Detour

SEVENTEEN

He took a cab.

The driver was Indian and spoke only broken English. Still, he had no trouble conveying his joy at getting a fare that would make his day. All the way to New Jersey would be double rate.

He took the Grand Central Parkway to the Triborough Bridge, while Paul looked at his watch approximately every ten minutes. Like a distance runner in the New York City marathon—so much real estate traversed in so much time.

So far, he was more or less on pace.

You’re doing fine, the cheerleader in his head kept urging him on.

You’re doing fine.

He was attempting to focus on the finish line. FARC’s contacts in Jersey City would soon be clapping him on the back for a job well done and placing that call to Colombia. He’d be waiting by the gate the next day for Joanna and Joelle to disembark at Kennedy Airport to begin their new lives together.

Just an hour away.

Then the taxi slowed, crawled, stopped.

They were in a sudden bumper-to-bumper logjam, with no discernible movement up ahead.

Paul needed to get to a bathroom.

This feeling had been intensifying since he walked off the plane. At first just a slighter sense of fullness than he’d felt all day—exactly what you’d expect with thirty-six stuffed condoms sitting inside you. But then a growing and unmistakable need to void, every bit as ferocious as the need to vomit.

For the second time in a space of hours, Paul tried to will his body to listen up and desist. A simple case of mind over matter. His body, however, refused to pay attention; it was having none of it now. It had its own agenda, and it was demanding to be heard.

They hadn’t moved an inch in five minutes.

The taxi driver was shaking his head and channel surfing through a sea of foreign-sounding radio stations. The resultant cacophony was harsh and physically grating. It was seriously hindering Paul’s ability to concentrate on not going to the bathroom in the backseat of the taxi.

“Could you not do that?” he said.

“Eh?”

“The radio. Could you just pick one station?”

The taxi driver turned around as if he’d just been asked an astounding question. He peered at Paul through heavy-lidded eyes sunk into charcoal caverns of despair.

“What you say?”

“It’s annoying,” Paul said. His stomach was beginning to seriously scream at him.

Find a bathroom. Any bathroom.

“My radio,” the taxi driver said.

“Yes, but—”

“My radio,” he repeated for emphasis. “I play what I like. Okay.”

Okay. There was a boundary between taxi driver and passenger, and Paul had evidently crossed it.

His stomach was one unending cramp. Something was in there that desperately wanted to get out.

Hold it in.

The taxi driver honked his horn. He obviously meant it as a kind of protest, as opposed to something that might actually accomplish anything. It wasn’t as if the cars directly in front of him could do something about it—they were as trapped as he was. He honked his horn again anyway—leaning on it this time, a long wail of frustration and anger.

The taxi driver seemed to enjoy letting off steam in this way. He smiled as if he’d told himself a good joke.

Until someone got out of the car in front of them—a Lincoln with a license plate that said BGCHEZE.

The man who walked over to the cabdriver’s window seemed constrained by his own clothing, tight maroon sweatpants with a simple T-shirt that appeared more like a straitjacket.

He made a motion with his hand—roll down the window.

The taxi driver was in no mood to comply. He’d lost his smile, he was muttering in Indian.

“Roll down your fucking window,” the man said, now that his hand motions had gotten him nowhere.

The taxi driver now made a hand motion of his own. A wave of dismissal—go away and leave me alone.

The man didn’t react well to this.

“Who you fucking waving at, huh? You like to blow your fucking horn at people? Open your window. I got something for you, you fuck!”

The taxi driver was not going to do that. No. He waved his hand at the man again and turned his head, banishing him from his presence.

“Hey, you fucking towel-head! You understand fucking English? You don’t, do you? You don’t understand a fucking word I’m saying. Here, I’ll make it easy for you. Roll. Down. Your. Goddamn. Window.” He pounded the window on each word with a hand that appeared to be the size of Lower Manhattan.

The taxi driver had locked the doors. Paul realized this when the man began pulling on the door handle and it didn’t open. This only seemed to make him angrier.

He began kicking the driver’s door.

Paul couldn’t tell whether the man had noticed that there was a passenger in the backseat. Even if he had, Paul didn’t think it would’ve deterred him.

“Open the fucking door, you pussy!” he was screaming at a now seriously alarmed-looking taxi driver. The taxi driver in fact seemed to be looking around for help—first left, then right, then finally, inexorably, behind him.

“Maybe he’ll just stop,” Paul said, staring into twin eyes of pure panic.

“He’s goddamn crazy,” the taxi driver said.

Paul had to agree with him there. Two thoughts were racing through his brain. One: He was not going to be able to hold it in. Two: If the crazy man made it into his car, he was going to kill the taxi driver and Paul would not make it to Jersey City in time. Even if he could hold it in.

Paul rolled down his window.

“Look, could we just calm down?” he said to the man. His words sounded pained and filled with anguish—even to him.

His tone seemed to momentarily mollify the man. He looked at Paul as if he’d just come across an interesting artifact worthy of his attention.

“Tell him to open his door,” he said.

“Look, I’m sure he didn’t mean to blow his horn. He was frustrated. All this traffic. Can we just forget it?”

The man smiled at him. “Sure,” he said.

Then he reached into Paul’s window and pulled the door lock up. He pulled the door open—accomplishing this in a matter of seconds. Before Paul could actually react, the man yanked Paul out of the taxi by his arm.

Paul stumbled, almost fell.

“Hey, come on, stop this,” he said.

Somewhere between stop and this, the man’s fist connected with his chin.

Paul fell straight back onto the pavement. Smack. That wasn’t the worst part. No.

He’d just spent hours fighting to keep the drugs inside of him, battling with his own body over this unwelcome and unnatural intrusion.

In one humiliating moment, he lost.