It comes fast or it happens slowly. But Sloopy now can’t see. The ophthalmologist asks for his car keys. Its painful for Sloop because from the day he turned 14 in Arkansas he’s driven automobiles. He’s always defined himself as a “sexy beast” driver. (“That’s an American thing,” said my French roomate when I was studying abroad and we were talking about Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road”. In that classic “Beat Generation” travel romance we see “Dean Moriarty” who’s undivided nervous system and imagination are disposed to his hands and feet. He is a new creature: a cross country flat top driver living on amphetimine and accelerated games of chicken and roadside sex. Moriarty who watches telephone poles leap into the sky as he races through Kansas.) Francois couldn’t get it. “In Europe we just take the train and drink wine.”
Sloopy needs his car. In America its a reasonable accommodation. Towns are far apart in the United States, largely because they were founded by people who didn’t like other people. The aim was always to live at least a day’s wagon ride from some other town. As I said once to a room of social workers: “the tin lizzy was essentially a wheelchair for trapped minds.” It wasn’t your fault you were born to fundamentalist stake holders. But Henry Ford was your savior. In America the automobile saved millions from going out of their minds. This is what “On the Road” is about. And this is why Sloopy is devastated for he lives in Iowa thirty miles north of Cedar Rapids and now he’s trapped without true neighbors.
I see future Sloopys every day. They may go blind or they may develop the kind of back problems that prevent people from walking. They will be shunned by the other Sloopys. Yes I’m generalizing. But remember that Sloopy-ville was founded far from other burgs because, well, you see, most Americans are not like Thomas Jefferson; most don’t take a sincere interest in their neighbors. And the sad, superannuated auto was the only anodyne, and Sloopy knew. He knew it and now he can’t get anywhere and predictably his neighbors don’t care. See Rand Paul.
Planet of the Blind 