When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home (10 page)

As I contemplate the row of yellow taxis waiting for the deplaning passengers at the curb, I can only nod my head and mumble, “Isn't that the truth?”

Probably the dumbest thing Americans do is to climb inside a car with a perfect stranger and assume he is going to get you where you want to go.

I had a driver once—a Sean Penn Charm School graduate—who got in a shouting match with a bunch of crazies on the San Diego Freeway. I expected any minute to be looking into the barrel of a cannon.

Another time, my cabdriver actually leaned out of his car window and passed a map to the driver of a limousine so he could circle the exit ramp to my hotel. We were going sixty miles an hour at the time.

But the night I landed in New York alone sort of sums it all up. A guy saw me get my luggage off the carousel, grabbed it out of my hands, and ordered, “I have a car. Follow me.”

Erma, the idiot, followed him to the parking lot where he threw my luggage in the trunk and said, “Get in. I'm going to get a few more fares.”

“Hold it!” I said. “This is not a regular cab. I want a regular cab and a driver. Give me back my luggage.”

He shrugged and obliged.

At the taxi stand, a nice young man got out of his cab, held the door for me, and said, “You going to Manhattan? Here, give me your bag.” This was more like it.

I usually like to strike up a conversation with cabbies. It not only gives you a perspective of what the world is thinking about, but I always figure if they know I'm a homeroom mother, they'll think twice about driving recklessly.

This one was a wonderful driver.

“So what did you do before you drove a cab?” I asked.

“I was in the seminary studying to become a priest.” His large brown, pious eyes met mine in his rearview mirror.

I think I looked skyward and mouthed silently, “Thank you, God.”

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

“They asked me to ... about the time I heard the voices.”

“You heard voices?”

“I shouldn't be telling you this,” he said. “They listen to me and then come after me.”

“Then by all means don't—”

“One night,” he said, getting very excited, “right here on this seat, one of 'them' materialized. I thought I couldn't stand it. My head hurt. I had to stop the car and get out—”

“You don't have to tell me this....”

“They wouldn't let me back in the car again. Do you know what I'm saying?”

“Yes ... yes I do.”

He paused but kept looking at me in the rearview mirror.

Finally, I said brightly, “So, what do you think of Shirley MacLaine's book?”

“She's a phony,” he said sharply.

“That was my feeling,” I said, nodding my head, not wanting to disagree.

I was in a car with a licensed driver whose elevator was stuck between floors.

I have ridden with Ph.D.'s who have a resume in their glove compartment, strung-out druggies, and a limo driver in California who wanted me to help him sell a story describing the night he had Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in his car. What a sweetheart.

In Istanbul, we had a cabbie from hell who literally aimed for people in the crosswalk to see how close he could come to hitting them. He steered the car the entire time with the little finger of his right hand inserted into a small elastic loop attached to his steering wheel. He also smelled like a yak in heat.

Crazies and car pollutants are not the worst of it. The most frustrating thing about riding a cab in America is being unable to find a driver who speaks English. I usually climb into a cab driven by Boris Szorgyloklov, who arrived two weeks ago from Odessa, Russia.

The word “hello” is cookie time for Boris. You wonder how it developed that this man came to America and found himself behind the wheel of a Japanese car.

One can only surmise Boris arrived in this country and went straight to a placement bureau where a sociologist gave him a test. At the end, the sociologist said, “You cannot speak a word of English, you have never driven a car in your entire life, you come from a rural community. You are qualified for only one job: driving a cab in New York.”

In Los Angeles one afternoon, I climbed into a cab with an Arab driver who could speak only four words, “I am not rich.” As he grabbed a $20 bill out of my hand for an eight-minute ride, I taught him three more new words, “I'm getting there.”

When cabs are scarce, however, you are often at their mercy. One night in Mexico, a driver jammed six of us into a single cab. A friend of mine straddled the gearshift. At the end of the ride, she crawled out of the front seat. “You OK?” we asked. “Every time he changed gears,” she said, “it was a religious experience.”

After our rental car experience in Italy, my husband and I talked about engaging a car with a driver. A lot of our friends had done it. Our neighbors, Bob and Judy, said it was wonderful to set your own pace, see only what you want to see, have a flexible schedule, and leave the driving to someone else. They said it's so easy to set up. All you do is make arrangements with your travel agent and be met at the airport by a car and a driver.

Nothing was said about being heavily sedated.

Indonesia

Every country in the world worries about the threat of aggressive neighbors who seek to conquer them. Not to worry. The Russians will do themselves in by drinking too much vodka. The Japanese will smoke themselves to death, the Finns will phase themselves out from arteries clogged with all those dairy fats, and the entire population of Indonesia will eventually die from the traffic. It's just a matter of time.

For a change, both my husband and I were excited about going to Indonesia. Usually we were a house divided on where we were going to go and what we were going to do, but this country offered everything. It had white, sandy beaches; the Ujung Kulon Game Reserve; Krakatau, the volcano that erupted in 1883, creating the largest explosion ever recorded in the history of the world; plus one of the most unusual cultures in the world. Although the largest religion is Islam, there is a blend of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and animism throughout the country.

Once you see the drivers in Indonesia, you understand why religion plays such an important part in their lives. After a day as a passenger in a car, I would have worshipped the hotel draperies if I had thought they would protect me from bodily harm.

The first thing we noticed in Jakarta (Java) was the absence of dogs and cats. It didn't take me long to figure out they had probably once roamed this part of the world in great numbers, but one by one they were picked off by Mercedes and Volvos as they tried to cross the street. It brought about their extinction. People were next.

We picked up our guide in Yogyakarta at the hotel. Outside, he introduced us to our driver. This was very unusual, as one man often serves as the driver and the guide.

The driver was young, frail, and said little. He was emotionless, and from time to time he displayed a tic of sorts. His right eye would blink, his head would jerk, and he stretched his neck as if he had on a tight tie.

“We visit the Sultan's Palace,” said the guide, smiling. The car shot out of the driveway like the Batmobile in Gotham City.

I'd like to point out here that I am not a nervous passenger. I have survived three teenage drivers: one who used cruise control in downtown traffic at five p.m., one who put on full makeup and finished her homework while driving through a construction area, and another who got a ticket for driving forty-five miles per hour ... in reverse. But this was unbelievable.

Most of the highways in Indonesia are two lanes. Everyone passes. Everyone. How do they do this? you ask.

There are basically seven modes of transportation in the country. At the slowest and bottom of the spectrum is the horse and carriage, which is exactly what it sounds like. Next is the pedicab. This is a little buggy on two wheels hooked up to a man who pulls it through traffic. The becak or powered tricycle is next, followed by motor scooters, hired cars (and taxis), then trucks, and finally buses.

This is how the pecking order works. Your car passes another car at a speed of fifty or sixty miles per hour. If you meet a motor scooter head-on in the passing lane at the same time, the motor scooter is below you on the scale of size. He has to disappear. Don't ask me where. He just knows that. On the other hand, if you are in a car and meet a truck or a bus, then you must give way.

It's the old game of chicken that has reached state-of-the-art.

All the while our lives are hanging in the balance as our guide is trying to indicate temples and points of interest. I can't take my eyes off the driver.

Every once in a while, the driver engages in a little ritual that is bizarre. As we stop for a light, he tilts his head all the way to his shoulder and then with both hands gives his head a jerk that would have broken a normal spinal column in half.

“Why does he do that?” I asked our guide.

“It relieves the tension,” he says. “Actually, he is a very good driver. You are here to relax. Just sit back and enjoy.”

It would have taken a lobotomy for me to relax.

I'd like to say that despite the frenzy and the insane passing, I never saw an accident. But that's not true. It was like being in the middle of Demolition Derby. I saw women on bicycles balancing trays of fruit on their heads, only to be forced to hit the ditch and become fruit salad.

I saw an ambulance give way to—you got it—a truck, and in the city it was not unusual to see people sitting on the curb holding bandaged heads while they hauled their vehicles away. But through it all, I never once saw anger, obscene gestures, or exasperation. I never heard shouts or language of any kind . . . only quiet, emotionless resignation.

Over dinner our first night there, our guide kept insisting, “You must relax, miss. How would you like to see Indonesian dancers in Ballet of Ramayana at the theater?”

He was right. I had worn a hole in the floor of the back seat of the car where all day I had jammed on imaginary brakes with my foot. “I'll go back to the hotel and change into something suitable,” I said.

I travel with a limited wardrobe, but I always carry one dress for special occasions. This one was all white with a gold belt and sandals. We should have been suspicious we weren't talking Bolshoi when our driver drove like a maniac down dark alleys and came to a stop on a dirt road several feet from the “theater.” Actually, it was a tent with the glow of naked light bulbs shining through the canvas. We bought our tickets and stepped inside. Not only was I overdressed, but the performance was undersold. There must have been seven hundred folding chairs distributed around the riser. There were five other people there besides ourselves. I think they were German tourists.

At seven o'clock, the music started and the graceful dancers glided onto the stage. Our guide leaned over to interpret what was transpiring on stage. “A young man named Jaka Tarub, while hunting birds one day, sees a lovely nymph descending from Heaven to bathe in the forest lake,” he whispered. “He hides but watches the nymph Nawangwulan and falls in love with her. Jaka Tarub steals her clothing. He returns to his hiding place and creates a disturbance to frighten Nawangwulan, but she is unable to find her clothing and so cannot return to Heaven. Feeling sad and lonely...”

I listened numbly. My eyes felt like balloons filled with water.

At eight-thirty, our guide was still talking nonstop. “When Dasamuka attacks him and forces him to fight, Kala Marica then transforms himself into a Golden Deer to lure Rama and Lesmana away from Sinta so that Dasamuka can kidnap Sinta. The Golden Deer then teases ...”

From time to time, my head would fall to my chest and I would jerk it up to hear his voice reciting in a monotone, “In return, Sinta gives her hairpin to Senggana to deliver to Rama. ...”

I spit on my fingers and rubbed them across my eyeballs. My husband had his head between his legs. His elbows touched the floor. He was comatose. I looked for some kind of compassion from the five other people in the audience. They were gone. My arm was bruised from where I had pinched myself in an effort to regain consciousness by inflicting pain. “Then the ape tells both ladies to leave and he begins to destroy the garden,” the guide droned on. “He breaks loose and sets Alengka on fire, then returns to Pancawait to ...”

It was after eleven when we fell into the car that took us to our hotel. I slept the entire time. Maybe that was the answer to surviving as a passenger in Indonesia.

As a break in our schedule, we planned a cruise through the Spice Islands. My husband wanted to climb the mountain of cinder-sand and look down into the smoking remains of Krakatau. It was nice to get out of the fast lane and not worry about rites of passage.

When we docked five days later, the captain of the boat said he would be glad to drop several of us off at our hotel. I settled back into the cushions of his car as if I were safe in the hands of Allstate.

The next thing you know we were weaving in and out of traffic like we were competing in time trials at the Indy 500. Suddenly there was a screech of brakes as we stopped for a red light. Then there was a crash from behind and I flew into the seat in front of me. I turned to look at the van behind us. One of the passengers had hit the windshield. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance. The man assured us he was all right.

I bowed my head and said a silent prayer to the patron saint of Indonesian passengers: Our Lady of Valium.

Slides

No one wants to see your slides.

Get that through your head.

Not your parents who gave you life. Not your kids who are insecure and need your approval. Not your priest, minister, or rabbi who are paid to be kind and forgiving. Not even someone whose life you saved in the war who owes you big.

Every amateur photographer who returns from a vacation fantasizes about putting his pictures in “some kind of order” and perhaps showing them at the Y some evening for a minimal price at the door. Some even entertain thoughts of entering their picture of a dog trying to bite the water coming out of a garden hose in some Kodak competition. A few will even go so far as to look up the addresses of National Geographic or Arizona Highways in the library.

The slides usually end up in shoeboxes in the closet next to a bowling ball. They become the Siberia of Vacations Past. There are only a few occasions when slides can be shown to benefit mankind.

1. Take seven hundred of them to a war and within minutes, everyone will disperse and go home. Most countries consider slides inhumane, but they can be used in confrontations where no peaceful solution is feasible.

2. Slides are effective in isolated areas where kitchen table surgery is sometimes the only option and anesthetic is not available. There have been cases where the patient has only to hear a click and a voice introducing a couple met in a diner and he is out like a light.

3. Police are just beginning to realize the benefits of a tray of slides to pry confessions out of criminals who proclaim their innocence until force is used. The problem is they confess to anything. One man claimed he was responsible for firing the shot that killed Bambi's mother.

4. Sleep labs throughout the country are finding that slides could replace the sleeping pill. For generations, scientists have been desperate to find an effective sleep remedy for insomniacs that is not habit-forming. Slides fill the bill.

5. Parents are always looking for new ways to get their grown children married and out of the nest. Quite inadvertently one night, a couple showed slides of their trip to Hoover Dam. When they flipped on the lights, their son had gone. This is considered a breakthrough.

6. It is within the realm of possibility that slides may one day replace nuclear power as a bargaining chip to establish peace between nations. If the Soviet Union has thirty thousand slides of Lenin trained toward the United States, then the United States would stockpile fifty thousand slides of Warren G. Harding. Only a fool would fire off that first slide.

Every time my husband has that sly grin on his face and turns off all the lights and pleads, “Tonight's the night,” I cringe.

“I do have a headache.”

“This will relax you,” he whispers.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“No, no, just sit back and ...”

“Don't make me do this!”

As the slides fall into the slot and the heat of the celluloid casts a smoky glow over the light on the projector, my eyes begin to glaze over. Then, as if I have taken a prescription drug, my jaw sags, my head eases back onto the pillow, and I sleep . . . the sleep of slides.

Africa

Whenever I thought about Africa, I thought of Joy Adamson, author of Bom Free. I visualized her running through tall grass toward the lioness she had raised from a cub before returning it to the wilds, shouting, “Elsa! Elsa!” I always wondered what would happen if she got within bad-breath distance, squinted, and recoiled, “You're not Elsa.”

I thought about Ernest Hemingway living in a tent at the foot of Kilimanjaro and Jane Goodall down to the last rubber band for her ponytail sitting on a mountain observing chimpanzees. I thought of Robert Ruark and Stewart Granger and Richard Leakey. But mostly, when I romanticized about that primitive, mysterious continent, I thought about Ava Gardner.

On screen, Ava visited the Africa I wanted to visit—the Africa where you never sweated, your hair stayed curled, and your lipstick remained moist. Where lions were pets, ice cubes reproduced themselves, and you were never afraid to go to the bathroom alone. Where there were fourteen men to every woman and mosquitoes didn't nest in your hairspray.

But alas, Ava's films mirrored the gentle Africa of a half century ago. There was no danger then . . . only a land filled with malaria and uncharted jungles, unfriendly native tribes, wild animals, and cutthroats in search of gold.

The year I went to Africa, I went on a guided tour with eleven amateur photographers on a camera safari. You don't know what fear is until you are out in the bush with eleven shutter-happy hunters who load film and shoot at anything that moves.

These are people who travel with an arsenal. Each photographer on the trip averages six hundred exposures of stills and about two thousand feet of movies. They carry camera bags worth more than the national budgets of all the African nations combined. They keep meticulous logs of what animals they see, where they see them, and what the animals are doing when they are spotted. They sit around campfires at night, sucking the dust off their lenses with rubber bulbs and speaking a language of ASAs and time exposures.

My husband is one of them. He brought a camera to his own wedding. He postponed the birth of our first child because he was “losing his light.” He is the kind of man who goes to the Grand Canyon and insists on stopping the car and getting out to take a picture instead of rolling the car window down like everyone else.

As I watch all of these adventurers on the plane, twirling the dials on their lenses, flashing their strobes to see if the batteries are working, and photographing their feet, I know this is not a group to turn your back on.

Secretly, I vow to ignore all of them and create my own Ava Gardner world. In Kenya, I didn't bother to unpack but headed straight for a Nairobi store where they outfitted you in safari clothes. If I was going to feed elephants and romp with small lions, I couldn't run around in pantyhose.

A short drive out of Nairobi, a small row of blue tents came into view. This was more like it. The Africa I dreamed about. It was all there as I had imagined it: the campfire, the directors' chairs, the mosquito netting over the cots, the shovel behind the tent by a sign that read hippos bury theirs . . . you bury yours. I hadn't remembered that part.

Any fantasy I had of hanging around the tent all day with a cooler and a typewriter vanished in the early hours of the first day. These photographers were hellbent on bagging their limit of photos and nothing was going to stop them. At dawn, we all piled into Land Rovers painted with zebra stripes in pursuit of the animals of Africa.

The tour group was interesting. There was an elderly couple named Dan and Martha who were from a retirement community in Florida. Actually, I never saw Dan and Martha the entire two weeks we were there. They were always huddled under a raincoat that tented both of their bodies. It seems Martha's film was not winding properly and Dan had to open the back of the camera and didn't want to expose the film to light.

Mr. Markey was a retired science teacher who carried a serious German camera. If you took an aspirin, you couldn't operate heavy machinery or Mr. Markey's camera. He slept with it.

The Rosenstads were a kinky couple who only photographed animals mating. They could spot them a half mile away. Both of their heads would shoot up through the sunroof of the Land Rover like a jack-in-the-box as they shouted, “Stop the car! They're doing it!” Since lions in heat mate every ten minutes, Mrs. Rosenstad kept her camcorder running for thirty minutes one afternoon while the rest of us sweltered in the sun.

The only significant thing I remember about Carrie and her husband, Max, was that they wore the same clothes for two weeks. Their five pieces of luggage contained nothing but film and batteries. She found a puff adder snake near her tent one night and shrugged it off. I figured there was only one thing that could strike fear into the hearts of Carrie and Max . . . the horror that they would die and never again see another KODAK FILM SOLD HERE sign.

Tim was a student and a loner. I thought he was a normal person like me when I saw him one day with a Polaroid camera around his neck. I shared with him that I had an Instamatic at home that did everything but heat soup and validate my parking ticket. He looked at me like something that had died. “I use this only to see if I'm getting the right reading on my light.” I told him I knew that.

Vern and June Gibbs drove everyone crazy. They didn't take so many pictures as they gave advice. You would have thought he had been sired by Ansel Adams. Every time someone snapped a shot, he shook his head and asked, “What's your ASA? I thought so. I'd be willing to bet my life you're overexposed.” At lodges when someone would complain about his camera, he'd get the “Where's your manual?” lecture. Like you're going to lug that around in your shoe bag, right?

This motley assortment seemed to have only two things in common. All had cameras that were extinct before they got them to their cars, and although they were all photographers, not one of them knew how to use any camera other than his own.

Since Max seemed to be such an authority, I asked him one day to snap a picture of my husband and me together. This stunned the entire group as they never had people in their pictures.

Max looked at my husband's camera like it was ticking.

“Where is the viewfinder?” he asked.

“Where do I push?”

“How do you focus it?”

“Where's the light meter?”

My husband spent more time talking to him than he had talking with me on the entire trip.

We grinned and Max snapped the picture. When we got the print back, our heads were cut off.

I had the distinction of being the only camera-dead person on the tour. As we bumped along the corduroy roads of Africa's game reserves, I watched them load, shoot, reload, and shoot again. They prided themselves on not only capturing Africa's animals on film, but saving them from being hunted to extinction by men toting guns. This was true. But I couldn't help wondering how many animals would have heart attacks trying to outrun the Land Rovers and escape to a place where they were safe from prying lenses. How many of them would go deaf from someone beating on a pie pan to lure them out of hiding places or pounding his fists on the side of the Land Rover to get their ears to stand up. How many could hang on to their vision with all those lights flashing in their faces by day and the headlights freezing them in their tracks by night. How long would it be before photographers wouldn't be satisfied to photograph them as they were, but insist they “do something” like tell where they're from, moisten their lips, or show a little leg.