Driver Hates This Song

I went out to get in the car at 5:20AM and someone was in the driver’s seat, and another fellow was in the passenger’s seat. This made me sour.  Is someone joining us on this ride to South Station for the next hour?  As quickly as it rose, my frown had passed.  It was just the guard who’d rode in with this driver to direct him to our place on this frigid morning.  He asked, as I got in if it would be alright if he rode back out with us to the front gate.  With unnecessary enthusiasm, I told him, “of course, of course.”

Writing, drifting off, coming to, as we speed through a ride that would take twice as long, ninety minutes from now.  Is this the right way?  I don’t recognize the side of the road.  And I consider whether he hasn’t taken me on some long detour.  Later when I’m nodding off on a familiar ride into the city in Shanghai, I’ll have the same concern. 

The Shan Tian Feng my driver’s listening to gives way to cross talk and then an old anthemic, patriotic song.  He knows the words and sings along aloud for a moment.  Then a horrible pop song begins.  I think I know that my driver hates this song.  “It’s not like the old revolutionary songs” I imagine him saying.  Rather, he suddenly begins to sing along with this dentist-drill pop song as well.  Just thirty hours ago I was riding out of Noe Valley on my way to SFO and the guy had American dentistry music: “Jack and Dianne” on.  I was squirming there as well, wishing he’d make the John Mellencamp stop, until, pulling out my phone and pretending to make a call, I asked him to turn it down.

My meeting today was to be at the South African Consulate. I arrived and all the people I’d later lecture to were waiting outside for someone to escort them upstairs.  “If you don’t mind I’m going over to the Starbucks", that my mind’s eye remembered should be right around the corner, across the atrium.  Considering a Starbucks lunch as a vegetarian means you’ll be having a lot of muffins, really.  Every single sandwich, wrap or salad has meat in in.   I got a kiwi juice and a triple espresso. 

And now, it’s about seventeen hours later.  12:15AM the next day.  I managed to get my ass down to Shanghai, give my lecture and return home the same day.  Once again, I’ve sped home at a remarkable clip, on roads that are normally hopeless.  I’ve some Donald Byrd up in the ears and I’m not hearing what my driver is listening to this time.  And while I didn’t manage to sleep at all on the way down, I was off to nod, shortly after the Nanjing station stop, as we barreled back up north.

Monday, 03/05/18