Victor had a new job with the university police, and he was teamed up with a veteran, Ed Slack, on Thursday nights. Ed told him right away that he would appreciate it if Victor would do anything related to the steam tunnels, but that he, Ed, would carry his weight in every other way and do most of the work, even show Victor around. He kept his word. Ed Slack was a hard worker, fearless, able and willing to do anything the job called for.
One night there was a call to check out the steam tunnel at the entrance over by the Physical Plant; somebody had heard noises over there. Ed said he’d accompany Victor over there if Victor would kindly go down in there himself and check out the noises. He didn’t suspect there was reason for two cops down there, and besides, one person was needed above ground to be available for other calls. They went over to the Physical Plant together and found the entrance to the tunnels. Victor took a large lamp down there and started investigating the noises. The tunnel was dark, but not especially scary to Victor. He came to a crossroads where the tunnel went off in three different directions.
The tunnels were all about four feet wide, and six feet high; there was a little water on the bottom of them, but not much. They would occasionally widen into areas where there would be pipes connected to each other, or places where crawl spaces went up in one direction or another, in order for someone to reach something that they had to work on, presumably. Victor couldn’t imagine who would want to be down here at a time like this: nine at night, on a Thursday. This is not how Victor would want to spend his Thursday night. He shone his light in every direction; he heard nothing.
He finished looking around, and found nobody. No sounds, no evidence of people down there, no nothing. One of the tunnels led to a locked gate; others went on indefinitely, but he could figure out where they went, and didn’t want to get too far from the physical plant entrance. After a good while, he gave up and came back, so he could file his report and move on to the next call.
Ed maintained that he was willing to do what Victor had just done, but didn’t want to. It brought back bad memories, he said, of twenty years ago. And he made it clear he didn’t want to discuss it or explain it. Case was closed. He did extra work on another of their joint ventures, and Victor had to allow that he’d got the easier end of the deal. There was nothing particularly hard about walking around in the steam tunnels at night; there was no special reason for him to refuse the chore. It was most likely students, and they were most likely unarmed. There was a remote possibility that it could be someone else, or perhaps animals.
He talked to some other people on the force about it, though, and found out that it was, in fact, a tradition going back many years. A large number of students took great pleasure in breaking into the system of tunnels, in one place or another, and exploring the vast network that went under the entire campus, from one end to the other. The workers had a system of locked metal gates, but those gates were often left open, and if they could be opened from one end or the other, the students would figure out how to open them and leave them open for the next people to come through. They didn’t seem to do dark and dangerous things down there; there was no evidence of drugs, for example, or correlation with all the other serious crimes that happened on campus. It seemed to be simply the desire to go where one doesn’t belong, explore in places where there was some risk, some danger, and where one could get caught, if one wasn’t careful.
Ed Slack was getting close to retirement; he had two more football games to work, and he had a very limited number of serious confrontations left, he was pretty sure. Thursday night was still a problem, because anything could happen on a Thursday, but he was looking forward to the day in May, already set, when he’d have his last Thursday, his last report to file, his last possible arrest. He had a motor home ready, and he and his wife were ready to see the country, and get a little less attached to the responsibilities of the police force and the other things he did. It had reached the point where he dreaded Thursdays the most, because of the possibilities that it entailed, and one of those was the steam tunnels.
And sure enough, they got another call from the Physical Plant two Thursdays later; this came at about ten. There was a little more noise on this one, they said, when Victor and Ed arrived. We may have to show you a little, said one guy, where we thought we heard the noises coming from.
The Physical Plant worker, Jeb, led them down into the tunnels, both Ed and Victor, and toward the intersection that Victor had found before. The tunnels were the same: claustrophobic, and slightly wet, with some passages blocked by metal fences.
They turned right at the intersection, went down a ways, then turned left. They had gone quite a ways when they came to a little side-tunnel that went off to the right. Jeb suggested they check up there. Victor went first, carrying a large light. For safety he held onto his gun, even though he was aware that if there were people up there, they would most likely be students. What struck Victor was how tight the tunnel seemed; there was only one way out; there was nobody else who even knew about the place.
Up about a hundred feet, he and Ed came to a crawl space up to the left. And there, in a mud tunnel about four feet by four feet, were three kids – well, one was a little older. Three young men, crouching in the mud, with a lamp, off, and very little else. Their clothes were dirty, but all three had shoes, pants, flannel shirts.
Victor did the talking. He demanded their ID’s and got student ID’s from the two, a driver’s license from the third. He took their lantern. He made them come out in front of him and Ed, and walk back toward Jeb at the intersection. A glint of recognition passed between Ed and the older guy. Ed knew him; he was sure. Victor could see that Ed was having trouble with the memories, the setup of the steam tunnels, the whole thing. And now, running into this guy, down there, that was almost too much.
Back up in the Physical Plant, they handcuffed the guys and put them in the patrol car for the ride across campus. They had radioed for help, and had another patrol car there for the trip as well, driven by a guy named Frank, also on duty. Victor stayed with Ed and the two younger kids; the third went in Frank’s car.
Back at the station they ran into the stubborn truth: there was very little they could charge the three guys with. The two students were not even trespassing, though they certainly were someplace they didn’t belong. Ordinarily a fatherly guy like Ed would give them a lecture, tell them how dangerous it was, and send them on their way. But Ed wasn’t up to it, and he asked Frank, who had some experience with this situation, to do the lecture. Frank was ready. Frank often said that there were two things he liked to make clear in these situations, and he assured them he would do it this time. The first was that kids could die down there, and in fact, someone had died, one time many years back. Frank in fact knew nothing of this, and would tell that to anyone, but he repeated it as a solemn fact, that any students wandering around down there were subject to the same thing. They closed the gates; they trapped people; they acted like they were alone down there. And the second thing he would tell them was, the steam pipes burst occasionally. Once again, Frank knew nothing about this, yet he could repeat it like it was the coming of the great volcano. He made a big story for each kid, and both of them, one at a time, came out white-faced, somewhat embarassed, glad to be released, even glad to be still alive. They might get a call from the disciplinary wing of Student Affairs, but they were basically getting off.
The third guy was a little more of a problem. He was about forty, identified as a resident of the city, and looked like he’d spent twenty years next to a video game. Ed, in the end, agreed to join Frank in interrogating him, knowing that eventually they would give up and let him go, as well, knowing that even trespassing on university property, even in a dangerous and prohibited place, was hardly worth their time in prosecuting him. In other words, he was guilty, and everyone knew it, but it was unlikely that he would even have to pay a fine, although they could probably, with a lot of effort, force him to do so.
The guy, who identified himself as John Barton, had talked the students into taking him down there. He said he was looking for a knife he had left down there many years ago. It happened that the knife was inlaid, a kind of family heirloom, but that he had left it in a crawlspace out of fear, when they were arrested and brought out of there in another incident. When was this? Together they tried to conjure up a date; John wasn’t sure. Ed was looking at him carefully. About twenty years ago, he said, though he hedged a little, changed it in both directions. Ed was getting increasingly uncomfortable; perhaps he was the one involved in this very arrest, or, to be more specific, apprehension. This kid had been told to stay out of these tunnels, what, twenty years ago? John fidgeted, very nervous, and admitted that. They’d caught him in the tunnel; they’d warned him; he’d agreed not to do it again.
But now Ed’s questions became more pointed. Ed, in fact, had brought him out of the tunnel. And Ed suddenly brought up the subject of the kid who had died that night, or soon after. He had gone down one passage that no longer led anywhere, that had no legitimate or possible exits, and when he’d come back to the intersection, it had been locked, with the people gone. None of the kids who had been caught down there that night, John included, had told about the other kid, who had gone the other way. The kid was a friend of John’s, and John was haunted by that. He hadn’t told the police that there was one more kid down there somewhere. He had assumed that his friend would find a way out. But it hadn’t happened, and the kid was stuck down there; he’d starved to death.
Ed, as it turned out, was haunted by the same situation. Had he forgot to ask or inquire about other kids? Had they failed to search the tunnel system afterward? How was it that they were unable to hear anyone, after that, when it was so common to hear them on nights like tonight?
Frank and Victor, also, were floored. Frank was there, basically, hearing John’s admission that, basically, he was in those same tunnels twenty years ago, and had come back tonight. Victor caught it on the camera. There was nothing to say or do now. John finally broke down in tears; he had had twenty years of bad dreams, wondering if he could retrace his steps, if he could relive the experience. He’d become fixated on the knife, which he’d left down there in a spasm of fear. He’d finally gotten up the nerve to go down there, to revisit the place. But it had only made it worse.
In the end, they let John go, just as they let the others go. His bad dreams, his twenty years of guilt and recrimination, were punishment enough. They gave him a talk, told him of the danger. They actually promised him they’d look for the knife, given enough information about exactly where he had left it. The problem was, that information was long gone; even John couldn’t remember exactly where he’d been. And neither could Ed. Thirty years on the police force, and he knew this would be the story that haunted him the most, that he would have trouble getting past, even when he was parked, with the mobile home, on some beach down on the sea. Things happen. You can’t blame those Physical Plant guys for locking the gates.
12-16
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Their Own Devices
Laura was like most parents; she longed for a little time to herself. When she had it, she checked her phone, to see if her friends were trying to reach her, or see what they had posted on Facebook. It was adult company she was after; the relentless questions of her two children, 3 and 7, wore her down. Finally she got the older one a phone, and let the younger one use one of her old ones. She got simple games for them to play. It worked well, especially on the subway. She didn’t want them making eye contact with strangers.
They were coming back from Brooklyn one afternoon and she picked a car that had about ten young people in it, almost all of them on their phones, scattered throughout the car. She picked seats in the middle where she was in plain sight of everyone, though clearly, nobody was exactly watching. You had this ethic on these subway cars; you wanted just enough people on there, but you didn’t want it to be crowded, and you wanted people who looked like they weren’t afraid to get involved, if something were to happen. She took mental note of the ten or so young people, and before the train started a couple more entered. All were returning toward Manhattan from Brooklyn.
The seven-year-old, Devin, was playing a game called Virtual Farm, which had levels, and he had said something about getting stuck on level six. He had collected a good supply of animals, and hay to feed them with, and he was able to drive his tractor around the little farm, delivering the hay to the animals, and retrieving the eggs from the chickens, for example. But he was stuck on level six. He would often show his little brother, Chris, how to do various things; Chris had Virtual Farm too. To Chris level six wasn’t an issue; he’d barely got past level two, but it didn’t matter, because he was enjoying it. Laura cast her eyes over at them occasionally to make sure they were still happy and occupied. Then she’d sneak a peak at her own phone, The car rattled noisily from stop to stop, shaking as it went. Above them, there was a map of the entire subway system and some ads that had been there for many years, it seemed.
A homeless guy entered the train. He had a huge beard and was dirty, but didn’t look especially dangerous or menacing. Almost all of the dozen passengers noticed him, as that’s something you do, even when you are entirely preoccupied with whatever your phone offers. The guy’s name was Roger; he had in fact become homeless only recently, and wandered the subway cars desperately, having nowhere else to go, and not sure what to do next. Within a few days he’d noticed that everyone, on every car, was glued to their phones, and he’d become interested in what was happening on the phones. Weather was one thing. By walking the length of the train, and hurtling around as it shook, he was able to notice that of the five phones he saw, three were on the weather. So, at the end of the car, he turned around and said, loudly, “Low of 22! 15% chance of precipitation!”
All three people were rattled, either because they felt that he had personally been looking at their phone (which he had), or that he had read their minds. It was not the kind of thing you’d just say out to a subway car full of people. All three were irritated and, as people do in this situation, considered calling security. Nobody wants to spend their subway ride playing mind games with the mentally ill. Everybody wishes this kind of person would just go away.
But Roger stood at the end of the car where he’d stopped, and smiled benevolently, as if he was at the head of a dinner table, first dinner he’d had in months. He had, in fact, grown up on a farm, with fresh air everywhere, and a real tractor, and hay, and all kinds of animals, but the main difference between there and here was that there, you talked to people all the time, and the weather mattered more, because you were out in it all day long. How he got here, in this subway car, at this moment, was a long and terrible story, but let’s just say that a young guy wants to see the world beyond the farm, and wants the urban experience, though he may not be quite prepared for it.
But now he smiled again at everyone and said, somewhat randomly to everyone but Devin, “Stuck on level six? Put the hay in the loft. That will make room for more hay.” Devin was stunned. The answer was totally right, and he’d never even thought of it. But how did this big guy know about Virtual Farm? Or know that he was stuck on level six? He just about dropped his phone. Laura’s jaw dropped too. It was uncanny that this guy knew about Virtual Farm; he hadn’t come anywhere near their phones.
Roger turned, laughed a little to himself, and walked into the next car, where he would probably do something somewhat similar. He was in fact quite good at it; he knew many of the games; he was sensitive to the slightest of noises from the phones; he recognized the sites people were on. It wasn’t that he wanted to rattle them, though of course he scared almost everyone. It was more that he wanted some conversation; he wanted to be helpful; he wanted some interaction. The fumes of the subway were beginning to get to him. The absolute duplicity of everyone being hypersensitive to the people around them, yet studiously ignoring them, was getting to him. He couldn’t walk right up and talk to anyone; then they’d call security for sure.
And security, in fact, was well aware of Roger and what he did. He hadn’t caused anyone any trouble, yet, but there had been complaints about him, and they’d investigated. He’d promised to cooperate, but he wouldn’t leave the subway; he had nowhere else to go. He’d change lines, or get off and roam in certain stations, but invariably he’d be back on the moving cars, going car to car, One security guy had tried to get him to talk to some social service providers. He warned him that if he kept this up, he’d end up saying hostile things, making people really mad, and he’d end up in jail, which was no fun. But Roger wasn’t interested in social services. He didn’t respond well to people telling him where to go or what to do. He felt a little suspended, here in the vast subway network, well aware that this wouldn’t last forever, but this is what he did, and he hadn’t heard any better ideas.
Laura, for her part, was unusually afraid that afternoon, and, upon getting off the train in SoHo, looked around every corner, behind every supporting post, convinced that this stranger was after her and her kids. He wasn’t; he was long gone. When she got home, she checked all the phones, but again, no sign. He was gone. He had said one thing, but he’d been right on the mark, had read her son’s mind thoroughly. But now, hopefully, he’d disappeared forever.
To Devin, he was an angel from above. He’d come along at just the right moment, and had said just the right thing. Virtual Farm was, in fact, one of the few things Devin really cared about. It was kind of like having an uncle, someone who could give you a kind of family love without any of the attachment or price that other family required. And this was, in fact, something Devin needed. He recognized that all the trappings of a farm: hay, pigs, chickens, eggs, barn, tractor – they were all pretty much unreal. But a guy who knew how to get past level six, that was impressive.
(12-16)
They were coming back from Brooklyn one afternoon and she picked a car that had about ten young people in it, almost all of them on their phones, scattered throughout the car. She picked seats in the middle where she was in plain sight of everyone, though clearly, nobody was exactly watching. You had this ethic on these subway cars; you wanted just enough people on there, but you didn’t want it to be crowded, and you wanted people who looked like they weren’t afraid to get involved, if something were to happen. She took mental note of the ten or so young people, and before the train started a couple more entered. All were returning toward Manhattan from Brooklyn.
The seven-year-old, Devin, was playing a game called Virtual Farm, which had levels, and he had said something about getting stuck on level six. He had collected a good supply of animals, and hay to feed them with, and he was able to drive his tractor around the little farm, delivering the hay to the animals, and retrieving the eggs from the chickens, for example. But he was stuck on level six. He would often show his little brother, Chris, how to do various things; Chris had Virtual Farm too. To Chris level six wasn’t an issue; he’d barely got past level two, but it didn’t matter, because he was enjoying it. Laura cast her eyes over at them occasionally to make sure they were still happy and occupied. Then she’d sneak a peak at her own phone, The car rattled noisily from stop to stop, shaking as it went. Above them, there was a map of the entire subway system and some ads that had been there for many years, it seemed.
A homeless guy entered the train. He had a huge beard and was dirty, but didn’t look especially dangerous or menacing. Almost all of the dozen passengers noticed him, as that’s something you do, even when you are entirely preoccupied with whatever your phone offers. The guy’s name was Roger; he had in fact become homeless only recently, and wandered the subway cars desperately, having nowhere else to go, and not sure what to do next. Within a few days he’d noticed that everyone, on every car, was glued to their phones, and he’d become interested in what was happening on the phones. Weather was one thing. By walking the length of the train, and hurtling around as it shook, he was able to notice that of the five phones he saw, three were on the weather. So, at the end of the car, he turned around and said, loudly, “Low of 22! 15% chance of precipitation!”
All three people were rattled, either because they felt that he had personally been looking at their phone (which he had), or that he had read their minds. It was not the kind of thing you’d just say out to a subway car full of people. All three were irritated and, as people do in this situation, considered calling security. Nobody wants to spend their subway ride playing mind games with the mentally ill. Everybody wishes this kind of person would just go away.
But Roger stood at the end of the car where he’d stopped, and smiled benevolently, as if he was at the head of a dinner table, first dinner he’d had in months. He had, in fact, grown up on a farm, with fresh air everywhere, and a real tractor, and hay, and all kinds of animals, but the main difference between there and here was that there, you talked to people all the time, and the weather mattered more, because you were out in it all day long. How he got here, in this subway car, at this moment, was a long and terrible story, but let’s just say that a young guy wants to see the world beyond the farm, and wants the urban experience, though he may not be quite prepared for it.
But now he smiled again at everyone and said, somewhat randomly to everyone but Devin, “Stuck on level six? Put the hay in the loft. That will make room for more hay.” Devin was stunned. The answer was totally right, and he’d never even thought of it. But how did this big guy know about Virtual Farm? Or know that he was stuck on level six? He just about dropped his phone. Laura’s jaw dropped too. It was uncanny that this guy knew about Virtual Farm; he hadn’t come anywhere near their phones.
Roger turned, laughed a little to himself, and walked into the next car, where he would probably do something somewhat similar. He was in fact quite good at it; he knew many of the games; he was sensitive to the slightest of noises from the phones; he recognized the sites people were on. It wasn’t that he wanted to rattle them, though of course he scared almost everyone. It was more that he wanted some conversation; he wanted to be helpful; he wanted some interaction. The fumes of the subway were beginning to get to him. The absolute duplicity of everyone being hypersensitive to the people around them, yet studiously ignoring them, was getting to him. He couldn’t walk right up and talk to anyone; then they’d call security for sure.
And security, in fact, was well aware of Roger and what he did. He hadn’t caused anyone any trouble, yet, but there had been complaints about him, and they’d investigated. He’d promised to cooperate, but he wouldn’t leave the subway; he had nowhere else to go. He’d change lines, or get off and roam in certain stations, but invariably he’d be back on the moving cars, going car to car, One security guy had tried to get him to talk to some social service providers. He warned him that if he kept this up, he’d end up saying hostile things, making people really mad, and he’d end up in jail, which was no fun. But Roger wasn’t interested in social services. He didn’t respond well to people telling him where to go or what to do. He felt a little suspended, here in the vast subway network, well aware that this wouldn’t last forever, but this is what he did, and he hadn’t heard any better ideas.
Laura, for her part, was unusually afraid that afternoon, and, upon getting off the train in SoHo, looked around every corner, behind every supporting post, convinced that this stranger was after her and her kids. He wasn’t; he was long gone. When she got home, she checked all the phones, but again, no sign. He was gone. He had said one thing, but he’d been right on the mark, had read her son’s mind thoroughly. But now, hopefully, he’d disappeared forever.
To Devin, he was an angel from above. He’d come along at just the right moment, and had said just the right thing. Virtual Farm was, in fact, one of the few things Devin really cared about. It was kind of like having an uncle, someone who could give you a kind of family love without any of the attachment or price that other family required. And this was, in fact, something Devin needed. He recognized that all the trappings of a farm: hay, pigs, chickens, eggs, barn, tractor – they were all pretty much unreal. But a guy who knew how to get past level six, that was impressive.
(12-16)
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Closer than they appear
Clark set out from Kansas City going east and expected to be in St. Louis in four hours, and at his destination, slightly beyond, in about six. It was December 16, 2016, a busy time on the road, and was about eleven in the morning. Little did he know that a freak ice storm was hitting the state of Missouri at that moment, and causing multiple accidents all over the place, especially in Columbia, which is right in the middle of it. As he got close to Columbia, he saw ice on the trees, on the grass, on the woods on either side of the road, everywhere. The road itself was fairly clear, being almost bumper to bumper, as the drizzle, which was freezing as it landed, had nowhere to land except on the cars themselves. He stayed behind big trucks; when they slowed down, he slowed down. When he pulled off the road for gas the roads into the station were slick, and in the gas station convenience store, they gave him his coffee for free. In the bathroom a truck driver was telling another about the conditions, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying; he could only imagine driving a semi in this kind of icy condition. Columbia was a madhouse: cars wrecked on the side of the road, people unable to get on the interstate, or unable to get off, and that’s where the traffic stopped for a while, off and on, for many miles.
There was a frontage road, even in the city, but it was hilly, and this road was clearly covered with ice; several cars had wrecked trying to manage the hills, and others had stopped, where people had given up, trying to go up or down the icy hill. Wrecks were everywhere. One young woman with blue hair was totally distraught as she had skidded a new car into a guardrail. Cars’ flashing lights punctuated the drizzle. Ambulances could be heard in the distance. There was no sign of salt trucks anywhere.
As it got real slow Clark got solace from the radio, where they talked about people stranded in Columbia, trying to get across town; people cursed MO-DOT (the people who should have salted the roads, perhaps), but others defended them, saying that maybe they simply didn’t know it would happen. If a truck jackknifes, how does one know what to do? Or put it this way: with hundreds, if not thousands, of emergency calls, are they responsible for managing traffic as well as trying to salt roads, when it’s too late? It was clear that it had caught people by surprise. Some truckers had slowed down to a crawl on the steep hills before Columbia, but some simply hadn’t realized how fast it was freezing, or how quickly a clear road could turn to an icy one.
He mulled these questions over in his tiny car, glad that it handled well, and that he was comfortable; he had plenty of gas; he wasn’t hungry; he’d had plenty of coffee, and the Missouri countryside was actually quite beautiful, though mostly he was looking at these red-and-white barber pole bumpers of large trucks. It was not too scary, because the road itself was not icy. Once there was space between Clark and some other cars; this was near Columbia, and there, the road was quite slick, and he was afraid of sliding off like so many others had done. But mostly he was able to stick to the road, and the brakes worked fine. In his rearview mirror, which said “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear,” he noticed how close people got to him, and got nervous accordingly. He decided that that expression was kind of like the “feels like” and its relationship to the real temperature. Clark was a person who always was aware of the actual conditions: temperature, humidity, wind, even pressure. So he didn’t need to be told what it “feels like.” Similarly, if he saw something in the mirror, he was aware how far away it really was. So “closer than they appear” – what was that supposed to mean? He was annoyed whenever he was reminded of such things.
The drizzle continued right through Missouri, a fine rain being blown around by a gentle wind, and freezing the moment it landed, almost everywhere. It was not a strong rain; on the contrary, you hardly knew it was there, except that roads were unexpectedly slippery whenever they were empty for more than thirty seconds. Under those conditions, there was no point seeking shorter routes or back roads; according to the radio, all of Columbia was at a standstill. The interstate was clearly the best bet, and he stayed on it. Traffic remained touch-and-go, through the hills on the east of Columbia.
But at Wentzville, or just to the west of it, traffic stopped altogether, and didn’t start right up again. Now, it looked like everyone was going to just sit there, on the interstate, for a while. And, to his surprise, the westbound lanes were backed up too, and he could see that they were backed up at least ten miles, and probably much farther. In his own lanes, cars and trucks were going nowhere. Ahead of Clark was a truck; behind him a small red car; beside him, several pickups. It was now warmer; the fine drizzle was no longer freezing, and was even dying out altogether. He found another station on the radio. Hundreds of people were in a similar position, stuck, unable to get onto the frontage road (due to hills or ditches), in many cases afraid of the back roads, which were probably still frozen, and unable to get traffic moving in front of them. Clark at least was in no rush, though he had lost several hours, and it looked like he would be losing several more. He texted friends and family. He checked the news. He kept his eye on the bumper in front of him, which, like everything else, wasn’t moving.
There is a question of how far one should get from one’s car in this kind of situation. He was on the interstate, and it seemed reasonable to assume everyone would start up again, and would be going seventy at any minute, as soon as it all cleared up. On the other hand, they’d all been sitting there, what, an hour, two, three, going on four. As time went on, he saw people leaving their cars. In the red car behind him a young woman got out of the passenger seat, onto the side of the road, and started yelling back through what appeared to be an open window. She was an exotic woman, quite beautiful, wearing a red dress. She was angry at the driver and she even pounded on the car at one point. Clark heard her yell something about “Uber” and he thought, whoa, is she going to call one, in which case, good luck, OR, was this guy actually an Uber himself, in which case, he was out four hours for a simple fare? He tried to imagine being an Uber in this situation, and shuddered. But it wasn’t clear what she had yelled; it wasn’t his business either. His windows were rolled up. He avoided watching or getting involved.
Further back in the line people were standing and talking together, chatting or checking their phones. Occasionally cars, or in one case an ambulance, came up the shoulder. The shoulder was usually clear, it seemed, but Clark’s guess was that it wasn’t always clear. He considered using it himself. Shoot up the shoulder behind the ambulance and hope they let you off the road? People by and large weren’t even trying it.
Over in the westbound lanes, on the near side, a truck driver was talking on his phone in a very animated way. It even appeared as if he were quitting his job, saying he couldn’t take such a thing, couldn’t stand it another minute, but of course Clark couldn’t hear him, way over across the median where he was. Nevertheless, he was quite animated, and eventually walked around his truck and out of sight; Clark didn’t see him again.
Back to the “Uber” behind him: Now the guy got out. He wanted to protect his car, as she was hitting it hard enough to make actual dents, or it appeared that she might. She seemed to be trying to cause some damage. Now he was yelling at her too. He was heavy-set, not really a bad guy, Clark thought. He speculated about their relationship. Maybe they knew each other already, and it was over; one of them would run off into the night. But that wouldn’t really work. If they were from the area, they would probably know somebody; surely they had phones? But even if they could call, nobody could come. There were miles of woods in either direction, on the side of the road. Traffic was bottled up everywhere. Walking was the only way out. And there wasn’t much of anything, beyond the frontage road.
Clark chose to stay in the car, with it on, and listen to the radio, because he learned about the back roads and where things were worst, and in fact it was kind of a state-wide disaster. The MO-DOT was a kind of a bad word on this radio show, even though the radio host was trying to be fair and see both sides. The fact is, as someone pointed out, you can’t tell them what their priorities are, and if people are in ditches somewhere, with medical issues, that might be more important than all of these cars just standing out there on the open highway. But Clark soon realized, a lot of these drivers were pretty angry. It was warmer now. The roads were no longer frozen, at least not directly beneath them. He looked over at the frontage road, which appeared now to be not frozen at all; it had an occasional car that drove along just fine, unlike back in Columbia, where the frontage roads had many more accidents than the interstate. Here, it looked like clear sailing. But you couldn’t get over to it; the ditch between the interstate and the road was too steep. And where people had tried, clearly quite a few had failed. Best to sit still.
He thought for a while about those truckers, sitting there in traffic as he was, and staring at one of the barber-pole bumpers. Some, clearly, had jackknifed. Others had slowed to a crawl, lost the same amount of time that he did, and made it through. Quite a few, he could tell, had simply given up and pulled over for the night. Nobody wants to spend an extra six hours of overtime at any job, even one they like. But a big storm was coming, according to the radio, with more snow, and more ice; Clark stuck with the guy in front of him, who was at least still on the road, still pushing forward. Get where you’re going now. Choose to go south later. Clark vowed not to come back through Missouri if at all possible, and wished only to get through it this one time, or at least into St. Louis.
Clark had now spent some time staring outright at the couple behind him, and more time trying to avert his gaze, and find something else to look at. At one point the man had both the woman’s arms in his, trying to prevent her from pounding on the car. He pleaded with her. She was furious, even dressed up as she was, very animated, willing to fight, not afraid of anything. And she appeared to blame the guy for the mess she was in, unable to get somewhere, or stuck with a bad date, perhaps, in an endless traffic jam. That went on so long that Clark had looked away to avoid being the kind of neighbor that always watches a domestic quarrel. But now Clark looked back, and he didn’t see them anymore. Instead, the windows of the car were fogged up, and he couldn’t see anything. Perhaps they had made up when he wasn’t looking.
More surprisingly, the westbound lane cleared up; this was after about three and a half hours. The trucker who had walked around his truck had never reappeared, and that truck remained still, in its spot, and everyone had to go around it. Less than a half an hour later, Clark’s eastbound lanes, too, cleared up, and he went on his way, much to his own surprise. He glanced back at the red car, which did not start up right away. He sped up tentatively through Wentzville, and into St. Louis, which was wet, but smooth, certainly not dangerous roads. On the other side of the river, high on the bluffs on the Illinois side, there was more ice, but by now it was much later, and it was heavily salted. It was way past midnight. Clark remained confused about exactly why he’d lost six hours sitting on one of the busiest interstates in the Midwest, but he was sure it was jackknifes – he never did find out for sure, and he had never seen the MO-DOT, even once. But he was grateful he wasn’t dragging a semi-trailer around the corners, navigating the exits, or coming down the steep hills, or, God forbid, making right-angle turns to navigate around. The back roads, he was sure, were even worse than the ones he’d seen.
12-16
There was a frontage road, even in the city, but it was hilly, and this road was clearly covered with ice; several cars had wrecked trying to manage the hills, and others had stopped, where people had given up, trying to go up or down the icy hill. Wrecks were everywhere. One young woman with blue hair was totally distraught as she had skidded a new car into a guardrail. Cars’ flashing lights punctuated the drizzle. Ambulances could be heard in the distance. There was no sign of salt trucks anywhere.
As it got real slow Clark got solace from the radio, where they talked about people stranded in Columbia, trying to get across town; people cursed MO-DOT (the people who should have salted the roads, perhaps), but others defended them, saying that maybe they simply didn’t know it would happen. If a truck jackknifes, how does one know what to do? Or put it this way: with hundreds, if not thousands, of emergency calls, are they responsible for managing traffic as well as trying to salt roads, when it’s too late? It was clear that it had caught people by surprise. Some truckers had slowed down to a crawl on the steep hills before Columbia, but some simply hadn’t realized how fast it was freezing, or how quickly a clear road could turn to an icy one.
He mulled these questions over in his tiny car, glad that it handled well, and that he was comfortable; he had plenty of gas; he wasn’t hungry; he’d had plenty of coffee, and the Missouri countryside was actually quite beautiful, though mostly he was looking at these red-and-white barber pole bumpers of large trucks. It was not too scary, because the road itself was not icy. Once there was space between Clark and some other cars; this was near Columbia, and there, the road was quite slick, and he was afraid of sliding off like so many others had done. But mostly he was able to stick to the road, and the brakes worked fine. In his rearview mirror, which said “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear,” he noticed how close people got to him, and got nervous accordingly. He decided that that expression was kind of like the “feels like” and its relationship to the real temperature. Clark was a person who always was aware of the actual conditions: temperature, humidity, wind, even pressure. So he didn’t need to be told what it “feels like.” Similarly, if he saw something in the mirror, he was aware how far away it really was. So “closer than they appear” – what was that supposed to mean? He was annoyed whenever he was reminded of such things.
The drizzle continued right through Missouri, a fine rain being blown around by a gentle wind, and freezing the moment it landed, almost everywhere. It was not a strong rain; on the contrary, you hardly knew it was there, except that roads were unexpectedly slippery whenever they were empty for more than thirty seconds. Under those conditions, there was no point seeking shorter routes or back roads; according to the radio, all of Columbia was at a standstill. The interstate was clearly the best bet, and he stayed on it. Traffic remained touch-and-go, through the hills on the east of Columbia.
But at Wentzville, or just to the west of it, traffic stopped altogether, and didn’t start right up again. Now, it looked like everyone was going to just sit there, on the interstate, for a while. And, to his surprise, the westbound lanes were backed up too, and he could see that they were backed up at least ten miles, and probably much farther. In his own lanes, cars and trucks were going nowhere. Ahead of Clark was a truck; behind him a small red car; beside him, several pickups. It was now warmer; the fine drizzle was no longer freezing, and was even dying out altogether. He found another station on the radio. Hundreds of people were in a similar position, stuck, unable to get onto the frontage road (due to hills or ditches), in many cases afraid of the back roads, which were probably still frozen, and unable to get traffic moving in front of them. Clark at least was in no rush, though he had lost several hours, and it looked like he would be losing several more. He texted friends and family. He checked the news. He kept his eye on the bumper in front of him, which, like everything else, wasn’t moving.
There is a question of how far one should get from one’s car in this kind of situation. He was on the interstate, and it seemed reasonable to assume everyone would start up again, and would be going seventy at any minute, as soon as it all cleared up. On the other hand, they’d all been sitting there, what, an hour, two, three, going on four. As time went on, he saw people leaving their cars. In the red car behind him a young woman got out of the passenger seat, onto the side of the road, and started yelling back through what appeared to be an open window. She was an exotic woman, quite beautiful, wearing a red dress. She was angry at the driver and she even pounded on the car at one point. Clark heard her yell something about “Uber” and he thought, whoa, is she going to call one, in which case, good luck, OR, was this guy actually an Uber himself, in which case, he was out four hours for a simple fare? He tried to imagine being an Uber in this situation, and shuddered. But it wasn’t clear what she had yelled; it wasn’t his business either. His windows were rolled up. He avoided watching or getting involved.
Further back in the line people were standing and talking together, chatting or checking their phones. Occasionally cars, or in one case an ambulance, came up the shoulder. The shoulder was usually clear, it seemed, but Clark’s guess was that it wasn’t always clear. He considered using it himself. Shoot up the shoulder behind the ambulance and hope they let you off the road? People by and large weren’t even trying it.
Over in the westbound lanes, on the near side, a truck driver was talking on his phone in a very animated way. It even appeared as if he were quitting his job, saying he couldn’t take such a thing, couldn’t stand it another minute, but of course Clark couldn’t hear him, way over across the median where he was. Nevertheless, he was quite animated, and eventually walked around his truck and out of sight; Clark didn’t see him again.
Back to the “Uber” behind him: Now the guy got out. He wanted to protect his car, as she was hitting it hard enough to make actual dents, or it appeared that she might. She seemed to be trying to cause some damage. Now he was yelling at her too. He was heavy-set, not really a bad guy, Clark thought. He speculated about their relationship. Maybe they knew each other already, and it was over; one of them would run off into the night. But that wouldn’t really work. If they were from the area, they would probably know somebody; surely they had phones? But even if they could call, nobody could come. There were miles of woods in either direction, on the side of the road. Traffic was bottled up everywhere. Walking was the only way out. And there wasn’t much of anything, beyond the frontage road.
Clark chose to stay in the car, with it on, and listen to the radio, because he learned about the back roads and where things were worst, and in fact it was kind of a state-wide disaster. The MO-DOT was a kind of a bad word on this radio show, even though the radio host was trying to be fair and see both sides. The fact is, as someone pointed out, you can’t tell them what their priorities are, and if people are in ditches somewhere, with medical issues, that might be more important than all of these cars just standing out there on the open highway. But Clark soon realized, a lot of these drivers were pretty angry. It was warmer now. The roads were no longer frozen, at least not directly beneath them. He looked over at the frontage road, which appeared now to be not frozen at all; it had an occasional car that drove along just fine, unlike back in Columbia, where the frontage roads had many more accidents than the interstate. Here, it looked like clear sailing. But you couldn’t get over to it; the ditch between the interstate and the road was too steep. And where people had tried, clearly quite a few had failed. Best to sit still.
He thought for a while about those truckers, sitting there in traffic as he was, and staring at one of the barber-pole bumpers. Some, clearly, had jackknifed. Others had slowed to a crawl, lost the same amount of time that he did, and made it through. Quite a few, he could tell, had simply given up and pulled over for the night. Nobody wants to spend an extra six hours of overtime at any job, even one they like. But a big storm was coming, according to the radio, with more snow, and more ice; Clark stuck with the guy in front of him, who was at least still on the road, still pushing forward. Get where you’re going now. Choose to go south later. Clark vowed not to come back through Missouri if at all possible, and wished only to get through it this one time, or at least into St. Louis.
Clark had now spent some time staring outright at the couple behind him, and more time trying to avert his gaze, and find something else to look at. At one point the man had both the woman’s arms in his, trying to prevent her from pounding on the car. He pleaded with her. She was furious, even dressed up as she was, very animated, willing to fight, not afraid of anything. And she appeared to blame the guy for the mess she was in, unable to get somewhere, or stuck with a bad date, perhaps, in an endless traffic jam. That went on so long that Clark had looked away to avoid being the kind of neighbor that always watches a domestic quarrel. But now Clark looked back, and he didn’t see them anymore. Instead, the windows of the car were fogged up, and he couldn’t see anything. Perhaps they had made up when he wasn’t looking.
More surprisingly, the westbound lane cleared up; this was after about three and a half hours. The trucker who had walked around his truck had never reappeared, and that truck remained still, in its spot, and everyone had to go around it. Less than a half an hour later, Clark’s eastbound lanes, too, cleared up, and he went on his way, much to his own surprise. He glanced back at the red car, which did not start up right away. He sped up tentatively through Wentzville, and into St. Louis, which was wet, but smooth, certainly not dangerous roads. On the other side of the river, high on the bluffs on the Illinois side, there was more ice, but by now it was much later, and it was heavily salted. It was way past midnight. Clark remained confused about exactly why he’d lost six hours sitting on one of the busiest interstates in the Midwest, but he was sure it was jackknifes – he never did find out for sure, and he had never seen the MO-DOT, even once. But he was grateful he wasn’t dragging a semi-trailer around the corners, navigating the exits, or coming down the steep hills, or, God forbid, making right-angle turns to navigate around. The back roads, he was sure, were even worse than the ones he’d seen.
12-16
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
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