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-TWO

Suzie drove around, doing some thinking. She didn’t pay attention to where she was going. She just drove. She didn’t notice the landscape features, she didn’t see the endless strip malls and fast food joints and gas stations. The only thing she noticed was how close the car was to conking out.

What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am? A tune she and her dad used to listen to went through her head. Everything Nelson had ever told her had been a lie. He loved her, that was a lie. It was special between them. He never got hard for anybody else like he did for her.

He’d been sleeping around the whole time. She should have known he wouldn’t go as long as they had without sex. She expected every minute that he would tell her he had to see her, he had to have it, he couldn’t bear to be without her, he needed to show her how much he loved her. They hadn’t had sex in months, and it was because he was too tired from fucking other girls and couldn’t get it up for her.

She felt her love for him like a boulder on a bungee cord. It plunged out of sight, then came snapping back up, just out of reach. But it was just a rock, what should she care?

Then why did she love him? She knew he was a shit, but he did something to her heart. Whenever they touched, a feeling like she was home came over her, and she felt an outpouring of love for him, a real soul connection. It frightened her. It scared him too; he said so when they kind of talked about it once. When she brought it up.

She thought on a practical level for awhile. She knew they were never going to live together, in the back of her head. But he was the best prospect she had, so she continued her feeble attempts to manipulate him into marriage. He would never be the best provider, but he was the one who made her feel the best, feel the most intense. The one she needed to have in her arms.

Hell, he was probably a terrible provider. Always buying and selling dope, always high. Thank God he didn’t drink. There was that problem with crank he used to have. But he said he’d been clean for months, and she believe him.

She found herself driving east. Farms and pine trees and rolling hills. When she got to Madison, she turned north.

Suzie drove some more, suffering from her hangover. Everything irritated her; everything was too much. The heat was scalding. Dehydration parched her skin; she sweated dried salt. Her mouth sucked humidity out of the air. Her hands were shaky. She felt nauseous. She needed to sleep. She wasn’t thinking clearly.

She fantasized about how she could help him if they were living together. Help him start his own business, give him a nice hot dinner and rub his shoulders when he came home, make love twice a day. He’d be less tense, less harried. If he worked for himself he could just work when he felt like it, and relax the rest of the time. They’d be happy all the time.

Suzie didn’t have a whole lot of practical experience of life. She had a bunch of romantic ideas about how relationships were supposed to work. She’d picked up a mess of fancy notions from TV, like for example that the lot of the working class was amusing, and everyone partied a lot and shared lots of love. It was all good. After all, nobody in the sitcoms cursed the government, or got put in jail on a bad rap, or complained of being exploited by Wal-Mart. She took it for granted that life was supposed to be like that. But recent events had proved that life was entirely different from anything she’d seen on TV.

Okay, so she was finding that her hopes for a life with Nelson were a little immature. So fine, Nelson’s out. He wasn’t worth much anyway. So what that she loved him with all her heart? If she simply stayed away from him, then she wouldn’t feel that soul thing that happened between them, and she wouldn’t miss him. It sounded like a good plan to her. And, truthfully, for Suzie, Out Of Sight Out Of Mind has always won out over Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder.

She saw a dead deer on the road in front of her. Aw. Her heart bled for Bambi. As she got closer, she saw that it was a dog. Probly ran away from home and was out sniffing around for females. Dumb dog. As she passed it, she saw it was a truck tire peeled from a passing eighteen-wheeler. She called Uncle Daddy again, but there was no response.

But now what? No home. No boyfriend. No job. Which would she miss the most? Hmmm. None of the choices were stellar. If you asked her, she wouldn’t have a good thing to say about any of them. Living in the apartments with the lost boys was ratty and dungeonlike, and they always made her feel small. The job was hell, with heaven just out of reach in the kitchen. The boyfriend. Cocksucker.

That reminded her of her feelings toward Ed. And Jerry. Her head started to pound. All men can’t be like that. Why couldn’t she find one she could stand?

Like her dad. Brave, strong and true. Her heart filled with love, a layer of harsh longing in the middle. He left her. She was all alone. She couldn’t get his approval any more. And she so needed his approval.

He loved her no matter what she did, made light of even her worst faults. Honored her as a human being and a good girl, even when she wasn’t. Made excuses for her stupid mistakes. He would have let her get away with murder if she’d wanted to go that far. But she always did what was right because she knew he’d be proud of her, and she always asked herself what he would think of whatever she’d done.

Would he be proud of her now? Having killed one. Wanting to kill another. Wanting to blow up Nelson’s shop with him in it. Wanting to take a machine gun into the Club. These thoughts made her pause. Those were terroristic acts she was fantasizing. And that’s not how a reasonable adult is supposed to behave. Even though most humans entertain murderous thoughts on a daily basis. It’s just that you’re not supposed to act on them. But she had. She’d killed Jerry. And she wanted very badly to kill Ed.

She’d have killed Hitler if given the chance. Wouldn’t anybody? How about if you were around in those days? If you were, say an Allied spy, holed up across the street from where Hitler had a cozy thing going with a party wife? Wouldn’t you fire if you had a clear shot? Knowing what that maniac was doing to the world? Wouldn’t you be morally obligated to assassinate him? Wouldn’t history justify you? I’m certain Pat Robertson would think so.

She came to a light just turning red, pulled the gearshift to neutral, then fluttered the gas and braked to a halt. It went to stall, but she gave it more gas, then it roared, so she let off the gas, then it started to stall again. She had to concentrating on zenning exactly the right pressure at exactly the right time until the light changed.

Suzie wondered, Am I bad? I probly should get some type of therapy. But no anti-depressants, she decided. Remember, speed kills.

She found she’d driven clear over to Athens, so she turned west, and because she wasn’t thinking, she decided she would cut cross-country toward Atlanta instead of taking US 78, the main back road. She was tired of traffic.

Hours later she found herself in Morrow, well south of town. At least she knew how to get home from there. She came up Georgia 54 – Jonesboro Road – and bypassed the highway until she got to Lakewood, where she figured she might as well get on the Connector and finish her trip sooner. She was heading home. Such as it was.

Traffic was moving well. She passed one overpass after another, all of which could turn out to be the bridge she put her tag on. But each one had something wrong with it. One bridge was too visible to escape notice. One was too dimly lit. One vista showed Atlanta far away and small. One bridge showed Atlanta close up, but off to the side of the road. None of them were just right. The railroad bridge just before Pryor Street was still her best candidate.

She slowed down as she reached it and took in all the details. It had a big huge traffic sign in front of it, which marred the view of her proposed tag, but would protect her from notice from oncoming traffic. The bridge had an iron fence on the inside, a chain-link fence next to it on the outside, then a cement lip feet high, a maybe four foot recess and then eight feet of iron wall, rusty black, empty. And a twenty foot drop. She imagined it all in a flash of creative projection . I can do this, she thought, crossing her fingers for luck.

The on-ramp to I-20 East was fucked up from all the traffic still being rerouted from the south end of the Perimeter. So she got off at Turner Field and went home through Grant Park again. One of the original neighborhoods of post-Reconstruction Atlanta. Hundred-year-old Craftsman and Queen Anne houses. Wide porches, high ceilings, large rooms, stained glass, ancient trees, large yards. Renovated. Graceful, gentrified, intown living at its finest.

She took Boulevard north to Edgewood and tried to cut east through Inman Park, but the road was barricaded at Euclid. So she cut a little south to DeKalb Avenue to parallel the tracks, but they wouldn’t even let her on the street. So she went over to cut south under the train tracks by the Krog Street tunnel, but it was closed and barricaded as well. So she went back to Boulevard and took it south to Memorial, and went east that way. Traffic was backed up when she got to Monroe, but at least it was moving, so she turned left and got in line, and eventually came upon a barricade.

It was at Wylie Street, right at the edge of her neighborhood. Cops were standing around directing traffic away from the area. Suzie parked the Trooper and got out to ask when they were going to start letting people back in.

They told her that the whole area was under an evacuation order. Reynoldstown, Cabbagetown, Little Five Points, Inman Park. Even the new shopping center. The CSX terminal was shut down. That meant no eastbound or westbound trains through Atlanta until further notice.

‘Are you a resident?’ the cop asked her, looming over her.

‘Yes, I live in the apartments on Seaboard.’

The cop looked twice at her and backed off slightly. ‘Wow. Were you there?’ She nodded. ‘You should go to the hospital, let them check you out. The whole area’s a disaster zone, and especially that part. There’s nothing to go back to.’

‘I just wanted to see it,’ she explained.

He took pity on her. ‘We might let people in tomorrow or the next day,’ he told her, though in fact it would be a week. ‘They’re still decontaminating.’

She considered walking in. They can’t patrol all the backyards between here and my house, she thought. Then she thought about the toxic waste. And what did she want to see a burned out shell for? It would just make her headache worse.

Suzie went and got in the Trooper and tried to start it. The starter went rinna rinna for awhile, then caught. And the engine died immediately. Suzie concentrated on getting it to start again, one foot on the brake, the other on the gas.

She looked around when the car started up, triumphant. She wish people could appreciate what kind of skill it took to drive Nelson’s car. Then she saw Ed the developer standing at the blockade, talking to the cops. He’d pulled his Mercedes up right next to hers, and she hadn’t noticed. She could see the fake can of lubricant in the back.

Ed wanted to go into the area, and they were giving him the same story they gave her. She could hear him arguing with them, wanting them to make an exception for him. ‘I’ve got a right to be in there,’ he insisted. ‘I have to see what kind of damage was done to my property. And my insurance people are on their way.’

The cops weren’t impressed. Suzie wanted to yell out that he was the ultimate reason the place was being quarantined. But she held her tongue. Her head hurt too much to yell. And they weren’t impressed with her, either.

Ed was still trying to get them to let him in. They asked if he was a resident, and he answered, ‘Well, in a manner of speaking.’ He spread his hands out to indicate the neighborhood. ‘This is all mine now,’ he said proudly. ‘I bought it all up right before this happened, and I’m concerned for my investment.’

The cops seemed slightly more impressed. It was obvious to them that someone had been buying up the neighborhood. Ed pointed, indicating the new Edgewood shopping center down the hill. ‘Yessir,’ he insisted, ‘part two of the long-awaited Southeast Atlanta renaissance. We’re fixing to turn this area into a city within a city just as soon as we can get it cleared out.’ He leaned over confidentially and said, loud enough for Suzie to hear, ‘My job’s a lot simpler with this little fire here. It’s better to just let it burn and then call in the bulldozers.’ The developer looked around and saw Suzie, but didn’t recognize her.

She scoffed, What, if I’m not wearing a tux I’m invisible? She revved up the engine so it wouldn’t stall, and pulled out fast, full of hate. Bastard, she thought. You’re next.

But she didn’t turn back and try to tail him. She drove on, instead, not ready to take action. As the minutes passed, she began to regret leaving the scene. She wished she’d caught the bastard out right there, followed him down Wylie as he tried to get in the back way. She could have gotten him back in those side streets, maybe stopping to tell him she knew a secret entrance, leading him in, and pushing his face into spilled nuclear waste.

She pictured him face down in a glowing green ditch. Pig. It really bugged her that he hadn’t recognized her. He looked right at her, and never even noticed her. Of course, she was pretty filthy. Maybe he could smell her from there. Who would look at her, as bedraggled as she was?

She drove back down Moreland the other way, and stopped at Uncle Daddy’s house. The car was there, the truck was gone. Nobody answered the door. Nobody answered the phone.

So Suzie put ten bucks in the tank and went for another lost drive. It was afternoon was all she knew. Or late morning. She drove south on Moreland past Intrenchment Creek. Across the still-closed 285 in the southeast part of town. Past Fort Gillem. South to Morrow, to Stockbridge. Far. Where the roads lead away from the city instead of toward it. Way down in the country. Suzie drove until she got lost, and then kept driving. Then she turned around and made her way back to town, still in the grip of her hangover, and feeling really sorry for messing her life up so badly.

She was just passing Confederate Avenue when Alex’s phone rang. It was Uncle Daddy. She felt so relieved she started to cry. Her head pounded. ‘Oh, Uncle Daddy,’ she sobbed.

‘It’s all right, Baby Girl. It’s all going to be okay.’

‘But where have you been?’ she whined. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for days .’

‘I left it my cellphone in the truck. I’ve been using your Auntie Mae’s car recently. I haven’t been home much, I guess.’ He sounded depressed.

‘I didn’t have your cellphone number,’ she sniffled. ‘How’s Auntie Mae?’

‘The news isn’t good, Honey. They’re going to have to operate.’

‘What is it?’

‘Breast cancer.’

Suzie felt her heart break. ‘Oh no. How is she taking it?’

‘How does she ever take anything? She’s cool as a cucumber, reading her Bible and saying nothing. She’s a rock. I’m so worried about her.’

‘How are you doing, Uncle Daddy?’

‘Oh, I’m alright, Baby Girl, bless your heart. It’s just a little sudden, that’s all. Listen, I’m heading down to Macon right now with a load, but I’ll be back around here late tonight. Call me anytime, you have my number now. Say, why don’t you come around tomorrow morning late, and we’ll go get some breakfast at the Waffle House?’

‘Awful House,’ she responded automatically. It used to be a game between them.

He chuckled. ‘That sound okay? Fine.’

‘I’m going to go see Auntie Mae.’

‘Give her my love.’

She choked up. ‘I love you, Uncle Daddy.’

‘I love you too, Suzie Q.’

She went off to see Auntie Mae, parking on another street among several abandoned heaps. Nelson’s car fit right in.

Auntie Mae was no longer in her hospital room craning her neck to watch TV or lying back reading her Bible. The nurse couldn’t tell her where she was. Suzie still couldn’t prove she was next of kin, and the nurse wasn’t saying nothing. Heartless bitch.

Suzie wouldn’t accept that Auntie Mae was just gone, and went barging into the room to make sure. There was another old black lady there, craning her neck to watch TV. Suzie looked at her, and then noticed Auntie Mae’s Bible sitting on top of the air conditioning unit. ‘Is that yours?’ she asked the old lady. The woman shook her head. Suzie dashed over to the window to retrieve it. ‘It’s my Auntie’s,’ she explained, tucking it into her bag and walking out.

Her heart was sore thinking about Auntie Mae. Cancer. An operation. They were going to knock her out, and anything could happen to her when she was under the anesthesia. She could have a heart attack on the operating table, or in recovery. She could have a stroke, an allergy to the anesthetic, she could be given too strong a dose. The surgeon could leave medical instruments inside of her. She could be riddled with disease they wouldn’t know about until they went in. Shit like that happens all the time in hospitals.

She called Uncle Daddy immediately, full of fear, and told him of Auntie Mae’s disappearance. It was news to him. He said he’d call the hospital and then call her right back to tell her what was going on. He was already on the road, but he had all the numbers.

Suzie drove away from the hospital, afraid she’d never see Auntie Mae again. She flashed back on her dream vision of herself, attached to tubes and pumps, hallucinating a life while being pegged to a bed. The thought of Auntie Mae as helpless as that brought tears up and closed her throat, and then Suzie was driving down Boulevard sobbing, She had to pull into a parking lot, and then crossed her arms over the steering wheel and put her head down, bawling. She had such a headache.

When her tears ran out, she drove over to the Home Depot parking lot on Ponce and took a nap, curled up in the dusty Trooper under a scrubby parking lot tree, her hips on the driver’s seat, her shoulders in the passenger seat, her middle suspended over the gearshift and console. She sobbed little baby sobs in her sleep.

When she woke up, the sun was below the houses bordering the shopping center, and her hangover had gone. She found the thought of food intriguing once again. So she counted her money, and then walked through the parking lot over to Eats a few feet up Ponce, deliberately violating the signs that said, Parking For Customers Of This Center Only Or We’ll Boot Your Ass. She got the vegetable plate; a buck an item. Nothing better for replenishing those electrolytes than collard greens, cornbread, beans and rice, and sweet tea.

She sat in the crowded restaurant ignoring the people and trying to concentrate on flipping through a copy of Creative Loafing while she ate. There was a story about the new development planned for Reynoldstown. Her neighborhood. She found herself staring at the same artist’s rendering Ed had shown her. There was her name above some shop. Like she would fall for that. What an asshole.

She sat there mopping up the juice from the greens with her cornbread. She thought about the Ed and Jerry show. Sexist, racist, selfish, conniving, murderous, mean ugly stupid bastards. Jerry was dead, and that must be a blow to the forces behind the new slavery laws. She felt righteous for a moment. But Atlanta was going to become a McDonald’s kind of place if Ed continued unchecked. She realized that she had unfinished business. As Jerry went, so should go his best friend and co-conspirator.

She thought of how she felt when she shot Jerry. She’d had no question. It had been an instinct. Even questioning herself now, she immediately stopped and thought, No. It had to be done. She got the same response when she questioned her wish to kill the developer. He’s a monster.

A news truck drove by. She thought how she could go home and catch the early news because she wasn’t working at the Club any more. This made her think about how she couldn’t watch the news because her house was burned down. And now she was jobless, homeless, illegal, a wanted fugitive, an outlaw. And it was all Ed’s fault.

She drove over to Ansley Park and parked across the street from the Club’s main entrance, waiting for him to finish his dinner. She wondered who he was mistreating tonight. She was very happy not to be going inside the iron gates to serve Atlanta’s elite any more.

She called Uncle Daddy to find out what they’d said at the hospital. He’d had long phone conversations with various officials, and had been cut off several times going out of cellphone range, but he understood that they moved her to a new rehabilitation center to perform her operation this afternoon, and he would know more tomorrow.

‘Rehab center?’

‘Some cancer place. It’s just opened up. Some new technology they’re going to use on her.’

Suzie shouted, ‘No! Uncle Daddy, you can’t let them do it. It’s untested. It’s dangerous.’

‘Baby Girl, the doctors wouldn’t do anything that’s not safe for Auntie Mae.’

‘Yes they would! They’re just waiting for the chance.’

‘Honey, you need to calm down.’

‘But I’m serious.’

‘I know you are. I know you’re scared. And I am, too. But we’re in the doctors’ hands now, and with the grace of God your Auntie Mae will be fine. She’s already had her operation by now. Try not to worry.’

Suzie sat there and worried for several hours. Auntie Mae with a microwave pointed at her chest. Auntie Mae cooked from the inside out. Auntie Mae’s swollen, staring eyes with her hair frizzed out like a maxi-afro.

She saw Ed’s car come weaving down the drive at some point past eleven. The loss of his favorite waitress and his best friend hadn’t made for drastic changes in his social habits. He cruised toward Piedmont and headed up toward Buckhead.

Suzie started the engine after a few seconds, and followed him out of the Club. She kept behind him, playing three-pedal twister trying to keep the car from stalling whenever they came to a light.

Stopped at Piedmont Circle, she had her right foot turned sideways, working the gas and the brake in turn while easing the clutch in and out of gear, cursing the broken emergency brake. He took a left and got onto Buford Highway heading north.

She followed him to Sidney Marcus, going fast. She applied the brakes as she came up to the light. The pedal squished down toward the floor without slowing her Trooper. Suzie shoved down on the brake. Nothing. She mashed the brake harder, but still nothing happened. The back of Ed’s car was alarmingly close. In desperation, Suzie stood on the brake, her head pressing against the roof, pulling back on the wheel with both hands as hard as she could.

The car came to an agonizing halt a single coat of paint from his bumper. Suzie was sweating out of every pore, and she could feel her entire head and shoulders red and swollen with effort. She started breathing again and sat back down, unclenching her hands. After stopping the car with pure willpower, keeping the engine from dying was simple.

The light changed, and her feet danced a little letting the clutch out. She went slowly over the hill, pumping the brakes. The pedal firmed up and the brakes stopped the car just fine, now. An intermittent problem. Nelson didn’t tell her the brakes had air in the line. Was he trying to kill her or did he think she liked these little challenges? She felt the sweat turning cold on her skin. Her breathing slowly returned to normal.

She actually liked driving the Trooper. It was high, and the engine was a real workhorse. Nothing automatic, nothing complicated. No frills at all. That’s the way she liked her cars. Maybe she would keep it. It would need cleaning up, though. Maybe she could fit the back out as a sleeper and go to Florida for the winter. Say, Boca Raton, where you can live well under a bridge, and still send postcards home. Having A Wonderful Time.

The Trooper’s interior was really filthy. The more she thought about having a mechanic’s car, the more her enthusiasm dampened. Nobody drives as broken-down a car as a mechanic. It wouldn’t get her halfway to Valdosta.

Ed turned right onto Georgia 400, and they were off. She was right behind him the whole way, and he never noticed. He took it up to 80 and hardly slowed at all going through the cruise lane, leaving Suzie screaming in fury as she stopped her car at the tollbooth.

Suzie got the Trooper into fifth gear and floored the gas. Soon she was going 90, and he was nowhere to be seen. The Trooper didn’t really like going that fast. It hiccoughed and spat, and the wheel shimmied horribly when she tried to push it any faster. She sat on the edge of her seat, her hair whipping around her head, her short legs stretched to mash the pedal down, all her energy focused on catching up to the evil developer.

She noticed all the traffic cameras, one every few hundred feet, some of them peering down through the windshield at her lap, her face. Were they all recording, all the time? Maybe she should put the wig and glasses on. She drove as fast as she could, peering ahead for tail lights. She wondered how far he was going, which exit he’d most likely get off on. Roswell, Alpharetta, Cumming?

The road was empty. Every mile or so she passed a car plodding home at 65. Every five minutes, a car passed her like she was standing still. Georgia 400 is a drag strip. Cars routinely run it up to 175 and over when nobody’s looking. And the cops never look.

She passed the exit for Roswell, and Holcomb Bridge Road. She still couldn’t see him, but had to choose. She kept going. It was agonizing to know that he might be turning into his driveway in Country Club of the South while she was still speeding down the highway.

She checked the gas. A little under a quarter tank. Good. She kept her speed up as high as she could, but she still didn’t see him. She got to the Alpharetta exits. How far ahead could he be? Did he already get off? It was driving her nuts. She felt as if a part of herself were getting off at each exit, scattering her attention along the road behind her.

Either he was already at home in darkest Alpharetta having a good long piss in the bathroom, or he was heading for Cumming, the back side of Lake Lanier. A house on the lake and boating around drunk on the weekends would suit him fine. Forsyth County’s reputation for racism, too. Cumming, then. She kept going. She was getting low on gas.

The road got very lonely. The spy cameras ended at Windward Parkway, above Alpharetta, and after that there was nothing, just Suzie in Nelson’s rickety dusty deathtrap, passing black pine trees and glowing black hills. The wind blew her hair all over. It got into her eyes. She could hear a succession of crickets. After awhile it sounded like one giant cricket keeping pace with her car. She began to get sleepy. She kept driving.

She passed the exits for Cumming and was heading north toward Dahlonega. There was still nobody on the road. She felt sure she had missed him. He must be home in bed by now. She prepared to take the next exit and turn around, her mouth full of bitter disappointment. Then she saw lights way ahead. It was a car getting over from the passing lane to take the next exit. Her heart rose into her mouth with excitement. There is a God.

He got off on exit seventeen, forty miles from Atlanta. She was right behind him, trying to decide what to do. He turned right, and sped on down the road into the darkness. Suzie pulled out and steadily gained speed. Two miles down the road, he turned right again. Suzie caught a glimpse of the sign as she skittered around the corner. Brown’s Bridge Road. Then she had a discussion with herself about top-heavy vehicles and sharp turns, after which she pulled out her gun and loaded it with paintballs. She put it on her lap and covered it with her wig-and-cellphone assembly.

They were on a two-lane, unlit country road, going up steep hills and down steep hills, around bends and across intersections as fast as possible. Ed was a practiced drunk; he hardly weaved at all. They crossed a branch of Lake Lanier over a low bridge. Pretty. Sparkly black water, black pines. Suzie was following him, right on his bumper, trying to make up her mind whether to get behind him and ram him, or get beside him and push him off the road.

Wondering why she bothered when he hadn’t recognized her before, she put on her wig and pushed her hair up into it. Then she spent a minute fumbling unsuccessfully for the scarf to tie down the whipping strands. They were leaving whip marks on her cheeks.

Blonde nylon hair went up her nose. She started sneezing. She looked at the dashboard and noticed again that she was low on gas.

He was weaving a little more now. Probly getting sleepy, she thought. Maybe she wouldn’t have to shoot him at all. He drifted into the left lane and slowed down as they were going up a hill. Suzie felt like she’d won a battle without fighting. She came up alongside his car, suddenly infected with pity in case he was falling asleep and fixing to drive off the road.

Ed rolled his passenger side window down and shot at Suzie’s car with a nine millimeter Baretta. Suzie screamed with fright. The bullet went wild. He shot again, and it grazed the roof. He shot again, and it hit the door post. She slammed on the brakes and dropped behind him. He slowed.

Ed was trying to kill her. This realization hit Suzie like a face full of cold water. He didn’t know who she was; she was just some woman driving down the road, and he took offense and started shooting at her. Suzie’s fury was matched only by her incredulity. How dare he? She grabbed her paintgun and sped to catch up with him.

She got the corner of his windshield with a psychotic yellow paintball. He squeezed off another shot at her hood. She was scared to death he was going to hit her, or she was going to lose control of the car. He kept shooting at her, and it was all she could do to keep driving and try to shoot back.

Now it felt like there was something wrong with the steering. A bushing, maybe. The car felt like it was stuck in mud – veering and threatening to turn over going uphill, the engine threatening to stall going downhill.

They were staggering down the road together, trying to kill each other. Suzie kept even with him and pumped off ten shots, covering the inside of his windshield, the dashboard, his seat. She reloaded in her lap and resumed shooting. She was aiming straight at his heart. A few balls fell into his lap and exploded. She could tell it hurt, even at her gun’s puny speed. He yelled ‘Ow’ every time she hit his inner thigh. So she shifted her aim gladly. And miraculously, her aim improved. He stopped firing and covered his nuts with his gun hand.

Then she ran out of paintballs. He was quick to notice, uncovered his balls, and started shooting again. The next bullet went through her wig. She felt it hiss and smelled burning nylon. She snatched it off. That was too close. She started to panic, afraid for her life.

In an act of desperate frustration, she tossed the gun through his window, hoping to hit him, or deflect his aim, and maybe give her a chance to get away. She didn’t throw it very hard, and the wind cut down on its speed, but as a flying object, it did pretty well, because it slewed around and whacked him upside the head with the barrel, which had the most heft of any part of the paintgun.

The blow didn’t hurt him, but it made him mad, and he turned his full attention to her. His left arm was holding the wheel. It jerked as he swing toward her, his face purple and puffed out with anger, his eyes barely visible as cold, void-like black holes. Even with eight to ten feet between them, he was still trying to suck her in and drain the life out of her.

He was aiming at her now, not her car. It had become purposeful aiming, calm zenlike aiming. She could tell he was going to hit her the next time he fired a shot. She felt like prey.

Ed could no longer see through his windshield for all the paint, so he kept sticking his head out the driver’s side window to see the road, and sticking his head back in and cranking it around to aim at her. His next shot went through Suzie’s door.

She looked down to see something whiz by her knees as the door panel buckled and the rolled-down window shattered inside the door. She took her foot off the gas and slowed out of range while she thought about it.

She was stuck on the road with a drunken fool who had a gun and was out to kill her. And she was completely unarmed. If she turned the car around he’d be right behind her.

He stopped a few hundred yards up the road. Suzie had slowed and was preparing to turn and run away, amazed at her luck. But then she saw him turn around. Suddenly he darted forward, shooting out his driver’s side window as he came. Suzie realized that she was going to die. He either didn’t care if he was injured, or was convinced his Mercedes would survive a head-on that would flatten her Trooper.

She had never liked to play chicken. But when there was no choice, you pick what they give you. She was fixing to go up in flames or down in history. ‘Want to play chicken?’ She screamed, letting out the clutch and gunning it. ‘I’ll show you chicken.’

The two cars closed fast, aimed directly at each other. Ed was in the middle of the road and stayed there as they got closer and closer. He had the momentum, the purpose, the drive, the horsepower, the balls, the ammo. Suzie was only going along with it, hoping at every moment for a reprieve.

She was scared to death. She could see the whites of his eyes, green in the dashboard glare. He was right in front of her. Suzie veered at the last minute toward the ditch on her side of the road.

And then a miracle happened.

She felt the wind whump her as the developer’s car flew by. She felt her right wheels flop down into the grassy margin toward the ditch. The car rattled violently. The wheel jerked out of her hand.

She lost control for a long moment as the Trooper decided whether to go straight or fall over on its side into the ditch. Finally she wrenched it back onto the pavement and slowed, gasping for breath, still praying.

She looked for Ed in her mirrors. She couldn’t see him. Maybe he’d just kept going and was out of sight over the hill. Maybe he’d be waiting for her on the other side. Maybe she should just keep going in the other direction, or turn into the next driveway and shut off her lights and hide until dawn.

The road behind her stayed dark. She went halfway up the hill, stopped, and did a three-point turn in the road. Five hundred yards down the hill, Suzie noticed a trail of black screech marks in the road, leading into a ditch on the other side of the road. The tire marks were steaming. She slowed her car and peered out the passenger side window. There, ten feet down an embankment, upside down, was Ed’s Mercedes, its wheels spinning.

She might have stopped. She probably should have stopped. But she was afraid. He might be conscious. He might still shoot at her. She didn’t want to die. She looked at her dashboard, distracted by the gas pump light. The gauge was below empty. How far was she from civilization, anyway?

She looked back at Ed’s car. There was no movement. It was quiet except for broken car sounds and crickets. His lights were still on, shining through the steam into the woods. She hoped he was wearing his seatbelt.

She put the car in gear and drove on. She didn’t care about killing Ed anymore. She was satisfied to have immobilized him. Now he couldn’t follow her. She was safe.

The nearest gas station was near Georgia 400, miles back the way she’d come. She got to the pump just as the Trooper was starting to sputter, and put her last five dollars into the tank. The gauge barely moved. She looked up to see cops going by in the direction she’d just come, driving purposefully.

She felt bathed in relief. Her spine tingled and her stomach fluttered. Her heart felt light, her shoulders straightened. She took a deep breath. Ah, ozone. Suzie thought about moving to the country, where it smelled like pine and you could see the stars.

She got back in the Trooper and headed back to Atlanta. All the way back, she thanked her guardian angels for the many miracles she’d been blessed with.

What miracle had occurred to save Suzie’s ass? She’d thrown her wig at Ed as they’d passed each other. It hit him in the face, and the glued-on cellphone whacked him in the nose. He thought it was an animal and went apeshit.

* * *

next, suzie does something brave

SPLAT CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Suzie landed with a clatter of objects and a ferocious slam onto her back. The sound of her fall boomed, and the surface beneath her crumpled. She bounced. Her bag cushioned her fall slightly, but there would be telltale bruises later. She lay there, stunned, looking into the depths of the night sky. She could see little particles of matter floating in front of her eyes; dust motes in the street lights; stars. She heard crickets.

Someone fired at the truck from above. Oh yeah, cops. They were angry. She heard sirens. With a great stab of pain in her back, she rolled over. She groaned; the surface she was on creaked. She rolled again. It hurt all over. She rolled across the knife and grabbed it. Nice knife. Suzie kept rolling until she fell off the side of the trailer.

Uncle Daddy caught her in his arms. Drivers who’d stopped to watch the drama cheered. She hugged him. She cried. He cried. The cops fired another shot. He bundled her in through his door, picked the knife off the ground, got in after her, and took off.

He pushed and shoved a path through the cars, and for once they got out of his way. The exit was a thousand feet  in front of them. They heard sirens. They left the highway as flashing lights appeared over the hill. The cops were all standing on the other side of the bridge, watching and pointing, calling on their cellphones.

‘You hurt, Baby Girl?’ he asked as they descended the ramp at Ormond Street and took a curve. Turner Field loomed over them to the north. Uncle Daddy made a quick decision as he rounded the bend, and took a right on Crew Street, denting a light post. He drove down the narrow street behind Hank Aaron Boulevard, which was too well lit for comfort. He turned his truck lights off.

Suzie didn’t think she’d broken any bones. She moaned, ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’

‘My God, Baby Girl, what have you got yourself into?’ he asked. She couldn’t say right at that moment. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

He passed up the first left, onto east/west running Atlanta Avenue, a nice wide thoroughfare, and he didn’t take the next one either: a rickety, hilly little bitty street called Vanira. He went one more street and turned up Haygood, only slightly wider.  The back end of his trailer rode up over the curb and gouged out a scrape of dirt as he turned. They crossed Hank Aaron Drive and disappeared into the shadows. They heard sirens.

‘Can’t you stay out of trouble for one minute?’ he demanded. She started sniffling. ‘It wouldn’t take them long at all to figure out you’re the sniper, and then you’d really be in trouble.’

Suzie had to agree. She was stupid. She was achy. It hurt whenever the truck lurched. The houses looked so close. The streets looked so small. Uncle Daddy drove his big rumbling truck through sleeping neighborhoods. He hardly slowed down, he was that confident. Or maybe scared.

At Martin Street he took a left. And ran over the curb. This time he pulled a street sign over. He took a very hard right onto Farrington, and pulled out a stop sign. The trees were overgrown, and jutted out into the street. Cars lined one side. Sometimes he had to choose, sometimes he left a line of trees with the bark scraped off and the lower branches in the road, and still scraped up the cars.

‘You really know your side streets,’ Suzie said with admiration.

He mumbled. ‘Summerhill. I grew up here. This was the first black neighborhood after the slaves were emancipated. It was all tarpaper shanties and log cabins, but they owned it.’ He frowned. ‘It doesn’t look anything like Atlanta’s first white neighborhood, over in Inman Park.’

They scraped by cars and trees and rode up over the curbs. They heard sirens. They heard a helicopter. They saw a flashing beam looking down on Georgia Avenue to their north, the obvious route for a large vehicle escaping pursuit. They must have thought he’d turned left on Hank Aaron. Suzie whispered, ‘These are not the droids you’re looking for.’

The roads in Summerhill were tiny, and most of them didn’t go through. Uncle Daddy had to zigzag, taking a left on Hill Street, then a right on Kendrick, and then a left on Rawlins. Suzie watched as they passed old houses crammed together, all dark.

They gingerly crossed Atlanta Avenue going north. It was one of the wide streets the cops would assume they’d taken. She couldn’t see the helicopter. As they turned a sharp right onto Ormond, scraping loudly past a phone pole, she saw it helicopter loom into sight above Atlanta Avenue, now a block behind.

Uncle Daddy made a left onto Cherokee and headed to the bridge over I-20. This was the most dangerous part of their acrobatics so far. It was wide, it was lit, and it was a through street. He could only minimize the danger by entering at Ormond, a block north of the precinct station. Now they had to make a run for it.

They scurried north along Cherokee, under the trees that still remained on the outer border of the park. Beautiful Grant Park. Suzie gazed at it in admiration. In the moonlight it still looked like 300 acres of hundred and fifty year old trees.

Then Uncle Daddy had to get his truck around a narrow bit lined with shops on Cherokee, then across the I-20 bridge, then a right turn onto Woodward, and a left on Park. And then the really dangerous part. The intersection of Memorial and Boulevard, a major junction of surface streets, where cars and trucks and police cars drove by all night long.

They could no longer hear the helicopter. Uncle Daddy turned right onto Memorial, running up over the side of the curb, and went down the hill to the light at Boulevard. He had to wait for the light. Suzie kept looking at the sky. The light changed, Uncle Daddy turned left, and they cruised down Boulevard approaching the entrance to the CSX Intermodal terminal. They went around a bend. There were the Fulton Cotton Mill lofts on the right. There was the terminal entrance down a ways to the left.

But trucks were lined up on the entrance ramp, lined up in the turn lane into the terminal, and lined up with their right wheels up on the sidewalk behind that, all waiting to be processed. Uncle Daddy couldn’t get past the line of trucks. He had no choice but to pull in. Two more trucks coming from I-20 pulled in behind him. He was blocked.

After being closed all day and the night before, the terminal had just now reopened. Uncle Daddy had been waiting around at home, and came to get in line when he got the call. That’s why Suzie got voicemail: he was on the phone.

A cop with flashing lights sped past them. She ducked down. Uncle Daddy started to complain that she was giving him a heart attack.

Suzie started scratching a batch of poison ivy that was coming up on her legs. ‘I’m sorry for getting the cops in your business, Uncle Daddy. It’s not a terrorist den, I swear.’

‘Hush. I knew that all along, Honey. I’ve been down back to see your place. Remember I helped you put up the swing?’ She didn’t remember. She’d always wondered how she got the rope up into the branches.

‘How’s Auntie Mae? Did you find out anything from the doctors yet?’

‘No, Baby. They said they’d moved her, but wouldn’t tell me where, and I’ve got to go talk to the doctor about it in person. So I don’t really know how she is.’

‘I’m so worried about her. What if something went wrong with her operation? Why haven’t we heard anything at all?’

‘Patience, Baby Girl. She’s got to be all right. They would have called me if she weren’t.’

‘But complications. Maybe they’re afraid to tell you.’

Uncle Daddy remarked quietly, ‘Your mom died of complications, you know.’

Suzie stopped breathing. She didn’t know. She’d never heard the details.

‘Your Mom had a heart attack while she was under the anesthetic.’ Oh. He continued, ‘They were doing an emergency cesarean. You had your cord around your neck and your daddy said you were awfully blue.’

Anesthetic. Suzie shivered. She started to cry softly. Uncle Daddy reached over and hugged her to his chest. She felt like a rag doll. She hadn’t showered for days, but Uncle Daddy wouldn’t care.

‘Your Auntie Mae wanted me to give you something from your mamma,’ he said gently.

Suzie sighed. ‘Keep it for me, Uncle Daddy, I can’t take anything with me.’ Then she remembered, and dug around in her bag for Auntie Mae’s Bible.

The sat there in silence for a moment. ‘She’s not getting any better, you know,’ he remarked.

Another cop went by.

Uncle Daddy made up his mind. Suzie felt him change, and sat up to look at him. ‘I’m going to dump this load, Baby Girl, and then you and me are going to head on down to Florida for awhile. I’ve got some good buddies down in Holiday, near Clearwater. We can hole up there and stay out of sight until this all dies down.’

She thought about it. She could go to community college, or get her CDL, or get another job as a waitress. ‘But you can’t leave Auntie Mae,’ she objected.

He nodded. ‘I know I can’t. I’m just going to drop you down there and come back until she’s fit to travel.’ He sighed. ‘Then I thought we might as well retire and enjoy life while we can.’

She thought of fleeing to Florida. The cops’d have them before they left metro Atlanta. ‘I can’t let you do that, Uncle Daddy,’ she said. ‘It’s too dangerous, and you haven’t done anything.’ she thought a moment. ‘You’d spend your life in jail if they caught you. Aiding and abetting a terrorist.’ She started sniffling again. ‘I’m a big girl now. I’ll manage.’

‘No,’ he said strongly. ‘I won’t let you do it alone.’

She tried to reason with him. ‘Auntie Mae needs you.’ She put her hand on the door handle.

It was too much for him. He needed Auntie Mae, and the thought of her in the hospital made him realize he couldn’t leave Atlanta for any length of time, not even to try and rescue Suzie. He was defeated. They sat there in silence while another cop whizzed by. They heard the helicopter again, getting closer.

‘Uncle Daddy, I’ve got to go,’ she said.

‘But where are you going?’

‘I’ve got a plan. I’ll be okay. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days to find out how y’all are doing.’

He pulled out his wallet and gave her all the money he had. Suzie saw a twenty and a few ones and started to object, but he thrust it into her hands. ‘Better hurry, now,’ he said gruffly. Suzie gave him a big, deep hug, and was out of the truck before either of them could start crying.

She looked up and down the street. Big rigs lined Boulevard. The terminal was just up the hill, but she couldn’t just walk in. Oakland Cemetery was to the right, and ran up against the railyard. She eyed the stone wall. It was too high to climb, but Uncle Daddy could boost her over. Then she spotted some bushes, and ran for them.

It’s possible to climb the bushes commonly known as redtips, but only if you weigh less than 60 pounds. However, they grow twenty to thirty feet high, and they’re really good cover. Nobody could see Suzie once she squeaked between them and the wall. Climbing was another matter. Every branch she put her foot on broke. Suzie ended up, scraped and scratched, pulling herself up along the trunk and rolling over the top of the wall. She landed in soft, wet grass. Her poison ivy started itching again.

It was still dark, but it must have been around 4:30, and dawn was coming. She hurried along the wall to the back of the railyard, ducking down whenever she saw the helicopter scanning the ground. Her path ran up a hill and through the potter’s field, with nothing to hide. A wall separated her from the trains and the tracks, a million railroad cars, just waiting to shelter her.

She got to the corner of the cemetery and found an iron fence, chained shut. So she climbed it, and found herself right next to an empty railroad track with dry grass in the middle. The next track had a train parked on it. And the next one. And the next.

Suzie had no idea how to catch a train.

She climbed between two cars, scrabbling over with her heart in her mouth, afraid that the train would suddenly move and crush her. She walked along between two trains, ready to duck underneath one if she should see somebody. But she was alone. All the action was going on in the main part of the yard, where trucks were being checked in, offloaded using a big huge crane, and lifted onto piggyback train gondolas.

She kept between trains and slowly made her way down the tracks in the direction of her old apartment. She thought maybe the edge of the yard would be a good place to catch a train pulling out. Activity was going on all around her. She kept hearing beep beep beep, getting closer and closer. Metal would scrape metal, then very loud bumps. She didn’t know what was making the noise. The trains around her were still, unmoving, dark. She slowly passed the unseen beeping object. The tracks began to come together. And then it was down to just a couple of tracks rolling out toward Decatur.

She passed under the Marta station walkway and came across her old apartment. It made her very sad to see it, all collapsed in on itself, blackened by the fire, acres of rubble and burned out cars. It was eerily silent. She wondered why she’d come here to see it. It wasn’t because she could actually catch a train there. No trains had rolled through since she’d been on the tracks. She came this way so she could see the wreck of her life. So she could really understand that there was no way to go back. No place for her here.

She returned the way she had come. For a few hundred yards there was no cover, and she had to walk as if she were invisible, dressed in black, with a black bag on her shoulders, her white skin glowing in the pre-dawn light. All she had was her bag. Her Dad’s picture was still in one piece, with blue purple streaks on it where it got wet during the hurricane. She had her Superman t-shirt. She had her chef’s knife and a pocket full of money. And she was alone in the world. She started to sniffle again.

She snuck back through the parked trains. This time she spotted the source of the beeping. It was a guy in a big old rolling crane, busy moving from one flatbed to another, lifting hundred-ton containers and loading them onto the car. She made her way past it in a hurry, having to duck underneath and scramble over cars like playing russian roulette. She was really nervous. If she were caught it would mean another charge added to the list. They’d never let her out of jail.

She continued walking along the tracks toward Downtown, sneaking between trains. She was leaving the yard. It was beginning to get light in the east, for real this time. She could hear the birds waking up. Maybe she was in the wrong place. Maybe there were no trains she could actually catch in this yard. She wasn’t going to be able to find shelter on a piggyback car with 53-foot trailers stacked on top of each other, and that’s all this terminal seemed to have. She walked faster.

She heard the rails singing, and looked behind her. A train had finished being loaded and was pulling out, going slow. She ducked under a car until the engine had passed, and then looked for some way to get on. Some of the cars had short sections of railing on them, so she ran over to one and paced it, trying to work her courage up.

She stretched her hand out to the highest rung she could reach and grabbed hold. Her feet were yanked out from under her, and she scrambled aboard and ducked down to make herself small in case she passed an alert train man. The train continued moving slowly into town. Suzie wondered where it would take her.

Not far, apparently. The train took her to the west side of Atlanta, and stopped. She got off and looked around. It was a huge rail yard. Thousands of cars, dozens of tracks. It was getting light. Suzie found a ditch and made herself comfortable.

It took several hours for Uncle Daddy to discharge his load at the terminal and get home. The cops never found him, but he was going to have to get those fangs off his grill right away. He worried about Suzie and his wife most of the time he’s sat there waiting. Now, getting home, he would normally go to sleep, but it was getting light, and he decided to stay up and go to the hospital first thing and find Mae. So he sat down in front of the TV set and turned on the morning news.

*  *  *

next, suzie finds peace in the sunrise

SPLAT CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The graphic is Sniper Captured in big bold paint-splattered letters. The announcer is a way chipper blonde in a bright red suit. ‘Our top story this morning,’ she chirped, ‘police have arrested the Sniper of Atlanta after a bizarre shootout in North Georgia early this morning.’

The screen shows his photo. ‘Elwood Dwayne Collier, fifty-six, head of a multimillion dollar development company, was captured after a struggle with police this morning. His car was discovered by police in a ditch on Brown’s Bridge Road in Forsyth County at about one a.m. this morning. Apparently he went off the road after a gunfight with what police are calling an underworld colleague. Police attempting to rescue Collier were fired upon, and returned the fire.’

The screen shows stock footage of a rescue helicopter landing on a hospital helipad. ‘The suspect was life flighted to Grady Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds and other serious injuries sustained in the accident. Police found an illegal handgun in the vehicle, alcohol, as well as cocaine and marijuana, bomb making materials, and paint similar to that used by the Sniper in the recent death of his business partner, Jerald Sweat.’

The anchor looks personally relieved that the Sniper has been caught. ‘Police are charging Collier with multiple acts of terrorism, as well as the shooting death of his former partner, firearm violations, drug trafficking, DUI, interfering with an officer, assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting arrest. According to police, Collier is said to be well-connected socially and politically, with ties to white supremacist gangs, organized crime, Latin American drug cartels, and,’ she looks at the camera significantly, ‘he has a history of domestic violence interventions. Police say that when he is out of intensive care, he will undergo drug treatment and psychiatric evaluation before receiving a formal hearing.’

Uncle Daddy grunted in satisfaction and settled further into his chair. Maybe there was hope for Suzie after all.

The same house-in-flames graphic comes up. The graphic hasn’t changed in a while because the artist responsible for the Suspicious House Fire series of illustrations has recently been arrested for unpaid taxes.

‘In a new development,’ the woman says happily, ‘police have apprehended the arsonists responsible for the recent fires, including yesterday’s apartment fire, which resulted in six deaths, widespread evacuations, and millions of dollars in damage to the CSX railroad terminal.’

She looks gleeful. ‘The arsonists told police that they were acting under orders from,’ she paused for emphasis, ‘developer Elwood Collier and his former business partner Jerald Sweat. The accused arsonists confessed to thirty-two arson attacks in the past six months. Police plan to charge Collier with these crimes as well.’

Uncle Daddy grunted again, and got up to get himself a glass of sweet tea. But there wasn’t any, so he got a beer instead.

The graphic changes to black letters that read Fraud. ‘Police are also investigating whether other crimes were committed in the redevelopment of that section of Reynoldstown. They are looking into allegations that Collier committed insurance, mortgage, and tax fraud. He is also suspected of attempting to bribe local police and government officials. The GBI has moved to seize his assets pending the outcome of this investigation.’ She looks smug. Maybe she’d been hit on by him at some party.

The anchor turns serious now. ‘In a sudden reversal of policy, lawmakers say they will be tightening restrictions on the shipping of hazardous waste through populated areas, effective immediately. Restrictions were loosened on the eve of the recent rail yard fire, which is still being investigated by the EPA. This is a bipartisan action sponsored by six members of the legislature, who spent an uncomfortable night with their families in city shelters when their nearby Inman Park neighborhood was evacuated.’

Uncle Daddy sipped his beer as a legislator in a crumpled suit and a loud voice vows to reevaluate conditions in Atlanta’s shelters. ‘Damn straight,’ he muttered, and has another sip.

The graphic shows a traffic jam, the letters read The Big Mess. ‘More traffic-related problems in the aftermath of the Big Mess today. The south end of I-285 is still closed while workers remove debris from the roadway.’ The screen shows a shot of cranes in the road, hauling off plane bits.

The graphic still reads The Big Mess, but shows a t-shirt inside a red circle with a line through it. ‘Police have confiscated 10,000 t-shirts bearing the slogan, I Survived The Big Mess. They say Atlanta’s traffic problems are being made worse by the thousands of rubberneckers and tourists who have jammed the roads around the airport trying to get a glimpse of the clean-up efforts. There are reports of whole families traveling from South Carolina and Alabama to view the site of the incident. Police have threatened to arrest sightseers and loiterers.’

The anchor grows somber. ‘Airport officials announced probable delays in finishing the long-awaited Fifth Runway. While it may be possible to step up production, they say, the extent of repairs to the future runway surface may endanger their record for being on time and under budget.’ She looks at the camera encouragingly. Go team.

The graphic changes to that annoying panda. ‘Plans to turn Grant Park into a multi-use development met with opposition from the top today, as the Governor came out in support of keeping it as a public park.’

The Governor appears on screen, looking severe. ‘Plans are being redrawn at this time to keep Grant Park out of the hands of unscrupulous developers who are trying to ruin one of Atlanta’s beloved features.’

The announcer comes back and smiles. ‘New plans include a three-story parking deck, and officials say a small admission fee is being considered to help defray the projected $13 million cost.’ She pauses. ‘And now, a word from our sponsor.’

An ad comes on. The sound gets louder. Uncle Daddy shifted slightly in his chair. He was feeling a little tired.

The scene opens on the exterior of an upscale suburban McMansion. A team of Mexican gardeners works on the beautifully kept front lawn. We cut to the interior and see a blonde wife in the dining room, dressed in designer casual clothes, arranging schedules and to-do lists. Around her, black maids are hard at work cleaning, dusting, vacuuming, washing the windows. A Chinese cook stirs several pots on the stove and bends over to check something in the oven. Through the bay window overlooking the back yard, we can see a black nanny pushing the children in their swings. Everybody’s smiling.

The scene cuts back to the housewife in charge of it all. She says, in honeyed, southern belle tones, ‘I used to do all this myself.’ She nodded toward the workers.

‘I worked my fingers to the bone to keep my family comfortable.’ She shows her manicured hands, looking like she’s never done a hard day’s work in her life.

She sighs and smiles and gestures at the servants. ‘I never imagined how easy life could be. Now I have time for all the little things that are so important.’

She rises from her seat and grabs a tennis racquet and a sports bag. ‘Like a game with the girls. And lunch at the Club. And after that, my daughter and I are going to the mall.’

She heads for the door. A smiling tuxedoed footman opens it for her. She turns back to the camera and smiles broadly. ‘Make all your dreams of luxury come true with certified service personnel.’

The woman steps lightly out to her Escalade on the curb. A servant holds it open for her and bows. She bounces in and pulls away. Her license reads RentaslaveTM and a phone number comes up on the screen beneath it: 1-800-SERVANTS.

The news is back. The graphic reads Wanted in bold black letters over a fuzzy driver’s license photograph of a man. ‘Police are looking for Nelson Tatum, a forty-two year old white male residing in Douglasville. Police say the suspect is 6’9½” tall, and weighs 195 pounds. He was last seen in the Riverdale area yesterday. Police consider him armed and dangerous and caution citizens not to attempt to apprehend him themselves, but to call the police immediately.’ She looks at the camera with disapproval on her chipper face. ‘Nelson Tatum has been linked to Elwood Collier, the alleged Atlanta Sniper, and is said to be the head of the biggest stolen car ring and illegal drug operation in the South.’

Uncle Daddy stirred long enough to see Nelson’s picture. A redneck. He closed his eyes.

The graphic changes to flames. It reads Up In Smoke. ‘In a related story, the Riverdale auto repair shop where the fugitive worked burned to the ground yesterday evening.’ The screen shows footage of a huge fire, completely engulfing the building. Only the sign is undamaged – Stoners Ato Repar, appearing intermittently in the thick black smoke.

‘Flames reached one hundred and fifty feet at times. Five fire engines responded to the call, and it took them hours to get the fire out. Police speculate that the fire involved petrochemicals of various kinds, as well as tires and automobile interiors .’

The screen cuts to a picture from a helicopter. It hovers over the highway and pans over to show how close the fire is to evening commuters on Tara Boulevard. The camera zooms closer to show onlookers, the street closed for a block surrounding the building, fire trucks and cops sprawled across the lanes, traffic backed up all the way to I-75. ‘Police consider this fire the work of arsonists, and are examining the wreckage for clues.’

Uncle Daddy started to snore softly.

The graphic changes to a set of scales. ‘In the state legislature today, the Republican majority overwhelmingly made the Democratic party illegal, due to alleged ties with terrorist organizations. Police have started rounding up registered Democrats.’

The screen shows people scraping bumper stickers from their parked cars. ‘Police are manning roadblocks to catch suspected Democrats. In a similar move, being a Liberal has now also been declared illegal, but police are unsure how to identify these criminals and are waiting for guidelines.’

Uncle Daddy shifted in his chair to get more comfortable. The snoring stopped, but he slept on, exhausted.

The graphic is a medical caduceus behind bars. ‘Doctor Jeremiah Buford, head of HeatHealingTM Technologies and the Jeremiah Buford Clinic for Cancer Solutions, is being charged today with several felony counts of receiving stolen goods, animal abuse, and operating a laboratory without a license.’

The screen shows animals in pitiful condition sitting woefully in their cages. ‘Five chimpanzees from our very own Zoo Atlanta were discovered in cages in his basement, most suffering from apparent brain damage, as well as radiation burns to various parts of their bodies. Doctor Buford said in a statement that he was performing tests to assure the safety of his company’s product.’

The screen shows a still picture of the doctor, dripping with jewelry. ‘Dr. Buford is one of the founders of the Jeremiah Buford Clinic for Cancer Solutions, which has been ordered closed by the FDA pending investigation. According to officials, as head of HeatHealing Technologies, he is faced with serious legal liability due to fatal product defects that they allege he has hidden from federal officials.’

Uncle Daddy slept on.

A new graphic reads Bad Boy. The anchor looks at the camera. A small smile creeps over her features as she tries to remain professional. ‘In national news, internationally known televangelist Pat Robertson was arrested for making terroristic threats against whole communities and heads of foreign governments.’ The picture is a stock photograph showing his smiling face. He looks deranged. ‘Reverend Robertson, who once ran for President of the United States, is being kept in an unknown location, and is being charged with violations of the Patriot Act. No arraignment date has been set. Calls to the Christian Broadcasting Network asking for their response have not been returned.’

Another graphic reads Emerald City scrawled on a bridge with cops scratching their heads above it. ‘Another movie fan comes to Atlanta,’ the anchor says, smiling happily. ‘A graffiti artist tagged,’ she emphasizes tagged with her eyebrows, ‘a bridge on the Connector late last night, and then escaped capture by police.’

A fuzzy traffic camera photo comes onscreen: Suzie being cool in her black clothes and her backpack, attaching spraycans to her harness. ‘Police are searching for this person, who was nearly apprehended in the act of what they’re calling terroristic vandalism late last night. Police were alerted by vigilant DOT traffic operators to the attempted vandalism, and rushed to the scene, but the culprit escaped capture, assisted by an accomplice in a getaway tractor trailer that stopped on the highway to pick him up. The two escaped pursuit by both police car and helicopter, and their whereabouts are currently unknown.’

The screen shows a traffic camera picture of Uncle Daddy’s truck, its fangs gleaming. ‘Police are also looking for the driver of the Kenworth truck that stopped to illegally give aid to the suspected terrorist. Police think the vandal may be a teenager wanted for multiple graffiti crimes in Atlanta. Plans to remove the graffiti are being made, which police say will cause the closure of the northbound Connector for several hours. Graffiti removal will be scheduled for nighttime hours when impact on traffic will be minimized.’

She looks at the camera with a big smile on her face. ‘Next up, it’s going to be hot enough to fry an egg out there today.’

Uncle Daddy turned in his sleep and started to snore again.

It was getting to be dawn. The birds were louder than the crickets. Suzie was lying in a handy ditch between tracks, in an unknown yard, waiting for another chance to catch a freight train out of town. She was cold in the morning air, wet from the dew, stiff, sore, bruised, tired, and yes, hungry and thirsty. She had no idea where she was. She dozed, her head resting on her bag, hoping for some luck.

And luck was to be had. Suzie happened to be in Tilford Yard, one of the busiest yards in Atlanta. Forty trains a day. Since she didn’t know enough to approach a friendly trainman and ask him where there was a train making up, she was going to need crazy luck.

She awoke to the sound of a train pulling out. She looked up and saw a bunch of shadowy figures emerging from the same gully as she was lying in. They gravitated toward the train, spotting a couple of likely cars, and exploded into action.

She watched as they chased a string of cars; a boxcar with its door open, a grain carrier with ladders on the end, a flatbed with a steel structure held upright by clamps. It seemed like a dozen people running for the train. Suzie hurriedly got up and ran to join them. All around her they were jumping on, catching hold of rungs, diving through the boxcar door.

She paced the boxcar and threw her bag inside. It was chest high off the ground and the train was picking up speed. How was she going to get inside? She’d seen several people vaulting into the open car. It looked like it took some serious vertical lift, and she was a shrimp. She felt scared. But she was running alongside the boxcar and it was starting to outrun her. It was now or never.

Several faces watched from the inside. Someone shouted encouragement. She leaped into the car, diving headfirst onto the slippery metal floor. Her hands were grabbing like a gecko’s. Her legs were hanging out of the door. She heard someone telling her to keep them straight. She was too afraid of getting caught in the wheels to let them drop, but she could feel herself starting to slip out, her legs sagging. She tried arching her back to bring her legs up, and felt a searing pain as she aggravated the injuries she’d gotten in her fall onto the top of Uncle Daddy’s truck.

And then she felt strong hands grabbing her shoulders and pulling her in.

She looked at her benefactor. It was a tall, skinny guy a couple of years older than her, with a warm smile on his face. She arranged herself along the wall in the middle of a crowd of rail kids, marveling at her luck and trying to catch her breath.

‘Does anybody know where we’re going?’ she asked.

The guy who hauled her aboard said, ‘We’re on the A&WP line to Montgomery and points south.’

She looked at him. He was kind of cute. She noticed his backpack. There were two bullet holes in it. He saw her looking. ‘Yard bulls,’ he said, and she nodded. ‘I’m Maximillian. I’m a poet.’

‘Suzie. Uh, I do graffiti.’

He pointed around at the others and introduced them. ‘Gracie,’ who looked about fifteen, ‘she’s emancipated from her parents. Gracie nodded. ‘Johnny Thunder,’ he nodded at an older guy, about forty-five. ‘He’s up for King of the Hobos this year.’ Johnny said Hey and grinned. ‘That’s Kathleen,’ he said, pointing to an old lady. ‘She’s from Ireland.’

Suzie said, ‘My mom lived in Ireland.’ Kathleen smiled. ‘You got shoes, girl?’ Suzie’s feet were cut and blackened. The woman fished around in her bag and tossed her a pair of tennis shoes. Suzie choked up.

Maximillian pulled a forty-ounce bottle of beer out of his pack. Suzie wondered how it had managed to remain unbroken. He must have a method. He passed it around and everybody had a swig.

The train passed yards full of rusted out industrial items, ex cars, ex buildings; picked up speed. It swayed pleasantly. The wheels made screeching noises at odd moments. The passengers talked quietly. Suzie looked at Maximillian and wondered if he was as nice as he looked. He looked back, and winked.

The train rode off into the sunrise. The moon set.

* * *

The end