Gordita Conspiracy

by Lyle Christie

  “My friend—you are truly welcome.”

  We continued down onto a path that was lined with ancient columns that were crumbling and only a fraction of their original height and magnificence due to the hundreds of years of weather and human intervention. Up ahead, a crowd of tourists were busily taking pictures of the remains of a lion statue when, one by one, their attention came to focus on the two men in tuxedos riding the camel. They all watched silently until we were only a few steps away, at which point the entire group started taking pictures with their phones, engulfing us in a sea of clicks. An older woman at the front of the crowd smiled as she spoke.

  “What’s the occasion?” she asked.

  She was clearly American and part of a church group judging by her and her friend’s T-shirts, which had the words Restored by the Lord on the front.

  “We’re on our honeymoon,” I responded.

  “Oh…”

  “Would you mind taking our picture?” I asked, handing her my iPhone.

  “Um—well—sure,” she said, without a lot of enthusiasm.

  She held up the phone and adjusted the framing while Farid wrapped his arms tightly around me, smiled, and kissed my cheek just as she snapped the photo. It was probably a little mean but still funny, and the entire incident left her looking decidedly unsettled as she handed me back my phone.

  “Thanks! This one will be a keeper for sure,” I said.

  Moments like this didn’t happen very often and having the picture to back up the story would be priceless. We continued on and left the crowd and made our way past the various structures whose beauty and craftsmanship was a testament to the ingenuity of the people who had built and inhabited this city nearly two thousand years ago. I’d only ever seen this place in pictures, movies, and documentaries, so it was pretty exciting to be able to literally touch, feel, and smell the history—which made it like Disneyland for any history buff or closet archaeologist like myself.

  Next on the tour was the Amphitheater followed by the Treasury building, the structure most often associated with Petra. It was carved directly into the rock face, and stood over a hundred feet tall, its influence primarily Greek as evidenced by the vertical columns, roofline, and general appearance. In the smaller details, however, there were references to the Egyptian goddess Isis, or al-Uzza as the Nabateans called her, as well as carvings of Zeus’s sons Castor and Pollux. It was this intricate and grandiose facade, I imagine, that inspired George Lucas to choose it as the fabled resting place of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Ironically, the building probably was a final resting place, though most likely for one of Petra’s more important citizens.

  Directly opposite the Treasury was the Siq, or, in English, the shaft. It was a long, narrow winding canyon, and it served as the main pathway tourists took to Petra, so a proper arrival meant you exited the sandstone walls to immediately see the Treasury. I was therefore slightly bummed that I had broken my Petra cherry by arriving from the other direction. Oh well, at least I had managed to finally see it in person.

  We ventured through the Siq until it opened up onto a wide road that went on for another half mile to reach Wadi Musa, the support city that maintained all of Petra’s services the way Springdale Utah serviced Zion National Park. We made our way through the bustling tourist mecca and came to a stop in front of the Grand View Hotel.

  “I take it that your uncle works here,” I said.

  “Yeah, and he is the only one in the family with a car.”

  “So, you don’t get to drive too often?”

  “Sadly no, though my uncle takes me out and lets me drive occasionally.”

  “Shit, the minute I turned sixteen, I lived in my car,” I said.

  “You lived in your car?”

  “Not literally—but every minute I wasn’t sleeping, doing homework, or jacking off, I was behind the wheel.”

  “God bless America,” Farid said.

  We stopped just off to the side of the front entrance of the hotel and dismounted from the camels, and Farid and I waited while Asaf went inside. He reappeared a moment later and smiled gleefully.

  “I have good news, and I have great news,” he said.

  “Give us the good news first.”

  “My uncle is busy and can’t drive you right now.”

  “That’s good news? I think you’ve lost me here, Asaf. If that’s good news then what the hell is the great news.”

  “He says I can borrow his car to drive you the rest of the way to Aqaba!”

  Farid and I looked at each other nervously.

  “Wait, isn’t that bad news?” I asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Cannonball Run 4

  ASAF WAS STANDING there smiling stupidly, and I knew exactly how he was feeling, as I had experienced that very same glee as a teenager. It was the joy of getting to drive a car, any car, anywhere—just so long as you got to drive. As an adult, we grew to take this experience for granted, as driving just became a way to perform menial chores such as shopping or going to work. Of course, that all changed depending on whether or not you drove a particularly cool or fast car such as a Porsche, Ferrari, BMW or, in my case, a lightning fast Subaru. In that instance, driving went from being an inane, soulless chore to a heart pounding joyful experience. In Asaf’s case, he could have been driving a stripped down piece of shit with nothing more than a lawn mower engine, four tires, and a steering wheel, and he would have been just as thrilled.

  We tied the camel’s leads up to a tree then walked around to the garage, where we paused in front of a tiny red four door hatchback. Asaf hit the key fob, and the little car’s lights blinked twice as the doors unlocked.

  “What the hell is this thing?” Farid asked.

  “The Skoda Fabia. Isn’t it awesome!” Asaf said, enthusiastically.

  It was strange to hear Asaf use the word awesome, but young Jordanians were using more and more English slang these days and even had a name for the practice—Arabizi. It was a combination of the words Arabic and Inglizi, which was English in Arabic, and it made me wonder if perhaps my time with Asaf would make motor boating the next big Arabizi phrase in Jordan.

  I walked around the car and took a closer look at our pint sized ride and remembered seeing the same or similar model on an episode of Top Gear. Skoda was a Czech company that was now owned by Volkswagen yet, for some reason, had never made its way into the States, and the only awareness we Yanks had of them was from watching British television.

  “We don’t have these in America,” I said.

  “I thought you had everything in America,” Asaf responded.

  “Well—everything but Skoda, apparently. Oh, speaking of—Shotgun!” I yelled, making my way to the front passenger door.

  “That’s fine. I’m happy to sit in the back where there’s less chance of anyone recognizing me in this little shit box,” Farid said.

  The first thing I did was put on my seat belt, which was something I did every time I entered an automobile, regardless of whether or not it was moving. It somehow made me feel secure, which was currently very important, as we were traveling with a rookie driver in a foreign land. He started the car, took hold of the gear shift, and put it roughly into reverse, which elicited an audible grinding noise from the transmission. He let the clutch out too quickly, and the car lurched backwards, practically hitting a brand new Mercedes parked in the space behind us. Asaf thankfully hit the brakes and screeched to a halt only inches from the other car’s bumper, and, of course, killed the engine in the process. He started it up again, put it in first gear, then slowly let out the clutch, this time giving just enough gas to start moving forward. We exited the garage and made a right turn onto the road, where Asaf got to attempt another gear change. He got it into second but stayed a little too hot on the gas and chirped the tires in the process. Third and fourth were thankfully much smoother, and soon we were driving south at a decent clip on Highway 35, which was a mostly rural two lane tho
roughfare.

  The traffic was light, and Asaf was doing a cool 120 kilometers per hour, which was exactly ten kilometers per hour over the posted speed limit. It translated to about 75 MPH, which I would normally think of as quite comfortable. Unfortunately, our rookie driver was not doing much to instill confidence in his passengers, and first and foremost on the list of driving hazards was his liberal interpretation of lane markers. He had a tendency to drift into the oncoming lane whenever he looked down at his speedometer, and, while this would have been fine on an empty road, it was hellishly terrifying when facing oncoming cars and trucks.

  Asaf, however, looked like a kid on Christmas morning, and he was smiling from ear to ear as he gripped the wheel tightly with both hands. Up ahead was a slow truck, and Asaf swerved slightly left to see ahead only to encourage the large report of an air horn from a tractor trailer truck coming from the opposite direction. He swerved back too aggressively and skirted the side of the road, sending up a great cloud of dust over the cars behind us.

  “This is so awesome!” he said, looking over at me excitedly.

  “Yeah—awesome,” I muttered.

  He swerved left again, and, seeing open road ahead, hit the gas, and the tiny car’s four cylinder engine strained with all its might. We sped past the truck and thankfully re-entered our lane unscathed, but up ahead was a large family sedan packed with passengers. Asaf raced right up onto their bumper, and the people in the back seat were so close, that I could see the sweat stains on their collars.

  “Uh, Asaf—it’s generally a good idea to leave a safe amount of following distance.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m staying back this far.”

  “Generally you want at least three seconds of following distance between you and the car in front.”

  “One-two-three—that’s exactly how far back I am.”

  “You’re not even close. You need to pick a landmark and when they pass it, count how many seconds until we reach it.”

  He looked ahead, found an object, then silently counted to himself before looking over with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Three seconds? Seriously? That’s like a mile. That can’t be right.”

  “Believe me, it’s right, and it gives you time to stop in case they slam on their brakes.”

  Asaf laughed and shook his head side to side.

  “You Americans are crazy! You drive like old ladies!”

  He went back to focusing on his driving but only fell back about a car length. Fucking kids always thought they knew everything about everything, when in reality it was a miracle if they could go ten minutes without shitting their pants or getting their dick caught in a toaster. It was therefore a miracle if they survived their first few years of driving, which was the case with young Asaf. So far, I’d say he wasn’t exactly a natural, and, in spite of having both hands on the wheel and his eyes forward, his movements were twitchy, and he was always over correcting rather than letting the car just drive itself smoothly down the highway. Sweet Lord, this was going to be the longest short drive of my life!

  I decided to see how Farid was fairing and hazarded a quick glance over my shoulder, and he grimaced and made the sign of the cross. I gave him a nod of understanding then turned my attention back to the road ahead to see that it was thankfully clear and straight for at least a few miles, which meant that I had a brief moment to take in a little sightseeing. Around us stretched miles of dry, craggy hills very similar in look and color to the terrain of the high desert of California, and the lack of any kind of greenery made it hard to imagine life had flourished here for thousands of years. The topography changed a bit however when the road eventually turned slightly east, and we entered a small town, where the lifeless desert was suddenly dotted with smatterings of trees, plants, and various structures. A pedestrian up ahead was just about to cross the road, but Asaf saw him and hit the horn, sending the man jumping backward and nearly tumbling to the ground.

  “You know, in America, pedestrians have the right of way,” I said.

  “Here too—but no one really cares.”

  “I think the guy back there might care,” I said, to Asaf who thought I was joking and laughed as he turned his attention back to the road.

  “I almost forgot about music,” he said, reaching down to turn on the radio with his right hand.

  This little distraction made him accidentally swerve off onto the shoulder, but he looked up just in time to avoid a sign. He cut back sharply onto the road, and, in typical Asaf fashion, it was a little too sharp, and now we were headed into the opposite lane. A car was coming from the other direction, and Asaf swerved back over, causing a plaintive squeal to erupt from the tires before we were finally back in our lane and going straight down the road.

  “Any requests?” he asked.

  “Yeah—how about two hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road.”

  “Is that a band or a song?” he joked, as he pressed a button on the radio.

  Suddenly, popular Western style rock music filled the car, and Asaf started singing along and tapping his hands on the steering wheel. Lovely, yet another distraction. We cleared the town and were soon in a curvy section of highway and coming upon yet another large lumbering truck. Asaf swerved slightly left, saw that it was clear, and hit the accelerator and moved out into the oncoming lane. It would have been a relatively safe pass had he not attempted it before a blind curve, but, as luck would have it, a truck appeared from around the corner. Asaf swerved hard off to the left side of the road and sent us bouncing into the dirt, where he lost control and ended up skidding around in a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. We came to a stop facing the opposite direction, and were engulfed in a great cloud of dust. When it finally cleared, Farid and I both turned to each other and shared a great sigh of relief to still be alive. I’d officially had enough and turned to Asaf.

  “That’s it, boy blunder. We’re switching drivers. It’s time for your first actual driving lesson.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing. What I’m about to teach you will someday save your life, and today it will most certainly save ours.”

  Looking dejected, he exited the car, and the two of us crossed paths at the front before taking up our new positions. I started the car and looked over at Asaf.

  “Rule one. The clutch is like a woman. She needs respect and proper attention. You’ve got to warm her up and treat her right if you want to play. No more grinding like an eighth grader at his first dance.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, looking confused.

  I put the car in reverse and hit the gas, expertly releasing the clutch and sending a spray of dirt and gravel out from under the front wheels as the car took off backwards. A second later, I spun the wheel and performed a perfect bootlegger, a well known maneuver that brought the front of the car back around a hundred and eighty degrees and transferred all the momentum into the same direction. I quickly put it in second gear and headed back onto the highway, where I made smooth efficient shifts until we were back up to speed.

  “It all makes sense now!” Asaf said, as he smiled at me.

  “What?”

  “The way you arrived, the tuxedo, your awesome driving skills—you’re a spy like James Bond!”

  Farid laughed.

  “Yeah, maybe if James Bond specialized in finding missing morbidly obese cats!” Farid said.

  “Wait, you find lost cats?” Asaf asked.

  “No, well yes, but not anymore, so just ignore the troll in the backseat and focus on your lessons, padawan. Now, your first and foremost thing to look at is how I hold the wheel—confident, but not overbearing. The car should feel like it’s driving itself.”

  “But, that’s how I was driving.”

  “You were driving like a virgin on prom night.”

  Again he looked confused, so I realized I needed a less abstract simile and perhaps an actual demonstration. I waited until we were on a long curve-free stre
tch of highway then took my hands off the wheel, showing him how the car continued straight as an arrow and needed little input to stay in its lane.

  “See? It practically drives itself,” I said, receiving a nod from Asaf, who appeared to understand.

  The next lesson was passing, which, in my opinion, was the most common yet potentially dangerous maneuver you could perform in an automobile. Traveling out into the oncoming lane of traffic meant that you risked colliding with an object of equal size going at a comparable rate of speed. That basically doubled the relative speed, and more velocity meant more kinetic energy—a force one of my physics professors at Stanford had explained in very simple terms using the following question. Would you rather get hit in the face by a ten pound ball traveling at one mile per hour, or a one pound ball traveling at ten miles per hour? Most people chose the small ball, because they thought it would hurt less. Such was not the case, however, as the small ball, traveling faster, actually had greater kinetic energy, and that was the kind that hurt. So, two cars traveling towards each other at high velocity were equal to one car going like a motherfucker into a brick wall—and that was a scenario that generally left you seriously injured, or, more likely, dead.

  “I can’t express this next rule enough. Never, never, never, pass on a blind curve. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen it in the movies—never do it. Wait until you can see far enough ahead and know that it’s clear, and you’ll live a much longer, more satisfying life.”

  Up ahead, the road opened up, and I gunned it and safely passed a truck then easily returned to my lane long before any automobiles came from the opposite direction.

  “See how easy that was?”

  “Yeah—but what was that cool spinning maneuver that you used to turn around after we switched places?”

  Of course, in the midst of all these pearls, he focuses on the bootlegger. I probably should have refrained from any advanced driving techniques, but I had hoped that doing such a dramatic maneuver would get his attention. Back in the Agency, I was trained in all forms of high performance, combat, and evasive driving, although I had technically first perfected the bootlegger, along with many other maneuvers, back in High School in my parents tiny 1977 Honda Civic. It might have been a piece of shit, but it was my piece of shit, and, best of all, it only needed to be filled with gas about once a year.