The Yellowstone Conundrum (52 page)

I-25 Corridor

 
I-70 eastbound to Kansas and I-76 eastbound to Nebraska were packed with cars trapped in jammed traffic; no place to run, no place to hide. No motels, no churches, no farmhouses; nothing but East Colorado semi-desert ranchland. Because of the persistent down-canyon winds, the western wall of the black cloud hovered just east of Boulder, then tapered down to a point less than two miles from Golden; virtually all of Jefferson County was covered in black.  Residents of Arvada, Wheat Ridge and Lakewood just had to drive a few blocks and they could—or would have—been safe. Many didn’t.

 
With the winds, the cloud had spread eastward to Ft. Morgan and further south to a little bit east of Limon.  Colorado Springs was not spared, nor was Pueblo; however, persistent drivers on I-25 could head west on US-50 or US 160 back toward the heart of the Rockies and escape the Black Death; which took a turn eastward and continued south.

 
By 6:00 PM MST black volcanic ash had started to fall in Amarillo, Texas; home of America’s only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant.             

  Continue operations? Evacuate?
Babcox & Wilcox, site contractors, needed a decision from the Department of Energy. It was an excellent question. As it was a bad day in Washington as it was everywhere else, the go or no-go decision could have just as easily been made by the kid delivering the Amarillo
Globe-News
on his bicycle; or two-out-of-three in rock-paper-scissors, four-out-of-seven heads or tails, or last-hand-on-the-baseball-bat (no caps!). 

 
Instead, it was the ultimate cop-out. No decision was made; that way nobody eats the blame because there was no decision to be made. Close the plant? Are you crazy?  Evacuate Pantex (just because the citizens of Amarillo were leaving in droves)? Are you nuts?

 
Hopefully the school kids delivering the
Globe-News
had parents who could see an advancing Black Cloud of Death and make the decision to get out of Dodge, or in this case, Amarillo. South on I-27 toward Lubbock was OK, as was west on I-40 toward New Mexico. 

 
Texas residents had the supreme advantage of having electricity because their state government had long ago decided not to go along with the other states in the transferring of electricity from one generating system to another; Texas would remain energy independent; the only exception being El Paso Gas and Electric, which controlled energy for the western tip of the state, from the desert west of Odessa to the New Mexico border.

 
Amarillo residents could go to the gas station, wait in lines, but get gas. They could also go to their cash machines and withdraw currency, or go to the local bank (Amarillo National, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, First United, Herring Bank, and good old Happy State Bank with 30 locations in 20 communities.

 
They could also feel free to go into a sporting goods store and buy camping equipment (Dicks, Academy, Big Five, Gander Mountain, Hills, CD Ski, Foot Locker, and Gebo’s); of course, when you have electricity you don’t necessarily think about camping in the desert, not when you have ice cubes for your cocktails and your interstate highways haven’t buckled.

  Get a snort?
Go to one of 32 liquor stores in Amarillo; they were all open. Wanna go out for a steak, honey?  Plenty to choose from; Saltgrass, Embers, Hoffbrou, Outback, Country Barn, B.L. Bistro and Macaroni Joe’s; or simply to go Albertson’s or WalMart and pick up something for the BBQ.

 
As the sun went down, life in Amarillo, Texas was a hell of a lot different than Seattle, Washington. 

Downtown Seattle

 
What passed for the sun was virtually down in Seattle.  
Whoops
, it’s gone. Then there was night; a damp, wet night so typical of Seattle. Most nights the mist, the light rain would be romantic; the lights of the city, the attractions lit up; but tonight it was nothing but misery.

 
Fires burned out of control in downtown; some set by gangs, some by exploding gas lines. The Seattle Police Department, undermanned from the beginning of the day, now showed considerable stress as third-shift and early first-shift officers were into their third shift of the day because no one could get into or out of downtown Seattle.

 
Back-up radio communications had been all they’d been able to use all day long. Phones, cells, satellites, all had gone to poop. To the average patrolman it felt like they were on
Dragnet
; sometimes on
Car 54 Where Are You
.   Bad crap was happening everywhere. Roads were closed because of: you name it, accidents, concrete failure; buildings collapsing. Policemen were scattered throughout town. People were out and about because there was no electricity; it was impossible to tell good guys from bad guys, from the do-badders to regular folk just outside their house trying to figure out what the hell has happened.

  There was no TV.
Radio existed but only by battery; and you had to have the old- time radios; nothing “pad” worked; the air was mostly dead; what sounds came out were CB’ers on battery, broadcasting to the neighborhood or beyond; sometimes their signals would reach two streets over, sometimes 500 miles away, depending on how the signal bounced.

 
At six o’clock when it was fully dark and no one could see more than a block and a half, two members of the Blood West/Side Street gang threw pretty good versions of Molotov Cocktails into the entrance to the Fairmont Olympic Hotel at the corner of University and 4
th
Avenue.

 
Eight blocks away on the south side of the massive Columbia Center, at 76 floors high the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest; it was cocktail time at the Seattle Police Department, 610 5
th
Avenue.

 
The Columbia Center occupied an entire square block of real estate and cut off views to the north by any building in its shadow. The Yessler Terrace Bloods, long-time “owners” of a large area of real estate, from 12
th
Avenue west to I-5, down to S. Main Street; a gang with well over 200 members, crossed I-5 on Yesler Way, mainly using motorcycles, took a right onto 5
th
Avenue, one way southbound, opposite direction, but since there were no lights on, no cars on the road, and no patrol officers, who was to stop them?

 
The attack was swift and accurate; firebombs lit up the evening sky as the main entrance was attacked, also the entrance/exit to the parking garage next door, and the entrance to the King County Adult Detention—City Jail.

 
It wasn’t one or two cocktails, but a dozen—maybe two dozen. The Seattle police department building began to burn. Inside, inmates were going nuts—doing everything they could to disrupt The Man.

Mt. Baker Tunnel

 
Inside the Mt. Baker tunnel, Denny and Karen exchanged meaningful looks.

 
“Are you sure?” Karen asked.

 
“No, I’m not sure,” Denny replied, shaking his head, deliberately.

 
No, you mean you’re not sure you’re going to be a grown-up today? When were you planning to become a grown-up?  After you fucked this girl? Or the next? Or the next?

 
“After all we’ve been through today?” she asked shaking her head; a mop of uncombed brunet stringy hair falling to her shoulders; her chest heaved, tears welled in her eyes; her breasts outlined her shirt, wet-from-perspiration and the multiple exertions of the day. 

 
“You can come with me,” he looked at her earnestly.

 
“Who’s going to lead them where they need to go?” Karen started to cry.

  “I don’t know.
Crybaby maybe,” he answered.

 
“Shut up,” she hit him hard.

 
There was a brief silence between them.

  “Mr. Denny?” It was Jerry.
“Everything’s in place.”

 
He’d been promoted to Mr. Denny.

 
Everything was in place.

 
The Mt. Baker tunnel stunk like gasoline and dead bodies.

 
“Mr. Denny, if you don’t go now, you won’t make it.”

  Denny turned to Jerry.
The gang violence a half-mile away would eventually turn to the victims in the Mt. Baker tunnel.

 
Denny turned and kissed Karen on the lips, a kiss that was returned, full body embrace, four hands finding their own way. After twenty seconds Denny broke the kiss.

 
“Not bad, rook,” he smiled.

 
Behind him was a 1993 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon; the car that asked millions of owners
could we drive to California today?
  Somehow the Beast That Lives survived the eastbound tunnel crash; and had been turned back around, westbound, its new owners finding a path for the monster to head west. In the passenger seat, and the wide expanse of the rear seating/storage area, were ten people in a variety of pain; the worst of the worst.

 
“Karen,” Denny put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “I’ll find you.  It might be tonight, or tomorrow, or next month. But, I’ll find you. Keep going south. Nothing is going to get better here.”

 
“But, your bike,” she started.

 
“It’s OK.  Don’t forget your backpack; mine is in the rear storage.” Then he got into the worn, comfortable tan leather seat. His last words to her were; “You remember what to do. It’s got to be fast.”

 
“I’ve got it,” she answered confidently.

  “Then go south, Karen.
Here, take this,” he handed her his cell phone. “When the phones come up and we get through this, I’ll find a phone and call you.” He wrapped the cell phone in her right hand along with a re-assuring squeeze.  Turning to the task at hand, Denny pressed the accelerator and the ancient Buick responded with a giddy-up roar.

 
Are we going to California?

             
The Deuce 8 and SSL-13 gangs now filled I-90’s lanes; a half-mile to the west the interstate was crashed at the junction of I-5; a half-mile to the east was the Mt. Baker tunnel. In between, just west of the Rainier Ave. S. exit over 200 gang members gathered, motherfucker’d and nigger’d each other; with more than a handful of skirmishes: Jesus Hernandez Fernandez and Gusus Gusus Howard, a deep scowl on each face, assessed the situation. It was going to be dark in a few minutes and there was no reason anybody should die on the white man’s highway.

  “Look!” shouted several thugs as the two gangs began their posturing. WTF? It was a station wagon coming out of the eastbound lanes going in the wrong direction!

 
Jesus Hernandez Fernandez looked on with amusement as he saw the station wagon slowly drifted across five lanes to the first of two HOV switchbacks. The wagon exited the wrong way on the eastbound HOV-to-regular eastbound, came to a stop and made a quick K-turn and began to go eastbound on the parallel reversible lane.

 
“Mother-fucker is trying to get over to Rainier!” through his neighborhood again. Black Jesus gave brown Jesus the high sign, which was returned. No battle today.  \No one was trying to take territory.  \Fucking lights were out and tempers were out of hand. With the size of the Deuce 8 much smaller than the SSL-13, any battle would have been short-lived. Most of the Deuce 8s started to get onto I-90 and chase the Buick, while a handful decided it might be better to get down to Rainier and see if they could cut the car off that way.

 
That left Jesus H. Fernandez with some posturing and an easy target for some butt-kicking, murder, rape and robbery with any one left alive in the Mt. Baker tunnel; a trapped bunch of white people; it would be a turkey shoot. Jesus motioned toward the tunnel; about half of his large gang decided to come along, the other half began to wander back to the ‘hood. Smiling at G2’s territory-management problem, Jesus smugly started walking his folks toward the eastbound tunnel entrance.

 
The big car was responding beautifully, but it was slow going. The first two turns were made easily, but there were two more to negotiate. Now going eastbound, after 50 feet Denny turned due north and crossed two more HOV lanes, this time turning left onto the westbound reversible lanes; fifty more feet and another K-turn. Denny heard gunshots in the distance.

 
Pop-pop-pop-ping; no glass, but two wild shots managed to hit the Roadmaster. The passenger and cargo areas of the car were packed with people desperate for medical attention. If the hospitals and police couldn’t have made it during the day, then the people he was carrying would have been out of luck; Denny was aware of the moaning in the backseat and cargo area. Moaning was good, dying was not.

 
Deuce 8s had crossed Rainier on I-90, now in the HOV lanes, eighty feet from the Buick; but Denny had made his last switchback and gunned the Roadmaster the wrong way on the westbound lanes, took a sharp left turn at the end of the concrete divider and crossed the four lanes in an instant. More shots; the rear panel window was shattered.

  “Anybody hit?” Denny shouted.
No answer.  “I’ll take that as a no.”

 
Out of his eyesight, Deuce 8 thugs were running up Rainier Ave. S, now under the I-90 lanes; the gang members on the interstate were far behind. Escape looked possible, even probable.

 
Denny urged the Roadmaster on, exiting northbound on the Rainier exit;
faster, faster, faster; then slower, slower, stop, stop, stop!
Denny’s brain shouted to him.

 
Like most exit ramps that curve beautifully, elegantly merging with the street traffic below; the eco-designers in Seattle had bowed to the bike and pedestrian people who had demanded that they have access underneath the Rainier exit ramp instead of having to stop and then fight northbound Rainier traffic, with no sidewalk because there was a mini-greenbelt area shielding the ramp from the merging traffic.  Given the problem and the pro-bike/pedestrian disposition of the city, slicing out two twelve-foot sections of existing roadbed, reinforcing the re-bar and carving out a small five-foot by eight-foot tunnel for a ped/bike path, was a minor consideration. Thus it was done.

 
Except that on February 20
th
the replacement concrete over the little tunnel, not a real tunnel with archway support, had cracked, much of the surface remained, however the rebar was an exception and held together, but sagged. The center section over the small tunnel was unstable, cracked and sagging.

 
Denny pulled to a stop; in his rear view mirror he could see the gang members who had raced across the I-90 surface, only not to arrive in time, were re-energized. The fly was in the spider’s web. To Denny’s left was a guardrail that dropped off fifteen feet onto Rainier Avenue; to his right was another guardrail, which if it wasn’t there, offered a shot at exiting the ramp, driving through some shrubbery and making it up an embankment where the bike trail macadam was; gaining purchase there, the Buick’s power would take over.

 
1993 Buick Roadmaster

  Denny knew that if the thugs reached him, he and the ten innocent people he was carrying would be dead, probably shot or clubbed to death, especially since there weren’t any ladies to rape, then firebombed. It wouldn’t be pleasant, or necessarily short and sweet.

  “Hang on!” Denny shouted.
There was no choice but to go straight across the damaged section of concrete and rebar.  A 1995 Buick Roadmaster weighs 4,177 pounds; add another thousand pounds of passengers, perhaps more; close to three tons.

 
Denny, just gun the mother-fucker he thought
;
otherwise they’re going to fry your ass.

 
“Let’s go to California!” Denny shouted as he hit the accelerator.

 
Rebar—reinforced steel bars set inside concrete is what makes concrete structures as durable and resistant to disaster as they are. In roadbeds the rebar is set approximately six inches apart. 

 
The tires on Denny’s borrowed Roadmaster were 15’ wide.

 
Roar.

 
Why the hell did you stop
? The car seemed to ask as it cruised over the heavily damaged roadbed; grabbing some air in places, but finding traction, then onto the downslope macadam. Denny shot toward the merge onto Rainier Ave. northbound. In his mirror were angry Deuce 8s; he could see the white puffs of smoke, but none of the shots made it, probably .22 caliber.  

 
Slowing for the lane problem allowed the Deuce 8s running up Rainier to catch up. Just as the merge lane actually merged with Rainier, Denny was faced with another problem.  A gang of at least 14 youngers and brazen young women; several with revolvers, blocked the road ahead; their men were reaching the end of their lungs.

 
There was no practical way to handle it.

 
They all seemed to have red eyes.

 
One woman, a black-haired, full-figured woman in her early 20s, aimed what Denny thought was a shotgun toward the car. He drove straight for her. 

 
“Duck!” he shouted, knowing full well his passengers had already ducked as far as they could duck. Denny hit the accelerator and drove straight for the crowd. The gun exploded and the front windshield shattered. Denny parted the dark sea and simply ran over the woman, bump-de-bump, amidst a great deal of wailing and anger. The Dark Sea mostly parted, the remaining riff-raff whacked on the Roadmaster with all they had; bricks, clubs, baseball bats, tire irons. Denny stopped being a nice guy and put the petal to the metal. Behind him G2 and the stragglers were close on his heels, but not close enough.

 
Denny ended up running over two women, killing them both, and severely injuring two younger women who were no more than 15 years old. The mob was out to kill them.

 
Catching purchase on Rainier Ave S. again Denny’s foot stomped on the accelerator. The Buick took off like someone had put a rocket in its butt. Behind them, an angry mob of mostly black Deuce 8s reached the death scene where the 28-year woman (yes, mom to the two girls; Saquischa and Ra’q’l) (where was Vanna when you needed her?) Saquischa had been the one to lay a baseball bat onto the driver’s side window, denting but not smashing it. (go Roadmaster!). 

 
It was dark, really dark; so Denny had the car’s headlights on, which also meant taillights. Someone in the group had the sense to tell an underling to follow the car as best he could; thirty seconds later six little kid’s bicycles were headed north on Rainier, peddling hard.  Apparently the Deuce 8s had a mobility issue that the Yessler Bloods didn’t; still stuck back in the 7
th
grade middle school mentality of getting around town on a kid’s bicycle. Although the lights faded because of turns, the “feel” of the group of chase bikes was that the Buick was headed for Harborview.