Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
knew that the grandest of all the houses was The Breakers, built by the Vanderbilts, and I
kept thinking, “Well, this must be it” and “Now surely this must be it,” but then the next
house along would be even more awesome. When at last I reached The Breakers, it was
absolutely enormous, a mountain with windows. You can't look at it without thinking that
nobody, with the possible exception of oneself, deserves to be that rich.
On the other side of the fence, the lawns and terraces were full of pudgy tourists in Ber-
muda shorts and silly hats, wandering in and out of the house, taking pictures of each oth-
er and tram pling the begonias, and I wondered what Cornelius Vanderbilt would make of
that, the dog-faced old prick.
I drove on to Cape Cod, another place I had never been and for which I had high expect-
ations. It was very picturesque, with its old salt-box homes, its antique shops and wooden
inns, its pretty villages with quaint names: Sagamore, Sandwich, Barnstable, Rock Harbor.
Butitwasjam-packedwithtouristsinoverloadedcarsandrumblingmotorhomes.Boy,do
I hate motor homes! Especially on crowded peninsulas like Cape Cod where they clog
the streets and block the views-and all so that some guy and his dumpy wife can eat lunch
and empty their bladders without stopping.
The traffic was so dense and slow moving that I almost ran out of gas and just managed
to limp into a two-pump station outside West Barnstable. It was run by a man who was
at least ninety-seven years old. He was tall and rangy and very spry. I've never seen any-
body pump gas with such abandon. First he slopped a quantity of it down the side of the
car and then he got so engaged in talking about where I came from-“Ioway, eh? We don't
get many from Ioway. I think you're the first this year. What's the weather like in Ioway
this time of year?”-that he let the pump run over and I had to point out to him that gasoline
wascascadingdownthesideofthecarandgatheringinapoolatourfeet.Hewithdrewthe
nozzle,sloshinganotherhalf-gallon overthecaranddownhistrousersandshoes,andkind
of threw it back at the pump, where it dribbled carelessly.
He had a cigarette butt plugged into the side of his mouth and I was terrified he would try
to light it. And he did. He pulled out a crumpled book of matches and started to fidget one
of them to life. I was too stunned to move. All I could think of was a television newscaster
saying,“AndinWestBarnstabletodayatouristfromIowasufferedthird-degreeburnsover
98 percent of his body in an explosion at a gas station. Fire officials said he looked like
a marshmallow that had fallen on the campfire. The owner of the gas station has still not
been found.” But we didn't explode. The little stub of cigarette sprouted smoke, which the
manpuffedupintoagood-sizedbillow,andthenhepinchedoutthematchwithhisfingers.
