He Breathes Again and Again

Driver with a respiratory issue.  Every breath is painful for him and painful for me.  I hear him wheeze.  I imagine all the cigarettes he has smoked.  I imagine all the Beijing air he has breathed.  He breathes, again and again and again and again. I note that he will be breathing for much of the next hour.  We have a long ride across town.  The north fourth ring road is clogged, just like his wind pipe.  Imagine that. 

This is the ride I used to do twenty years ago, day after day, after day.  This road was newly finished then.  “Wow.  There’s a fourth ring road.”  Now there are six.  I consider who I was and how, just like now, I couldn’t help but look for pretty girls, standing at the bus stops, walking along the road, when the traffic slowed like this.  There are roads back in New York I’ve driven along regularly, for far longer.  But I don’t marvel at the passage of time when they pass.  Route 9, in Poughkeepsie was always meant to be in a way that this road was not. 

It’s a gruesome day.  The air quality is awful.  I don’t think we’ve had a bad day like this in a while. Our officials have bragged about controlling pollution in the capital.  On a day like this they must keep their heads low.  Is it precipitation?  I don’t think so.   I can’t ignore the driver’s breathing.  It blends with the atmosphere.  It’s giving me a headache.

And I like this driver.  I wish he’d stop breathing, but I like him a lot.  He drives very aggressively.  He’s not afraid to be an opportunistic cock on the road.  No one else wants to drive with a dick like him unless you’re the passenger, and your late.  He’s a sonofabitch but he’s my sonofabitch.  He has turned what could have been a two-hour ride into a ninety-minute ride.  And if he stopped breathing it wouldn’t be fair. 

Friday 03/23/18