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eah, I got it. ”
My phone rang, and I rolled up my window. I wiped rain off my face and checked the phone’s display; the call was coming from home. Lu and Dave watched more TV than I did, and probably were calling to warn me about the closings.
I ignored the phone. Now I had a challenge.
I was probably a couple of miles from the river, but I knew a whole lot of back roads, and I’d told Jamie I’d meet him in half an hour.
My first thought was to try the long way around, via the Chickamauga Dam—but if the dam was having issues, I could safely bet they’d shut down driving over that spot, too. The cop said they’d closed the Veterans Bridge. That left the Olgiati and Market Street bridges, but since those were within a mile of the closed one, they’d be jam-packed or shut down as well.
I felt stupid, but beyond those three arteries I had no earthly idea how to get across the water. I’d never needed another route before. How far around the city would I have to drive? Chattanooga doesn’t have a ferry or anything, so it wasn’t like I could chase down a boat.
Well, there was always the chance I could chase down a private craft; but I’d have to get next to the water for that.
I tried to imagine all the boats I could think of, and they all docked in approximately the same place on the north bank—down by the pedestrian bridge. But if I could make it down to the pedestrian bridge, then I could walk across the river myself. It’s less than a mile.
The more I pondered the plan, the better I liked it. The cops would be busy chasing cars, and the bike cops would have better sense than to patrol the bridge in that weather. Who on earth would be trying to walk it, anyway? Only a damn fool.
But I happened to know that at the end of that bridge, on the other side, there was a set of cement runoff tunnels down at the river’s edge. And down there, under the city and up beneath the banks, there might be proof of something horrible. And there might be a dumb punk drowning.
I didn’t know how high he could crawl in those tunnels, but I knew there were several “up” vents here and there with rusty metal ladders heading up to the street. But those street entrances were often locked or covered with manholes too heavy to budge without equipment.
I didn’t want to think about it. I just had to get there. But the prospect was daunting: traffic had become a Gordian knot, and every stray off-road was getting clogged with people who had the same bright idea I did. There are a lot of back ways to reach a destination around here, but the trouble is, everybody knows all those back roads too.
Finally—and well past my thirty minute meeting command—I worked my slow, aggravating way through a north Chattanooga neighborhood and came out near Frasier Avenue, the old warehousing district-turned-tourist strip.
I’d never seen so many cars there.
I’d been out for the big Riverbend music festival and thought that was bad, but this was insane. Cars were stopped in every available street, corner, and curb—jammed into parking lots, halfway onto sidewalks, and parked on people’s yards wherever private houses met the shopping district. Everyone was trying to turn around, which was almost perfectly impossible.
“Oh God. ” I said it out loud, for no one to hear. I’d really done it this time. There was no leaving, and no going forward. I’d stopped at the top of a hill, and I still had a tiny bit of wiggle room between the curious and desperate cars, but my window was closing fast as people crushed themselves as close to the water’s edge as they could get.
I thought about my almost-apartment a few blocks away, and wondered how it was faring. I thought of Christ down in the runoff. And I thought of Greyfriar’s, and the stores, and the boats, and the bridges.
I could run for it. I could find a place to leave the car and make a dash for it. The path to the river was straight downhill and only a matter of blocks.
It was hard to see what was going on down there. The chaos had reached some kind of critical mass, and police were chasing or arresting everyone within arm’s reach, or that’s what it looked like. Down closer to the water, people were starting to turn back—abandoning cars and retreating to the tree-filled neighborhoods up the hills.
My windshield wipers slapped a nerve-wracking rhythm as they barely managed to swipe the glass clear for a split second at a time.
“This is going to suck,” I said to no one in particular, though it was followed by an apology. “Okay, little Death Nugget. I’m going to have to find a place to leave you for a while. It won’t be so bad,” I assured it. “Up here on the hill, it’s not like you’re going to get flooded. Worst case scenario? You get towed and I’ll have to pay a big fat fine to get you back. ”
But really, what were the chances that a tow truck was going to make it into north Chattanooga any time in the next few days?
I peered through the sheets of rain sliding over my windows and figured, “Not any time soon. ” Cars were crushed together, fender to fender, on every street that was not obscured by trees or buildings. People were standing outside their vehicles swearing and shouting, making threats, and starting fights—which only rarely drew the attention of the overwhelmed police presence.
Behind me, cars were clogging the roadways. If I didn’t pull over and switch off now, I’d be stuck in the lane where I idled. A truck in front of me gave up and pulled up the curb onto what looked like the yard of an old apartment building, but the neighborhoods up there are so jumbled it was hard to tell.
Since he’d set the precedent, I did likewise, compelling my small black compact to hike the curb and take to the grass.
From the minimally higher vantage point of somebody’s grass, I spied a parking lot catty-cornered from the block. It was full, but people were still turning into it as if they could make a complicated U-turn and find their way back home by nightfall.
It wasn’t going to happen.
Too many abandoned cars and too many angry, confused people.
I added my own car to the pile, zipping over the soggy grass, down one curb, over a sidewalk, and up a second curb. This put me in the back part of the lot, where, behind a pair of monster SUVs, there was a small open space where a little black car fit perfectly.
I hadn’t even gotten the keys out of the ignition before someone whipped in behind me and blocked me there, but it didn’t really matter. This was a vehicular suicide mission and we all knew it. No one was leaving by car today.
