The scene: Wachovia Centre; row 12, seat 3. (That wasn’t my seat, but there was a person in my seat and the 76ers are not very good.)
My phone rings. It’s my town car driver for the evening. (I’m gonna be eating a lot of free dinners at the Dotte Café, because taxis are fucking expensive.)
(Read AZ with a nasally mid-western accent and the Driver with a fairly thick Middle-Eastern accent.)
AZ: Hello.
Driver: I am here. To your left.
AZ: (I look to my left). Outside? Oh, can you give me five minutes. The game is almost over.
Driver: Five minutes to ten is in five minutes.
AZ: Okay…I will meet you at the box office in five minutes.
Driver: Five to ten.
AZ: Umm…yeah. That’s fine. (The time was really 9.39.)
I walk outside after the Philadelphia 76ers beat my arch enemy basketball team (well one of them at least) the New Jersey Nets, 100-98 in OT.
The scene: Outside the Wachovia Centre; it is 10 degrees. My phone rings.
AZ: Hello.
Driver: I am here, but they won’t let me there. I am in between two Wachovia. On your left. My car is next to the crazy driver.
AZ: Where are you?
Driver: Left. I am not back there. I am to the left.
AZ: Okay. How should I get to where you are?
Driver: Look left. I’m down from the corner. On the left.
AZ: I’m confused. What is left? I don’t know what your left is.
Driver: I am at the corner.
AZ: What corner?
Driver: To the left.
AZ: (I keep walking, looking to my left) Okay, I think I’m where you are, but I don’t see you.
Driver: Do you see the crazy driver?
AZ: Maybe…
Driver: To the left.
AZ: I’m looking left, I don’t see you.
Driver: I see you. I’m waving my arms.
I look to my right and there is a man parked in the middle of the exit waving his arms. I run to the car and get inside.
The scene: Inside the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car.
AZ: Thanks man. I was confused as to where you were.
Driver: No problem. So did the team win?
AZ: Yeah, the Sixers won, 100-98 in overtime. It was a fun game.
Driver: Do you have the Jersey?
AZ: No, I just got a program. (I show him my program.)
Driver: No, the Jersey.
AZ: No, just a program. (I show him my program again.) What? (I ask confused.)
Driver: No did the Jersey score?
AZ: Who? What? I’m sorry.
Driver: They played the Jersey. Did they score?
AZ: Oh yeah, New Jersey had 98 points, but lost.
Driver: Oh. So are the Phillies the best at the basketball?
AZ: Oh…Well the 76ers are not very good this year. But they played all right tonight.
Driver: The Eagles are not very good.
AZ: Well they made the play-offs, so that’s not too bad.
Driver: But Indiana took the Super Bowl. They are the tough guys?
AZ: Oh yeah…I guess they are…the tough guys…they beat the Bears…I guess that makes them tough…
Driver: Who is the best at the basketball?
AZ: Umm…Well probably the Phoenix Suns or Dallas Mavericks. In the East Detroit and…(I trail off because his phone rings.)
A couple of minutes later and after a long awkward silence…
Driver: Was the game an indoor game?
AZ: The basketball game? Oh yeah, it was indoors.
Awkward silence.
Driver: Was it warm in there?
AZ: Oh yeah. It wasn’t bad. I mean it was comfortable, there really weren’t a lot of people there, but it was still warm…
Awkward silence.
Awkward silence.
Awkward silence.
AZ: So do you live in Philly?
Driver: Yes on the Northeast side.
AZ: Do you like it?
Driver: Yes it is nice. It is mostly Jews.
Awkward silence.
Driver: You know the south and west sides of Philadelphia…they are hubs for blacks. You know fights, drugs, shootings in the street. You go to the north side and it is working class and rich and richer. There are some black people there, but they are decent.
AZ: I see.
Awkward silence.
Driver: I’m not racist, but the west and south sides are hubs for blacks. That’s just how Philadelphia is divided.
AZ: I think I read something about that in the Philadelphia newspaper yesterday.
Driver: Well that’s just where they live.
AZ: Oh yeah. I see.
Awkward silence.
Finally, the drive ended. The driver was kind enough to take me and pick me up from a 76ers game, as if I were a twelve year old girl…I’m actually not too far from that, but that’s a different story. I paid the driver and now I’m trying to recall everything that happened. It was a weird drive. I hate Jason Kidd and the New Jersey Nets. Boo the Nets!
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7 comments:
wait a minute...you have a driver?
Now you see why I couldn't get a lot of work done on those out of town trips. Well done my friend. Well done.
If the game was outdoors, would you still have gone?
how long is three consecutive awkward silences?
did you find where the fresh prince played b-ball? I drove all over looking for it...through places that made typical detroit ghettos look like grosse pointe.
how did your exam go? did you win?
yeah, i had a couple different drivers. eddie was my favorite. he took me all over the place...to his favorite cheesesteak place (pat's not geno's) through south philly to the philadelphia art museum. good stuff like that. last night's driver was well intentioned i think, but....
you are totally right jc. there are too many distractions and it is damn near impossible to get anything done. i tried to do what you would do...wwjcd...
if the game was outdoors, i probably would have gone. it would have been fun and i could have complained/written a blog about how cold it was. it was cold, but these people (philadelphites???) are kinda pansy about it. on the news yesterday monring, all they could talk about was that it was "dangerously cold." they said that eight times, with the final person saying in dramatic fashion, "this is what some experts are calling, dangerously cold."
i asked eddie where the bad parts of philly were and if we could drive by there. as the driver last night pointed out the west side is a "hub" for black americans. this was also confirmed by the fresh prince who stated, "in west philadelphia [i was] born and raised..." will smith is black so i guess this all makes sense. however, on the south side we drove by a park where some folks were plaing basketball. i thought that's determination, it's pretty cold. because of my obsession with the wire, we drove to penn landing so i could look at the docks and take pictures. eddie found this very odd. he also found it odd when i asked if i could get a picture of those railroad tracks. he said he couldn't stop. i stopped asking about taking pictures like that, which is sad, because those are my favorite types of pictures...not railroad tracks, but random stuff. i just rambled...
as for the exam, fuck it, it's over. in 10 weeks i'll find out if the patients thought i showed empathy, if i was understanding to their needs and if i addressed all of their concerns. then some doctors will grade my notes about the encounter, one of which i did not get to finish the physical exam portion because i only had nine minutes to document a 17 y/o with suicidal ideation and major depression's full story. bologna! i would never cut out on a 17 y/o in that kind of distress, like the exam folks made me do. that shows some empathy i think. whatever...
so did i win? hopefully, but there is always the possibility i lost...like my arch enemy the nets last night
i find it interesting that of all the things your driver said, asking if it was warm in the arena led to the triple awkward silence.
you seemed all to quick to reply to statements about black hubs and jews....
awkward silence
yeah...you forgot to address that crucial issue. I would like to know the duration of a triple awkward silence.
the triple awkward silence was more synergistic than additive. so the triple silence didn't occur solely because of the warmth question but rather because of the awkwardness that had occured prior to that question.
as for the time of the awkward silence...here's how best to describe it. go stand right in front of someone you don't know and stare at them. how ever long it takes for that person to reply was the avg. time for the awkward silence. it was about a 30 minute drive. i would estimate the awkward silences were anywhere from 2-5 minutes, with the triple awkward silence lasting probably 10 minutes.
i didn't reply too quickly to the black/jew hubs. i wrote a paper about black american migration from the south and how they really haven't integrated into the city like other individuals. the philadelphia paper (not the inquirer, the other one) ran a feature about this topic in philly and indeed the west and south side have increased black populations. so i thought it would be an interesting conversation, but then i remembered who i was talking to...and figured it probably wasn't going to be the conversation i would like to have. so it ended.
i hope this addressed any ambiguities in my story.
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