Parade

Despite the island’s small size, I still do a lot of driving. This year, I expect to put another 30,000 kilometers on the Dogwagon, about ten percent more than last year. To do so requires that I spend a couple hours a day navigating the potholes, veering around the cows and goats, minding my speed and road manners, and paying attention just enough to stay out of trouble.

As a curious human, my attention was caught by the sounds of sirens on the road the other day. I checked the mirrors and saw one of the local cycle cops mounted astride one of the few remaining KZ1000 Police Specials, circa 1980-something, sirens a-blaring and blue lights a-flashing, pacing me no more than 20 meters to aft. “Holy increasing consternation”, I mouthed as I saw, slightly behind the Kawasaki, another cycle cop, this one on the common 450 Nighthawk (a Honda product more often used to transport traffic cops from intersection to stationhouse than for patrol duties), also a-blaring and a-flashing.

I quickly ran through my options - flight, fight, submit - then decided on the only thing I could do - eyes simultaneously forward and to the mirrors, hands at ten and two, seat belt securely fastened, one last look to the mirrors, I depressed the accelerator and increased the separation.

The bikes followed relentlessly, and were on my tail for the next three hours as I maneuvered a borrowed Mitsubishi on and off of the embankment under construction, through little used portions of the project site, from Bogue to Lances Eve and back.

Not that I could ever lose a couple of experienced riders. But, you never know, all machines are subject to failure when over stressed.

The cops were not always situated directly behind me. Sometimes they would be on either side of me, sometimes just ahead, and, whenever we were approaching a populated area or a narrow bridge or one of the culvert halves under construction, one or the other would race ahead to clear traffic, scattering cars, goats and pedestrians just prior to my swift arrival.

It did not take long for others to join the chase. Behind the cycle cops and me was a police Land Cruiser, lights a-flashing, then the Prime Minister’s Land Cruiser, then a police Corolla, then two unmarked police Corollas, then the Minister of Transportation and Works’ Land Cruiser, then another police Corolla, then two vans from the Jamaica Information Service, then two or three dozen cars and vans filled with assorted fans and flunkies and political hacks.

As it turns out, this was a parade of sorts, and I was the lead vehicle. The Grand Marshall, if you will, in this grand march, but only because I won it fair and square (the other clowns had nothing on my flashing orange lights).

Sure, the build up was unfair, but cops rarely chase me these days. The last time was just before we went abroad. I was in the middle of one last ride, to move my cycle from the Heartland to a shed in the suburbs, where it would wait patiently for my return.

I was taking one of my favorite excursions, tooling down a winding Route 64 through Jones and Jackson Counties in eastern Iowa, tucked behind the fairing, feet on the rear pegs, scanning the pastures and their securely fenced-in cattle at 150 kph or so, when what should appear in the mirrors but one of Jackson County’s finest.

I have no idea how long he was back there but, since I did see him eventually (who checks mirrors at that speed?), I flashed the brakes, rolled off the throttle and lifted my chest into the wind, at which point the sheriff passed my slow ass, accelerating as he cruised by. I guess he had faster fish to fry and, since this was the last county before the state line, he had to be the only law enforcement officer until the bridge at Savannah.

Warp ten, Mr. Sulu.

Anyway, I got to lead the parade because Hank was in the PM’s van, giving him the low down on the current status of the project. I was assigned the monster chromium baton, and had the entourage follow me onto and about the project site so we could produce the bestest tour ever -

See the marl pile up slowly!
Thrill as workers secure deck forms!!
Be amazed by incredibly small stretches of new asphalt pavement!!!
Wonder at the miracle of the excavator!!!!

Of course, I should have been working productively, but sometimes, those dang Clients,...

Every once in a while they seem to want to know where their money is being spent or, in this case, they want to see where the money they hope to get is being spent. Of course, there is no money. The deferred financing arrangement through which this project is continuing (after the collapse of the Koreans) is barely constitutional, and probably will not provide the level of funding required to complete the Works. Money or no, we continue. There may be money tomorrow.

Hand to mouth. An entire government.

Two million people. Hand to mouth.

It is tough to miss seeing the poor on this island. Zinc shacks litter the hillsides and inner cities. Litter litters the roadways, alleyways and drainageways. Children beg on street corners.

There are others less poverty stricken, but only the rich have much of anything from a western consumerist point of view. Even the nice looking homes, when approached, show rot and rust and dirt. But how do you improve this situation when there is barely enough to put food on the table or send the pickneys to public school? Or, with the government, to import food for the people or to build and staff the public schools?

Sadly, what I see as a dominant attitude is one where living hand to mouth becomes routine. After so many years of some how, some way, finding some thing that will get you through to the next day, people seem to believe that tomorrow there will be enough presented to get you to the day after. Look at the little birds; they do not toil and work, but their malevolent little bird goddesses provide for them.

And look at them; they are still birds, eating bugs and worms and getting buffeted by whatever ill wind happens to blow through the woods.

At least the bird has no aspirations of building a highway.

The lesson then is this. Birds should not build highways. Small regional airports, perhaps, or even package power plants, but not highways.

We have thumbs for a reason I believe, not only does it help us bring food to mouth, but also they allow us to rise above hand to mouth. If I was not having such a good time, this whole Third World poverty cycle might depress me.

But I digress.

The point was this,... I think. Every once in a while, the P.M. would stop the his van, thereby stopping the entire entourage in the middle of whatever stretch of road we happened to be on at the time, blocking all traffic, in both directions, just so he could get out and press the flesh. This, presumably, was to demonstrate that he is a man of the people,... at one with the common folk,... in tune wid’ de riddims’ of de country,... in conflict with and contrary to his actions, that of someone with so little time to spare that he must speed maniacally through the cities, towns, and countryside, supported by a raft of toadies.

I hope he loses in the coming election.