by Mic Roland
“They had no business chasing us,” was Martin’s condensed thought.
“I know, but still…”
“I don’t think they would have shown us any sympathy if they caught us. I’m just glad we got away.” Martin was not in the mood for conversation about the would-be muggers.
As they cleared the big strip mall’s parking lot, the damaged wheel on Susan’s roller bag popped out. “Oops! Hold on. I got it,” Martin said as he hobbled after the little wheel.
“Got it, but now my hand bandage is coming loose. Need to tighten up and see if we can fix this wheel again.”
“How about in the shade back there by those dumpsters?” Susan pointed at the back of a store’s shallow parking lot. “We should be pretty much out of easy sight back there.”
Martin tried to sit on the pavement beside the stockade fence, but his sore knee did not want to bend. Sitting down looked more like a ship capsizing.
Susan pulled his hand up for a closer look. “Hmm. Give me your bag,” she said. “The gauze is okay, but that strip of shirt will have to be redone. Maybe some tape to hold it better.”
While Susan rewound the bandage, Martin stared at the junk people left around the dumpster stockade: a CRT television, a bent folding chair, a very tired air conditioner. This must be the locals’ equivalent to the Cheshire transfer station, he thought. Then something caught his eye. It looked like a baby buggy wheel sticking up between two crushed cardboard boxes.
“Hold still,” Susan scolded. “I’m almost finished.”
“Sorry,” Martin said. “I want to go check out that junk over there.” Standing up looked like a barn raising, with him as the barn. When he pulled on the spoked rubber wheel, a tangle of chrome wires came with it, and a matching wheel.
“What was that?” Susan’s tone was appropriate for roadkill.
“I think it was one of those little two-wheel carts that old ladies use to carry home their groceries.”
“It looks like someone ran over it.”
“It does, but look at the wheels. They’re okay. The axle is a little bent, but…”
“Are you thinking we can put those wheels on my roller bag?”
“I am. Here. Hold this. We need to break off these mangled wires.” Martin bent the wires until the tack welds broke. The remainder looked like a battered cookie cooling rack, with wheels. “Now let’s push the axle against….that post over there and see if we can straighten it enough.”
The axle bent as metals often do — anywhere but where you want them to. The result was a mild zigzag, but the two wheels were roughly parallel. Martin capsized down onto the pavement again and started lashing the little wire rack to the bottom of her roller bag. The broken welds made workable stops for paracord knots.
“There you go,” Martin beamed. “You’ve got wheels again, and more off-road than the little plastic ones. Try it out!”
Susan walked a few paces, pulling her bag. “Hey. This is way better than before.”
“Cool. This will be easier on both of us. Let’s get going again.”
After a few blocks of walking, Martin noticed his stiff knee was loosening up. He also noticed the sound of honking and revving engines grew louder as they approached the intersection of North Street and Route 28. The traffic lights were out, so all the drivers were fending for themselves. The steady northbound flow up 28 backed up against the muddle at the intersection. Most drivers ended up turning east or west. No one was getting any further north.
No policeman had been dispatched to direct traffic. It was a wonder that anyone actually made it through the intersection. North Street was normally a two-lane road, but people were making it as an impromptu four-lane road with an occasional fifth lane on the sidewalk, or in the grass. Fender scrapes and bumper taps were common, but no one was getting out to swap insurance information.
One driver in a line of cars on North Street made a sudden lunge for an open space, then changed his mind and hit the brakes. The man behind him surged to follow him, but smacked into the rear of the first car. The second car did not fare well. The plastic grill was mangled. Green coolant poured out onto the street. His engine would not restart. A heated argument flared up between the stalled driver and those stuck behind him.
“This might be a good time for us to cross the road,” said Martin. He and Susan threaded through the stalled outer eastbound lane, then through the slower inner line of cars. The westbound lanes were sporadic enough that gaps appeared as needed.
The drivers blocked behind the damaged car gathered around the disabled vehicle to push it out of the way. At first, the driver thanked them for their help, but the group went beyond getting the stalled car out of the lane. They gave his car an extra push so it rolled into the brick wall of the corner bakery. When it hit with a dull crunch, they cheered as if they had scored a goal. The driver of the damaged car flailed his arms and shouted. Martin could not make out what he was shouting, other than, ‘are you all crazy?’ The other drivers pointed at him and laughed as they got back into their cars to resume creeping up to the intersection.
Martin and Susan walked north on the far side of 28, along the sidewalk of the southbound lanes.
“Kinda strange,” Susan commented. “So much traffic trying to head north, but nothing coming south.”
The northbound lanes were full of motionless cars, lined up in three long lines. A state police cruiser was parked across both lanes, lights flashing. The trooper waved his arms impatiently at the drivers lined up in front of him. He wanted everyone to turn around. No one seemed to understand, or intended to turn back. Some drivers were out of their cars shouting at him. Others honked. The few near the back tried to back up or make three-point turns in too little space, and go back to the intersection.
Martin got out his little binoculars. “Hmm. There’s another state cruiser on the other side of the interchange, blocking the southbound side too. Wonder what’s up?”
“I don’t know, but it’s sure causing a mess,” said Susan. “Good thing we’re walking.”
As they approached the off-ramp from 128, a different state trooper stopped his chore of placing orange cones across the off-ramp. He stepped in front of them, with his arms outstretched as if shooing away chickens.
“No access here, people. Go back. Go back,” said the trooper.
“We just want to walk through,” said Martin.
“Do you two live in Reading, Middleton or Andover?” the trooper asked.
“Um. No, but we just want to…”
“Then, it doesn’t matter,” interrupted the trooper. “Only residents are allowed in. You gotta turn around and go back to wherever you stayed last night.”
“The woods!? Why can’t we walk through here? We’re just trying to get to…”
“Only residents. Nobody else is allowed in here. Now go back.” The trooper sounded impatient and resumed his chicken-shooing gestures.
“Why can’t we walk through?” Martin insisted.
“Look Jack. You just can’t. This area is…closed. Nobody else is allowed through. Now Go Back. Do what I tell ya.”
The trooper took what Martin perceived to be an alpha-dog gesture of a menacing step forward. Martin did not oblige with the lesser-dog response, but stared hard at the scowling trooper. Susan must have seen him change his footing and draw in a big breath. She pulled at his arm.
“Never mind, Martin. Let’s go back, like he says.”
Martin could feel his heart rate rising and his face feeling hot. He knew it was a fool’s errand to argue with bull-shaped trooper — with a gun — but after his injuries, he was in no mood for authority figures being vague and throwing their weight around. He did not want to give the bull the satisfaction of seeing him comply with arbitrary tyranny.
“Come on, Martin,” she insisted. “Please?”
Martin broke off his stare at the trooper. Why did her eyes have to be so big? Big eyes were an unfair tool. Martin grumbled, turned and stomp-limped off down
the sidewalk. The trooper turned and strutted back toward his car beyond the overpass.
“Where do they get the idea they can just close a public road to everyone?” Martin ranted to himself. “We’ll just find some other way through without violating his precious stinking forbidden-zone.”
“That’s right,” she tried sounding upbeat. “We’ll find another way through.”
As they walked back past the northbound roadblock, they could see the first trooper telling everyone that the roads were closed to allow emergency vehicles to get through.
A woman stepped out of the crowd, pleading loudly at the trooper. She wailed with anguish, not anger, complete with flailing her arms as if she were on fire. The trooper was yelling at her to get back, but she kept coming closer. Others in the crowd were inching forward too, in her wake. The trooper shouted at them all to keep back. They kept advancing slowly. He drew his sidearm and held it high. The crowd shrank back with a few screams. The hysterical woman alone kept coming towards him.
“She’s speaking Spanish,” Susan said. “I don’t think he understands her. She’s saying something about her babies.”
“You speak Spanish?”
“A little.”
“I don’t think that woman understands him either. This is going bad fast.” Without thinking enough, Martin rushed across the road to the median. He dropped the handle of the roller bag so he could have both hands open wide and held high as he straddled over the guardrail. As he entered the trooper’s field of view, the trooper pointed his pistol at Martin.
There was something in the trooper’s eyes that looked more frightened than menacing. Martin was worried, but felt strangely calm. Certainly the trooper must see that the frantic little Hispanic woman was no threat. Martin thought he might be afraid he was on the brink of losing control of the crowd. If the lady could get too close, so might the others.
“Hey. Easy now.” Martin half-shouted. “Don’t shoot. Take it easy. I have no weapons. See?”
The trooper was young and looked like he had played football in high school. His eyes were wide. This was fear, not rage.
“She doesn’t understand what you’re saying to her,” Martin said. “She’s no threat.” Martin said as soothingly as one might with a Glock aimed at their head.
“Back off. All of you. Just. Back. Off.”
The Hispanic lady did not back off, but continued to slowly advance on the trooper, pleading her unintelligible case. She continued to wail a torrent of Spanish. The trooper put his sights back on her. The bull trooper was jogging awkwardly down the road towards the scene.
Susan had come up behind Martin. “She’s worried about her babies,” she called out to the trooper.
“I don’t care. She has to back off or I’m going to drop her.” His last few words did not sound like a threat, but more like the woman was dangling over a cliff and slipping out of his grasp.
Martin looked back over his shoulder to Susan. “Can you tell her she has to back off?”
“I think so.” Susan kept her hands in the air as much as climbing a guardrail allowed. She came up behind the wailing woman, gently pulled her arms down and began talking with her. Martin could not hear what they were saying, but it would not have mattered, since he knew virtually no Spanish.
Susan turned the woman slowly away from the trooper. He still looked upset, but visibly relieved. He held his gun at low ready, which made Martin blow out a sigh of relief. The bull trooper arrived, panting, sidearm drawn, but too late to be of any help.
Those of the crowd that had not scurried for cover behind cars, looked on in silence. The woman repeatedly turned towards the trooper and raised her voice, but Susan kept turning her back, talking soothingly and walking her away.
Martin backed along behind them, keeping himself between the women and the nervous trooper.
“No one passes this point!” the young trooper shouted, regaining his in-charge voice. “All you people. Just turn around and return to wherever you were last night. No one is allowed through here.”
The crowd was regaining its nerve. A few resumed hurling questions at the trooper. The fact that he had not re-holstered his Glock, and that there were now two troopers, kept the questioners less assertive than before.
As they walked back between the cars, Martin began to breathe easier. His heart still raced, and his legs felt weak, even though the danger of the moment was past.
What’s with me and rescuing strange women? Martin wondered. Do I have Compulsive Rescue Disorder, or something? CRD is going to get me killed one of these times.
His mind still tried to make sense of the situation. Maybe closing the interstates to civilian traffic was necessary so emergency vehicles could get around. The clog of 93 proved how quickly the masses could shut down a major highway. But why would foot traffic not be allowed to pass? The first trooper asked where they lived. What did residency have to do with anything? That made no sense to him either.
The woman’s ranting grew loud enough to break Martin’s train of thought. “What does she keep yammering about?”
“She’s talking too fast. I can’t make out much. I got that her name is Isabel. She’s trying to get home, to Lawrence, I think.”
“Oh si, Lorenz.”
“Where’s her car?” Martin asked. “We should get her back to her car and get her calmed down.”
Susan asked. The woman pointed to an old red Civic back in the line of cars. The driver’s door was still open. She also burst into a rapid-fire string of words, flailing her arms in the direction of the trooper.
“Hable lentamente, por favor,” said Susan. “Lentamente.” The woman took some deep breaths then repeated her volley only slightly slower.
“She said she’s been trying to get home all morning,” Susan relayed. “She says there are no roads.”
“No roads? What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure,” said Susan. She held the Civic’s door and urged Isabel to sit and rest. Susan asked her more questions. Isabel picked up her GPS, tapped on it and pointed. All the while, a river of words flowed. She showed Susan the screen several times, getting more agitated at each display. Susan tried to calm her down.
“She means that all the roads are blocked, like this one.”
“With state troopers?”
“It’s hard to tell. Policemen of some kind, I guess. When the power went out, she went to check on her mother in Malden. She left her two boys with her sister back up in Lawrence.”
“Sí sí, meesbebays…Deboconsekorahlorenz.”
Martin could only offer a half-smile apology. He had no idea what she said. He gestured for the GPS. Isabel pointed out the roads she had tried, all the while babbling something. From the screens and her pointing, however, he understood that anything that crossed 93, 128 or Route 1, was blocked.
Is that why everyone is driving so fast now? Martin wondered. Everyone’s hurrying to find a way past the road blocks? But why the roadblocks? Was the emergency vehicles story a smoke screen? They had not seen any. There hasn’t been much for sirens all morning. Was the goal simply to keep people from moving around? Why do that?
As Isabel was pointing out her failed routes, Martin’s eye was caught by an apparent dead end road near 128. It did not look right.
He dug out his paper map for comparison. On his map, the road was an overpass, not a dead end. He had drawn one of his faint red pencil lines along that street when he made his maps a couple years ago.
He could not read the GPS’s Spanish text and labels, but navigated by icons and guesswork.
“My map says this road crosses 128,” Martin said. “But her GPS doesn’t, so it never would plan a route that way.”
“Do you think the road does connect?”
“Maybe. I haven’t ever driven on it, so I’m not positive. It’s worth a try. Maybe we can help Isabel and she can help us too at the same time. Ask her if she’ll give us a ride to up to Lawrence if we help her get there.”
&nb
sp; Susan translated in fits and starts as her mind scrounged for appropriate words. Isabel nodded enthusiastically with many “Si, Si, Si” bursts in Susan’s pauses.
Isabel fired up the Civic. Susan got into the passenger seat. Martin climbed into the back with the roller bag. He slid in amid scattered plastic zoo animals and toy cars. Martin held the GPS between the front seat backs. “We need to get back to the intersection and then go east on North Street.”
Susan translated. Isabel executed a hasty three-point turn, tapping a couple of the other cars’ bumpers in the process. Their drivers yelled at her, but she ignored them.
“Tell her to go around behind this restaurant” Martin said. “The back of the parking lot connects up to North Street.”
Isabel powered her little red Honda through gaps between cars that Martin was not sure they would fit through. He and the toys were getting tossed from side to side with the sudden maneuvers.
“Whoa. Ouch! I don’t know if she’s a great driver or a crazy driver,” Martin said, bracing himself on the door post.
“A little of both,” Susan had one hand on the dash, the other around the headrest. “She’s very worried that she won’t get home to her kids. It’s kind of making her crazy.”
“I noticed.”
As they came up to North Street, the solid line of west-bound cars would not let Isabel make a left turn, despite her frantic honking, flailing arms and a torrent of Spanish out the window.
“No one is going to let us in,” said Susan.
“I wonder about this brick office building on the left,” said Martin. “It has parking in the back, see? Maybe there’s an exit on the other side.”
Isabel either understood more English than she spoke, or must have figured out what Martin was saying from his gestures. She gunned the engine and threaded her Honda between a cedar fence and a telephone pole. They bumped down off a tall curb. She cranked a hard left turn, bouncing off the far curb of the driveway in the process. Martin was tossed onto the roller bag.
“Oof. I guess we’ll find out.”