On New Year’s Eve, I took the train to Boston, where I met up with Marcus to drive the rest of the way up to Maine.
Marcus had told me a few days before that he’d looked up our route in his atlas, but I thought it was a metaphor, because Marcus is a poet, and also I had no idea that anyone still used a paper atlas to get directions.
It was still the last few hours of 2010, so I asked if it was a beta release. He was not amused. It was not last time I would say something witty and clever about Marcus’ analog life. He even drives a standard transmission.
“If you want a break, I can drive stick,” I said.
“That’s ok. It’s good to know that if I had a seizure or got shot, you could drive me to the hospital.”
“I probably couldn’t, I still don’t know where it is.”
“Meg, you have a GPS!”
A little bit into our drive, Marcus decided that he knows better than the GPS.
“You can’t do that!” I cried, when he decided to deviate from the clear red line. “You’re user error! Listen to TomTom!”
Marcus said something here about always going this way and knowing a shortcut.
“TomTom says it’s an hour and ten minutes. It’s 5 now so at 6:10 we’ll see who wins!”
“Actually, Meg… my car clock’s wrong… Don’t say it.”
