The Yellowstone Conundrum (47 page)

Mt. Baker Tunnel

Eastbound Entrance I-90 @ Rainier Avenue S.

 
Karen pointed to a possible way for them to get down to the I-90 eastbound surface from their viewpoint on the western lid. “Over there,” she pointed to a pedestrian path that paralleled I-90. Denny gave her an old man look of disdain but wasn’t about to stay put when she took off.

 
“Karen!” Denny shouted. She stopped and turned. “You can’t get down there. There’s a twenty-foot tall noise barrier the whole way. You’ll have to go through the greenbelt, and then probably drop 20 feet to the roadway.  You can’t do it with a bike. Not that way,” Denny pleaded, hoping she’d forget the whole thing.

 
“How then?” she shouted, angry, now asking him as a partner.

 
Well just shit and call me Henry.

  T
here was no way he was going to leave her and no way was he was going to win the mini-battle. He pointed back to the north side of I-90, back where they had just come, across the 23
rd
Ave. S. crossing of the “the lid”.  

 
Karen followed the air-trace of his hand and acknowledged OK. It was a pain in the ass, but do-able. They crossed back over 23
rd
, hung a left, came to a sharply-sloping open field, and started a steep downhill cross-country toward the I-90 westbound lanes.

 
Feeling like she was on the grassy knoll in Dallas with Kennedy’s vanguard approaching, Karen righted her bicycle and rode across the Rainier Ave. S. lane, across the empty six lanes of I-90 westbound to the bushy “greenbelt”, nothing more than five feet of annoying green bushes separating the regular westbound lanes and the HOV lanes.  Karen smashed her bike through the greenery, and started pedaling the wrong way toward the entrance to the tunnel.  There was no traffic. Just before the entrance to the tunnel there was a ten-foot section, a curb really, that she crossed to get to the poor people headed eastbound. 

 
There were cheers and tears of joy as forty people of all ages, sexes, religions and backgrounds yelled for joy at contact with the outside world. Two minutes behind her came Denny, a very reluctant visitor, but nevertheless sharing in the celebration of the moment.

 
“Why are you still here?” Karen asked, breathlessly.

 
The assembled group included businesspeople, tradesmen, and folks in the wrong place at the wrong time, young people heading back to eastside; just average citizens who happened to be in the Mt. Baker Tunnel at 6:20 on February 20
th
.

 
“We were waiting for the police,” added a tall man.

 
“And the ambulances; we need ambulances,” a 50-ish woman with a drawn face added, nodding her head. She had a dazed what am I doing here look. 

 
A woman in her 40s with long disheveled hair in a semi-trendy business outfit tried to answer. “The tunnel is blocked. There are dead people in there. But, there are people alive and hurt. I—we—couldn’t leave them. It’s fucking chaos,” she said simply, dead tired.

Beacon Hill Playground

14
th
Avenue S @ Grand Street

  Nine blocks to the West, the streets encompassing South Atlantic Street, 15
th
Avenue South, South Bayview Street and 12
th
Avenue South, defined a skinny five-block by 12-block section of Seattle controlled by the South Side Locos 13 gang; the Locos were part of a national gang. While primarily Hispanic in other locations, the gang in Seattle was very mixed; Hispanic, white, Asian and white. In the center of the territory was the Beacon Hill Playground, a popular hangout for asshole wannabes and actual thugs.

 
Besides being the primary distributors of cocaine, SSL 13 controlled the manufacturing and distribution of Crystal Meth. They also controlled a section of physical territory north of the gangland Mason-Dixon Line, the imaginary line that radiates east and west from the Burger King at 2021 Rainier Avenue S. over to I-5 on the west side and to Lake Washington. The SSL 13 and Deuce 8 were fierce rivals, each occupying territory on opposite sides of I-90.

 
The leader of South Side Locos 13, affiliated with the Mexican mafia, was Jesus Hernandez Fernandez, with Hernandez being Jesus’ father and Fernandez his mother, standard naming conventions in Spanish-speaking societies.   Jesus was everywhere in Seattle. If Maria Fernandez Hernandez married Jesus Hernandez Fernandez she wouldn’t change her name, instead referring to herself as Maria Fernandez Hernandez de Hernandez.

 
Regardless, this Jesus wasn’t the marrying kind.

  As will happen when stupid and dangerous people have too much time on their hands, no skills and no access to phones, lights, TV, or iPods; then add liquor, drugs, fading sunlight and miserable rain; all it took was one incident, not even an incident, instead a sighting to kick off World War III in Seattle.

South Judkins Park

21
st
Avenue S. @ Norman Street

  “Man, did you see what just happened?” a thirteen-year old wannbe named Leon reported to Li’l Bob, the words instead sounding like a string of undecipherable apostrophes. Li’l Bob, a 2004 graduate of 7
th
grade, now 22, nodded as if dopey Leon was reading him the U.S. Constitution. The young dope-head had his mouth wide open, fat lips swollen, bad enough for drool to spill out the left corner of his mouth.
I’ll like to buy a vowel, Vanna; give me an E
. 

 
The sighting of course was that of Denny Cain leading his new protégée (she didn’t know it yet) Karen Bagley through the streets of central Seattle heading south at 30 miles an hour; cutting right through the southern portion of the Deuce 8 territory. 

 
In just a matter of minutes G2 shuffled his way into the crowd, cutting through the group like a hot iron on butter; whaz goin’ on he asked.
Bla-bla-bla
, then
bla-bla-bla
, finally a couple of niggers here and niggers there; the story took a twist; the girl (Karen) was now black, the older guy was a Spic dickhead. Warm beer back and forth; cocaine now in use; someone got a battery-operated CD player going playing some oldies but goodies.

Public enemy number one
Jailbreak and a smoking gun
You wont believe the things I've done
And the killing was just for fun
Public enemy number one
A storm comin, I'm on the run
Through the night to the rising sun
And the trouble has just begun
 

Songwriters: MUSTAINE, DAVE / KARKAZIS, JOHN

  I
t was either the miserable rain or the cumulative effect of a really shitty day, but tempers and attitudes started to get a bit raw. The group, now forty or so started down the 22
nd
Avenue S. side of Judkins Park toward I-90. From out of nowhere they all seemed to be carrying weapons of some kind; bashing sticks, tire irons; guns were brandished.

 
Then two mumble-mouth dickheads came running up to G2 and started pointing across I-90 toward Daejeon Park. There were a handful of people dressed in blue and black, the colors of SSL 13; it was hard to tell for sure because Daejeon was three football fields away; but God-damn aren’t those South Side Locos motherfuckers? They’re out of their territory. But they could have been neighborhood people out for a walk because there was no electricity. Multiple people shouted. No, they’re coming after our turf; more shouting.

 
On the south side of I-90 the blue and black-coated wanderers were indeed SSL 13 members who started to shit bricks when they saw 40 young men approaching the opposite side of I-90. They’re going to try to take our territory! They’re making a run at us with the lights out. They turned and ran toward the Beacon Hill Playground, almost foaming at the mouth in anxiety. 

 
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 @ 4
th
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 4
th
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 twelve 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 4
th
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 4
th
?”  There was silence. “No, there isn’t any. “Nor is there anything up on 5
th
, 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 4
th
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.