14 June 2006

A is for Antonio

I am not completely sure why I got out of bed this morning. The weekly meeting yesterday was surreal, the heavy fall of the second boot. After all our little reports around the table, the account of our strivings and connivings, the Boss made the announcement that the office as we knew it was going to be gone by August.

It was not a surprise, and we all knew this was coming. We just did not know when. I kept careful notes, as is my habit. We get paid once a month. I wrote the word “July,” and then “August.” I wrote “September,” and put a question mark behind it. Three more paydays, probably. Time to start thinking about what to do. I underlined the words “what to do” twice, for emphasis, and put a box next to it that signalled my attention for follow-up action.

The Boss said he was trying to work things out the best for everyone, and I'm sure that is what the managers say at GM and Ford. But things are changing, and that is something I am going to have to accommodate. Its a flat world, and global. The White House Press corps had to accomodate change yesterday, when the President cancelled his conference at Camp David and popped up in Baghdad.

The Iraqi Prime Minister had to adapt, too, when he was told only a few minutes before that his first appointment of the morning had changed.

I decided I would rise after watching the dawn come up, and listen to the news from London on the radio. Antonio, the first tropical storm of the year, is plowing ashore. It is a lightweight, as these things go, though it is dumping heavy rain across the midsection of the Sunshine State.

That is good. The grass has been burning near Orlando, and tourists at the theme parks have been able to see the black plumes of smoke. I heard the words of a marina owner describing his preparations for the Antonio's arrival, doubling up on the mooring lines, locking things down, getting ready to power down if the water gets too high.

All those boats in the marina. So expensive. Such a frivolous enterprise, really, since the bulk of them are not for work, but pure play. I saw a boat yesterday, one of the really pointless ones. It is designed for speed, the most efficient conversion of gasoline to noise, and intended to tow skiers behind it. The hull looked a little like an earth-shoe from another day, fierce and forward loaded. It glittered with chromium fittings.

It was not on the water. I first noted it emerging from the chaos of the entrance ramp onto the 14th Street Bridge. It was being towed by a new bright-yellow Hummer H3. It was hard to miss. The boxy shape, downsized from the original military version, still reeks of testosterone and cash. Coming up that ramp, it must have originated at the Pentagon Marina, where Congressman Duke Cunningham kept the yacht he bought with his bribes.

Traffic is always bad there, even at the best of times. The roads were planned around the vast Pentagon and squeezed by the Potomac and the Boundary Channel. The Hummer shouldered its way onto the highway with the boar looming above traffic, and accelerated briskly.

I gave it a good berth. I looked in the mirror to see if I could safely navigate to the right and and get off on Washington Boulevard. When my scan came back to the pavement in front of me, I saw only the yacht sailing merrily forward, drifting leftward across the lanes.

I marveled at that, what the driver thought he was doing, and what particular madness possessed him this rush hour. Then I realized that the yacht, all the tons of it, was on independent steaming. It had come loose from the Hummer and was sailing briskly by itself in the direction of Richmond.

I was talking on the phone, of course, since the commute is wasted time that can be used as an extension of business. “Holy shit!” I said to my listener in Colorado. “Holy shit!”

The boat slammed into the guardrail on the left, a glancing blow, and the impact caused it to swerve back to the right, across four lanes and the bow of my own little craft. I slowed dramatically, the navigation happening right in front of me. I saw the Hummer, rolling slowly in the breakdown lane to the right, and the boat fly past until it slammed into the guardrail, bucking violently as it scrubbed off the last of its momentum and came to a drunken halt.

I let off the brake, and accelerated slowly. The Hummer advanced to the stern of the boat, and stopped, the driver leaping from the cab. he should have considereed himself lucky, that his errant craft had not killed someone. Fate, you know? Still, I considered that he was not going to have a particularly good day.

I could not hear what he said, but I could read his lips easily enough. It was the same word that ends most cockpit voice recordings.

I suppose I could have stopped, but did not see what relevant assistance I could render. The car and the driver were fine. The boat was not going anywhere.

That was the thing about Antonio and the Florida marina. This storm is not going to pick up the yachts and slam them against the buildings, or rub them together until they crack, or deposit them atop a house.

But the next one might. The season has just begun, and I considered the eternal optimism of the human spirit, the warming of the oceans and the madness of the yachting community.

I burrowed into the comforter. I have my own storms to deal with.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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