The Ferrari in the Bedroom (5 page)

“… and I say to you, Senator Dubbleman, that the people of this country are now embarking on a sensitivity-awakening phase which will ultimately result in…”

“Just a moment, Susskind. Or can I call you Dave? Just the other day I was talking to Bella Abzug about that very thing, and as Arthur Schlesinger put it—”
Booooommm!

We are now off again. Nader’s Raiders embark on an Anti-Boredom crusade as accidents spiral once again. Since
it is well known that Industry responds to the demands of the public, inevitably the following news item will appear:

By the following year drivers of new cars, surrounded by Martini Meters, Boredom Dectors, Uproar Meters, safety belts (which by then will automatically overpower and clamp the driver into his seat whether he likes it or not, grabbing him in an octopus-like grip actuated by Selsen motors) will continue to smash themselves into oblivion with reckless abandon. New committees will be formed, especially those calling themselves
ad hoc.
Crash programs will proliferate and once again Nader’s crowd will ride full cry into the fray. Within two weeks of the delivery of the first new models so equipped, the following will occur:

HE:
“You sure you haven’t been drinking, baby?”

SHE:
“Not a drop for two weeks.”

HE:
“Me either. Now keep your voice low. We don’t want no hassle. This baby is sensitive.”

SHE:
“Don’t worry. I feel nothing but kind thoughts for the world.”

HE:
“If you start feeling bored, fer Chrissake lemme know.”

SHE:
“Don’t worry, I’m on my toes, alert.”

HE:
“Good.”
(They hum along nicely for several minutes.)

HE:
Hey baby, you know there’s something about the way them streetlights light up your profile that just…well…
Boy!”

SHE:
“You’re cute too, Harold.”

HE:
“Your skin is like vanilla yoghurt, your eyes like… just one little kiss!”

SHE:
“Oh Harold!”

HE:
“Oh Marsha!

SHE:
“OH Har—”
Booommm!

Stone sober, icy calm, alert and gelded, within a month of the delivery of their new Norgemot XD/712 Zuds, two drivers, Anton Klautski, 67, of Glendale, California and A. J. (Bucky) Whippersnade, 19, of West Peapack, New Jersey, will have both mysteriously splattered themselves and their Zuds over their respective turnpikes.

Once again conferences blossom and in-depth surveys accelerate to determine the mysterious causes. Thirteen months pass as an anxious world awaits.

In spite of the continuing proliferation of safety devices, insurance rates will rise and people will die like flies on the highways, causing consternation on every side. Three days after his new Kenyan Crocoblast hardtop was delivered, 36-year-old, clear-eyed, abstaining, non-amatory, completely calm Marty Buglebaum was tooling along US 66 at the ready. He turned to his friend Max and said the following:

MARTY:
“You know, Max, it is a fact that Republicans represent the Establishment and big business, and I, for one—”

MAX:
“Now hold on, Marty. You bleeding hearts that call yourselves Democrats ain’t got no sense of realism.”

MARTY:
“Realism, boy what a joke! You guys just last year alone—”
Powwww!

Naturally, industry would immediately swing into action and within a short time would produce its infallible Pol-O-Graph, based on the hitherto undiscovered fact that Democrats are of a specific physical type and perspire more copiously than Republicans, although less than
Communists. The instrument, based on rate of perspiration, infallibly prevents those of dubious political affiliation from operating any machine on any of the world’s highways. The safety-conscious everywhere breathed a sigh of relief that at last all problems have been solved.

Within weeks after the first politically safe, age-proof, bourbonless, sexless, non-agitated machine appears on the nation’s highways, the inevitable would occur. Just outside of Erie, Pennsylvania, under good conditions, 32-year-old Agatha Schoonmutter, a schoolteacher, a non-drinking virgin Quaker pacifist, member of no known political party, while driving with her friend Helena Camembert was involved in the following:

AGATHA:
“You know, Helena…” (glancing carefully at the speedometer to make sure everything is all right) “… I think we ought to consider bridge mix for the next card party at my place.”

HELENA:
“Why? What’s wrong with the chocolate-covered cherries we’ve been having? And anyway, everybody likes them.”

AGATHA:
“That’s true. Did you notice how fat Clarice is getting? And she’s so catty! Sometimes I can’t stand the way she shows off about that so-called man of hers.”

HELENA:
“Oh, him! What I couldn’t tell her about him, if I wanted to!”

AGATHA:
“Really?
Come on, how about the dirt. I won’t breathe it to a soul.”

HELENA:
(lowering her voice to a whisper) “Well, just listen to this. The other night, who do you think I saw coming out of the Pig And Whistle? With this busty, blowsy-looking blonde!”

AGATHA:
(drinking in every word) “Really! Right here in town? Well, I can hardly wait to tell—”
Ka-powie!

Again graphs, charts, door-to-door inquiries, actuarial tables, the whole works go into full swing.

Again the battered nation sighs with relief, believing fully that at last the accidents that have plagued drivers since the days of Barney Oldfield have been all but eliminated. Alas, within eight hours of the new legislation thirty-six more catastrophic accidents occurred in scattered parts of the nation. By the following week it was realized that accidents were still on the rise. After seven weeks of deliberation at the Princeton Institute Of Higher Thinking, a top-level conclave of scientists, writers, artists, engineers, doctors, and the coaches of the two leading professional football teams in the NFL issued the following bulletin:

Within weeks, Zenith Motors of Belgrade Yugoslavia immediately announced its new driverless auto, which excludes humans of all sorts. The results are not yet in on this new experiment.

I wonder what the late A. J. Liebling would have thought of the current crop of hard-bitten, Hemingwayesque, tough-talking (and I presume Tobacco-chewing) females who are today covering boxing, baseball and dragstrip racing with all the verve and gusto of a Levi-wearing, baseball-capped girls’ finishing school sophomore who has just found out that she loves to say
fuck
out loud with the rest of the boys.

This inanity came full circle when
Life
assigned someone named “Shana” to cover the Clay-Liston fiasco.
The Village Voice
has at least five people named “Barbara” who rhapsodize over Minor League ballplayers with the same easy familiarity of a grizzled sportswriter who has spent thirty years in the sweaty, steamy locker room of the Moline club, the Three I League.

Just exactly how these two fantasies arose is difficult to ascertain at this point in time, since I believe we are just on the beginning of the upcurve, and God knows where it will end. Perhaps with Barbara herself taking on Shana for the Middleweight Championship of the World, and Tom Wolfe
Indian-wrestling Andy Warhol for the number three spot on the Ten Best Dressed Women Of The Year list.

This surrender of masculinity by the male of the species and its resultant adoption of virility by the female has been gradually observed in the popular arts for some time. However, its growth is logarithmic, rather than straight line, which is to say the beginnings were gradual but now the curve is arching upward rapidly toward a final great explosion of Swap Identities. The word
identity
has been for at least fifteen years a favorite totem in Literary circles. If there has been one novel described as “A young man’s search for his identity in 20th Century America” there have been ten thousand. They have all had, practically without exception, the same theme, saying more unconsciously than they knew. The word
identity
referred really to “what sex am I?” and the search for an answer was almost strictly a Male search. I can’t recall many novels: “A young girl’s search for identity in mid-20th Century, etc.” offhand, and I doubt whether many were written, primarily because the female
knew
where she was going. She was heading for the corner saloon, the Men’s Shop in Macy’s, and, if possible, the Third Base slot on the Dodgers. And it looks like she’ll make it.