Bible Stories for Adults by James Morrow

surmise it is not New Jersey per se you seek, but, rather, the
idea
of New Jersey”—the man’s musical accent had completely vanished—“a psychological construct you associate with the possibility of escape from the linguistic maelstrom in which we currently reside. Am I making sense?”
    â€œEntirely,” said Michael. All around him, the air rang with the clamor of coherence and riot. “Nevertheless, I earnestly hope you will convey me to South Hoboken.”
    â€œThe Holland Tunnel is probably our best option.”
    â€œAgreed.”
    The cabbie peeled out, catching a succession of green lights that brought the vehicle through the Forties and Thirties, all the way to Twenty-ninth Street, where he cut over to Seventh Avenue and continued south. Another lucky run of greens followed, and suddenly the tunnel loomed up. No toll, of course, not on this side. The city did everything it could to encourage emigration.
    The cabbie slowed down, maneuvering his vehicle toward a corral of yellow lane markers shaped like witches’ hats.
    â€œYou aren’t going through?” Michael asked.
    The former Rastafarian sideswiped a rubber cone, stopped his taxi, and smiled. “Consider the dialectics of our present situation. On the one hand, I am a hired chauffeur, with the plastic wall between us symbolizing the economic and material barriers that separate my class from yours. On the other, I exert a remarkable degree of control over your destiny. For example, through malign or incompetent navigation I can radically inflate your fare. The tipping process involves similar semiotic ambiguities.”
    â€œQuite so,” said Michael. “If I underpay you, my miserliness might be construed as racism.”
    â€œWhereas if you overpay me, you are likewise vulnerable to the charge of bigotry, for such largesse conveys a tacit message of condescension.”
    â€œTo wit, you aren’t taking me to South Hoboken.”
    â€œI’m leaving my dome light off and driving directly to the New York Public Library, where I hope to discover what, if anything, Marx had to say about taxicabs. Would you like to accompany me?”
    â€œI believe I’ll get out here and solicit the services of another driver.”
    But there were no other drivers. As the afternoon wore on, it became obvious that a massive and spontaneous taxi strike had overtaken the city, a crisis compounded by an analogous paralysis within the subway system. Even the pilots of illegal, maverick cabs, Michael learned, had begun pondering their heretofore unconsidered niches in the ecology of power politics and public transportation.
    He proceeded on foot. Slowly, gingerly, he entered the Holland Tunnel, moving past the thousands of dingy white tiles coating the walls. His caution proved unnecessary; there was no traffic—not one car, bus, van, pickup, semi-rig, recreational vehicle, or motorcycle.
    At last he saw a faint, cheerless glow. Two women stood on the safety island, a grizzled bag lady and an attractive Korean toll collector, communicating with intensity and zest. Stumbling into the cold daylight, Michael Prete drew a deep breath, rubbed his rumbling belly, and began to wonder from whence his next meal would come.
    Â 
    So My plan is working. Half the planet is now a graduate seminar, the other half a battleground. Afrikaners versus Blacks, Arabs versus Jews, Frenchmen versus Britishers, collectivists versus capitalists: every overtone of contempt gets heard now, every nuance of disgust comes through. Plagued by a single tongue, people can no longer give each other the benefit of semantic doubt. To their utter bewilderment and total horror, they know that nothing is being lost in translation.
    As for Nimrod himself, he has long since left the island. Like most Americans, he is presently operating at a Stone Age level of efficiency. He rides around Jersey on a ten-speed bicycle he stole from an asthmatic