Meter Maids Eat Their Young (29 page)

Three more carts and a tow-truck appeared and were immediately set upon by the crowd. The tow-truck veered off, jumped the curb, flattened a tow-away sign and came to rest in the doorway of one of the shops. Several car alarms and the alarm in the shop went off at once, adding to the tension. By the time I looked back, the three carts were on their sides, the meter maids running down the street, an angry mob on their heels.

I looked for Jaz but couldn't see her amongst the crowd. I was about to wade in and look for her, when there was a loud explosion. I headed for the sound, cut through a small park and came out on Gratiot, just down from the Coney Island place. A Cushman cart was burning fiercely in the middle of the street. A news truck squealed to a halt. People were gathering on the front steps of the admin building. I heard glass shatter. Angry shouts. I turned and headed back toward Walnut Street.

I heard sirens as I passed through the park. The cavalry was on its way. Though, from the size of the crowds and the amount of anger present, I had a feeling the cops would have their hands full subduing the uprising. I continued my search for Jaz but gave it up when my cell phone rang. Felice.

“Teller.”

“I'm at the office,” Felice said. “We're running a special edition. I've got everyone out on the streets. Give me what you have.”

“You okay? How's HL?”

“The story, Teller.”

There was an edge to her voice I didn't like, but I knew calling her on it wouldn't get me anywhere. I started walking through the riot, talking to people who would give me a minute and a thought. As Jaz had suspected, the time change hadn't been limited to Walnut or Pine Street. It had been made on every commute street in town and there were disturbances on every one of those streets. I came across several burning carts and more than one abandoned tow-truck.

The humidity was high and the breeze strong. Dark smoke roiled knee high down the street, blowing up to the tops of the lampposts where a cross breeze blew it back down in an unending swirl of angry grey.

Ticket books had been snatched from the overturned carts, torn to shreds and scattered to the wind. It looked like the aftermath of some bizarre New Year's Eve party. People were moving up and down the street, through the smoke, holding rags to their faces, looking like wraiths in a B-grade horror flick. I removed my shirt, slipped off my T-shirt and wrapped it around my face like a bandana and put my shirt back on.

As I moved about, filling in Felice with what I was seeing, she filled me in on what the other reporters were phoning in. Several tow-trucks had been overturned. One was burning. Talk about anger, I thought. Not an easy thing to turn over a tow-truck.

I could hear sirens and occasionally see a bluish glow pulsing through the smoke, either stationary or moving across my line of limited vision. As more cops hit the street, the number of people present seemed to diminish. When I made my way back to Gratiot Avenue, I discovered where all the people had gone.

The size of the crowd outside the admin building had more than quadrupled from what it had been the last time I'd been here, and people were streaming in from all directions, adding to its bulk. A line of cops in full riot gear barred the door. Another line blocked the entrance to the parking lot. There were at least a half dozen carts burning on Gratiot now. Only one that I could see had anyone trying to fight the blaze.

I walked and talked, giving it all to Felice until the sun was up and my cell phone started beeping, telling me the battery was giving up the ghost.

“Cell's dying,” I said.

“I've got enough for now.”

“Good. I'm going to head home, shower and find some clean clothes.”

“Check in when you're back on the street.”

“Will do.”

I folded up the phone and headed home. I smelled of smoke and sweat. Sleep was out of the question but a hot shower would be nice. I noticed several people putting posters on telephone poles. A couple of them waved as I passed. Someone pointed. Someone else called out my name, but I was too tired to stop and give them a look. I just wanted to go home, take that shower and get back on the street.

Find out what was going on at the admin building.

By the time I made it back downtown, clean clothes, smelling fresh, the crowd had grown to enormous size. It spilled out across the lawn to either side of the admin entrance and across Gratiot Avenue, filling the street. The cops were trying to contain them as more people arrived alone and in small groups. I tried to do a size estimate, but that sort of thing has never been my strong suit so I gave it up. Half the town, maybe. Maybe more.

The cops looked nervous. The crowd looked angry. It was, at best, an uneasy standoff. Off in the distance I could see small curls of smoke. Sirens continued to scream, meaning some part of the earlier riot was continuing elsewhere.

The special edition of the paper had hit the stands with my article taking up the entire space above the fold, pictures and the observations of the other reporters filling out the page. The radio was still broadcasting the news. In a moment of magnanimous charity they had credited me and the Call-Register for breaking the story. People were coming up to me, shaking my hand, thanking me, patting me on the back. I had no idea what was going on or why so many people recognized me. Unlike a lot of columnists, I've never used a photograph alongside my columns. I prefer the aura of anonymity. When I stopped long enough to examine one of the posters plastered to nearly every flat surface, I understood why that anonymity had morphed into notoriety.

Somebody had been busy at the old Xerox machine. There was a black and white picture of me which had to have been taken earlier this morning, before I had wrapped my T-shirt around my face. My hair was disheveled, my face streaked with soot. I had the cell to my ear and there was a Cushman cart burning in the background.
‘Viva La Mangler! Viva Teller!'
was printed below the picture in vivid red lettering. Below that was a copy of the article I'd written for the special edition.

As I walked down Gratiot, many of the shopkeepers standing in their doorways, watching the action, waved at me. One came out and handed me a cup of coffee. I thanked him and turned and there stood a young woman with a bag full of fresh pastries.

“Here,” she said, handing me the bag. She smiled and ran off.

I stood there, watching her until she disappeared into the donut shop. The smell coming from the bag reminded me of how hungry I was.

I considered returning home, locking myself in my room. I wasn't used to this kind of recognition and it was making me feel uneasy. It also reinforced my belief that the DPE hadn't just been screwing the car owner. It was damaging small business as well.

I scanned the police presence but didn't see anyone who looked important enough to try wading through the crowd to reach them. What big shots were left would be off somewhere planning strategy and it was the big shots I wanted to talk to. I could head over to the police department but I doubted anyone would be there. From the looks of things, every cop on the payroll was out on the streets. The best thing to do at this point was to go back to the paper, find out what I could from Felice.

Thoughts of HL colored my mood as I turned toward the newspaper office. I took a sip of the coffee. A little too much sugar but I could tolerate it. Though I knew I shouldn't eat the donuts, risk the sugar rush they would bring, I dug into the bag anyway.

I managed to get through one of them by the time I passed through the front door of the paper. It was a cheese Danish, very sweet, and I could already feel the skin tightening around my eyes. I have such a weird reaction to sugar, especially pastry. Too many of these things and I'd be crawling around on the ceiling screaming.

I handed the bag to the first person I passed and headed for the stairs.

“Feeling better?” Felice asked when I walked into her office.

“A little,” I said, still shaken by all the attention on the street. Her office had been straightened up, I noticed. I had no intention of checking out HL's office. I didn't think I could bear that at the moment. I pulled one of the chairs from along the wall and sat across from her at her desk.

“But I think my cover's blown. Everyone down there seems to know me. They're waving at me, saying hi, giving me stuff.”

She laughed.

“Teller, when are you going to learn?” she said. “You've never had a cover. You like to think you hide, walk the streets unnoticed, but the hair, the way you dress, the way you conduct yourself, you stand out like a neon sign.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Something else to add to my list of things to be paranoid about. Maybe I should cut the hair and buy a suit.”

“It wouldn't help,” she said. “It isn't about the length of your hair or what you wear. You could look and dress as everyone else and still you would stand out.”

“You think? The homeless are hidden. Few see them and they all but litter the streets. I always figured on the same reaction; seen yet unseen.”

“People don't see the homeless because they are afraid. Afraid of them, afraid they may become them. The homeless are a harsh reminder of the tenuous hold we all have on stability. You, on the other hand, they see. Perhaps even envy to one degree or another.”

“Envy? Me? What do I have that's worth being envious about?”

“A great deal, actually. All people have enemies, enemies they can't fight and that can be very frustrating. Frightening. You fight those enemies for them: go over the walls of opposition they have no idea how to climb. You move outside their narrow, predefined worlds and often get results they could never hope to achieve. You fight the battles they cannot. People can't help but notice you. It's your fear of letting them close that keeps them away, not their inability to see you.”

“How's HL?” I was feeling even more uncomfortable than I had out on the street. I needed to turn the topic of conversation away from me. Felice smiled, cocked her head. I could tell she wasn't going to let it go that easy. Something was up.

“Are you aware the other reporters admire you? Respect you? All they've talked about of late is how well you manage things. The directions. The encouragement. Could someone hidden have done that? Do you remember talking to Wesley? He told me how much he wanted to be a reporter like you someday.”

“Felice!” I said, squirming in my seat. “This conversation is really making me uncomfortable, okay? Can we drop it? I should get back to what's going on outside.”

“No,” she said, the smile gone now. “We can't drop it. And what is going on outside is well in hand, well covered. This is more important at the moment.”

She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes.

“I had a teacher, many years ago now, who believed that knowledge of Self resided in two places; the head and the heart. That knowledge, though valuable, was diminished if it remained only in the head. It had to descend to the heart to truly gain strength.”

“The two-foot drop,” I said.

“You've heard of this?” She leaned forward.

“There was a counselor in that spin-dry I went to in Washington. He was always talking about the two-foot drop. You could know in your head that you were a drunk but until you knew it in your heart, you would remain a drunk.”

“A wise man. And the same is true of all self-knowledge. Knowing it up here,” she said, pointing to her head, “is not the same as knowing it here, in your heart, where the true knowledge of Self resides. This is something you must come to, this two-foot drop. And soon.”

Something clicked then. I wasn't sure yet what it was, but it had something to do with HL.

“Yes,” she said, before I could ask the question. She held up her hand, holding off further inquiry.

“Do you remember our earlier conversation, when I asked you why you had returned?”

“Yeah.”