Am I capable of driving us to Vegas unharmed? The voice in the head that always doubts one's own ability wasn't even talking to me. It just sat there smiling smugly in the brain, whispering "I don't even have to get involved in this one, you know you're useless, no point me telling you." Needless to say, I wasn't confident about the journey.
However, I decided it was a must. We had gone from one end of this huge country to the other. Seen great and unknown sights, met the weird and the wonderful, eaten the divine and the disgusting, drank the fine wines of the vineyards and the piss-water of the breweries, heard the music of the muses and the wretchings of the gutter. It had been an historic trip. But what it had lacked was real danger. We had seen no muggings in New York, no hurricanes in New Orleans, no shoot-outs in Texas, no drug overdoses in California. Wonderful as the trip had been, we had not yet faced our mortality. The drive was as close as we would get.
If it were to turn out badly, so what. It had been one hell of a trip, a full speed collision would have given it some finality at least. Below is a quote from one of my favourite authors:
"The ambiguous role of the car crash needs no elaboration—apart from our own deaths, the car crash is probably the most dramatic event in our lives, and in many cases the two will coincide. Aside from the fact that we generally own or are at the controls of the crashing vehicle, the car crash differs from other disasters in that it involves the most powerfully advertised commercial product of this century, an iconic entity that combines the elements of speed, power, dream and freedom within a highly stylized format that defuses any fears we may have of the inherent dangers of these violent and unstable machines."
The late JG Ballard has written extensively about the eroticism of the car crash, blending ideas from psychoanalysis, his observations of reactions to crashes, and his own warped mind. His ideas make a fascinating and disturbing read. However, having knowledge of the intellectualisation of the car crash is never a comforting thought when driving one of these violent and unstable machines.
Just as a religious persons faith may be tested when they are visited with great misfortune, so an atheists faith is tested when they must face their own mortality. But what happens when you are an agnostic, sitting on the fence, not ready to commit to one side or the other. Facing death forces one to pick a belief. Logic dictates that you pray to whatever god you might choose. If you're wrong, so be it, it was worth a shot. If you're right, maybe you just sneak your way into a lovely afterlife. This was my dilemma on the roads. Missing several turns on busy roads, the panic began to set in. Am I going to make this without divine intervention? Is it right to pray to a God I have no real faith in? In the end, I decided prayer was less important than focusing on the roads. Pretty soon we were on the highway/motorway. After getting out of San Diego, the route to Vegas is pretty much a straight road. It's very calming to be told by the GPS that you have no turn for 50 miles, and for that turn not even to be a real turn. Going 90 on quiet desert roads is much easier than going 60 on busy city ones.
Ed was very helpful with the helping explain the GPS. He was less so with the radio. The constant channel flipping had an infuriating effect on my already fragile psyche. Eventually he settled on a station with some country music. Which he doesn't even like, though I do. It was fairly repetitive and there were some ridiculous songs. "Our houses are protected/by the good Lord and a gun, and you might meet 'em both if you show up here not welcome son," was the main lyric of my favourite one.
After four and a half hours on the road we rested in Barstow. The Mexican waiter didn't understand when I asked for water. Or agua (I pronounced it wrong). Luckily a patron behind us ordered it for me. Then, after stretching, it was back out on the road again.
We came upon a brightly lit town in the middle of the desert. But it wasn't Vegas. Or at least it wasn't the main part. It was very confusing. We got past it and arrived safely in the city of sin.
