Not Fair At All

On 17 South, near the exit for the Garden State Plaza.  Up ahead there is a cop car light flashing.  It would appear that he has something to do with the delay.  Or maybe its just rush hour.  The jam extends up beyond him.  Taking stock of the leaves that are left.  I was suggesting to myself the last time I was returning back to China that I might come back in October to full fall colors.  This time, my return will be mid-November and the trees will certainly be denuded.   

Passing that cop now.  Someone is having their car towed.  It would appear to have broken down.  The clogged traffic extends though, way out beyond this point, here. I am imaging the accent of the Paramus tow truck driver who is enormous, standing there, arms akimbo.  Skies are blue this morning.  It rained all day yesterday and I never got out to exercise. 

I’ve been pretty lucky the other times I’ve come down this way but this morning here at Fairview Avenue, the view is not fair at all, plodding along through Paramus.  Our Trailways bus driver seems to be distracted.  More than a few times now he has been slow to react to the traffic when it moves.  People keep cutting in front us.  Sitting here in front of the bus I marvel at how challenging it must be to steer this thing effectively.  And at how far the bathroom all the way in the back is, as well.

Manhattan.  It’s a fine destination when it is your destination.  But I’m only going there this morning, under the Holland Tunnel, to the unfortunate hub that is Port Authority, so I can step out and get on another bus to back under the Holland Tunnel and travel back to New Jersey.   I forego the pleasures of the Port Authority men’s room and head straight over to that Newark Airport shuttle, when we arrive sixty minutes later than we should have. The lady on the bus collects the tickets slowly.   The driver takes twelve minutes to cross two blocks.  I do my best to ignore the need to fret about time and dive into my book.

Later, somewhere over the Arctic, I finished Hermann Broch’s “Death of Virgil” in a straight shot from the bus till now.  I seemed to warm to it as I went further and further in.  The dialogue with Octavian was epic and the final reunion with eternity at the end reminded me of Robert Musil with its expansive poesy that challenges the boundaries of sanity. The slave who stares and is meek and who becomes the Christ figure annoyed me at first, when I discerned who it was.  I had the dull feeling that I had somehow figured things out.  But I continued along, and watch Broch allow Virgil a confrontation with Christianity that was rather different from the one that Dante had afforded him. 

Monday, 10/28/19