Drt
COPYRIGHT 2012
All Rights Reserved
The following is a work of fiction. Any similarity to any person, either living or dead is purely coincidental.
Other works by Eric Thomas:
Fall of the Citizens
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Eric Thomas on Twitter: @etflint
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1
The massive eighteen wheel truck raced out of Virginia, moving at an impossible pace for a piece of metal so large. It leaned to the right, passing an interchange to go north, the last chance to avoid fate. It was just past three thirty in the morning, and the driver was about to die.
I knew this because I was standing at the video wall on the fifteenth floor. The truck passed through a series of screens as if moving through the wall itself. But it tore down a real highway, only a few miles from where I stood. Leaves on surrounding trees waved goodbye to the truck as it passed, a natural reaction of the air in the wake of the truck rushing to fill the void.
The metal monster merged and sped up. Eighty-thousand pounds of energy traveling at sixty miles per hour, the truck was a missile. My mouth hung open and I made panic sounds as I flailed my arms. The truck was in the second lane from the left.
I worried because I knew what was ahead. The stalled car blocked a lane around a bend, out of sight. It didn’t have its flashers on.
It takes forty percent longer to stop an eighteen wheeler than a passenger car. Eighteen wheelers have only ten brakes, not eighteen. I was thinking of these things while I watched the truck speeding ahead. What happened next would depend on the driver’s reflexes. I’m the only one who knew and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, I could only watch. The truck shivered with energy when it shifted gears, speeding up on the straight, dark road.
There are always those moments that you never forget. Some people call them seminal moments. It’s that first time you tried steak or stayed out too late with your friends. It’s that first time you got drunk or you saw a naked woman in Playboy. Everyone has those moments, each one different from the others. Your reaction might be positive or negative or indifferent. Whatever the case, that reaction speaks volumes about who you are and what you’re going to be. I can certainly say that everything was different after I watched that truck in the monitors on the fifteenth floor of a nondescript office building.
I didn’t know then, but would learn later, that the man driving the truck was named Jerry Morris. I also learned he had other things on his mind that morning. In a few hours one of the nation’s biggest highways would close, they would hang yellow tape with block letters around the trees. There would be an investigation. Well, more than one.
But I didn’t know any of that while I watched the truck; the images looked like shooting stars through small green screens with that grimy quality, like opening your eyes in lake water. I crossed my fingers, hoping that I wasn’t about to watch a man die. I knew it was a man driving the truck, because I just got off the phone with him. I forgot to tell him about the car.
Wait…hold on. I’m not doing this right. My mother always told me that I wasn’t good at anything and I am proving her point right now. I know you want me to hurry, get to the part with the guns and the police and all that. That’s why you want to hear this story, because of what you saw on the news, but I’ve messed up and need to fix my mistake. This won’t take long; you need to know what my life was like back then. Only three short chapters of set up, I promise and then we will return to this point. I just need to go back one day.
2
“Greg?” said the disembodied voice, somewhere in the distance. I clawed at my ear, like a dog waving an uncommitted leg at an unconfirmed flea. My fingers found the plastic clamshell pressed against my head.
“Greg?”
A woman’s voice said my name like a question. I wasn’t asleep but unconscious. The ultra-comfy chair still supported my back like a cloud. I felt myself leaned back, headphones on, in a dim dank empty room. My systems began coming back online. To my left was a wall of monitors, some broadcasting the local television feeds, others showing scenes of empty intersections and stretches of highway with only the occasional set of murky headlights buzzing across the screen.
I was at work, and the revelation cracked across my thoughts like thunder as the woman’s voice said my name again, “Greg.” She wasn’t asking anymore but demanding.
I looked directly ahead of me. The microphone hung in front of my face point blank, its ridges resembling a basketball up close. To the right a bright red light told me all I needed to know. I was live on the air, broadcasting to millions, and I was unresponsive when they said my name.
I leapt forward, banging my face into the microphone with a thwap, my headphones fell off my head.
“On the Capital Beltway…um…I-495, there is…um…no traffic at this…this hour and there is some construction,” I shuffled through the papers in front of me. They could have been written in hieroglyphs, the sudden surge of panic had made reading impossible. “There were reports…of a crash near the Suitland Parkway, but…no, wait that was yesterday. Um, no reports of any incidents at the Frederick Douglass Bridge that we here in the traffic center have been made aware of. The 14th Street Bridge is…um…fine. I guess.”
I silently slid my headphones back onto my head. At some point in the broadcast I guess they heard enough because the anchor was reading a weather forecast through gritted teeth.
How humiliating. I had never fallen asleep on the air before. It was a question I got all the time when I worked overnight traffic. People wondered how I stayed awake from 9PM to 5AM. Well, not that I actually talked to anyone back in those days, but I am getting ahead of myself.
I pulled the plastic headphones off with a shudder. This was not good. I just embarrassed myself on DC’s most listened to station. I was late when they came to me, and when I started talking I didn’t make sense. People in radio are often fired for far less. Those who work behind the microphone are dismissed on a whim; if a single person doesn’t like your inflection on a word or the tonality of a person’s voice, you could be gone. It doesn’t matter if you have success, seniority or loyalty. You can be out the door tomorrow because there is an endless line of eager faces tapping their feet and waving their hands to replace you.
The last thing you ever want to do is give your bosses cause to fire you. I didn’t just give them a reason. I broadcasted that reason through 100,000 watts to countless cars and homes in the nation’s capital.
The phone rang angry. I picked it up, “Traffic Center.”
“What happened?” said the producer with malice in his voice.
“I-I don’t know.” It was true. I had no explanation other than the fact that it was a new chair that had afforded far too much relaxation. I stood up with the phone in my hand and kicked the cursed cushion out from under me. It wheeled into the anchor desk behind mine.
“Greg,” he began, irritated and choosing his words carefully. “We cannot keep having…a problem…from your end.”
“I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“I collect your apology. Make an effort to…not be a problem in the future.”
“I will,” I said. I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I might skate on this.
“However,” he said, “Bob will need to be informed.”
My heart sank. He was going to call my boss. I wanted to object but I knew it was useless. Producers have no mercy. They enter the broadcasting industry with plans to be on the microphone and in smaller markets are often considered the ‘up and comers’, but by the time they make it to DC they have realized their lisp, lack of personality, or other myriad limitations will never allow a career beyond the producer’s desk. This particular producer, whose name I never learned, had no incisors, which forced him to choose words without ‘s’ or ‘th’ sounds. He spoke so slowly that listening to him was painful.
“I’m regretful,” he said, as if through an incisor-less smile. “To have to tell Bob but I am deprived of another option.”
“I understand,” I said.
He hung up. He sounded like he was chuckling as he did so.
I was still standing in the traffic center as I lowered the phone to the cradle. I grabbed an older, less comfortable chair from the terminal next to me and sat down.
My chin sank to my chest. I tried to steady my breathing. My boss had grounds to fire me and I had no idea how this would work out. My stomach flipped a couple of times as spots settled in my vision.
I decided I should get up and do my side work, to take my mind off the growing worry. The traffic studio was state of the art 25 years ago. Now it was basically a darkened cave with carpet that had been trod heavily, worn to the rubber backing beneath. The exposed floor reflected the dull florescent light, giving the room the look of the inside of a refrigerator. A large expanse of monitors populated the far wall and all around the studio were microphones hanging off arms like desk lamps; every single microphone its own terminal broadcasting to some random radio station on the East coast. Stations subscribe to traffic services so they don’t have to pay to generate their own. It saves money and gives stations a check in the box (’WE OFFER UP TO THE MINUTE TRAFFIC’) but it means you are getting information from someone who has most likely never visited the town you live in, and has absolutely no idea if there is traffic or not.
I got up and walked to the studio for Norfolk, VA. I grabbed the handset and pushed the gray button marked ‘POLICE’.
“Norfolk Police, what’s your emergency?”
“This is Greg Harris at the traffic center, do you have-”
“Nope, we’ve got nothing.”
“Well, thank you,” I said, but he had hung up. I got up, walked to the Richmond, VA studio. I pushed the gray button marked ‘POLICE’.
“Richmond Police, what’s your emergency?”
“This is Greg Harris at the traffic center, do you have-”
“Nope, we’ve got nothing.”
“Well, thank you,” I said as he hung up.
I did the same for Baltimore, Raleigh, Greensboro, and various other cities that I still to this day have never been. I walked back to my DC terminal with five minutes to go until my next report. As I sat down, the phone rang.
“Traffic Center.”
“Hi, is this the Traffic Center?”
“Yes.”
“Can I lodge a complaint?”
“A complaint? Sure,” I said.
“Well, I have noticed several people riding in the left lane tonight.”
“Okay.”
“You are only supposed to pass in that lane, so I was wondering if you could call someone?”
“Call someone?”
“Yes, I was wondering if these people could be arrested?”
“For driving in the left lane?”
“Yes. I mean, what if an ambulance comes along?”
“Was the driver blocking an emergency vehicle?”
“No. Not really.”
“Not really?”
“Well, I didn’t see one tonight but I was thinking about it while I was driving.”
“…”
“I just realized that it was a problem and I thought I could ask you to do something about it because these people are a danger to me…and…the children.”
“I’ll pass it along.”
“Wait, when is this going to happen? Is it going to start tomorrow?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“How will I know when it starts? Because, you know, just in case I do it.”
“I’m sure we’ll let you know if it does.” Taking these absurd calls is part of the job.
“Okay, great. That’s great. Thanks!”
I went back to listening to the commercials through my headphones. Some man talked about a fancy rug cleaning service. There must be a lot of fancy rugs around these days, I thought. The anchor came back from commercial, “It’s 2:08!” The chime blared, my signal to start talking. I read my list of road construction live to the radios of thousands of truckers, gas station attendants, and cab drivers.
When you work overnight traffic, you live a life of constant repetition. In the summer, you read lists of road construction. In the winter, weather conditions. From 9pm to 5am, you do the same things, say the same things, over and over, day after day, broadcasting to millions but you are alone.
It’s an act of strength to ignore the feeling that you’re drowning with no one around to hear the sounds of struggle.