Arthur Hailey - Wheels

Brett, on the port side with a seat section to himself, peered downward.

The sky was cloudless and though they were high - at thirty-nine thousand feet - he could see, easily and sharply, the shape of the bridge below.

"Funny thing about that bridge," the captain went on chattily. "Story is - the people who bought it from the British got their bridges mixed. They thought they were buying the bridge on all those London travel posters, and no one told them until too late that that one is Tower Bridge, and London Bridge was a bitty old bridge upstream. Ha-ha!"

Brett continued to look down, knowing from the terrain below that they were now over California. He said aloud, "Forever bless my native state, its sunshine, oranges, screwball politics, religions, and its nuts."

A passing stewardess inquired, "Did you say something, sir?" She was young, willowy and tanned, as if her off-duty hours were spent exclusively at the beach.

"Sure did. I asked, 'What's a California girl like you doing for dinner tonight?'"

She flashed an impish smile. "Mostly depends on my husband. Sometimes he likes to eat at home; other times we go . . ."

"Okay," Brett said. "And the hell with women's lib! At least in the old days, when airlines fired girls who got married, you knew which were the unclipped wing ones."

"If it makes you feel any better," she told him, "if I weren't going home to my husband, I'd be interested."

He was wondering if that piece of blandishment was in the airline stewardess manual when the PA-system came alive once more.

"This is your captain again, folks. Guess I should have told you to make the most of that hundred-mile visibility we've been enjoying. We've just received the latest Los Angeles weather. They're reporting heavy smog, with visibility in the L.A. area reduced to one mile or less."

They would be landing, the captain added, in another fifty minutes.

The first smog traces were evident over the San Bernardino Mountains.

With Flight 81 still sixty miles from the Pacific Coast, Brett, looking out, reflected: Sixty miles! On his last trip, barely a year ago, no smog had appeared until Ontario, another twenty-five miles westward.

Each time he came here, it seemed, the photochemical smog spread farther inland over the loveliness of the Golden State like an evil fungus.

Their Boeing 720 was losing height now for the approach to Los Angeles International, but instead of landmarks below becoming clearer, they were blurring beneath an increasing gray-brown haze which nullified color, sunshine, seascape. The panoramic view of Santa Monica Bay which approaching air travelers used to behold was mostly, nowadays, a memory.

As they continued descending and the smog grew worse, Brett DeLosanto's mood became increasingly melancholy.

Ten miles east of the airport, as the captain had predicted, visibility diminished to a mile, so that at 11:30 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, the ground was barely visible.

After landing, in the United Terminal a brisk young man named Barclay from the company's regional office was awaiting Brett.

"I have a car for you, Mr. DeLosanto. We can drive directly to your hotel, or the college if you wish."

"Hotel first." Brett's official purpose in being here was to visit the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, but he would go there later.

Though the aerial view of his beloved California under its despoiling, filthy blanket had depressed him, Brett's spirits revived at the sight and sound of the airport's surging ground traffic at closer quarters. Cars, either singly or en masse, always excited him, especially in California where mobility was a way of life, with more than eleven percent of the nation's automobiles crammed within the state.

Yet the same source had helped create an air pollution which was inescapable; already, Brett felt an irritation of the eyes, his nostrils prickled; without doubt the unclean brume was deeply in his lungs. He asked Barclay, "Has it been as bad as this for long?"

"About a week. Seems now, a partly clear day is an exception, a real clear one about as rare as Christmas." The young man wrinkled his nose. "We tell people it isn't all made by cars, that a lot is industrial haze."

"But do we believe it?"

"Hard to know what to believe, Mr. DeLosanto. Our own people tell us we have engine emission problems licked. Do you believe that?"

"In Detroit I believe it. When I get here I'm not so sure."

What it came down to, Brett knew, was the balance between economics and numbers. It was possible, now, to build a totally emission-free auto engine, but only at high cost which would make the cars employing it as remote from everyday use as a nobleman's carriage once was from the foot-slogging peasantry. To keep costs reasonable engineering compromises had to be made, though even with compromises, present emission control was excellent, and better by far than envisioned only a lustrum ago. Yet sheer numbers - the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly proliferation of cars - undid the end effect, as was smoggily evident in California.

They were at the car Brett would use during his stay.

"I'll drive," Brett said. He took the keys from Barclay.

Later, having checked in at the Beverly Hilton, and shed Barclay, Brett drove alone to the Art Center College of Design on West Third Street. CBS Television City towered nearby, with Farmers' Market huddled behind. Brett was expected, and was received with dual enthusiasm as a representative of a company which hired many of each year's graduates, and as a distinguished alumnus himself.

The relatively small college buildings were, as usual, busily crowded, with all usable space occupied and nothing wasted on frills. The entrance lobby, though small, was an extension of classrooms and perpetually in use for informal conferences, interviews, and individual study.

The head of Industrial Design, who welcomed Brett amid a buzz of other conversations, told him, "Maybe someday we'll take time out to plan a quieter cloister."

"If I thought there was a chance," Brett rejoined, "I'd warn you not to. But you won't. This place should stay the pressure cooker it is."

It was an atmosphere he knew well - perpetually work-oriented, with emphasis on professional discipline. "This is not for amateurs," the college catalogue declared, "this is for real." Unlike many schools, assignments were arduously demanding, requiring students to produce, produce . . . over days, nights, weekends, holidays . . . leaving little time for extra interests, sometimes none. Occasionally, students protested at the unrelenting stress, and a few dropped out, but most adjusted and, as the catalogue put it too:

"Why pretend that the life they are preparing for is easy? It is not and never will be."

The emphasis on work and unyielding standards were reasons why auto makers respected the college and kept in touch with faculty and students.

Frequently, companies competed for the services of top-line students in advance of graduation. Other design colleges existed elsewhere, but Los Angeles Art Center was the only one with a specific course in auto design, and nowadays at least half of Detroit's annual crop of new designers traveled the L.A. route.

Soon after arrival, surrounded by a group of students, Brett broke off to survey the tree-shaded inner courtyard where they had gathered, and were sipping coffee or soft drinks, and chewing doughnuts.

"Nothing's changed," he observed. "It's like coming home."

"Pretty packed living room," one of the students said.

Brett laughed. Like everything else here, the courtyard was too small, the students elbowing for space too many. Yet for all the congestion, only the truly talented were admitted to the school, and only the best survived the grueling three-year course.