| Issue #45, February 16, 2007 |
Marooned
Lost in the Dark on the Beach of Sagaponack in the Middle of January
By Dan Rattiner
At four in the afternoon, I drove my new Chevy Tahoe out onto the beach at Sagg Main, then headed east about a half mile to where a narrow stream allows Sagg Pond empties into the ocean. I parked. It was a windy, freezing cold day and, as it was in late January, just a month after the winter solstice when the sun sets its earliest, I thought there might be a beautiful sunset setting up over the ocean. There wasn’t. The surf was big and wild, but as for the sunset, there was an angry cloud obscuring it way off on the western horizon. I parked facing the sea.
I drive out onto the beach almost every day to have a look at it. There are a few of us regulars who do this, and we come out onto the beach to go fishing, to surf, to walk our dogs or, in my case, to sit on a beach chair and write on a laptop. Of course, in the wintertime I don’t sit in a beach chair, I sit in the car, in the passenger’s seat of whatever I’m driving. It’s usually too damn cold to even get out of the car. And on a day like this one, often, I am the only one out there.
Well, I can usually write a story in one hour. So on this particular day, I begin writing, figuring the sun would set and it would get dark, but with the overhead light on inside the car, I’d be able to see the keyboard and finish up. I’d probably be out of there around six, everything being equal, and then I’d follow my tracks in the sand back off the beach.
One hour later, I realized that this story, which was about a historical East Hampton figure named Fishhook Mulford, was going to take longer than I thought. It was pitch dark. But that was fine. I was warm and snug in the cockpit of this new Tahoe. The engine was on, the interior lights were on, I had heat.
And then, suddenly, the Tahoe made five separate dinging sounds, the outline of the engine came up on the screen, the lights flickered and then suddenly everything shut down. Including the engine. I sat there, not moving an inch. Other than the waves breaking on the beach a few yards away, there was not a sound. And the only light in the cockpit came from the glow of my computer screen. Battery powered.
Suddenly, there was a chill was in the air. The heater was off. I shivered.
Well, I thought, there must have been some sort of glitch in the computerized ignition system. I’ll just turn the key off. And then I’ll turn it back on. That should fix it. I did that. The starter motor made a little clicking noise. No ignition.
It’s funny the things you think about when something like this happens. I thought, suddenly, of just how far away through the dark any other human beings were. I could see the lights of a home down the beach maybe a mile to the east, maybe three quarters of a mile to the west. Other than that there was nothing, just the wind and the cold.
I thought — is the tide going in or out? And I thought — maybe if I wait a little while, when I turn the key it will start up again. And so I waited, deeply aware of the increasing chill seeping in, and I turned the key again and again there was a click.
On Star. Doesn’t a Chevy Tahoe have On Star? I remembered that Joe, the salesman who sold it to me two months ago, showed me how you call On Star and get to talk to a young woman who will get help to you right away, but I could not remember how you call On Star. Who needed On Star?
I know. I’ll call Joe at Buzz Chew in Southampton. He works late. And he’d know what to do. Thank God for cell phones. So I called.
“Joe’s with a customer right now,” I was told.
“Can you interrupt him? It’s important.”
“I can’t interrupt a salesman when they are with a customer. Can I give you his voice mail?”
“Ummm, uh.”
The temperature was plummeting. What good was voice mail?
“I just got this car two months ago.”
“I have to put you on hold.”
Now I’m on hold. And my cell phone battery is draining down. I can’t have my battery draining down.
I hang up. And I try to assess the situation. Man with cell phone in a car in the dark on the beach, with the tide coming in and the temperature dropping. I think of that Japanese-American family out in the mountains of California making a wrong turn in a snowstorm and then nobody hears from them for days. Didn’t they burn the tires for warmth at one time?
What is there to EAT in this car? Nothing.
Who else can I call? The cell phone rings. It’s the receptionist lady at Buzz Chew. She sees I have hung up. What’s the problem? I tell her and she says I need roadside assistance, open 24/7. And she gives me an 800 number, which I call.
“This is roadside assistance. For English, press one or stay on the line.” And this goes on and on and on and on. Finally I get to a person.
“I’m in a brand new Tahoe that is stuck in the sand. It’s twenty degrees out. It’s pitch dark. The tide is coming in. I need help.”
“Can you verify your VIN number?” she asks.
“What’s a VIN number?”
“It’s the serial number of your car. You can find it in four places. It’s on your insurance card, your registration, your inspection sticker or on the frame of your driver’s door.”
“I don’t have any of these things. The car is two months old. Nobody has sent me anything. There’s a temporary sticker on it.”
“Could you read it to me? Just go outside and look in the window.”
“I’M NOT GOING OUT THERE.”
“Then open the driver’s door and read it off the frame of the door.”
“I’M NOT GOING OUT THERE.”
“I can’t do anything without your VIN number. Can you tell me the nearest cross street to the road you’re on?”
We finally locate the VIN number which is on the two foot long folded bill of sale in the glove compartment, and she can talk to me. When I explain that I am on the beach, not near any cross street within a mile, she says she will have to check to see if that is covered by roadside assistance. She will call me back.
I give her my cell phone number and, thinking this is brilliant, ask for a confirmation number from Chevrolet in the event I don’t hear from her. Now I have something. A series of numbers with a hash mark in front of it, written cockeyed because it is dark in here. This car is SUPPOSED to go on the beach. It’s a PERK.
And now I’m thinking — am I really in danger out here? I remember a folk song I used to sing when I was a kid. It’s called the Erie Canal. And it’s about a shipwreck where the ship goes down in a storm and the crew is in the water and everybody is afraid they’ll drown. The Erie Canal is twelve feet deep and 150 feet across.
The Erie is a’rising.
And the Gin is a’getting’ low.
And I scarcely think that I’ll get a little drink
Til we get to Buffalo. Til we get to Buffalo.
Finally, I think, I’ve got to get serious about this. Maybe I AM in trouble. It’s a Tuesday night. I’ve been down on the beach and I’m halfway through a story about Fishhook Mulford and it’s a damn shame I had to leave off writing it where I did. Tuesday night we stay up until midnight getting the paper out to the printer. There’s a staff in Bridgehampton of about ten people at the office and I’ve gone out to write, but there’s nobody manning the switchboard so all I will get is a recording. Wait. I can call people on their extensions. Or I can call them on their cell phones.
And I think of my son David, the six foot four inch former lifeguard, scuba certified surfer sailing instructor at the Devon Yacht Club a few summers ago, and he’s at the office working for the paper and I have his cell phone on speed dial.
“Help.”
“What’s going on?”
Fifteen minutes later, I see two headlights bobbing along on the beach heading for me. Coming is David, a passenger in another 4 wheel drive Chevy Tahoe owned and driven by Joel Rodney, who by day is, at six foot eight inches, the tallest, biggest guy who has ever worked for me. And at night, on weekends, he disk jockies under the name of DJ Black Rhino. They have a jumper cable. They’ll save me. And they do.
One hour later, at the behest of Alan, who works in the service department at Buzz Chew, I am at Buzz Chew. Alan has stayed after closing. He wants to see the new Tahoe. They have a loaner.
The upshot of all of this is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Tahoe. There is something wrong with me. The thing is, I have bought the top of the line Tahoe, with every imaginable bell and whistle on it, and there are so many switches and dials for every conceivable purpose that I just don’t know how to operate all of them.
So yes, I had been sitting out on the beach for an hour with the engine on. But I also had on — because they were on AUTOMATIC and I did not know how to turn them off — the Navigation System Map and the lady who talks to you — the headlights and taillights because they were on AUTOMATIC and they go on whenever the engine is turned on and it is dark outside, the overhead light, the visor light, the heating unit and whatever else I had on, all burning up backup computer systems, and all this just overwhelmed the alternator and caused it to run down the battery. It was just too much for it.
“I will now show you how to turn everything off and on,” he said. “You’ll be fine with the overhead light and the heat and the engine on. But I’d also like you to have a small portable battery charger with you at all times. In case you STILL can’t turn things off. On me. You’re out there every day, I know.”
Still later, I’m talking to David. “So THAT is how I want to die, when it comes my time to die,” I say. “I want them to find me, the laptop on my lap, in the passenger seat of my car, on the ocean bottom because the tide has come in. A Tahoe-Homo Sapien fishing reef.”
“Dad, how can you do such STUPID things?” he asks.
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