So I am sitting at a picnic table with Sondra in Cold Spring, New York, outside a wooden fence that corrals seven donkeys. I am trying to make sense of one of the most frightening half hours of my life. I still feel very shaky.
The Schreibers had planned this July Fourth outing. We had received our instructions and had carried them out according to plan. Sondra and I were to hail a cab, which we did on 90th and Broadway, and then we had the driver go up 92nd, to Central Park West, where the Schreibers would be waiting on the corner. They were. I got out on the right and got into the front passenger seat as they piled into the back. Off the four of us went up CPW, now heading to 125th street and Park Ave. That was the Metro North Station where we were catching the 10:45 out of Grand Central, on our way up to Beacon, New York. I had 4 round trips, downloaded onto my mobile. The weather was cooperating. It was a cool day, partly cloudy, a welcome relief from an earlier sudden heat spell.
We were off on a typical Schreiber outing. They had planned the day filled with activities they love — visiting area museums and gardens. In the past, we had all pitched in together to rent a car for the day. We had been with them before on similar trips: Storm King on the western side of the Hudson, and sundry interesting museums and beautiful gardens in New Jersey and New York. This particular trip was a reprise of what they had earlier done themselves alone. They loved it and were ready to do it again. They were now to be our guides. We were willing to be led. We were entirely ready to surrender.
The plan was simplicity itself. We would take the Hudson Line along the river for 2 hours, up to Beacon. We would spend another couple hours visiting the DIA Beacon Museum. Beacon was the most northern point of our train trip. From Beacon, we would go to the Magazzino Gallery of Italian Art, not far away, in Cold Spring, which we had passed on the way up, two stops before. We might get something to eat in Cold Spring before leaving back to the city on the train. The Schreibers knew that the Magazzino ran a shuttle from the gallery into Cold Spring, which let you out only a few blocks from the station.
The only transfer we needed was getting to the Magazzino from the DIA. The Magazzino was too far to walk from the station, so the train was out. We would have to take a taxi from DIA to Magazzino. The Schreibers decided to talk to one of the waiting taxi drivers outside the station and see if they would be willing to take us. If so, we would take their phone number and call them when we were ready and arrange a pickup from DIA.
We reached Beacon and walked out of the station. There was a line of taxis waiting for fares. I stood off about a dozen feet and watched as Renee spoke to the first driver. He seemed to be at the head of the line. I could only hear fragments of what Renee was saying but it was enough for me to know she was outlining the plan. The driver seemed to listen courteously, although the other taxis behind didn’t hesitate for a moment but immediately came around and passed, looking for fares among the other departing passengers. I was struck by how patient he was. He was certainly not like any taxi driver I ever met. Renee took his card and we all began walking down to the DIA. I did not look behind to see if he had ultimately snagged a fare or, if in his negotiation with Renee, he had let his chance go by completely.
And so we walked down to the DIA. Now I am not at all knowledgable about art. My discourse on that topic is worth less than spit. The DIA shows contemporary art that is very intellectualized and conceptual in nature. Strange exhibits are the result, often mind-bending. One particular artist became obsessed with a well-known mathematical property known for centuries as the Fibonacci Numbers. You start with the first two, 0 and 1, and keep adding the preceding 2 numbers to get the next, until they form a predictable sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc.. (You find these numbers reflected in natural processes, for example, in the growth of a snail’s shell.) This artist would then reproduce this sequence in many artistic formats, using many mediums, representing not just a period or phase of his work but his entire lifetime output of making art, hundreds of objects, all somehow connected to the numbers. Another artist might produce a series of detailed, almost obsessive, pointillistic canvases, which across the room might appear as Seurat paintings of the continent of Africa. But on close examination they reveal something more than color at every point, like population data or physical topography. Many works were political in nature, embodying dada-like ideologies. Some were ‘ready-mades’, purposely assembled from worthless objects found in junkyards and curbside gutters. Concepts were turned on their heads. Who questions the idea that you create a work of art to exist for now and for the future. What then is its value if the artist purposely creates a work that is evanescent and vanishes into nothingness soon after its creation, leaving behind perhaps a photograph — or even less, an idea, or a memory. The artistic works on the museum walls, or hanging from the ceiling, seemed as detailed and as labor intensive as the finest medieval tapestry found in the Cloisters, but instead of representing a unicorn, might otherwise explore the almost infinite ways that industrial cardboard could be joined together. Sitting outside were massive foundry-rolled rusting iron shapes, curved and welded as precisely as a submarine’s hull. Were they like bitcoin in value because a market (i.e., art) esteems them or were they anti-bitcoin, as valuable as bitcoin but without its portability? Passing through the DIA can be a very, very ‘trippy’ experience. It generally puts you in that frame of mind.
So around 2:30, Renee or Avie called the driver, whose name on the card was Jesse. We figured we would be done by 3 and arranged to meet Jesse in the front part of DIA’s parking lot. Renee is the product of a family of German Jews, known in Yiddish as ‘Yekkes’. Yekkes share many Germanic stereotypes and are widely known (loved or derided, take your pick) for being attentive to detail and punctual. If Sondra and I are invited for dinner at 7:00 at the Schreibers, then we are expected to show up at 7:00, and not a minute later. If we agree to meet at a particular corner at 5 o’clock, then they will always be present by 4:50. Trying as hard as we might, we have never arrived earlier than them, ever.
So, naturally, we were at the front of the parking lot by 2:50, and by 2:55 Renee was beginning to fret and pace a little. I kept thinking of Jesse in the car earlier talking to Renee. The car he sat in seemed newer and better cared for, than the other taxis at the station. Somehow, I felt that was an indication that he was responsible and would not be late. And for me, seeing 3:03 on my mobile, he was right on time. (However, for Renee, he was 3 minutes late.) As on our initial ride to the 125th street station, I got into the front seat while the three of them went in back. I noticed It was a late model sedan with a sign indicating it was in use as a taxi. (It seemed to have more than one use.) All 5 of us wore masks, as was still the rule in taxis (and all public transport) but the car itself was open, without a partition or plastic shield between the front and rear seats.
Jesse was very pleasant and struck me as being more articulate than (let’s say) your normal (or average) taxi driver. He seemed very eager to please. I wasn’t clear whether he knew exactly where the Magazzino art gallery was, but he seemed to know, in general, its location. (He had been there before, as at one point on the way, he described the composition of the driveway, ‘pebbles not paved’, very accurately.) But it really didn’t matter, he averred, because he had a GPS device wired to his radio. I watched as he punched in the address Renee gave him. I saw it clearly displayed, “2700 Route 9”, and we were off.
At first we were all talking. We asked questions about the area, about the museum, and he inquired where we were from, and how our day was going. In the background to all our chatter, I thought I heard “the lady” give a direction but in the midst of everyone speaking, I wasn’t even sure whether I was hearing the GPS or Renee or Sondra.
Jesse was African-American, young, clean-cut, and speaking without a trace of ‘Black English’ that I could discern. If you wanted to, you could say I was indulging in systemic racism, or perhaps classism, but again, he did not strike me as your typical taxi driver. I was certain he was well-educated. It was the Fourth of July, and perhaps he was out on the holiday making a few extra bucks. Perhaps, he was an economic victim of the now ebbing pandemic.
It was about then that I heard ‘the lady’ clearly for the first time, “Turn right at the next intersection.” I watched for Jesse to make a right turn. Jesse kept going straight. The lady paused and a moment later said, “Make a u-turn when you are able.” Jesse kept going straight. Again a moment passed, and the lady said, “In two blocks, make a left turn”. Jesse kept going straight and in 4 blocks turned right! Now the lady said, emphatically, “As soon as you can, make a u-turn.” Jesse ignored the directive and kept going straight. At this point there was total silence in the car and I thought I could almost hear my internal lady say, “as soon as Jesse slows down, bolt from this car!” But I remained frozen.
“What’s going on here!”, I thought to myself, and recognizing a sudden escalating sense of panic. I noticed that no one in the car seemed to be speaking. Sitting in the front bucket seat, I was unable to turn around and see anyone’s face. I would have to lean forward and shift my body around completely, and thereby call attention to myself. And besides, everyone was wearing a mask. It was deadly quiet in the back seat, and Jesse drove on without saying a word, seemingly impervious to the knowledge or totally unaware that he had utterly disregarded every direction from his GPS device. I wanted to say something, “Hey, Renee, did you notice that Jesse is totally disregarding his GPS! What the fuck is going on!”
I wanted to, but I couldn’t say a word. I was in front, completely alone, except for Jesse, and cut off from any communication. I felt monumentally isolated. I couldn’t even see a lifted eyebrow, or feel a discrete poke, a nudge or squeeze. “Why isn’t anyone saying anything!”, I found myself silently screaming. I truly wasn’t sure whether I had completely lost my mind and was presently in the midst of a florid paranoid psychosis. I had a double espresso at the museum cafe while we prepared to start viewing the exhibits. Maybe it had been laced with something! Someone slipping in a hidden hallucinogen was not unknown. By now my anxiety levels had gone past ballistic and were nearing lower earth orbit. Then without warning or direction, Jesse turned left, and gave us a real estate factoid for the area, “Do you see that white house coming up on the left. A year ago, you would not want as much as to walk into it. It was condemned and ready to fall down. Someone bought it for twenty thousand, fixed it up, and now it’s on the market for four hundred thousand.”
He obviously knew exactly where he was located, without any GPS. I was also certain that our next stop would be preceded by his announcement: “I’m just going to stop for a second at my house, I need to get my sweater.” He would then pull in behind his garage, curtained off from view, and pull out a gun. I started preparing myself to end up in a shallow grave in his basement, lying along with 14 of his other hapless victims. I have to somehow make contact with the back seat! We are going to have to establish some communication. We are going to have to act in unison. But how!
Then I remembered my mobile. Sondra had purposely decided to leave hers at home, but Renee had a phone on her. My phone was in the right front pocket of my jeans. Stretching out my legs and hoping I wasn’t calling too much attention to myself, I managed to winkle it up my leg and extract it. I was almost too scared to function but I managed to type a message to Renee, “He is not following the directions”. But in my panic, I forgot I only needed to tap ‘Return’ to send it off. Instead I hunted around my screen for a ‘Send’ button. Between my fumbling on the screen, the motion of the car and my paralyzing anxiety, I also typed out a nonsense message, “3 I’ll m V” and ended up sending both together. Seeing that text go out, I followed it up with another, “That’s me”, thinking that ‘that’s me’ would be read as “that’s me making an error”. However, not unexpectedly, Renee seemed confused and answered back with “??”, then “$25”, followed by “Cash”. That was not much help. Renee obviously thought I was asking about the fare and how much to give. Her answer really threw me off and only added to my disorientation. The absolute silence from the back seat was disturbing as hell, but her message about the fare seemed to indicate that my absolute paranoia was not shared. It was almost too much to process.
But, my phone was now out and in my hand, so it was natural for me to turn to Jesse and say, “You know, I’m not sure if we are going right. Do you mind if I check our location via Google map?” Somehow I managed the evenness of voice and level of politeness which the manual recommends when dealing with one’s serial killer. Jesse replied mildly, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” For the first time my panic leveled off and I had hopes of coming out of the car alive. And from the back seat, I finally heard Renee’s voice, “Yes, Arnie. Please see where we are.” And for the first time since ‘the lady’ told us to make a U-turn immediately, which seemed an eternity ago, I knew I was not alone in my panic and paranoia. I could tell from her voice that Renee, (and later as I found out, Sondra also), were as scared and as frozen as I was.
The remainder of our trip with Jesse was anticlimactic. We got to Magazzino’s Italian Art Gallery in one piece, as opposed to ending up dismembered or put through a tree chopper. As we came out of the car and Jesse drove off, we hugged each other with laughter and relief, (except Avie, who though quiet through this entire episode claimed not to be scared). After touring the museum, Sondra and I walked through the garden out back and followed the path up to the donkey corral, where in company with others of my breed, I finally was able to exhale and relax.