Gridlock

by Ben Elton

  'Yes, Mr Bresslaw—' attempted Ross.

  'The other lot have got a hundred of their people in because half of them came by tube. The smug bastards are having a lovely time,' exclaimed a furious Bresslaw. 'Do you realize that the Prime Minister is outnumbered by a hundred to seven because of you? The Opposition are desperately trying to introduce crapulent Private Member's Bills while they've got a majority. Fortunately, the Speaker's stuck on Waterloo Bridge.'

  'Because of me, Mr Bresslaw?' protested Ross, who had spent years issuing fruitless warnings concerning exactly what had come to pass.

  'Yes you, you clueless, clod-hopping PC Plod, damn you!' Ingmar seemed incandescent with rage. 'You're the top traffic cop. God knows what the Frogs and the Krauts will make of our efforts to be capital of Europe now. I just hope you have no aspirations to an honour, Ross, because let me tell you, after this you're going to be lucky to keep your pension.'

  Ingmar slammed down the phone. His voice had been filled with fury and frustration. Strangely though, as he sipped his whisky Ingmar's bloodshot old eyes were smiling.

  Ross also put down the phone and looked again at his big map, the lights of which were now creeping up around Swiss Cottage and West Hampstead.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  IN A VERY SERIOUS JAM

  For the previous five minutes or so, Deborah's little car had at least been vaguely edging forward. Toss knew this because the empty litter-bin completely surrounded by hamburger wrappers, kindly offered to the people of the Finchley Road by McDonald's, had moved from the front of the car to the back. Now, however, they had stopped completely. Both were painfully aware of the enormous danger behind them. Theirs was one of the more horrendous human dramas being played out in the gridlock that day.

  'Try up towards Hampstead,' suggested Toss.

  They were positioned opposite an open right turn which the courteous driver in the other lane had left clear. The run headed up Frognal, a long, steep, quiet residential hill that pushed up from the Finchley Road to Fitzjohn's Avenue. 'It will take that Turk bloke ages to get up to the turn, girl.

  We'll be outa here,' he added, warming to his subject. 'We'll be dust, we'll be a memory, history, baby. Don't look for us, girl, because we'll be long gone.'

  'Don't call me baby, Toss,' said Deborah, 'not now, not ever.'

  'It was a general expression, girl,' answered Toss.

  'Oh yeah, well, I only see me and you in the car, Toss, and I ain't nobody's baby.'

  Deborah was still feeling rather gung-ho after her extraordinary triumphs in Sam's office. This, combined with being completely terrified and stuck in a traffic jam, was making her rather prickly.

  'Hang the left, girl,' admonished Toss. 'We have one chance, let's take it.'

  But sadly there are no chances in a gridlock, no opportunities for individual initiative, no way to get lucky and beat the system. Deborah and Toss soon found that they were not alone. The first thing people do when faced with a block in the main arteries is to branch out into the rat-runs, the quiet residential streets, thus clogging up local traffic too. Within moments the road into which they had turned was hopelessly clogged, cars following Deborah in, cars appearing in front from other side streets.

  'Oh for God's sake!' screamed Deborah, hammering her horn. 'We have to get away!'

  She beeped, the people in front beeped, the people behind beeped, but not an inch did any of them move.

  'Debbo,' said Toss, 'I think we have to do a runner.'

  Deborah and Toss were about to do something that would be almost unique in that whole long desperate day. They were going to abandon their car. This is something that people find extremely difficult to do, understandably. Cars are very expensive items and most of them are only a quarter paid for. You can't just leave your most precious bit of property hanging about in the middle of the street. You have to stay with it, protect it through its time of trial. During a traffic jam the car owner is completely disabled, he cannot walk, he is incapable of movement. As the incidence of jams grows around the developed world, more and more people are choosing to voluntarily disable themselves for many hours each week, preferring to sacrifice the use of the very legs God gave them in exchange for the illusion of carefree mobility.

  MEAN WHEELS

  Deborah's wheels were some of the few still rolling in London by lunchtime that day. With a considerable wrench, for as has been said, one does not abandon a car lightly, Deborah agreed with Toss that they should try to get up the hill towards Hampstead tube station.

  'That geezer was real angry, right?' said Toss. 'It ain't going to take him for ever to realize that he can leave his driver guy, right? Stroll up the jam, stick his gun through our window and do us in without anyone being any the wiser, right? He could do that, and I reckon he will.'

  It was a persuasive argument.

  'Also, I reckon if we go now, we might lose him before he gets parallel with the turn.'

  They were fortunate, Deborah wrestled her wheelchair out from its position in the car while Toss stood around authoritatively, his uniform lending their actions legitimacy.

  'Just popping to the lav, guys,' he shouted as people began to realize that a driverless car was about to be left in their path. Deborah got into her chair and they were off.

  'Yeeha! Hi Ho Silver, away!' shouted Toss as he began pushing Deborah up the hill. They must have travelled a good hundred yards and Toss was beginning to puff when Deborah shouted for him to stop.

  'We've forgotten Geoffrey's fucking plans!!' she screamed.

  'Wicked, girl, that's the kind of choice detail that makes the story worth telling in years to come,' observed Toss. 'Bung your brake on.'

  Toss left Deborah where she was and tore back down the hill towards her abandoned car. Reaching in, he grabbed up the bundle of plans and was about to rush off again when a large fellow got out of the van that was positioned behind Deborah's car.

  'Oi,' he shouted threateningly, grabbing Toss's arm, the frustration of his wrecked day fuelling his anger. 'What's the game leaving this motor then? When the traffic moves I'm sodding stuck, ain't I?' Of course, the man was stuck anyway because he was in the middle of the biggest jam in history, but he wasn't to know that.

  'So what's going on then, eh?' he enquired menacingly.

  One or two other drivers wanted to know the same thing, and, leaving their cars, they surrounded Toss.

  'I got no chance of picking up a fare with this bird's motor in my way, have I?' enquired an irate cabbie, rhetorically.

  'She really can't just leave her car there, and I don't care if she is disabled, I take medication myself,' said a plummy-voiced Hampstead woman, getting out of her convertible gold Mercedes. 'My husband is a Justice of the Peace,' she added.

  'What is the game?' said the original van driver, fingering a nasty-looking spanner.

  Toss was hemmed in by aggression. He reacted magnificently, hitting back with all the authority his little peaked cap imbued him with.

  'Bald tyre, guy, that is what the game is, bald tyre,' said Toss. 'Makes me weep, I mean, just totally weep. You're lucky, guy, 'cos I'm gonna book you and that way maybe you'll learn your lesson before you kill a little innocent child.'

  'Now you listen to me, mate,' shouted the driver, veins bulging on his huge neck.

  'No!' Toss shouted into his face, something which required him having to stand on tiptoes. 'You listen to me! All of you. Here on the streets I am the law! You understand? I carry a badge!'

  'Yeah, a traffic warden's badge,' the taxi driver pointed out.

  'Traffic warden "K" class,' shouted Toss, indicating the registration number on his shoulder which happened to end in a K. 'Do you have any idea what that means, guy? It means killer traffic warden, kommando traffic warden, kung fu traffic warden! Bad driving is a disease. Meet the cure.' Toss spread his legs and stuck out his chest. 'You! Bald tyre,' Toss shouted at the van driver. 'You! Cracked off-side mirror reducing visibility,' he shouted at the taxi
driver. 'You! Seriously tasteless colour, reducing everybody else's visibility,' he shouted at the lady with the golden Mercedes. 'And all of you illegally jaywalking on Her Majesty's highway. Now get back to your cars or I call a chopper!' Toss took a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate from his pocket and held it to his ear. 'Yo! this is the Cobra, request special weapons group.'

  Faced with a lunatic, Toss's inquisitors were unsure how to act next. Toss knew exactly what to do. Taking advantage of their confusion, he suddenly pushed past the big van driver and charged back up the hill towards Deborah. Sadly, by this time the advantage had been lost. Sam Turk had, as Toss predicted, decided to abandon his limo and continue on foot. As Toss turned away from the angry motorists he saw Sam appearing at the bottom of the hill, the gun flashing in his hand.

  Toss rejoined Deborah.

  'Maybe we should face him out, Debbo,' he said. 'There's loads of witnesses and everything, what could he do?'

  'Toss,' replied Deborah, 'he'll shoot us both and nobody will even get out of their cars. Let's go.'

  The race between good and evil was fairly evenly matched. Toss was pushing a loaded wheelchair, Sam had a bloody wound in his thigh. But both teams, despite their disabilities, were making considerably better progress than any of the cars on the road, or indeed anywhere else in town. Abilities and disabilities are relative quantities.

  OBSTACLE COURSE

  Hampstead is one of the highest parts of London and the approaches to it are steep. Toss's heart was pounding as he laboured to push Deborah's chair up the higher reaches of Frognal towards the village. The endless exhaust fumes from the great chain of stranded cars they were passing made him sweat and choke. Every broken paving stone, every kerb was a drain on his strength. None the less, Sam too was labouring, he had been smashed in the face with an antique flat iron and received a nasty flesh wound in the leg, he was fat, in late middle age and now he was trying to run up a steep hill. Slowly but surely, Toss, whose muscles were toned by countless weekend raves of shaking his booty down to the ground (and then a bit untoned again by lying around half-stoned drinking Red Stripe Crucial Brew), was increasing the distance between him and Sam.

  Then human nature intervened and dealt the front runners a terrible blow. They were running up Frognal which leads to Church Row, which leads to Hampstead Village, where a tube train, or a policeman or some form of assistance, would be available. However, in order get to Church Row you have to dog-leg across Frognal Road, which was of course blocked. The cars had not moved on this road for about twenty-five minutes. Actually, that is not strictly true, the cars had been moving, they just had not been getting anywhere, it was the old shivering snake again. All the drivers, for want of anything better to do, had been kidding themselves that they were making progress by shuffling their cars together, closing the gap between bumper and bumper. This always happens in queues of traffic and never a thought is given to the needs of pedestrians, let alone wheelchair users.

  'Shsffllit,' said Toss. This was intended to be 'shit' but he was too knackered to speak properly.

  'Don't you bastards ever think of people like me!!' Deborah shouted at the drivers of the cars, for once not minding about making a scene. The drivers turned away, looked at the ceiling, stared into the distance, and did all the other things that intensely embarrassed people in cars do. They all looked as if they'd just got caught in the middle of a junction when the lights changed.

  'You've gotta leave, Toss. We can't just go sideways, it's just more streets full of houses, he'll catch us in the end,' said Deborah.

  'Nowahgg,' gasped Toss, which Deborah understood to mean 'no way, girl'. 'He'll kill you,' Toss continued, becoming a little clearer.

  'He won't, not if I don't have the plans. Why should he? Now get going!' shouted Deborah.

  'I'm not leaving you!' shouted Toss.

  Deborah put her brakes on. 'Get going, you fool! It's the engine that matters,' shouted Deborah, thrusting the plans at him.

  'I've told you, no way, he's already killed Geoffrey,' said Toss, releasing the brakes again and beginning to push Deborah along the traffic, looking for a gap that was not there.

  Sam Turk was close now, Deborah was desperate. Suddenly she remembered the vicious hatchet that Geoffrey had placed down by her leg as a lowtech part of his defence plan. She drew it, and twisting back, waved it within an inch of Toss's astonished face.

  Toss! Take the plans and fuck off!!' she shouted.

  Toss stopped pushing. 'OK, girl, OK, there is no need to get so radical,' said Toss. He took the plans from Deborah, then spun round and fell against the bonnet of a white Mini Metro.

  'Get it together, Toss, please,' implored Deborah.

  'Hey!' shouted the irate driver of the Metro. 'That black bastard's bleeding on my bonnet! What is it? Is he having a haemorrhage? That's drugs done that to him, that is, bleeding drugs. Dirty bastard!'

  Toss rolled round to look at Deborah, and a red streak appeared on the white paintwork beneath his shoulder.

  'Fucking hell,' said Toss, in a stunned sort of way. 'He shot me.'

  THE PLANS CHANGE HANDS

  Sam had not wanted to risk gun play, but he had no choice. He was very tired anyway, and when he perceived that the young, able-bodied fellow in the uniform had grabbed the plans and hence was obviously about to ditch the wheelchair, Sam knew that he would have to act.

  He knelt down on the pavement, steadied the pistol against the forearm of his non-trigger hand, and fired. It was a good shot, he did not wish to kill the lad, but he wanted to stop him. Toss took the bullet in the shoulder and was lying on the bonnet of the Metro in agony.

  'Can't somebody help him?' shouted the Metro owner. 'At least get him off my bonnet.'

  Of course any movie could show us what Toss should have done. Being merely wounded in the shoulder, he should have gathered up the plans in his good arm and rushed off like an Olympic runner. Movie wounds are much like movie car chases, they are completely harmless. Real ones, however, are different, they traumatize and disable. It would be a few minutes before Toss was sufficiently collected to make any kind of move, and that was too long.

  Sam staggered up, puffing, panting, bleeding and bruised, but carrying a gun. The irate owner of the Metro attempted to hide in his glove compartment. Sam leant down and snatched at the papers from the ground where Toss had dropped them, having been shot. Deborah lunged forward with her little axe, but Sam was wary of her this time. He jumped out of the way of the swinging hatchet, and, grabbing the side of Deborah's wheelchair, toppled her over onto the ground. Deborah tumbled out helplessly onto the pavement, missing the traditional English dog turd by an inch. This was, in fact, extraordinarily lucky, the chances of tipping a person out of a wheelchair onto a London pavement and not hitting a dog turd are small indeed.

  Sam looked down at Deborah's immobilized form.

  'What, you mean you can't fly?' Sam panted. He was feeling good, he had the plans, and he was pretty certain that anyone who realized a shot had been fired would prefer not to get involved. He was home free.

  'You done good, kid,' gasped Sam. 'Makes me proud to be an American.'

  'You make me sick, asshole,' replied Deborah, helpless on the ground.

  Sam turned on his heel and began a leisurely jog down the hill.

  THE WHEELS OF VENGEANCE

  For a moment, Toss and Deborah were alone. She on the pavement, he on the bonnet. Then one or two people from nearby cars who understood that something had happened nervously wandered up.

  'That guy!' shouted Deborah. 'That guy down the hill, he has stolen my stuff. It's very important! You have to stop him.'

  It was a futile request, people were fairly happy to assist the wounded but there was no way they were going chasing gunmen to retrieve somebody's purse. Besides, how could they leave their cars?

  'Can I give you a lift somewhere?' enquired one woman sympathetically, forgetting for a moment that she had now been stationary for forty-five min
utes.

  'I've called the police and an ambulance on my car phone,' said a man who was clearly extremely pleased with himself for having done this.

  'Get me up,' said Deborah, calmly, 'please get me up and into my chair.'

  'Well . . . uhm . . . how . . . ?' they all dithered, not really knowing how to manhandle a paraplegic.

  'Just stand up the chair,' instructed Deborah firmly. 'Grab me by the shoulders, and haul me into it, OK?'

  'OK,' they said. There was a pause.

  'NOW, PLEASE!' shouted Deborah. It is difficult to be intimidating and authoritative whilst lying helpless on a pavement with a dog turd only inches from your head, but Deborah managed it. The onlookers had her back in her chair in an instant.

  'Thank you,' said Deborah. 'So long, Toss,' and she pushed herself off down the hill.

  'Deborah,' shouted Toss, who was just coming round, but she was gone. The last chase was on.

  Chapter Thirty

  HELL ON WHEELS

  Deborah's hands burned as she attempted to restrain the chair for the first part of the chase; she had a corner to turn to get back onto the main hill and she could not afford to topple over in the process. By putting her brakes on and off she traversed the thirty or so yards back to the junction with Church Row without mishap and, pushing her left hand down, as she swung round into the hill she could see the figure of Sam Turk jogging away a hundred yards or so below her. He was already halfway back down Finchley Road. Once he was down, she would have lost him for she had no speed on the flat.

  It takes a pretty large measure of courage to launch yourself down a hill in a wheelchair, particularly when you will be rolling over treacherous, broken paving stones and having to negotiate terrifying kerbs, more so, even, when your final objective is a deliberate crash with an armed murderer. But Deborah was not short of courage, so she hit the wheel arches on her machine and prepared to burn rubber.