SPLAT CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT, PART TWO

Suzie got on the Connector behind Jerry and followed him up 85, weaving in and out using her best driving skills to sneak up on him in the rain. But he was a road hog, and loved the left lane. She found it hard to keep pace with him, but a series of fortunate slowdowns prevented him from getting too far ahead. It was the start of rush hour. In all this rain, it was going to be one hell of a rush hour.

5:14 pm. Six miles southwest of Suzie, Michelle Robineaux was cruising down I-85 in her minivan, a Christian audiobook playing at top volume. She was driving fast, as she usually did, hanging out in the left lane, running people off the road like she was in a hurry to be somewhere. Michelle was driving from Raleigh, North Carolina to New Orleans, going down to visit her latest grandchild. She was well rested, despite having spent the night in some fleabag hotel halfway between Charlotte and Greenville. She was taking her time, and had all evening to get west of Montgomery before stopping again.

Right now she was occupied taking pictures of all the interesting sights as she traveled through the city. She had her camera on her lap, and every now and then she would grab it in her right hand, swing it up, and press the shutter release, hoping to capture something that caught her interest. Being a digital camera, it would miss most of her shots while the computer thought about the settings. Most of the pictures would turn out blurry, and those that didn’t would show perfectly focused shots of the raindrops on her window.

She was listening to something she’d ordered from the 700 Club: Women Who Make the World Worse: And How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports. She found it very convincing, and she was gripping the wheel with a fist while taking notes on a pad of paper resting on the airbag.

Michelle had been driving like this for years now. She was over seventy, and considered herself one of the best drivers in America. In her youth, people told her she should have been a race car driver, but of course, that’s a man’s job, so she never took them seriously. But she did enjoy displaying her skills. The fact that her vision and hearing were going did not diminish her ability to drive at all.

Right now she was behind some slowpoke in the left lane, impatient for him to move out of her way. She crept up onto his bumper and flashed her lights, but he ignored her, so she got closer still, and honked. Still no response. So she kept it up, getting annoyed at the guy for being so inattentive, asking God to move him out of her righteous path. She would have cursed him, but she wasn’t mad enough yet.

Michelle was very religious. The only thing she ever read was the Bible. She kept sneaking peeks at the juicy parts, though it filled her with guilt. If you’d dropped her Good Book on the floor, it would have fallen open at Judges 19:24-29, or the story of Amnon and Tamar, or of Lot and his daughters, or her favorite, the Song of Solomon.

She was still in the left lane as 85 and 75 joined at Brookwood. Traffic slowed dramatically. She was listening with great interest as her tape exposed the horrible excesses of women who didn’t keep their place, and her ire was rising.

She crept up on the bumper of the inconsiderate jerk who was blocking her way. ‘In the name of Jesus, move the hell out of my way,’ she shouted, full of righteous indignation. Slowly the car moved over to let her pass. But the tape said something inflammatory just then, and she got busy writing it down on her pad of paper, unconsciously matching speed with the driver she was trying to pass. The car behind her began flashing its lights, and she got annoyed. What’s wrong with him?

Michelle felt thirsty and reached for her coffee mug. The coffee was cold, so she lowered the window and threw it out. It splashed milky white onto the window of the car behind her, which swerved and slowed, honking. She cursed the driver to a fiery death, in the name of God’s merciful justice.

Holding the steering wheel with her knees, she reached onto the floor of the passenger seat and grabbed the thermos bottle. She looked up and jerked her minivan back on course. She put the thermos between her thighs while unscrewing the cap. Then, holding her mug in her left hand, and hooking onto the steering wheel with a finger, she poured herself another cup of coffee. She drifted into the next lane. The car next to her honked and slowed. Michelle understood why people said Atlanta drivers were so rude. She took a sip of steaming hot coffee. Happy now, she returned her attention to her audiobook. Wives should submit to their husbands in all things.

There was downtown Atlanta spread out before her, the tops of all the new skyscrapers lost in the mist. Holding the coffee in her left hand, she reached for her camera with her right. Holding the steering wheel with both pinky fingers, she aimed her shot, but unfortunately some Antichrist in the next lane chose that moment to honk at her and swerve away, and she became distracted. The shot blurred.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Her windshield wipers squealed for rain. She drove with unfocused eyes, drinking coffee, listening to the words of Truth, every moment tempted to snatch up her pen and make a note. Her mind was full of thoughts. Michelle had long ago taught herself to multitask. She found it no trouble at all to do five things at once. In fact, the more she had on her plate, the sharper her mind got, the swifter her reactions.

Just then, her cellphone rang. It was somewhere on the passenger seat, buried under the pad of paper, sandwiched between her Bible, a bag of half-eaten chips, and the can of mace she kept to ward off attackers. She fumbled for it as her minivan rounded the Marta curve. Her car yawed way out into the next lane, to a chorus of angry honks and obscene gestures. Michelle cast her condemning eyes on the offenders, corrected her position with a jerk, and raised the phone to her ear with her left hand, struggling to hold her coffee mug with her pointer finger while balancing the phone in her palm.

It was Michelle’s daughter-in-law, calling to find out where she was. At first her eyes darted actively about the road, consciously paying attention, showing that she was better than most people at not being distracted by phone conversations. But then she started thinking about how annoying she found her daughter-in-law, how unchristian her son’s family was, how she was planning to baptize her grandson secretly when his parents weren’t looking. Her eyes glazed over. She didn’t notice the cop behind her trying to get past. She was thinking how that hussy gave every sign of being possessed by a demon.

A truck passed her on the right, hissing at her as it threw up a fine mist onto her windshield. ‘Demon from Hell,’ she shouted. She had to let go the wheel with her right hand, still holding the camera, and reach through it to activate the wipers. They were on the Grady Curve. Her bitch daughter-in-law was warning her they had rules for her to follow, insinuating that they didn’t trust her to behave herself. This made her furious. She didn’t notice the cop’s lights go on, only partly because she was using her jaw to hold the phone to her shoulder and couldn’t turn her head.

Her daughter in law was Satan’s spawn, and it was time to perform a deliverance ministry on her. ‘You are possessed by the devil,’ she foamed, beginning an impromptu exorcism. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ crucified, I adjure you to leave this unclean body. Direct your power to this sinner. Drive Satan, this unclean demon within her, away. I command you, demon, whoever you may be, by the power of God.’ She went to make a mystical sign she thought she’d seen Pat Robertson make on TV. ‘I cast you out in the name of Jesus the Destroyer of Lies,’ she said into the phone. ‘I praise you Jesus…’

She suddenly felt suffused with the Power of the Holy Spirit. Her hands shook. Her vision clouded. She dropped everything to praise the Lord. She spilled coffee all over herself. She dropped the phone. Her hands left the wheel and raised to the sky in supplication and praise. She started speaking in tongues. She took her foot off the accelerator.

The cop behind her got on the loudspeaker and told her to pull over. She felt the voice as a vibration going through her chest. Believing she was being thanked by Jesus Christ, her personal lord and savior, Michelle Robineaux prayed in glorious glossolalia as her car drifted across two lanes, sideswiped a Krispy Kreme van, flipped, rolled, and burst into flames.

Traffic on the southbound Connector stopped dead in the road, as parts of her car covered six lanes, and avoidance-accidents filled the rest. Traffic on the northbound side stopped dead in the road in a big pileup, as rubberneckers paid attention to the fire and brimstone and ignored the brakelights in front of them. It was an unholy mess.

Suzie was stuck in traffic going the opposite direction and miles north, still fairly confident that she was following Jerry. The traffic was diabolical all the way to 400. One car moved at a time, and then stopped. Like dominoes on acid. It was taking forever. The rain was to blame. The standing water stalled some cars, other cars overheated, and there were fender benders as people tried to jockey for better lanes. She passed them all at a snail’s pace. A drowned snail.

Suzie peered through the rain at the cars ahead. All she could see were tail lights and shadowy boxes in the thick, heavy, visible air. The wind swept the rain into curlycues and tendrils of moving atmosphere. The cars were cutting through standing water on the road. Nobody was going more than 12 miles an hour. She kept looking for Jerry’s BMW, and kept not seeing it.

5:27 pm. Fifteen miles to the west, Jimmy James (‘JJ’) Jackson was driving around Atlanta on 285, coming from Roswell. He was going around the west side of town to take I-20 to his next stop, a Shell station on MLK Drive. He was driving a Mack MR cab-over truck, hauling gasoline. It was starting to rain again, the road was slick, and the four-wheelers were all driving like assholes.

Cars and trucks were backed up on the right to take the I-20 exit westbound, so JJ moved over, and over again to position himself for the left exit onto 20 eastbound, maintaining a safe distance between him and the car in front of him. As they approached the I-20 overpass, a four-wheeler traveling beside him suddenly sped up and pulled right in front of him, as if the driver didn’t see him. JJ peered through the back window and saw the driver flailing her hands. Then he saw her turn around and gesture into the back seat. Then she slammed on the brakes, in the grip of some emergency.

JJ carried out evasive maneuvers, consisting of swearing impotently and braking as gently as he could to avoid jacknifing on the wet road. He was tempted to just drive right over the idiot, but then he spotted a baby carrier in the back seat, and had no choice but to veer off onto the shoulder. He was doing fifty-eight when he hit the bridge abutment.

JJ Jackson was killed instantly. The tanker, weighing 56,000 pounds, smashed him to jelly as it followed him into the concrete bridge, and then blew up. All lanes of I-285 in both directions stopped dead in the road as truck pieces scattered like burning shrapnel. Above, all lanes of I-20 stopped dead in the road as huge cracks opened up in the bridge surface and flames shot through them. Smoke rose like an atomic cloud into the air. The rain increased, but did nothing to lessen the intensity of the flames.

5:31 pm. Sixteen miles away, Suzie decided that Jerry was going to take Georgia 400, and followed, still crawling thru a downpour. Suddenly she made out the bumper sticker on a BMW that moved in front of her, and realized with a thrill that she’d caught up to the bastard. He got into the left lane, driving aggressively, if slowly. He pulled away, but she was confident now.

5:34 pm. The airborne rush hour was every bit as bad as rush hour on the ground. Twenty miles east of ATL airport, Flight 666 from DCA, a 727 three-quarters full, was on final approach. Conditions were marginal. Light rain, patchy ground fog, scattered clouds at 1,000 feet; an overcast cloud layer at 2,000 feet and thunderstorm anvils to 40,000 feet. Gusting crosswinds to sixty-five knots. The tower informed the pilot that the whole area was under a wind advisory, and tornadoes had been reported up and down the path of one of the larger feeder bands.

A hurricane churning northwards past Atlanta goes like this: gusty winds, low clouds, and torrential rain for awhile, followed by gusty winds, hot sun, and instant fog as the air steams right up like someone’s focusing the sun with a magnifying glass, followed by another line of thunderstorms. There was a recent storm cell cruising north away from the airport at speed, and another cell in Fayetteville heading toward the airport. Flight 666 was positioned to come in during the lull between one cell and another.

Even in a hurricane, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was open for business, planes dodging the thunderheads on their way in and out. The busiest airport in the world, the airport too busy to close. It might be gusty and rainy with nine inches of rain forecasted, but that was a lot better than anything west or south of there. All over the Southeast, flights were being diverted and schedules were being tossed into the trash. Incoming air traffic was stacked up thirty thick, flying procedure turns all the way up to Charlotte, with barely the required three miles between them, all traveling at 150 knots, all getting lower and closer, all coming in to land. And more behind them, all flying into a headwind that gobbled up their fuel like nobody’s business.

The aircraft passed into range of the ILS beacon at the end of the runway. That’s an electronic marker that sends out a very narrow beam three degrees up and to either side of the runway. The closer planes get to the beacon, the more accurate the reading on the beam. However, there was a little problem with Flight 666. The aircraft was not getting the ILS signal, but the plane’s internal navigation computer said they were right on target, lined up on the final approach, getting lower and closer.

The pilot and copilot spent time looking for a visual, but it was soup out there. It was like flying through bunches of cotton candy, playing peekaboo with the ground. Ground so dark under the clouds that you couldn’t see any features. Ground so obscured by rain that even the lights grayed out. They kept flying lower and closer.

The clouds broke up as they approached, and for a moment they saw the runway. The pilot adjusted his heading slightly until it was right in front of the nose. However, the computer still indicated that the runway should be slightly to the north, so he and the copilot feverishly tried to identify the error and make a correction so the instruments would agree with their eyes.

He called in. ‘Tower, I see the runway.’

‘Do you have the runway in sight?’

‘Uh, yepper.’

‘It has stopped raining temporarily. You’re cleared for visual approach.’

‘Uh, be advised we are low on fuel.’

‘Copy, so is everyond else..’

The pilot kept checking out of his window. Clouds clouds clouds Runway clouds clouds Runway clouds clouds. Lower and closer, lower and closer. ‘Where’s that cone?’ he demanded. ‘We’re not getting the signal. We’re supposed to be right there.’

Four miles. Constant pressure on the stick was beginning to cramp up the pilot’s hand. For a moment, they thought they saw runway 8/26 through the clouds at ten o’clock. This satisfied and comforted them, because they knew that if there was another runway to their right, then they must be heading for the south runway. And there it was again, so all was well. But it was strange, because they couldn’t see the terminal lined up between runways. They couldn’t see runway lights. Maybe there was a power outage.

Three miles. Though they had intermittent visual identification of the airport, they were still not picking up the runway beacon, so something was wrong. Their eyes reassured them every few seconds that they were heading right toward the runway, but they weren’t getting confirmation. Their error checks were getting more frantic and desperate. Lower and closer. Lower and closer. The copilot reached to contact the tower.

Two miles. The computer kept insisting that the plane was outside of the glide path. Either the aircraft was left, right, or somehow too high. But it was time to land, and a last view out the windscreen confirmed that the runway was right there. So the pilot pulled the flaps back and dropped the landing gear.

The pilot was certain of his visual on runway 9R/27L. They were now below a thousand feet . The aircraft dropped down through the clouds, which tore away in patches. He started to see lights, the ground, and suddenly it all unfolded beneath him, with absolute clarity. The runway, eight hundred feet down, a mere mile and a half in front of him, the airport lights, the neighborhoods and roads they were flying over. The runway disappeared back into the clouds. The pilot adjusted power, aiming straight ahead, lower and closer.

One mile. The crew was real busy doing stuff in the cockpit. There was a lot of noise and concentration and frantic figuring going on, and they didn’t really hear the tower screaming at them over the radio. They were doing fifteen things at once. They weren’t even looking out at the ground anymore. When things go crazy, sometimes you miss a few steps.

Then the clouds were gone and the runway was below, and so they went roaring on in there, and it was too late to do anything about it when they saw that everything was wrong. All sorts of things were different from your typical 9,000 foot runway – there were no lights, no markings, no skid marks, no concrete, Instead, they found themselves landing on top of a pretend runway, a faux runway, a phantom runway, a soon-to-be completed runway. A runway made out of a pile of dirt, shaved flat, and left to erode in the rain.

The pilot was still flying right at it, however, lower and closer. And because his brain knew it was the runway, he was still flying right at it. He didn’t have a lot of choice. The aircraft was two hundred feet off the ground, they were close to stall speed, they were too low on gas to call a missed approach and go around again. So while his copilot screamed incoherently at the tower, the pilot put his aircraft on the ground. As gently as possible.

The first few moments went really well. The construction had gotten to a point where the dirt subsurface of the runway-to-be was packed and polished smooth, a giant dirt road. It was pretty muddy at the moment, however, because of the six and a half inches of rain the hurricane was in the middle of dumping on top of Atlanta.

The wheels fouled with mud, and started skidding, and then collapsed, and the plane flopped into the mud, still sliding faster than most cars could drive. Belly down in the mud, like some giant dog, the plane slid down the runway while the pilot tried to steer with the engines. The plane crept ever so slightly to the right as it slowed. Against all odds, it looked like it might work out. The men in the cockpit were extremely tense, every muscle straining, every hand clenched, every thought ending with, ‘Oh, fuck.’ Fractions of a second crept by as the pilots watched the muddy red simulacra of a runway whirr past.

Even if they couldn’t hear over the noise of the plane scraping through the mud, the pilots were marginally aware that there was horrible pandemonium going on back in the cabin as passengers panicked, all the sinners said, ‘Oh, fuck,’ and absolutely everyone hurled prayers back into the sky as if the plane could follow them.

Slowly, the plane slowed. Both pilots had their feet jammed to the floor, as if trying to brake a semi on a sheet of ice, down to body english and elbow grease and willpower and prayer. It was plowing more toward the right, and the pilots got a better view of the construction site as the plane turned sideways, and continued to skid down the pretend runway.

The copilot reached for the microphone to say something reassuring to the passengers as the plane slowed to a gentle slide, but just then the left wing tip, at that point the leading edge of the plane, began to dig into the dirt of the artificial hill that the runway was being built on top of. With the sound of a shovel prying up roots, the wingtip sliced into the dirt. Then the whole plane flexed and pulled its wing back out of the ground. The fuselage rolled as the plane bounced to its other side, rocking until the opposite wing touched the ground, and rocking back again.

The second time the leading edge of the wingtip sliced into the surface of the runway, it hit a hole. A rather large hole. The left wing of the aircraft went through a missing section of runway. Instead of a hundred feet of bridge to slide safely over, there was a sudden 60 foot drop from the edge of this missing chunk to the surface of I-285 below.

The tip hit the road surface and stopped abruptly. The plane’s wing flexed sharply, and then rebounded slowly, taking passengers and crew through a half gainer. The aircraft bounded into the air, its right wing pointing straight up at ninety degrees. It balanced for a very long split second on its wingtip, and then tilted over, and came gently – for a million-ton aircraft – to rest, leaning up against the side of the hole, the left wing stuck in the eastbound lanes of the tunnel, the fuselage twenty feet off the surface of the soon-to-be-completed runway, mostly upside down, and the right wing waving back and forth hundreds of feet above the westbound lanes of 285.

The tail was out over the other side of the runway, hanging by its cables. The plane was suspended there, cracked open at the seams. The passengers could see daylight above their feet. They were on their backs, strapped in upside down. The tail snapped off and fell onto the Perimeter. The rest of the plane shifted ominously. The rain picked up.

5:43 pm. Traffic on the westbound side of I-285 stopped dead in the road at the sight of a huge jet plane facing them like some bomber from hell. Drivers panicked, causing a forty-eight vehicle pileup. Unhurt motorists stopped and got out of their vehicles to stand in the pouring rain, staring up in amazement, taking pictures with their cellphones and calling 911.

The captain reached for the intercom. He put a jauntiness into his voice that made the copilot blush. ‘Well, folks, looks like we had a bit of a bumpy landing. I’d like to apologize for putting us down a little farther from the terminal than expected. Right now our capable flight crew will see you safely off the plane, and we’ll have you reunited with your luggage in no time. On behalf of the crew and myself, we hope you enjoyed your flight.’

138 passengers were upside down in their seats. Flight attendants started trying to open the cabin doors and get the emergency chutes switched around opposite their suggested positions . In the cockpit, the pilots were busy shutting down the equipment.

138 passengers dropped and rolled and were picked up off the ceiling of the aircraft, or turned summersaults over their seat belts, or dangled upside down until they were released into waiting arms. Lines formed for the chutes. There was very little talking. Overhead bins had all come loose underfoot, and some alert passengers managed to find their carry-ons.

The flight attendants would get special awards later. They were tight, trained, and keeping it all together. Passengers were deplaning as fast as they could be unfastened, turned upright and shoved out the door.

The crash victims stood huddling in the rain and wind at the foot of the chute. News helicopters began bobbing above their heads. They could see the lights of emergency vehicles bogged down in the mud of the almost completed runway. The passengers were silent, stunned, waiting meekly, lucky to be alive and really glad to be off the giant plastic slide that was held in place with velcro. It took under two minutes to empty the equipment.

The flight crew abandoned the plane only after the last passenger went down the chute into the wind and rain. A feeble cheer went up from the passengers when they appeared at the plane’s mostly upside down door.

The crew began herding passengers away from the aircraft, faces bowed to avoid the rain, slogging carefully through the mud to be rescued. Rescue vehicles were bogged down completely in the muck, a quarter of a mile away.

Brave drivers in the far right lanes of 285 westbound began to creep along the shoulder, trying to get into the tunnel and resume their journeys. But most people turned their engines off and gawked up at the nose and the slowly oscillating wing of the crashed airplane.

The rocking of the fuselage had never ceased, and now a combination of wind and weight began to pull the plane over, making a great gnashing sound. Passengers and crew fled the scene leaving shoes and carry-on bags stuck in the mud. Drivers standing around the mouth of the tunnel scurried back into the shadows. The fuselage came farther over the edge. It began to tilt; it began to teeter right at the edge of the bridge, the top wing yawing out over the stopped vehicles below. Stuck travelers heading westbound sat there in their cars, mesmerized.

And then, with one long metal screech, like ten thousand fingers on a blackboard the size of Turner Field, the aircraft slowly pirouetted and bowed its head, both wings coming to rest across the rim of the bridge, bAllencing on their leading edges as the airplane’s black nosecone came to rest straight down, and the back end of the fuselage stuck straight up into the air. Like a cartoon plane crash, stopped in the air mere feet off the ground.

5:47 pm. The rain let up to a drizzle. Low clouds raced across the sky heading due north. Wind pushed and prodded the wet, weary passengers as they stumbled toward the flashing lights.

Thirteen miles north, Suzie was just creeping past the exit to Lenox Mall, afraid maybe Jerry would have gotten off there. But she spotted him heading up the road at the last minute, and continued her slow-motion pursuit.

Uncle Daddy was driving around the bottom end of the Perimeter heading for 75 South, taking a load of auto parts to Macon. He was having some trouble driving in the rain; the rig was handling sluggishly in all the water, he could feel the load shifting every time he took a curve, and his stopping distance was enormous. He cursed all the silly little ants in four-wheelers that kept squeezing in front of him. Traffic kept coming to a stop, every mile or so. It had been stop and go all the way around the Perimeter because of the rain, because of construction, because of rush hour.

As he entered the new 285 runway tunnel, and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that something was very wrong. First he noticed what looked like an enormous knife blocking the tunnel’s exit. Then he noticed a great deal of mud on the road surface. And cars stuck in it, pointing every which way. Uncle Daddy braked to a smooth stop with only a slight skidding of his trailer. He was rear-ended by a four-wheeler trying to stop, but there was no damage to his Kenworth. Cars pulled to a stop behind them, causing more crashes as traffic stopped dead on the road in the almost-completed bridge tunnel.

5:54 pm. Traffic had been stopped below the crash scene for eleven minutes. A new feeder band had moved over the area, and the wind and rain picked up until you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. The traffic jam gurgled and regurgitated around the Perimeter like a snake with constipation.

The flow around the bottom end of the Perimeter stopped, choked to death at the south end of the airport. Vehicles came to a stop further and further along 285 every moment. Traffic coming both ways along 75 was affected next, and the right lanes backed up as drivers were prevented from exiting onto the Perimeter. Then traffic coming up from 85 South jammed at the entrance to 285.

Northbound travelers started to encounter massive brake light zones as they made their way past exits onto the Perimeter. A fender-bender occurred in the middle lanes of I-85 South at the 285 East exit, and while the drivers were inspecting the damage, another fender bender occurred a hundred yards to the rear. This narrowed the road down to one left lane. On I-75 South, a tanker carrying septic sludge grazed a Dodge Ram maneuvering past the exit to 285 West, and jackknifed, car after car impacting its side as it slowly came to a halt, sewage spreading out and beginning to dilute in the rain. All lanes were now blocked on 75 South. Several injuries were reported.

6:00 pm. Seventeen minutes after Flight 666 came down on the wrong runway, the northbound lanes of both 75 and 85 were barely creeping past the exits to the Perimeter. Traffic was slow in all lanes all the way from Union City on 85, and Tara Boulevard on 75. The Connector into town had palsy, as cars shuddered to a stop further and further away from the rapture of Michelle Robineaux.

As the rainy rush hour continued, more and more motorists tried to get from Downtown where they worked, to some point outside the Perimeter where they lived. More and more motorists came around a bend in the rain and saw completely stopped traffic in front of them, put their brakes on, and came to a halt while the cars behind them came to a halt, and the cars behind them, and the cars behind them.

6:05 pm. Traffic came to a stop at Spaghetti Junction on 85 North, and just before Cobb Parkway on 75 North. The top end Perimeter came to a creaking, splintering halt as car after car slammed into car after car. This kind of jam happened every day, but as luck would have it, it was complicated by a fresh twelve-car pileup at Spaghetti Junction, and an accident involving a drunk driver in a pickup just before Windy Hill on 75.

6:11 pm. Atlanta rush hour traffic was a necklace of pain around the city. Suzie was in an enormous line at the tollbooth on 400, beating the steering wheel in frustration. Jerry was in a much shorter, actually moving line of cars with prepaid cruise cards who were jaunting through the tollbooth at a speedy five miles an hour. He was getting away. Suzie yelled and screamed, jumping up and down in the seat, honking madly. He was out of sight, and she was still five cars back from the tollbooth. Would she have been mad to learn that Ed’s car also had a cruise card.

Slowly, slowly, she crept forward. Then she was through the toll, creeping forward. Then she was approaching the exit to the Perimeter, crawling. Her throat was ragged from screaming. She passed the exit, and traffic stopped dead on the road in front of her.

A mile in front of her a car had tried to change lanes to take the Sandy Springs exit, and got hit by a bunch of other cars that didn’t want him getting in front of them. It wasn’t a high speed crash, but it was just as dangerous, because he’d pissed off a lot of people who were now dragging him out of his car and beating him with tire irons and flashlights.

It stopped raining. Dark purple clouds barrelled along right over their heads. People all around Suzie turned off their engines and rolled down their windows and left their cars to peer up the road and wonder. Suzie sat in the developer’s car listening to traffic reports on the radio, fiddling the dial from station to station, bored. Seething with anger and frustration.

6:25 pm. The only moving vehicles within sight of Atlanta’s highways were helicopters, traipsing from one interchange to another, battling the winds, floating just under the clouds, gleefully reporting massive traffic jams everywhere.

Suzie sat and fumed for twenty-eight minutes. Jerry was somewhere ahead, a sitting duck. And she was helplessly stuck somewhere behind him. Her one meaningful act of vengeance, and she was stuck in traffic. It had started to rain again, hard and pelting. It made insistant tapping sounds on the hood and roof.

Suzie found that she couldn’t just sit there and let her opportunity for vengeance pass. She grabbed her bag and checked her things, and then got out of the car and started walking forward through the line of cars. She hardly saw anything around her. Her ears were filled with the sound of roaring blood. Her head pounded with rage, her heart beat wildly with the desire to inflict pain. She was barely thinking.

It was almost by reflex that she reached into her bag and put on her disguise. The weight of the glued-on cellphone dragged the wig over slightly, but she didn’t care. She reached back into her bag and patted her paintgun. She was full of purpose now. Full of hate. The rain stopped again. Her wig stuck in limp strands to her face and neck, and began to itch.

She saw Jerry’s BMW in the distance. Still in the left lane. She walked along the shoulder steadily, slowly, ignoring the other cars. Every step felt like it took a month, every breath felt like thirty gallons in and out of her lungs. Every car she passed seemed like it was half a mile long.

Jerry was smoking in his car. His windows were down slightly and Suzie heard classic rock coming from inside the car as he leaked cigarette smoke into the air. She walked calmly up to the car. Her mind was blank. She had rehearsed his crimes for hours, all day long, proving over and over to herself how inhumanly wicked he was. But now she felt mostly fatigue. Numbness. A weariness unto death.

She stopped by his open window and looked down at him. He sat staring forward out the windshield, his fingers busy tapping in time to the music. She stood there quietly. It was as if she were back at the Club, waiting for him to order. Finally, he looked up. An annoyed look crossed his face and he reached for the window switch. He took her for a beggar. ‘I don’t have any money for you,’ he snarled and turned away. The window began to close.

Something snapped in Suzie’s brain, setting off a reflex she’d been practicing for months. ‘Well, I’ve got something for you,’ she said viciously. Her finger curled around the gun and brought it out of her bag, and with one swift tremor, she jerked it toward him and pulled the trigger. Bloop. Suzie shot Jerry in the temple with a menstrual-red paintball. His head continued to turn, sped up considerably by the force of the projectile.

Bloop. Another red paintball hit the back of his neck. It wasn’t going very fast, but it had enough impact to explode all over him. Jerry looked startled, and went limp in his seat. His cigarette fell into his lap. The side of his face and the back of his neck looked like Suzie’d been at him with a kitchen knife.

She bent over to have a good look at him. He wasn’t moving. Only the dripping red paint was moving. Only the smoke from his cigarette was moving. ‘Enjoy,’ she said. ‘No tipping allowed.’ She looked back at him as she moved away. ‘And no smoking in the dining room.’ Maybe he’ll be out long enough to catch on fire, she thought.

Suzie walked slowly back to Ed’s Mercedes. It had begun to rain again, harder every moment as another feeder band moved over. Suzie had begun to cry. She wasn’t sorry for Jerry. She would have liked to torture him to death, to hear him beg, to see him in real pain. Hell, with her lousy paintgun, she didn’t actually think she’d done more than stun him. Suzie was crying for herself.

It rained harder than ever. Suzie had left the bag opened and rain poured into it like she was standing under a rain spout, soaking everything, ruining her picture of her dad. She cried harder than ever.

She got back to the car. Up ahead, where drivers had beaten the lane-crosser within an inch of his life, the ambulance was heading off to the hospital and the tow trucks had begun to arrive. Traffic was beginning to move minutely in the lanes farthest from the scene of the incident.

Suzie sat in Ed’s car, sopping wet, waiting for traffic to stir in front of her. She pulled her wig off once she sat down, and was slowly pulling herself together. Her gloves were stuck on. She’d cried pitifully all the way back to the car, sobbing, horribly sorry for herself. She felt as if the world was coming to an end and she was more of a loser than ever.

The cars close to her began to creep forward. Suzie turned on the engine and followed an inch at a time, barely paying attention. The cars in the left lane weren’t moving at all, blocked by Jerry’s BMW. She stared straight ahead as she drove past in the next lane, not daring to look over. She was certain that everyone would automatically know she had shot him. But they all assumed the car had stalled and he must have walked off and left it, because he was invisible, slumped out of sight in his seat. Suzie glanced in her mirror and noticed a police car approaching his stalled car along the shoulder. She had a few moments of absolute panic, but as the traffic continued to move, she felt like maybe she might make it away. It was close.

Twelve responsible citizens had called 911 on her. One saw her putting on her disguise. Two more saw her stalking toward Jerry’s car along the shoulder. One saw her whip out her gun and fire into the car. Two saw her putting the gun back into her bag, and half a dozen called simply because they thought she looked suspicious walking through stalled traffic. The reports dwindled to almost nothing by the time she got back to the developer’s car, so the cops got a very good description of the assailant, but they only knew the make, model and color of the car she got back into. Traffic was too thick and the rain was too heavy to get the license plate from the traffic cameras.

6:49 pm. The Perimeter, I-85, I-75, I-20 and GA 400 resembled movie sets from The Day After, with isolated zones resembling the aftermath of the chase scene from The Blues Brothers.

Suzie got off at the Northridge exit and made her way back home along the surface streets, making the usual detours to avoid flooded out sections. She felt numb, and very tired. She hardly thought of Jerry at all, and when she did it was with a certain satisfaction.

By 5:28 the next morning, most of the rain had blown past the metro Atlanta area. But the interstates were closed. I-75 North was thick with trucks coming up from Florida, all lined up with nowhere to go, and traffic was solidly packed north of Macon. By early afternoon, it was a parking lot all the way down to Valdosta near the Florida border. Traffic on 85 North from Montgomery was likewise stopped. 75 South from Chattanooga was being rerouted through Birmingham, and 85 South was rerouting traffic from Greenville to Augusta. I-20 travelers were being stopped at the border and told to visit Birmingham or Augusta for a couple of days. Across the nation, it was the top story on the morning news.

* * *

next, mort trouble

SPLAT CHAPTER THIRTY

Suzie drove her loaner Cadillac along the secondary roads toward town. The first thing she discovered about her new ride was that it had a cool little computer display she could punch up to tell her how many miles she could drive on how much gas in how big a tank. She played with that for awhile. The second thing she found out was that the air conditioning was broken. Oh well. She opened the windows all the way down, and drove on, sweating into the leather seat. She third thing she discovered, when she got home, was that the right window was now stuck down.

She had car trouble all the way into town. The car started overheating after fifteen minutes of driving, the idiot temperature light came on, and by the time she got to Turner Field, smoke was coming out of the engine compartment. It smelled electrical. Suzie began to resent Nelson for giving her such a shitty car. Where was her car, anyway? She wanted it back. Fucking loaners, every one of them was trouble.

She drove past Grant Park on the way home, and looked at the new construction at the zoo. Old trees, old houses, a very genteel area, the best of old Atlanta. On the corner, inside the park’s new chain link fence, there was a sign for condos. Pre-Selling In The High $500s. Suzie was puzzled. Condos in venerable Grant Park?

Suzie drove the rest of the way home with the car making alarming noises. She parked in front of her building on Seaboard Avenue, and got out to grab the right window with both hands and slide it up, mashing the window control with her foot.

The Cadillac’s engine knocked for a couple of minutes after she shut it off. She noticed with annoyance that the owner of the car had a Bush sticker on the rear window. Covering the brake light, how appropriate. She thought about what she could replace it with. Bush Is A War Criminal. No, that’s like to get you shot. You have to be more subtle. The Emperor Has No Clothes. Maybe too subtle.

Suzie’s neighborhood looked like a movie back lot. The sets were there, props, incidentals, but the people were absent, the houses artificial. Trash blew around like tumbleweeds. She felt everyone was hiding behind false walls where she couldn’t see them, all watching her. All letting her walk into whatever trap had been set for her. Suzie, just pawn in game of life. She went and peered around the curtains to make sure nobody was observing the apartment from outside. It was very creepy.

It was still daylight out, and it was sweltering inside. It was also musty and pungent. She went around turning the fans on high to clear out the used bar odor. She put on clean clothes, damp and smelly. Real soon now on the laundry, she thought resolutely.

Suzie whipped food out of the fridge and made herself a sandwich with a sense of real satisfaction. She grabbed a beer from a twelve-pack the guys had left mostly untouched, and wandered into the living room.

She was home in time for the six o-clock news. It felt strange to see Whatshername so early in the evening. Her lime green suit hurt Suzie’s eyes. Too perky for dinnertime.

The graphics and music come up. The white middle aged co-anchor is missing. Whatshername looks apologetic and mumbles that he’s on vacation. Five to ten? Suzie wonders. There’s Darius Gray the science reporter filling in for him. He makes such a shiny new shotgun. He’s unbearably handsome and youthful. He runs his hand through his hair and shakes his head impetuously, smiling broadly. Suzie finds him annoying.

Whatshername scowls. ‘Our top story tonight is Atlanta’s traffic.’ A graphic comes up of cars piled up on top of each other, with steam and smoke and angry looking drivers. ‘It will go down in history as The Big Mess,’ she says. The boy wonder chuckles.

A new graphic dissolves in, a cop car bar of flashing blue lights. ‘Traffic ground to a halt last night as a series of rush-hour pileups occurred on the downtown Connector, the west side Perimeter at I-20, the top end Perimeter, Georgia 400, I-85 at Spaghetti Junction, and I-75 both at Windy Hill and down near the airport.’ Helicopter pictures show massive lines of stopped cars. It’s impossible to tell which of the many traffic jams they are showing.

‘The Governor declared a local state of emergency, and all interstates in the Atlanta metro area were closed.’ The helicopter films empty highways. This picture looks weirder than the shot of stopped traffic. ‘The interstates reopened a few hours ago, just in time for tonight’s rush hour, except that rush hour was expected to be unusually light because most workplaces were closed today due to the inaccessibility of downtown Atlanta.’

The graphic turns to flames and smoke. ‘A deadly pileup occurred on the Downtown Connecter at the height of the Big Mess last evening, killing three people the driver of a minivan that rolled and caught fire, and two people in a car the driver collided with, that also rolled. Seven others were wounded in secondary collisions. While this was happening, drivers in the northbound lanes of the Connector experienced numerous collisions and fender benders because of rubbernecking. Two people were hurt. The victims were taken to Grady Hospital.’ The picture is stock footage of Grady, the Southeast’s top first-level trauma center, and where you want them to take you when it’s a car accident or a gunshot wound.

The graphic becomes a mushroom cloud. Whatshername continues. ‘Over on the westside Perimeter today, workers continued to clear the damage caused by an exploding gasoline tanker that crashed into the I-20 overpass last night.’ The screen shows footage of men in hardhats and safety vests down in a hole removing dirt. Suzie recognized Javel, from the Club. They had him digging in the dirt. Wow.

‘All but one lane of both highways remain blocked off tonight as workers repair structural damage to the bridge on I-20, and a thirty foot crater in a section of I-285 below.’ The screen shows the line of drivers slipping one car at a time around the scene, then pans over a never-ending line of vehicles simmering in the heat.

The next graphic is a crowbar raised in anger. ‘In a bizarre twist, angry motorists stopped in yesterday’s traffic apparently attacked another driver who they claim was driving inconsiderately. Forty-nine year old Wayne Smith of Kennesaw is in the ER at Northside Hospital this evening, with multiple internal injuries and broken bones. His condition is listed as guarded, and he is expected to make a partial recovery. Police made no arrests, and there is no word as to whether the driver who was attacked, might not himself face charges.’

A map of the Southeast comes up, showing the cities and the road network. ‘Traffic was affected all over the South today, from Florida to New York, and west to the Mississippi River. Travelers were backed up and forced to detour through Tennessee, South Carolina, and Alabama to get around…’ she pauses and they both say it, ‘The Big Mess.’

They smile at each other, then the anchor looks back into the camera and resumes with a serious face. ‘The total cost to fix The Big Mess is estimated to top fifty million dollars. Atlanta’s businesses fear the loss of millions of hours of productivity. A meeting is scheduled with management of area attractions and retail stores next week, to examine the situation and make recommendations.’

The next graphic shows huddled gray refugees in the rain. It says HEROES in bold yellow letters at the top. ‘The Atlanta-based crew of Flight 666 is being honored today for their swift and calm action during an incident on the airport’s unfinished Fifth Runway. Brave crewmembers rescued 138 passengers and led them to safety through yesterday’s hurricane force winds.’

There’s stock footage of an ambulance in front of an ER. ‘Some of the passengers suffered minor scrapes and bruises during the incident, but no one was seriously injured. NTSB officials are investigating. Airport officials would not provide further details.’

He looks at the camera for the bad news. ‘All lanes of the south end Perimeter will remain closed until the investigation is finished.’

On another channel, it would be a massive story. They were going to have to dismantle the crashed plane and haul it away in order to clear the unfinished runway and the road surface beneath. It was going to take buckets of money, and weeks of 24/7 work to get everything back on schedule.

However, Atlanta airport officials felt it was a terrible scandal. They feared for Atlanta’s reputation as the world’s largest transportation hub, and put pressure on the news station’s management to tone down coverage of the incident. And so the co-anchor putting a feel-good fluff spin on it instead of doing a hard-hitting investigation into construction flaws, or explosive revelations about airport management corruption.

The graphic changes to a runny paintgun splat on a car door. It’s red, like dripping blood. Huge black letters say Sniper. Suzie grew suddenly cold. Whatshername says accusatorily, ‘We turn to the dark side of human nature, on the other end of the scale from gallant passenger rescues.’ She looks at the camera to deliver bad news. ‘There was another sniper attack yesterday.’ Suzie’s ears began to burn. ‘This time it resulted in the death of one of Atlanta’s rising stars.’

Suzie felt flushed and feverish. She killed him? ‘The attack occurred on Georgia 400 yesterday evening, under cover of the citywide traffic jam. An execution style murder, carried out in cold blood during rush hour traffic.’

Suzie felt horribly guilty. ‘Police are sure that this is the work of the Atlanta Sniper, but acknowledge that this attack differs from what they’ve seen so far, and speculate that this time the Sniper may have known his victim.’

Suzie felt terrible. She deserved to be punished. She reached for Alex’s cellphone to call 911 and turn herself in.

The screen flashed his picture. ‘The victim is fifty-seven year old Jerry Sweat, a prominent and influential lawyer, and founder of Atlanta’s own Reinsourcing America program.’

Suzie stared at his face, his rat eyes, his lanky, cowl of death hair. Her heart filled with hate, and suddenly she felt justifying in killing him. She put the phone down.

‘The whereabouts of the Atlanta Sniper remain a mystery tonight.’

The screen shows a blurry cellphone picture taken from somebody’s car. ‘Police are looking for this person.’ Suzie felt afraid. It’s a skimpy dressed hooker type wearing a Superman t-shirt, cutoffs, flipflops, and a big bag. Her blonde wig is askew. She appears to be on her cellphone. Suzie relaxed a bit.

‘Police are also looking for a black Mercedes SUV.’ Nobody would find her that way.

‘If you have any information, please call the Atlanta Police Hotline at 1-800-GOT-INFO. A reward of $95,000 is being offered for the apprehension of this suspected terrorist, who police warn is armed and dangerous.’

Oh, damn. Suzie sat there stunned. Inside her head bounced several different reactions. Oh no, Jerry was dead. She’d killed him. It was horrible. She was a bad person. Well, he deserved to die. But his wife, his kids, whatever mistress he had on the side, wouldn’t they miss him? They’d be better off without him. He was a slave owner, a pig, a white supremacist. He deserved to die.

The argument continued in her head. The side favoring capital punishment was winning. But she still felt bad. She still felt hollow inside. She still felt wrong. She could feel tears starting to come.

‘Coming up,’ the co-anchor says. ‘What the hurricane left behind.’ The scene shows cars stuck up to their windows in flooded streets, and rescue teams in rowboats ferrying drivers to the shore.

An ad comes on. Suzie sat and watched it, her mind in a vacant trance. She stared at the next ad without paying any attention at all. She was successfully blanking her mind out to avoid the guilt lurking around her brainstem.

The news is back on. Whatshername looks fierce. The graphic is a pup tent with Terrorist emblazoned on the side. ‘Police announced that they’ve found a terrorist camp in Southeast Atlanta.’ Suzie came alert. ‘Atlanta Police, acting on a tip, discovered what they believe is the terrorist den of the Atlanta Sniper.’

The scene shows a clearing in the woods. ‘Police swooped down on the camp and discovered tire tracks and this hastily emptied encampment.’ Suzie’s stomach twisted and began to cramp. My hideout.

‘Earlier photographs taken by the survey crew who discovered the site showed a firing range and a suspected drug and explosives lab.’ Suzie scoffed. They were so wrong.

‘Little remains of the den of terrorism tonight, after Homeland Security agents, the GBI, and local police finished their investigations.’

The scene showed a display of junk Suzie forgot to pick up. ‘Among the items retrieved were targets, ammunition, a sawed off gun barrel, and a plastic jug containing a suspicious liquid, which is being tested.’

It was only ex sweet tea. But the idea horrified Suzie.

The anchor continues. ‘Authorities questioned residents in this moderate-income section of southeast Atlanta, who were shocked to learn they had a terrorist camp in their midst.’ She looks at the camera reassuringly. ‘We’ll have more coverage of this story as it develops.’

Uncle Daddy. Suzie frantically called his number, but he still didn’t answer. She tried his cellphone. She got voicemail.

The broadcast continues. The graphic is a stop sign behind bars. ‘In other news,’ the anchor says brightly, ‘local law enforcement have been having a field day with the new, stricter traffic laws. Recent roadblocks have resulted in over 500 apprehensions, including DUI, license and registration violations, possession of drugs and unlicensed weapons, unpaid child support, outstanding warrants, assault and attempted flight.’ She looks completely innocent.

The next graphic is an apple resting on a Bible. ‘Next year, Georgia public school students will be allowed to study the Bible in school. Under a bipartisan plan proposed in the State Senate today, the Board of Education will have the green light to approve course materials for a Bible-based curriculum to be taught from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. These classes will teach Bible history, and explore the Bible’s influence on literature, art, culture and politics.’

She glances up at the camera. ‘Five protestors were arrested and charged with illegal assembly outside the Board of Education chambers following this announcement.

They cut to an ad and Suzie tried calling again. There was still no answer. She got herself another beer and watched the ad.

The scene opens on an expensive lobby. We’re looking at a pair of closed elevator doors. The bell rings and the doors open. Fetid smoke pours out. The well-dressed occupants explode through the doors holding their noses. A shabbily dressed old lady stands in the middle of the now empty elevator, smiling apologetically.

Voiceover. A man’s voice booms, ‘Ah. You’ve made a social gaffe.’

‘Sorry,’ she says sheepishly, looking for the voice.

‘There’s no need to endure the heartbreak of flatulence,’ he says reasonably. ‘Now there’s a cure for nature’s little surprises.’ She looks quizzical.

‘Prevent unwanted gas attacks with new NoventaTM‘. She smiles hopefully. People to get into the elevator, jostling around her and turning to face front as the doors close.

‘Most people who take NoventaTM tolerate it well,’ he continues. The old lady is the only one who thinks the voice is unusual. ‘The most commonly reported side effects were headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and drowsiness.’

The doors open, two people get off, one gets on. ‘Other side effects include constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, headache, dry mouth, bleeding ulcers, inability to urinate, halitosis, erectile dysfunction, heart attack, and stroke. See your doctor if you experience these symptoms.’

The doors open again and a bunch of people get off. Three people wait to get on. ‘The active ingredient in NoventaTM may affect your ability to remain alert while doing normal daily activities. You should talk to your doctor if you develop significant daytime sleepiness or experience episodes of narcolepsy, or involuntarily falling asleep.’

The doors open again. A crowd of people wait to get on. We glimpse the little old lady, still looking around for the voice. ‘A small number of patients taking this medicine have developed symptoms of Tourette’s Syndrome. If you or your family notice that you have unusual urges to utter obscenities, talk to your doctor.’

The doors open. Again, everybody rushes out of the elevator in a panic, holding their noses, leaving the little old lady alone, smiling apologetically. The voice booms, ‘Isn’t it about time you asked your doctor about NoventaTM?’

The news is back on. The graphic is a freight train transporting a huge biohazard symbol in a flatbed car. Darius takes the story. He gathers himself up to be authoritative.

‘The Transportation Safety Board,’ he says significantly, ‘today announced a relaxation of safety restrictions that will make it easier to ship toxic waste through Georgia. According to the Board, this is needed to facilitate the removal and safe disposal of the waste, and will also result in taxpayer savings. Environmental groups,’ his mouth twists into a sneer, ‘short of an actual protest, issued a cautiously worded criticism of this plan, suggesting potentially adverse effects on populated areas. We asked local law enforcement officials, who said that while these criticisms weren’t violations of the protest ban, they were seditious, and the groups are currently being investigated for terrorist ties.’

He looks at the camera with sincerity. ‘Do the new transport guidelines make us less safe? Tune in tomorrow for our special report. A primer,’ he pauses and smiles winsomely. ‘All About Trash.’

He stays with the next story, licking his lips and tossing his hair as the panda graphic comes up. It’s his debut as co-anchor and he wants to make an impression. Suzie gets the impression he’s pretty smarmy. ‘New developments in the redevelopment of Grant Park,’ he says. And nervous.

There is film of surveyors and construction workers milling about in the red dirt of an ex hill inside the park. ‘Slopes are being graded, trees are being cleared, and new roadways are being staked out,’ he says, barking out the story, his eyes ticking from side to side as he reads the teleprompter. ‘It’s all part of the plan for renovating the Zoo and building the new Grant Park Center.’ He forgets to smile as he struggles to present a handsome face to the camera as well as read the news.

The screen shows a graphic, the red line of projected visitor volume running off the top of the chart. The co-anchor continues. ‘Officials estimate up to three million people a year will visit the Zoo once it reopens. This has led to an expansion of the project’s scope. Permits have been granted for a community center, including a multiplex theater complex to replace the ageing Cyclorama. It will also include conference rooms and banqueting facilities, and a parking deck to handle the massive influx of cars into the neighborhood.’

The camera comes back to the co-anchor. On the whole, he’s pleased with his presentation. ‘In addition, plans have been approved to build a 535-unit live-work complex and shops in the area.’

He frowns like a theatrical mask. ‘On a sour note, more protestors were arrested today outside the park’s gates, and charged with making terroristic threats.’ He turns to Whatshername, smiling. ‘I’d like to live in the new Grant Park,’ he says enthusiastically. She nods and smiles stiffly. Her family always has a yearly reunion in that park.

Suzie switched channels. How was she supposed to pass the evening without the guys? She turned to another news channel and found out all about the plane crash, but still there was no discussion of mistakes and corruption. Suzie suspected a plot.

She watched part of a game show. She watched cartoons. She watched the Weather Channel. She watched MTV. She drank another beer. It was really weird not to have a job to go to.

About eight she wondered what was happening at the club. Was Ed barging into the Jasmine Room for dinner, without Jerry? Without Suzie? Would he be lonesome, or would he hit on whatever poor waitress had to serve him?

She tried calling Uncle Daddy again. She really wanted to know how Auntie Mae was, and did they know anything yet about her diagnosis.

She continued flipping through the channels. Around and around the dial. Not thinking about having killed somebody.

She stopped at an ad with a laugh track. It’s a Christian ad for a comedy set in the Middle Ages. Skits include ‘Excesses of the Catholic Popes’ and ‘Love Songs of the Inquisition’.

She stopped at a talk show on the Liberal Channel. A woman in a plain skirt and sweater is whining, ‘The Conservatives have had political ascendancy since Reagan was in office, and they still see themselves as underdogs.’

Her male guest in a sweater and khakis agrees strongly, ‘That’s right. They’re still complaining about being the victims of Liberal media distortions. But for the last twenty years, the media has been owned and controlled by Conservatives.’

The woman shakes a finger disapprovingly. ‘How can they sit there and act victimized when they’re the source of so much distortion and …’

Suzie resumed her cruise through the channels in haste. Those people were too angry to watch.

An ad. A black screen. Red letters appear: Caution. A male voiceover begins, full of authority. ‘Don’t watch this announcement if you don’t need to lose mega pounds.’

The scene opens on a field of sunflowers all cranked up toward the sun. A woman dances by, so light on her feet she floats. Strings swell in the background. A woman’s voice comes up, full of compassion. ‘New ConstrictaTM with patented Megaoxygel ATa has been shown in clinical trials to significantly enhance weight loss without dieting.’

The scene switches to a podium where an authoritative man points to a chart. He’s an attractive silver haired fox. ‘Clinical tests prove new ConstrictaTM is the best fast weight loss product available. Period.’

His voice becomes serious, confidential. ‘This product should definitely not be used by people who only need to lose a few pounds.’

The screen fills with the silhouette of an enormously fat naked person. He continues. ‘If, due to genetic factors beyond your control, excess body fat is adversely affecting your health and self-esteem, then this may be the cure you’ve been waiting for.’

The scene switches to a kitchen table where a rotund middle aged woman takes two gel caps at the start of her meal. Using X-ray vision, we see them quickly expand into a mass of goo in her stomach. She smiles.

‘Discover how full you feel after just a few bites.’ She continues smiling, and pushes back from the table, leaving most of her dinner. Her face looks smoother, ten years younger. She feels great.

She cleans the dishes in fast motion, getting thinner all the time. ‘ConstrictaTM‘s active formula, XanthidreneTM, keeps you at peak energy all day.’

She is now working in the garden, raking the neighbor’s yards, cleaning gutters, trimming trees; polishing cars, moving so fast she’s becoming a blur. ‘You’ll be so busy, you won’t have time to be hungry.’

Finally she slows down. She’s now dressed in red party clothes, she’s been to the hairdresser, and she’s ready to go paint the town with Handsome. ‘New ConstrictaTM with patented Megaoxygel ATa.’ The voice pauses. ‘From Klein-Smith, a name you trust.’

Suzie kept being distracted by the guy in the apartment upstairs. He was making big noises up and down the stairs. She felt very edgy, and wondered in her paranoia if he could be a cop. When the next ad came on, she put her head out the door and caught him coming downstairs with a box. ‘Are you moving out?’ she asked. He looked at her, like, duh. She felt silly. ‘Well, I just wondered.’ She went to close the door.

He said, ‘I’ve got some stuff I’m throwing out, if you’d like to take a look.’

She stopped. ‘Hey, that’s nice. Sure. Yeah, we’ve got next to nothing down here.’ She was suddenly enjoying herself. It felt so good to be doing something other than watching that stupid box.

‘Well, come on up when you’ve got a moment.’ So she followed him out to the moving truck, talking. It was just getting dark out. She followed him upstairs. He was nice, friendly, interesting. Suzie wondered why she hadn’t noticed him before. His name was Sebastion.

She stood around awkwardly in his living room. Sebastion pointed out a big trash container full of kitchen equipment and cleaning supplies, and headed back out with another box. Suzie poked around and took a few things to be polite. Then she noticed a cutting board and a chef’s knife.

‘I’d love to have these,’ she said as he came back through the door.

‘Yeah, sure. That’s a good knife. But I’m moving in with my girlfriend and she’s got plenty of kitchen stuff.’

Suzie turned back to the container to hide her disappointment. Oh well. ‘Want a beer?’

‘Thanks.’

Suzie helped him move a couple of boxes down to the truck, and stopped on the way back up for a couple of beers. They sat and talked for a few minutes.

Sebastion asked about their moving plans. ‘Oh, we’re not leaving,’ she said, nonchalantly. ‘Not until they throw us out. Then, who knows?’ She drank deeply. She didn’t want to think about it.

Sebastion shrugged. ‘I lived in a squat in my youth,’ he said. ‘Seattle. It was fun except in the winter. Then I was a rail kid for awhile.’

She liked the sound of that. ‘What’s a rail kid?’

‘People who hop trains. Like back during the Depression. They go all over, and stay in hobo jungles near the rail yard, or squats in town. There’s a lot of fat to live on in this country. You almost never have to buy food.’ He lifted his can for another sip. ‘It’s a great life. You’re free. Nobody messes with you.’

Suzie was dubious. ‘Is it safe?’

‘Well, in the traveler world, it’s more dangerous for guys, because they fight. And there’s a lot of women riding the rails these days. I’d say it’s about forty percent women.’

Hmmm. She took a drink. ‘If I ever become homeless, maybe I’ll do that. You’re sure it’s not all homeless guys and tramps?’

‘Not homeless. Houseless. Houseless people travel, homeless people don’t. And it’s mostly young people now. Just a few old-timers, and they’re like elders. Everybody respects them. And everybody looks out for each other. The only dangers are falling into the wheels, and the railroad bulls.’ He nodded wisely at her. ‘They shoot you.’ He took another sip of beer. ‘I’m curious as to why you’re staying. Everybody else is moving out. Surely you must have noticed.’

She looked almost blank. ‘Not really.’ She still didn’t fully believe it. The drug dealer two buildings down was there as usual. There were still cars in the complex, maybe even a few homeless guys still hanging out in the parking lot. She wouldn’t know.

‘No, really, haven’t you seen the moving trucks the last few months?’

No, she hadn’t. People were always moving. She didn’t want to think about it. Being a late riser, like her roommates, she didn’t spend any time going or coming. They either were inside watching TV and hanging out, or they were out slaving at their day jobs, or they were asleep. They were the lost boys, and they weren’t ever going to grow up if they could help it. If we keep our knowledge of reality firmly surreal, they figured in the backs of their heads, and pretend we don’t notice, it’ll all just go away.

Suzie noticed a bunch of brochures heaped up over a trashcan next to the couch. She asked Sebastion about it. ‘Oh, that’s just stuff I brought home to work on. Proposals, mostly.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘I’m in the graphics department of Big Behemoth Consulting,’ he said, as if the name usually provoked some reaction. ‘Big Behemoth Inc.’ Suzie was blank.

She recognized a shiny brochure, showing smiling, happy people in business suits and uniforms, posing in front of office buildings and industrial sites. ‘I think I served dinner to one of your guys at the White Magnolia Club,’ she said.

‘That’d be Bob Clark, partner. He’s an asshole. His group sells this clunky human resources software, and then the client pays $50,000 a week for months getting it debugged and training the employees.’

She looked at another discarded piece of work. It was a yellow banner on a blue background. He saw her looking at it. ‘I’m working on this now. My Labor Force.’

She looked crossways at the graphic. ‘You know, it reminds me of those Support Our Troops ribbons people put on their cars.’

‘Yeah. That’s no accident. The client is real patriotic and the partner wanted to hit all the buttons.’

‘It should be Support Our Tyrant, you know. Support Our Military-Industrial Complex. Support Record Oil Industry Profits. Support Our Halliburton.’ She was starting to sound like a preacher, her voice droning rhythmically like that guy on TV with the Bible.

He must have thought Suzie was being kind of intense. ‘You know,’ he said jokingly, ‘you could be arrested for treason, talking like that.’

Suzie shut up and looked around the room suspiciously. Maybe there were microphones. She changed the subject. ‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe I want to work in the corporate world.’

He smiled. ‘Never. We’re hapless slaves.’

Suzie shrugged dismissively. ‘We’re all wage slaves.’

‘No, no,’ he protested. ‘Real slaves. Chained by debt. Chained by the lifestyle. Consumer slaves.’

Suzie disagreed. ‘No, real slaves are the convicts who get put in jail and forced to work.’

Sebastion paused. ‘Well, there are many kinds of slavery,’ he began.

‘We all have to work,’ she insisted, cutting him off.

‘No, we all have to do something.’ Sebastion had thought about this. ‘Not necessarily work. Not necessarily other people’s work. There are lots of options.’ Suzie thought about getting paid to sleep late and ride around taking out bad drivers. Too stressful.

Sebastion looked around at all the things his corporate slavery had bought. He would never really consider quitting his day job and struggling on his own. Getting regular paychecks was too easy. ‘It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, being a slave.’

Suzie thought about it. ‘I guess. You don’t have to think.’

‘Your daily routine is preplanned. You don’t have to do any paperwork, like filing taxes or paying bills.’

‘You’re part of a group.’ Suzie loved the idea of belonging. ‘You’re anonymous.’ She liked the idea of blending in even better.

‘You get all kinds of benefits, provided at no out-of-pocket cost.’

‘Like three meals a day and a dry place to sleep?’ She thought of the homeless guys. Lucky them. ‘Medical. And HBO – we don’t have HBO.’

‘They reward you for doing well. Time off, perks. Advancement.’ He drank the last of his beer and stood up. ‘And it’s guaranteed employment.

‘I guess you can’t get fired.’ Suzie got up. That’s where she wanted to work.

Sebastion went back to loading boxes onto the truck. Suzie helped with one box, but then noticed the bumper sticker on the Cadillac. It irritated her abruptly. She felt motivated, so she ran inside her apartment and found an old razor in the bathroom.

It was mostly dark now. The sky was smoky cobalt, but no stars. You don’t usually see stars in Atlanta. She stood on her tiptoes and leaned over the trunk with the razor, painstakingly scraping the bumper sticker off. She lay there for a moment staring at the scrape marks, wondering exactly what she was going to put there to replace it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed shadowy figures moving through the alley between apartment buildings. She shivered slightly and looked around. There was nobody on the street, no cars out. Just the moving van in front of her, and a train across the street, going slowly by on its way into Hulsey Yard. Suzie went inside and had another beer. What the hell. Then she resumed cruising through the channels.

She stopped at a Christian talk show. A curtain, a desk, a couch, a white televangelist running to fat, and his trim black sidekick with just a touch of gray. They’re smiling and looking pleasant.

‘In fact, Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic,’ the televangelist remarks.

The sidekick nods, ‘Amen.’

‘We Christians are committed to a spiritual aristocracy,’ he explains. ‘The ascendancy of the Holy.’

The sidekick leans forward, interested. ‘What’s our first task?’

The televangelist is glad to tell him. ‘The first task in the Kingdom of God will be to vigorously suppress all idolatrous religions.’

The sidekick scoffs. ‘That’s a tall order, since non-Christians still outnumber us three to one.’

‘Not for long.’ They both giggle.

The televangelist continues. ‘Civil law will be rewritten to conform to the Bible’s moral laws. God made them thousands of years ago and never changed his mind.’

‘Hallelujah.’ The sidekick goes on to observe, ‘His laws were intended for all nations, cultures, and societies, all religions and all times.’

The televangelist gets heated. ‘We’re talking about criminalizing immorality of all kinds – blasphemy, adultery, homosexuality. The penalty is execution.’ He looks fierce.

The sidekick looks puzzled. ‘Infidelity will be a capital crime, won’t it?’

The televangelist looks righteous. ‘A woman found in adultery will be stoned to death. The same goes for those found guilty of engaging in same-sex or pre-marital sex.’

The sidekick rubs his hands. ‘That’s thousands of executions a year.’

The televangelist smiles reassuringly. ‘We advocate stoning over burning. We’d like to encourage more audience participation.’

‘It gets the lesson learned quicker,’ the sidekick agrees. ‘What else is in store for us in God’s Earthly Kingdom?’

‘We’re reserving all the important government jobs and judgeships for the righteous among men. Men committed to upholding God’s laws and serving His people.’

The sidekick piped up, ‘And we mean men. Women won’t be able to meddle in important affairs of state anymore.’

The televangelist agreed wholeheartedly. ‘We’re going to stop the feminist destruction of our nation first thing. Women will go back to being the property of their fathers and husbands, or if sold, their owners.’

‘The husband is the head of the family,’ the sidekick reminded him.

‘I know that’s right.’ They both laugh.

The sidekick cocks his head to ask something important. ‘What about slavery?’

‘Well, that’s a ticklish question. But the Bible clearly states that slavery is a fact of life.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘We’re only following Biblical laws here.’

‘The Bible specifies that only unbelievers and women should be slaves, doesn’t it?’ The televangelist nods. The sidekick looks relieved.

‘Don’t forget,’ the televangelist reminds him. ‘Jesus said he wouldn’t be coming back until Christian soldiers had conquered and converted the whole world in His name.’

The sidekick looks dubious. ‘How can we use persuasion alone to create a God-fearing society and a Bible-based government?’

‘We can’t, of course,’ he smiles. ‘But we’ve got some influence. We can start by denying citizenship to anyone who refuses to submit. It’s about time this country came into line with other countries around the world that have a compulsory state religion.’

The sidekick nods his agreement. ‘And what about our foreign policy?’ he wants to know.

‘We’re going to turn our armies into crusaders, and send them out to conquer in the name of Jesus. A righteous holy war. The Muslims had one good idea, after all.’

The sidekick snickers. ‘Yeah, and their idea of Paradise sounds good too.’ They both snicker.

Suzie kept cruising. She seemed to be running out of things to watch. She paused at an ad. The voice announces, ‘Tonight on Tough Love: New Issues In Prison Reform – Faith-Based Prisons. And, The Rising Tide Of Televised Executions.’

We see the condemned, strapped down. He’s peaceful, drugged. The shot tracks backwards to the outside of the chamber, a large white metallic box with black glass and a red digital display.

The camera focuses on the warden, his face severe. He steps back, shuts the door firmly, and then with swift, practiced motions sets the timer – beep beep beep – and presses Start with authority. Stirring music rises to cover the sound of the motor. The light goes on inside the box, and the prisoner begins to rotate, strapped to a plastic table.

‘Join us live from Atlanta as we showcase a new tool in the arsenal against crime. Tonight on Tough Love, Ten O’clock Eastern, Nine Central.’

A few channels up, a game show is on. Suspect Politics. It has an English host. ‘Welcome back,’ he says briskly. ‘We’re ready to begin the $500 level. The category is Orwellisms – New Takes On Newspeak.’ He pauses to look them over. ‘This should be a quick round. Good luck, everyone.’ The camera pans over to three panelists in front of stands. A middle-aged white teacher, a Black lawyer, and a Chinese businesswoman.

‘Here’s the first answer.’ He reads from a card. ‘Democracy and freedom are two euphemisms for this basic economic structure.’

A buzzer rings. ‘What is Capitalism,’ rushes the Chinese woman.

‘Right, Wanda.’ The woman smiles.

He reads another card. ‘The answer. Using political means to keep a client nation in a position of overwhelming superiority, relative to hostile neighbors.’

A buzzer rings. It’s the white lady. ‘Yes, you have the question?’

‘What is the Peace Process,’ she says with excitement.

‘Good.’ He nods. ‘Yes. That’s $500 to Margaret.’ He continues, shifting cards. ‘Here’s the next answer. It’s the exploitation of resources by outsiders, resulting in great personal wealth, but leaving the inhabitants impoverished.’

‘Carpetbaggers,’ says the businesswoman promptly.

He hesitates. ‘No. I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. Anyone else?’

‘What is Development,’ the lawyer says.

‘That’s right,’ he nods to the black guy. ‘You’re all even. This is getting exciting.’ He takes another card from the stack.

‘The answer. Huge profits in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries generated by grossly inflated health care costs.’

They all three go for the buzzer. ‘That’s a close one. Wanda.’

‘Managed Healthcare.’

‘Yes, you’re absolutely right. And that puts you ahead of the rest.’ She smiles proudly. The others look resolute.

‘The next answer goes like this. Ending health and environmental safeguards that impact corporate profits, while granting blanket immunity to corporations and executives.’

There’s furious stabbing at the buttons. ‘Yes, Margaret.’

‘What is Deregulation.’

He nods and turns to the others. ‘You both knew that one, too, I’m sure.’ He tugs at his collar. ‘It’s really heating up in here. Here’s the next answer. A state of powerlessness in the workplace, producing desperate and compliant workers.’

‘Ah,’ he observes. The camera shows their puzzled faces. ‘A hard one. Nobody has a question for our answer?’ He pauses, then reads, ‘What is a flexible workforce.’ They sigh. ‘Yes, sorry,’ he says sympathetically.

He looks through the cards. ‘All right. We’re down to the final few answers in this round, and you’re ahead at the moment. Here’s the next answer. Firing numbers of middle management and support staff, to achieve greater upper management profits.’

‘Yes, Tod.’

‘What is Restructuring.’

‘Very good. And our final answer. Replacing the local workforce with cheap external labor as a cost cutting measure.’

‘Outsourcing.’

The Chinese businesswoman wins the round. The camera focuses on her. She claps at herself and the other contestants, beaming. The host remarks, ‘Tremendous. A wonderful round. We’ll continue the match after this. They all wave at the camera.

Suzie was getting tired. Endless nonsense, and still a dull ache inside, and the feeling that nothing was worth anything. She was definitely depressed, but lacked the energy to get up and go to bed. She lingered at a Spanish station for awhile, listening to some vivacious woman in a sheath dress having an animated discussion about something with a homely looking Latino with a mustache and his belly bulging over his shirt. She couldn’t figure out what the topic was. Then she nodded off. Then she had to pee. Then she went to bed, crashing into the walls back to the bedroom, unusually unsteady on her feet. Her head spun when she lay down. Suzie never drank six beers in a night..

As she fell asleep, for one timeless moment, Suzie has a vision. She’s lying in a hospital bed in intensive care. Her life is attached to the monitors. A pump does her breathing for her. She keeps having crazy dreams, all on the same theme, all just like her daily life. All complicated, never-ending slow nightmares; accompanied by the pssh of the pump and the beep of the monitors. She keeps having to remind herself that her real life is in intensive care, not in these strange, drug-induced dreams.

She slept heavily, weighed down by the beer. Sometime later in the night she had a dream of doors. A room with three doors. One has a witch, one’s a clown, one’s a monster. Only one of the doors leads out, and she has to choose. If she’s wrong, she’s just going to have to do the same dream over and over again until she gets it right. So she choses one, goes inside, and kills the clown. Clowns scare her the most.

It was a full moon. Shit happens on a full moon. She only slept heavily because she was drunk, but her dreams were weird and full of emotion, and she kept rocketing up from a nightmare to catch her breath before it started again.

She and her friends are hiding in some urban section of town, with trash all around, blown out street lights, cars on blocks. It’s dark. Bad people are after them, and they’re scared. Now they’re cornered, and the bad guys are throwing Molotov cocktails at Suzie and her friends. She feels the whoomp, rather than hears it. She feels the heat, the burning liquid splattering all over her body, the sizzle of burning skin and hair and bubbling fat.

Suzie woke suddenly, sweating coldly, in the afterglow of her dreams. It’s a wonder she woke up because of all the beer, and it’s a no-brainer to say that she woke up feeling nauseous with a headache and a dry mouth. Orange shadows flickered lightly on the wall. The fan sucked smoke through her open window. She realized that she was dreaming real smoke, and stumbled up to investigate. She started to cough. There was smoke everywhere.

She identified not one fire, but four. Three in the next building, and one right above her in Sebastion’s apartment. Hmmm. She got dressed and took several trips to the Cadillac with her milk crates, the computer, an armful of clothes, her quilt and pillow. She noticed Philip’s climbing gear hanging by the door, and suddenly decided she was going to do that tag, with or without the guys. She went back to get it, and threw his bag of gear and his hook into the trunk. Then she remembered her new knife and cutting board, and went back a last time, turning off the lights and closing the door as she left. She drove off with a feeling of loss, and put her hands over her ears as she passed the fire department coming in from Moreland.

She parked the car at the new Edgewood center, then walked slowly back up the street and over to the train tracks to watch the growing destruction. She felt bad, her gait was unsteady, she was weaving. She had to pee again.

The fire had grown fast in the time it took her to get back. They had begun furiously pumping water at multiple fires. The roar of the flames drowned out any hissing, but it looked like the water was evaporating before it got there. The flames were now at the tops of the trees, and shooting higher. The fire spread. More sirens, more trucks, more helicopters and news vans.

Suzie thought about how much trauma she was being made to endure. What else, God? she wondered. It’s a well-known fact that you shouldn’t ask God what else, but Suzie was still drunk, and not thinking about how God might answer that kind of challenge.

Time passed. Explosions, trembling ground, winds of flame and smoke. Roofs and walls collapsed. Cars exploded in the parking lot. The fire grew higher. Burning debris fell onto oily dirt from generations of parked and leaking cars, and there were tongues of creeping flame along every burnable trail, smoldering and bubbling along the driveway and across the road to the train tracks of the CSX Intermodal rail terminal at Hulsey Yard.

The dried brush at the edge of the railyard caught fire. Then a scrubby pine tree went up. Then trash on the rails caught fire, underneath a train creeping toward Decatur and points east. Then the drippy stuff coming off the cars caught fire.

This was one of the first legal lethal trains allowed to come right through the middle of a densely populated area and strategic transportation hub like Atlanta. The tower knew about the chemicals and toxins on the manifest, and wanted the train to get the hell away from downtown Atlanta. But the operator knew the rules. The train came to a halt, car by car, with a thousand heavy clanks. The fire grew higher; the stationary cars started to creak and pop. Smoke began boiling out and into the night sky, all lit up by the city lights, glowing. The flames made pretty colors. Greens. Purples. Blues. It was awesome.

It was also deadly. Suzie fled with a panicky feeling in her stomach. And explosive. She got to Moreland before the beer rebelled in her stomach. She puked into a brand new trashcan in the new shopping center and staggered off, feeling like a wino. She was shaking when she got to where the car was parked. She wanted to hold her breath in case something really toxic was being released.

The Cadillac’s engine refused to catch at first. She felt panic rising from her stomach to her lungs. The starter whined and strained for a long minute, slowing. She felt her heart being dragged like the motor. She felt her throat tightening, her lungs growing wheezy.

It started, and Suzie limped off to Ghetto Kroger on Ponce, and huddled in her quilt under the glaring lights of the parking lot, trying to fall asleep while being gently hassled by stealthy people at her window. A new siren went by every few minutes.

After several hours of this, she started up the engine and wound her way down the secondary roads to spend the rest of the night in the parking lot in back of Nelson’s shop, the car threatening to catch fire the whole time. She smelled smoke. Who says you can’t take it with you?

* * *

next, what kind of fool