels checked and the mud scraped off. I found a line of cabs outside the hotel. Pedro was sitting in the third one back. It seemed he worked as a cabdriver every other day. I was glad to see him, and realized that I liked him, whatever his name was.

  Pedro took me to the airport, where I expected to pick up Rich Cox who, once again, wasn’t on the flight. Pedro said there was one more flight, at 3:30. What did I want to do until then?

  We were starting the drive early the next morning. There was plenty to do. I needed to buy a few pillows for the back bench seat in the extended cab. On the drive down Garry and I had decided not to sleep in the bed under the camper shell. It was lonely, and it locked from the outside, so you felt trapped in there. At border points, customs officials searching the truck regarded persons in the camper shell as an unpleasant surprise. Guns were sometimes drawn. This complicated the formalities.

  I wanted to buy a new coil to heat water for our freeze-dried food. The one I had gotten in Buenos Aires was not very good: it took over half an hour to heat enough water to hydrate the dinners and, in the space of half an hour, in South America, a driver will inevitably hit a large hole in the road, which causes moderately hot water to spill onto the chef’s lap. Sometimes, when the water spilled, it was almost ready and very hot. The chef, in such circumstances, wonders about his ability to pass his genes on to future generations.

  We had also decided to pick up some canned food which we could eat cold, just in case there were similar problems with the new coil. In addition, we needed garbage bags for trash. And I had two large bags full of clothes to wash.

  Finally, I had to go to the tourist bureau and talk with Veronica Iglesias, the “ship” lady, who had told us that she could arrange to have police officers sign our logbook when we left. I wanted to confirm that and let her know that tomorrow was the day.

  Pedro regarded this as a large list of things to do. He sped through town, from the laundry to the dry-goods store to the tourist bureau, at top speed. After he had run ten consecutive octagonal signs clearly marked alto, I asked Pedro what a prudent driver should do at an Argentine stop sign.

  “Look both ways,” Pedro said.

  * * *

  RICH COX ARRIVED on the 3:30 flight. The plane out of Los Angeles had been canceled. He had spent four days trying to get to Ushuaia and hadn’t slept in twenty hours. Pedro and I piled him into the cab, and we sped down the waterfront to the garage where the Sierra was being serviced. The truck was spotless, ready for pictures, and we had less than four hours of light left in the day.

  Cox wanted some shots in the strangest southern landscape we could find. That would be down the west road at the national park called Lapataia. We splashed through muddy puddles at seventy miles an hour and found ourselves in an area of meandering streams, grassy meadows, and trees that had apparently died in a flood. The dead, splintered trunks were a ghostly gray color, and dozens of hawks perched on the bare branches, surveying the lush green meadows below.

  We really should have been carefully packing the truck, Garry and I, but, as Garry said, nothing’s free. He quite literally owed these pictures to his sponsors.

  We arrived back in town after dark. Veronica from the tourist bureau met us at Tante Elvira, the best restaurant in Ushuaia. It was a small place, with fifteen or twenty tables, and the local king crab was marvelous. Veronica said that the police would be delighted to sign our logbooks and escort us out of Ushuaia. They would be out in front of the Canal Beagle Hotel at four-thirty in the morning.

  “Why do you not start at the end of the road?” she wanted to know.

  Garry explained that the editor of the Guinness Book, a man named Alan Russell, had taken another job. The old editor, Norris McWhirter, was now in charge. McWhirter felt that the record should be set from the last settlement in the south to the last settlement in the north. Both were on the water. It was a race, McWhirter felt, from one distinct geographic point to another. The rule would eliminate arguments about where the road actually ended.

  “And you double-checked this?” I asked Garry.

  “I have it in writing.”

  It was better, Veronica said. This way the police could be on hand. The start would be a formal ceremony.

  Veronica made us feel like important visitors. She was good at her job. Everyone agreed that she deserved champagne. And Rich Cox, who now hadn’t slept for twenty-eight hours, had certainly earned his own bottle. Garry and I deserved a bit for ourselves, just for getting the truck to the end of the earth.

  It was 11:30 before we started back to the hotel. Darío Iglesias, Veroncia’s husband, was waiting for her in the lobby. The police, he told us, would appreciate it if we could leave a bit earlier. Could we start at 4:10 instead of 4:30?

  No problem.

  It was midnight. The truck wasn’t packed, but Garry and I had been up since dawn and we were both very tired. We could pack in the morning.

  “What a good idea,” the champagne said.

  We talked to the man at the hotel desk and told him that it was important that we get our wake-up call precisely at 3:15.

  Yes, yes. No problem. Good luck on your drive.

  I fell into bed at 12:30 and at 3:15, precisely, the phone rang.

  I had a hiddach.

  LET’S SEE WHAT

  THIS BABY’LL DO

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  September 29, 1987

  A WAKE-UP CALL, in my opinion, is not a fire alarm. It is best to loll about for half an hour or so, contemplating the task ahead, which, on this morning, was a month-long drive at top speed through thirteen countries. It was 3:20 in the morning in the last hotel in the last town at the end of the earth. I was reading a small pocket Bible: reading Psalm 91 in search of inspiration.

  In Montana, my next-door neighbor, an Episcopal priest named Michael Morgan, had honored me with a blessing before I left home. Father Morgan’s house is close enough to mine that he is often treated to involuntary glimpses of a less-than-spiritual life-style. He is, therefore, in the habit of giving me books with titles like Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask About the Christian Faith. We do not discuss these books, and Father Michael gives them to me, I suspect, out of a sense of duty rather than any real hope for my immortal soul. This is one of the many reasons that I respect my neighbor. You get your inspiration where it falls, and for my part, Michael Morgan’s faith is inspirational.

  His blessing had consisted of a brief prayer, smack to the point. Father Michael used to own a motorcycle, a great screaming hog that he liked to ride through Yellowstone Park. Ahh, the wind in his face, the odor of fertile land … the sound of police sirens yipping behind. He has since sold the big bike but he knows something of the high edge of the highway.

  “Psalm Ninety-one,” Father Michael said, “is a prayer of protection. It’s a good highway prayer.”

  My neighbor gave me a pocket Bible to pack away with my newly purchased knife and borrowed bulletproof vest. In a pinch, he thought, when quick action was called for, a prayer might consist of simply saying, “Psalm Ninety-one, Lord.”

  So, at the end of the earth, by 3:25 A.M., I was in the process of pulling my way up out of two hours and forty-five minutes of sleep. The world felt thick, like fetid custard, and I tried to draw a bit of spiritual motivation from my neighbor’s impressive faith.

  Trust in God, the psalm says, and

  You will not fear the terror of the night,

  Or the arrow that flies by day.

  There came an impatient knocking at the door: bam, bam, bam.

  In Psalm 91, the devout reader is cautioned to make the Most High his or her dwelling.

  Then no harm will befall you,

  No disaster come near your tent.

  Or I suppose, by extrapolation, your new GMC Sierra.

  The knocking became more urgent and protr
acted. It was Garry, sounding alert and Canadian: a real eager beaver.

  “Tim, there’re about thirty people standing around outside. The police are there. Everyone’s waiting. And we still have to pack the truck.”

  I read:

  For he will command his angels concerning you,

  To guard you in all your ways.

  They will lift you up in their hands,

  So that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

  Bam, bam, bambambam. “We’re late! People are waiting!” There was a silence that lasted for a minute or more: an agitated void.

  The psalm read:

  You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;

  You will trample the great lion and serpent.

  Bambambambam. Garry’s voice had an edge to it. “Let’s go.”

  Oh boy. Wake up groggy to a friend suffering a full-blown case of Zippy’s disease. It took three trips to carry everything out of the hotel room and I was bounding up and down two flights of stairs two or three steps at a time. We threw suitcases and duffel bags in the back of the truck, under the camper shell, and there was no rhyme or reason to the process. It was all just hurry-up time. People were shouting and laughing in the darkness.

  The police were there, four upright officers in comic-opera dress uniforms: all crossed white webbing and lacy cuffs. They signed our logbook at 4:15 for a 4:30 departure. Rich Cox took pictures and Pedro took pictures. Veronica and Darío Iglesias were there along with the young German boy (sans parents) and the Buenos Aires poet.

  It had rained heavily the night before and the streetlights gave the scene a kind of gritty film-noir look: long sallow streaks on the dark wet streets. There was the felt presence of mountains, looming above. Strobe lights were flashing randomly in what seemed to me to be a scene of gross confusion.

  At 4:43, thirteen minutes after our official ceremonial starting time, we piled into the cab of the Sierra and fired her up.

  Garry had offered to let me start the trip. He wanted to finish it, and it was only fair that I start. Garry Sowerby had worked two years for this moment. It seemed to me that he should both start and finish.