Dispatches from Lalaland (Part II)

Riding with Jesus

Read Part I here

At the exhaust-fumed curb you battle with something called a Boingo Hotspot until it allows you to transform your foreign device into a functioning computer. You use the smart phone to hire a personal driver, which just a few years ago would have been an unheard-of-luxury for somebody like you, and now, is considered a technology-given-right. Out here in Lalaland, amidst the shimmering break lights, you’d be forgiven for thinking this just might be the future. How else to explain a complete stranger picking you up at a megalopolis international airport after midnight, within ten minutes, no less?  

“Jesus is on his way,” the app informs you. Based on 3,450 rides, Jesus is trustworthy, with an average score of 4.98. As you wait for him and consider the implications, you begin to understand why many across the world still imagine the USA—and California more specifically—to be the prototype for the future. These apps started out here, didn’t they? And Silicon Valley is just a few hours north, and somebody is saying that in a few years’ time, you’ll be able to traverse the entire country from within the confines of something called a hypertube. Yes, you have arrived in the City of Angels, and a man named Jesus is coming to whisk you away.  

The minutes pass. You watch families reunite. Your phone flashes to inform you that Jesus will be waiting somewhere else. You scamper around the arrivals terminal for a few minutes, searching for signs pointing to where you can meet your personal driver, but outside of LAX you cannot find any semblance of a logical system at all, and when you try and take a photo of the QR code promising you a bus to downtown, your hand-held-robot cannot understand, and an exhausted-looking security guard laughs and says, “Hell, that bus no longer exists!” and you are starting to get really anxious now, and there is beeping all around you, and the headlights are bright and you’re smack-dab in the middle of the street, and the crosswalk is back there. “Sorry!” you scamper back to the curb to escape the hubbub of the machines.  

Like a prophet with a singular mission, the security guard with a hoarse-voice yells out, “You’re probably in the wrong place! You’re probably in the wrong place!”

You rush inside to reconnect to the Boingo Hotspot before a shuttle bus leaves to take you to the right place. You try to cancel your personal driver, but the app says Jesus is on his way, and you’re afraid you’ll have to pay for the entire ride even if you cancel, and so you make a mental note of the last three numbers of Jesus’ license and repeat it to yourself as you enter the shuttle—ends in 2-4-7, ends in 2-4-7 … God forbid this stranger named Jesus had to come out to the airport after midnight to look for a person who wasn’t there.

“Everybody out!” the bus driver yells and deposits you and dozens of others into an industrial-sized parking lot constructed of freshly-poured asphalt as black as night. The air smells like tar, and you can see the black silhouette of the mountains against the off-black sky, and it’s only now, once you look past the dim ridges towards the yellow lights of departing airplanes blinking into the beyond that you realize how far from home you really are.

You are looking south now, towards the expanse of an entirely different continent. The darkness of the night is a stark contrast to the seething yellow headlights of all the vehicles now surrounding you, their taillights melting into the black asphalt, their white-light headlights blaring at you from a distance, inching closer, until your eyes can finally adjust to the unnatural brightness.

You make-out the slithering line of yellow cabs ambling forth, but you’re looking for your personal driver, and the Boingo Hotspot is gone, and so you walk towards the rideshare parking lot.

2-4-7. 2-4-7. Bingo. You approach the pristine white vehicle and walk around to the driver’s side. The driver holds his phone out of the window for you to inspect it.

“Can you confirm this you?” Jesus asks to confirm your own face.

“Yes,” you reply, put your shoulder bag in the trunk, and get in the car with Jesus.  

You pronounce his name the way people pronounce it in Spanish. “How are you this evening?” you ask.

“Fine, sir. Just fine,” Jesus says.

“How long does this drive usually take?”

“With traffic? About an hour,” Jesus replies. “But it might be okay tonight. It’s late.”

As you settle into the plush leather of this minimalist backseat, you are confronted by a brightly back-lit tablet nestled into the back of the passenger-side headrest. The screen might be black but this doesn’t mean it isn’t bright. As the dark pixels glow, an aphorism written in white text appears on the screen, accompanied by an image of a yellow cab floating in black space: You’re on your way!

Forty-five minutes later, Jesus drops you off on an empty street in a neighbourhood Glendale just after 1 a.m. “Stay safe out there,” he says.

“You too,” you reply, but as you move to open the car door, you can’t locate the handle. It’s been a long journey from Paris to Iceland to Tinseltown, no doubt, but try as you might, you can’t locate anything resembling a door handle inside the car.  

“How do I get out of here?” you ask.

“Just push the button,” Jesus explains.

“Which button?” You look around for any logical sign of escape.

Jesus turns around and points to a small glowing button where the door handle should be. Sure enough, after you press it, the door pops open, but only slightly. You thought this was the future. You expected a whoosh.

When you try to close the trunk, the vehicle resists. You try again to no avail. Jesus says, “Leave it. The car does it by itself.” Jesus waits for the trunk to close and bids you farewell. Your telephone will soon confirm, “You rode with Jesus. Drivers are critical to communities right now. Say thanks with a tip.”

Read Part I here