PO'd

I was hitchhiking down from the North Country, through Chicago, but taking the tollway around the city, when an old guy in a Lincoln picked me up. Like a Cadillac, the Lincoln was roomy, with a nice radio and dark interior, and the guy was a well-dressed businessman of some kind, a little moody. We talked location for a while; he was going somewhere in Indiana, but close to Chicago; I was going much farther south. It was a cold November day, and there had been a freak ice-storm that had made stopping a little dangerous, one reason I'd avoided going straight down through the middle of the city. It was early evening, too; dark was coming quickly, and that would change hitchhiking a bit.

He wanted to talk about light bulbs, for some reason, as an example of a moral dilemma he had at work. "Suppose you had a way to make light bulbs cheaper; you'd do it, right?" Well, yes, I said, though I wasn't a businessman. "If you did," he continued, "you'd have an advantage in the market, right?"

"Now suppose that as you made them cheaper, they wouldn't last as long. But you reached a point where people didn't notice, you'd still do it, right?" he asked. I began to see what he was getting at.

"Now suppose you could measure people's perception, and you could figure out how long it took before they didn't notice. That would be the ideal length of time to make them last, right?"

"So your research is based on people's perception, not on how to make them last as long as possible with as little expense possible."

"Well," he said, "sometimes that physical part, mastering the craft of making them, is long ago perfected, fairly equal among competitors. So the only thing left is their ability to measure the perceptions of their customers. That's what separates the winners from the losers."

We went past the McDonald's above the freeway, near O'Hare; when we stopped at the tollbooths, he had his ninety cents ready. This was a relief, to tell you the truth. Sometimes people give you a ride on the tollway, and they hock you for ninety cents, which, if I have it, I feel obliged to give. But I don't want to. I'm hitchhiking, and it was icy out there. I was glad he paid the toll.

The toll collector looked out of his little dirty glass box with a glazed expression, though I'm sure he thanked us or mumbled something under his breath. Every time I saw these guys I thought of the story in the newspaper, which I'd read in Wisconsin somewhere, about some toll baron who kept all the profits, long after the roads the tolls were meant to pay for, were paid for. It was legend around Chicago, a kind of corruption everyone took for granted; this millionaire was living it up somewhere out here in the suburbs, while his minions stood in their little glass boxes trading dollars for dimes. And calling the police to come after you if you sped through without giving them their ninety cents.

The old guy drifted into a kind of silence, thinking about the morality of robbing the average man; it was all a matter of perception, he maintained. It wasn't moral, it wasn't right, but it was the way it was. You make them worse, you survive in the market. Planned obsolescence, it was called.

Some people, himself included, remembered light bulbs lasting forever, poor people taking them with, when they left one apartment to move to another, so that they'd never have to buy one. They could make them last forever; they knew how. They could, but they didn't. We discussed this for a while; for part of that time, he was mumbling, as if he remembered a few light bulbs himself. But I knew it wasn't about light bulbs; he had some larger problem that he wasn't bringing up. I felt like he wanted me to judge him, the immoral businessman, but I didn't. I was grateful for the ride. The car was warm. He was genuinely friendly.

It was snowing lightly, and the snow twinkled up against the bright lights of the tollway which shone on the treacherous roads below. If the snow became significant, you could no longer see the ice patches; if that happened, it was real trouble. I tried to gauge whether this guy had had a martini or two, because those things matter in this situation. But the best I could figure, he was sober. He clutched the wheel hard. He was going home with a face of grim determination. There was one more toll collector. This time the road widened out to maybe eight windows, but it didn't matter. Each one that was occupied would have a grim-faced toll man. Again the guy paid the fare; he had his dollar bills ready. The road was slick when it branched into eight, and then again on the other side, but he managed it well.

It occurred to me he could have been the toll baron himself, with his nice Lincoln, and his fine shoes, not revealing his true business. But then, he wouldn't have had to pay at all, and he wouldn't be living in Indiana. No, that wasn't him. I'd never know; I'd never see him again.

Eventually the Lincoln made some funny sounds, and he apologized and pulled over, somewhere just as we were getting into Indiana. Something sounded funny in the car, and he was going to see if he could do something about it while things were still open. He grumbled something about American cars and apologized as he let me out on the edge of the road. I put up my collar, grabbed my pack and went on my way. I was grateful to be on the other side of Chicago, which was too busy for my taste, with too many people that weren't going anywhere except maybe the next little suburb. It was time to get some miles under me; I wanted to be in Alabama, and out of the weather, by dawn.