The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  Jesus Hernandez was not one to back down on any opportunity to rumble with anyone, especially Double Gezus. In less than five minutes he had fifty thugs of all ages, sexes and nationalities ready to fight those nigger motherfuckers. Take our territory? Doubt that.

  Mt. Baker Tunnel

  Eastbound entrance @ Rainier Ave. S.

  There was no sense trying to ride a bike into the eastbound I-90 tunnel. It was jammed with automobiles; accidents from fender-benders to slip-sliding t-bones were everywhere.

  “I’m Karen. This is Denny,” Karen introduced herself to the handful of the “leaders” of the remainders. Karen’s exercise regimen had consisted of lifting her laptop from the floor to a desk; taking the elevator from the basement to ground floor, and escalators whenever possible. In ten years she’d find herself thirty pounds overweight if she didn’t do something to change her lifestyle.

  “Janice,” replied the worn 40-something lady with the semi-appropriate office suit.

  “Jerry,” offered a balding man, a smoker; Winstons from the look of his shirt pocket, in his mid-50s, out of breath.

  “Denise,“ offered another hand, also a smoker; definitely not someone reporting for work, but more like a bag lady in the wrong place. Denny wanted to ask the woman how old she was, but realized Karen’s methodology was correct. The group needed quick bonding and it didn’t matter if Denise was 64 or 74. Night was quickly settling and the lights in the tunnel were out.

  “Does anybody have a flashlight in their glove compartment or trunk?” Karen shouted; the sound reverberated down the tunnel in Lou Gehrig I’m-the-luck-luckiest-man-on-on-on-the-face-of the earth voice. The sound died out quickly.

  “What’s down there?” Denny pointed ahead as the group slowly made it past car after car. “Where is everybody?” He then turned toward the darkness of the tunnel. “Hello! We need your help!” About one hundred feet into the tunnel, he turned to see the Light at the End of the Tunnel, albeit on the Seattle side. There was nothing but darkness in front of them. More voices joined them; people who had been parked in their cars and were just waiting all day long for rescue.

  “My husband is hurt!”

  “I can’t move. I’m hurt!” shouted another.

  There were no young people in the group; these were Seattle residents heading to Bellevue for work; older folk in administrative or technical jobs, forced by age and necessity to commute like salmon, to go against the stream, away from the comfort of home, co-existing with the new workplace rules just to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.

  The inside of the tunnel was indeed “fucking chaos” as Janice had described.

  The smell of gasoline from ruptured, yet unexploded gas tanks was powerful as was the damp scent of foam-water. The tunnel was slick wet.

  Denny stopped in his tracks and looked behind him. He squinted with 52-year old eyes. In the far distance on the outside of the tunnel—like looking through a pair of binoculars the wrong way—he could see movement in the far distance, perhaps up to Rainier Avenue S.

  Denny didn’t want to be involved. Denny wanted to run. Denny wanted to take Karen and run and fuck her over and over in their safe little tent. Oh crap oh crap oh crap

  “Listen, everybody! Listen! Please listen!”

  “They’re listening, Denny,” Karen raised an eyebrow.

  “We need to get everyone who is alive out of these automobiles and start moving them however we can toward the center of the tunnel.”

  Well, Denny, that sounds counter-productive.

  “Man, safety is that way,” Jerry pointed toward the tunnel’s entrance.

  “Do you see that? In the distance? Do you see it? That’s a gang. They’re going to come in here and rob, rape, and murder, because that’s what they do! Our only hope is to get through to the other side. Please!” The crowd had grown to thirty-five people; all of whom knew what the Seattle gangs were like. Even though the air in the tunnel no longer being vented because the power was out and the emergency systems were fucked; the deeper they went into the tunnel the more difficult it was to breathe.

  “I need 10 people right here,” Denny shouted, pointing to an open space in front of a silver 2010 Toyota. “Karen,” he motioned for her to start moving people further into the tunnel.

  King County Public Library

  Madison Street @ 4th Avenue

  “Are you Snake Plisken?” Molly asked her head askance, waiting for a smart-ass response from the older, sort-of worn man in his late 30s, maybe early 40s.

  The question hit Ray in the funny bone, so hard he actually laughed. Marmaduke perked his ears, hearing something warm from The Man.

  “OK, that’s, that’s actually funny,” Ray pointed to her, looking at the young girl a bit closer. “And who are you?” he asked, smiling.

  “Adrienne Barbeau; of course,” smiling back at him. Where’d she get that smile? “Can’t you tell? Obviously it’s my tits.”

  Shit. It had been three years since Ray had been with a woman. Is this what’s it like? Is this what I’ve been missing? Conversation, flirting, orange thong underwear?

  Adrienne Barbeau—Maggie had a tanned skin, Farrah-hair and disproportionately-sized mammary glands; the opposite of young Molly, who juxta-positioned her own small breasts with hand motions indicating the size of the actress’s assets.

  Ray started to laugh, his face contorting from an I’m-not-going-to-laugh and morphing into a nearly hysterical tears-dribbling-down-the-cheeks finale. When he stopped, the wryly-smiling young woman continued.

  “And Wonder Dog is Ernest Borgnine,” this time she laughed, a light-hearted but sure-of-herself laugh.

  The moment was simply fucking funny.

  “Yeah, OK,” Ray acknowledged. “His name is Marmaduke.”

  She looked at him and nodded her head. “Oh, that figures.”

  “Saved my life today,” Ray nodded. “We don’t leave anywhere without him.” Ray shook his head. “I could have been evac’d by the Seattle PD this morning,” Ray’s face screwed up. Men don’t cry. “But, they only had one seat. And, he’s a big fuckin’ dog.”

  It was hard to tell what time it was; outside was so dark because of the low clouds and relentless cold rain.

  Molly screamed in the same breath, pointing to the window.

  On the other side of the 4th Street entrance windows were twelve people, grown-up versions of “alms for the poor”, except they were dressed in what remained of business attire.

  Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

  With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

  Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

  Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

  The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

  "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

  With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

  The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus, 1883

  A sonnet, inscribed on a plaque mounted on the lower level of the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor 1903

  Woof, announced Marmaduke, not in an unfriendly way. It was more of a dude or dude look at this kind of woof. Left-to-right or vice versa, the assembled group looked like a police lineup version of an eastside PTA meeting. One lady knocked on the door; three waved.

  “Can we come in?” they shouted, nearly in unison.

  From the other side Ray made a come here motion, pointing to the handicapped door.

  “Why don’t you come in?” Ray welcomed the group.

  Unlike the group trying to leave Seattle for Bellevue, this group of twe
lve was all Seattle Power Rangers; disheveled, but Power Rangers nevertheless. Even with crap falling from the sky and wandering the moors of Fourth and Fifth, I-5 and the rest, they were still Power Rangers; corporate mid-level execs headed for the high-rises in town. Once inside they all congratulated themselves on landing inside an actual building that wasn’t falling down and began to babble amongst themselves about getting food, thanks for the bathrooms, half of the group headed for the restrooms, flicking on switches that had no power. Oh yeah, I have to pee in the dark. The other half started to manage.

  “May I have your attention,” Ray spoke in a loud voice, looking at Molly with is this for real eyes. “By the grace of God, you are in the Seattle-King County Public Library. I work here. Like you, I’ve had my own share of problems today,” Please listen to me! Ray’s voice increased as the group’s attention faded.

  “Ray, look!” there were twenty more people outside, all with the same bewildered look on their faces. One of the first group made a swipe motion with her hand and the second group was inside; wandering back and forth, the restrooms, a lineup at the ladies room, of course, and a general feeling of all’s right with the world.

  “Duke!” Ray yelled to his faithful companion.

  Marmaduke quieted the crowd with a series of angry barks, and scrambled up the stopped escalator to sit next to Ray, who had assumed a position where he could see all of the assembled guests, who were milling around almost like they were looking for cocktail servers to appear. The transformation from homeless to entitlement had been one thin door of glass. Marmaduke got their attention.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ray Spaulding. I work here at the Seattle Public Library every day. My last job was an Army specialist working in Afghanistan where my job was to kill the enemy,” he paused. “I did my job well. I am in eternal debt to the City of Seattle, King County, and the Veterans Administration for getting me this job four years ago,” the cocktail hour chatter died down.

  “You are in my home and you are behaving badly.

  “Thirty minutes ago this young lady, a reporter for the Post-Intelligencer web page, was nearly raped and murdered, right over there!” Ray pointed to the entrance doors to 4th which remained wide open.

  “For whatever reason, you’re here. God has sent me here, and you here. There are bad people out and about in Seattle tonight. You can call them the forces of evil if you want, or just simply the toilet-bowl shit they are, but they are out there,” Ray’s voice was hard, his face red with exertion.

  “You think you’re safe here. Why weren’t you safe at the Hyatt?”

  “Because the building--” started a young man, obviously an office manager-type.

  “Yeah, might collapse,” Ray added. “Do you hear any police cars? No, either do I. Do you see any military protection out there on 4th?” There was silence. “No, there isn’t any. “Nor is there anything up on 5th, upstairs, which, by the way, that’s where I’d attack this building.”

  “But, but, Ray, why would they attack a building?” Ray mimicked himself. “Because, they can. They’d love nothing more than to set this city on fire! They have nothing to lose. They’re out to rape, murder, maim and destroy. Because they are the evil ones,” Ray’s voice started to rise.

  “You came here this morning from Issaquah and Bellevue and Redmond and North Seattle and look what a mess you’re in!” Ray swept his hands out in all directions. “Where are your cars? Wait a minute--don’t tell me—on I-5! You came downhill because going uphill was out of the question.”

  “It’s raining and gangs are everywhere and now you’re inside a safe and warm building and you want to resume command of your life, right? People, that’s not going to happen,” Ray shouted. “The bad people are going to return tonight. Not tomorrow morning, but tonight. And when I say ‘bad people’, I mean men with sticks with nails in them, guns and pipes. Not make-believe, but real. They will mean to do you harm. And if you’re not prepared to return the favor; to kill, hurt, maim them in return; then this will be your burial ground. Someday when the mist rises and the earthquakes stop and the good forces re-take the land, they’ll analyze how well you did. Were you pussies? Did you roll over and let them win; or did you protect yourselves, fight with everything in your being?”

  Ray looked down on the assembled group in the 4th Street lobby.

  Several of the women in business suits were crying. Going to work in downtown Seattle, getting up at 5:00 A.M., dressing for work and then hitting the darkness of the drive, simply wasn’t what they’d signed up for.

  “I’m not going to be the one to die without a fight. There are three entrances that need to be protected; Fourth Avenue,“ he pointed behind the group. “Spring Street and the parking garage entrance,” Ray turned and pointed up a level. “And Fifth Avenue,” he turned and pointed up the long escalator, which normally glowed a happy kind of yellow as it rose from the first floor to the third floor. “I’m going to need your help, each and every one of you,” Ray stopped, not used to speaking so urgently. “I don’t know any of you; but, I need five leaders right here,” he pointed to the top of the motionless escalator.

  Wyoming State Route 450

  Thunder Basin National Grassland

  “Cameron,“ Betsy started; then stopped in mid-sentence, her drawl sounding more Tennessee than Texas. “We’ve got to go back. We can’t let those people die,” her face was earnest, her eyebrows tightly scrunched, her forehead wrinkled in concern. “They don’t know. We know.”

  “But, Bitsy if the wind,” he started to complain.

  “Cameron! Fuck the wind. OK? Those people are going to die tonight unless they get off their collective butts and move. And we have the wheels to help them. I—we—can’t let them die in their beds tonight.”

  Cameron felt like his mother was twisting his left ear getting him back to the dinner table to eat his peas. Yeah, yes, OK; just don’t hurt me.

  They were half-way to Newcastle, which was only a hop, skip and jump from Custer, South Dakota. Yup, gotta turn around. Yup, let’s find a place to turn around. New momma told me to turn around.

  It was dusk. Cam and Betsy were now driving westbound on state 450, about 30 miles outside of Wright, Wyoming. It was cold and clear outside but the horizon was a black hole without any stars. Cameron switched to his VHF (very high frequency) receiver and began to twiddle. At 162.475 he hit WXL67, Scottsboro, Nebraska. The sound was clear, and just plain fucking spooky.

  Good evening my fellow Americans

  Cameron exchanged big eyes with Betsy. The President of the United States was speaking from the darkened spaces of Cameron’s cab behind him because that’s the way he had his speakers positioned. It was so fucking cool. Betsy’s ears froze like dog’s ears in the upward position. Tiger sat curled up on the bed, not asleep like most old cats, but wary of exactly what the hell was going on.

  “Sweet Mother,” Cameron exclaimed under his breath.

  I speak to you tonight from the White House. Ninety-five percent of you can’t see me because your power is out and there is no TV. But, I’m here in the White House along with your leaders of both parties. In fact, I’ve just met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and your National Security Council along with our military representatives at the Pentagon, the ranking members of the House and the Senate.

  I have news of the disasters in Wyoming and Washington State; I’m afraid I have very little good news, but I will share with you what I have.

  The massive eruption in Yellowstone National Park is now into its eighth hour with no indication if or when it will stop. Upper air currents have taken the ash through Wyoming and Colorado east of Denver, now down as far as Amarillo, Texas. The current path of the jet stream will move the ash cloud across the South—Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia—then up the East Coast, crossing Richmond, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston before exiting the United States and heading across the Atlantic Ocean. By tomorrow morning th
ere will be a steady deposit of ash along that route.

  It is impossible at this time to assess the level of damage that will occur. The current path of the jet stream is approximately one hundred fifty miles wide. It is fair to say that the areas directly under the center of the jet stream’s path will receive the most ash.

  I have instructed the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to declare that as of 4:00 pm Eastern Standard Time all 50 states are in a Federal Disaster Area; which means the government will immediately help states with resources at hand.

  I’ve also asked the Defense Department to immediately make the Army and Air Force National Guard units available for states to use as needed. The Emergency Preparedness offices of the various states should contact their state National Guard office and begin to assess potential damage and initiate an action plan, which includes possible evacuation of affected areas.

  States not immediately affected by the current path of the jet stream need to use their National Guard units to prepare what-if scenarios when the wind patterns shift, which they will; also coordinating the potential movement of millions of Americans from one state to another.

  I have asked the Defense Department to recall National Guard units currently serving abroad to assist local governments. The logistics of moving large numbers of troops from Army bases abroad is complicated.

  Telephone service in the Eastern US has returned while service in the western states is spotty or non-existent.

  In addition to the Yellowstone caldera explosion, the failures of the Jackson Lake and Fort Peck dams mean that the Snake and Missouri Rivers are in the process of being flooded. The Army Corps of Engineers is attempting to design a diversion of these rivers, but massive flooding can be expected.