I didn’t know how high he could crawl in those tunnels, but I knew there were several “up” vents here and there with rusty metal ladders heading up to the street. But those street entrances were often locked or covered with manholes too heavy to budge without equipment.
I didn’t want to think about it. I just had to get there. But the prospect was daunting: traffic had become a Gordian knot, and every stray off-road was getting clogged with people who had the same bright idea I did. There are a lot of back ways to reach a destination around here, but the trouble is, everybody knows all those back roads too.
Finally—and well past my thirty minute meeting command—I worked my slow, aggravating way through a north Chattanooga neighborhood and came out near Frasier Avenue, the old warehousing district-turned-tourist strip.
I’d never seen so many cars there.
I’d been out for the big Riverbend music festival and thought that was bad, but this was insane. Cars were stopped in every available street, corner, and curb—jammed into parking lots, halfway onto sidewalks, and parked on people’s yards wherever private houses met the shopping district. Everyone was trying to turn around, which was almost perfectly impossible.
“Oh God.” I said it out loud, for no one to hear. I’d really done it this time. There was no leaving, and no going forward. I’d stopped at the top of a hill, and I still had a tiny bit of wiggle room between the curious and desperate cars, but my window was closing fast as people crushed themselves as close to the water’s edge as they could get.
I thought about my almost-apartment a few blocks away, and wondered how it was faring. I thought of Christ down in the runoff. And I thought of Greyfriar’s, and the stores, and the boats, and the bridges.
I could run for it. I could find a place to leave the car and make a dash for it. The path to the river was straight downhill and only a matter of blocks.
It was hard to see what was going on down there. The chaos had reached some kind of critical mass, and police were chasing or arresting everyone within arm’s reach, or that’s what it looked like. Down closer to the water, people were starting to turn back—abandoning cars and retreating to the tree-filled neighborhoods up the hills.
My windshield wipers slapped a nerve-wracking rhythm as they barely managed to swipe the glass clear for a split second at a time.
“This is going to suck,” I said to no one in particular, though it was followed by an apology. “Okay, little Death Nugget. I’m going to have to find a place to leave you for a while. It won’t be so bad,” I assured it. “Up here on the hill, it’s not like you’re going to get flooded. Worst case scenario? You get towed and I’ll have to pay a big fat fine to get you back.”
But really, what were the chances that a tow truck was going to make it into north Chattanooga any time in the next few days?
I peered through the sheets of rain sliding over my windows and figured, “Not any time soon.” Cars were crushed together, fender to fender, on every street that was not obscured by trees or buildings. People were standing outside their vehicles swearing and shouting, making threats, and starting fights—which only rarely drew the attention of the overwhelmed police presence.
Behind me, cars were clogging the roadways. If I didn’t pull over and switch off now, I’d be stuck in the lane where I idled. A truck in front of me gave up and pulled up the curb onto what looked like the yard of an old apartment building, but the neighborhoods up there are so jumbled it was hard to tell.
Since he’d set the precedent, I did likewise, compelling my small black compact to hike the curb and take to the grass.
From the minimally higher vantage point of somebody’s grass, I spied a parking lot catty-cornered from the block. It was full, but people were still turning into it as if they could make a complicated U-turn and find their way back home by nightfall.
It wasn’t going to happen.
Too many abandoned cars and too many angry, confused people.
I added my own car to the pile, zipping over the soggy grass, down one curb, over a sidewalk, and up a second curb. This put me in the back part of the lot, where, behind a pair of monster SUVs, there was a small open space where a little black car fit perfectly.
I hadn’t even gotten the keys out of the ignition before someone whipped in behind me and blocked me there, but it didn’t really matter. This was a vehicular suicide mission and we all knew it. No one was leaving by car today.
A nasty gust of wind roared its way past, rocking the Death Nugget back and forth.
I knew I had that umbrella in the back seat somewhere, so I fumbled around until I found it and yanked it forward. Another gust of wind sideswiped the car, and I had a feeling that the umbrella wouldn’t really help. The rain was sweeping down sideways.
I tried to be calm and thoughtful.
Sure, Mother Nature was raising hell; and I was now effectively trapped miles from home; and, yes, the city was in an uproar; and, of course, Christ was down by the river possibly drowning even as I sat there; and obviously I’d told Jamie I’d meet him in half an hour, a deadline which had passed twenty minutes ago. Never mind the fact that Harry and Malachi had chosen this particular weekend to try and visit, and they were down there somewhere now—not in town yet, I hoped. I could only pray they were running late. It was the only thing that would save them.
I was increasingly afraid that I was going to have to stand them all up, but I was determined to do my best. If I made it to the pedestrian bridge, I’d be closer to Christ than to Greyfriar’s. I’d have to check the undersides first.
I wished to God that I wasn’t alone.
At least when I’d gone tearing through the battlefield, I’d had Benny and Dana with me. At least then, if I stumbled, there was someone to know what had happened and someone to keep pushing me forward. Not here. Not now.
So, all right, it was me against the world. What should I bring?
My cell phone was lying forlorn upon the passenger’s seat. I picked it up and shoved it into its protective holster—but the holster wasn’t going to keep it from getting wet. Thanking heaven that I didn’t clean out my car too regularly, I reached down to the floor and found an empty potato chip bag. I shook out the leftover crumbs of salt and snack, then dumped the cell phone into it, holster and all. I rolled this up and stuffed it into my purse, zipping it into a side pocket.
The purse itself was a large bag with a strap long enough to sling across my chest for hands-free carrying. It was black leather and slightly worn, but it had been treated with a protective spray and would keep out most of the wet so long as I didn’t go swimming.
Again I looked outside, through the waterfall window.
Swimming might be in my future whether I liked it or not. But the cell phone couldn’t stay in the car.
I picked through my purse and pulled out a small notebook, a checkbook, some makeup, and my wallet. I stuffed the notebook and checkbook into my glove compartment, and put the wallet back inside. Most of the contents were plastic anyway, and unlikely to be damaged in case of baptism by immersion.
In the glove box I found my tiny, trusty flashlight. It was made to be durable and maybe even waterproof, but I’d have to take my chances on it regardless. I chucked it into the bag. I also found a knife—one of my old favorites, the one with the leather sheath that snapped shut around it.
I’d started leaving it at home or in the car because the blade was too long to be legal, but thinking of the chaos at the bottom of the hill, I decided that it was worth the risk to carry it. I undid my belt and slipped it through the loops, then fastened myself up.
Better than nothing.
I had to use my leg to help pry open the car door, which was resisting because of the wind. I knew in an instant that the umbrella wouldn’t do me a bit of good, so I left it. I climbed out of the car, crawled through my purse strap, and locked the doors behind me.
Standing there, overlooking the river and the city from the top of that hill I wondered what I was doing and how I planned to do it.
But I couldn’t just stand there, so I braced myself against the slashing, driving rain, and started to run.
13
The Gauntlet
Crowds were forming, milling, and moving in an agitated fashion up and down the hills of north Chattanooga. People were coming together, chattering angrily, swelling into big groups, breaking into smaller ones. Cars were abandoned at every juncture as the obvious hopelessness of the situation became clear.
I was only a kid when the Berlin Wall came down, but I’ve seen old movies about people who were trapped on either side when the barrier rose. Those movies were what I was thinking of.
People were angry and frightened, and here were the police and the emergency services folks—here were the officials in charge of protecting us. Here they were, not letting us go home, or go to work, or simply go.
I used to joke that you never know how many people live here until Riverbend, that ridiculous festival that consumes the downtown area for a week each spring. In that week, it seems that the Tennessee Valley residents number in the millions, and every goddamn one of them wants to loiter inappropriately. And this was even worse than Riverbend: so many people and so many vehicles—and so much noise.
They were furious at being stopped and they were blaming the people in uniforms because it was easier than blaming the river.
But any fool could see that it was the river rising between us; any fool could stand still and stare for a minute and see what was happening. Any fool could tell that trouble was coming. I could smell it in the fear, in the confusion and desperation that made the throngs crowd forward towards the river—even as the river stretched itself up and out to meet them.
There were men and women at the river’s edge with their backs to the water. They were trying with megaphones and sky-aimed gunshots to spread a little sense. It was such a simple message—get away from the water; here it comes.
It took my breath away.
And I joined them, these stupid, swearing people who pushed themselves against the water. I saw people with small kids on their shoulders, sopping wet and getting wetter; I saw people carrying dogs. I saw cats, some with collars and some without, charging up the hills, dashing between legs and climbing trees. I worried for the dogs, but the cats—I figured the cats would be all right, left to their own devices.