The Colossus of Roads

by Christina Uss

  Mila kept hugging her stomach.

  Rick continued. “But wait, I haven’t said the best part yet. Every TCD car is secretly a mythical creature-robot, and there’ll be, um, four-wheel-drive dragons swooping through the sky any minute to come get us. Do you want to add one to this masterpiece?” He offered Mila the chicken foot.

  She pushed it back. “You draw it.” He did his best and came up with a box with legs, wheels, wings, and a snout and tail. The sign WARNING: POORLY DRAWN DRAGONS he sketched next to it coaxed a pale breath of laughter out of Mila. The sound made Rick’s stomach relax a tiny bit. He started to draw the map of streets between Ms. Diamond’s and their town houses, showing Mila the route they’d end up flying back home.

  It didn’t take long for Ms. Diamond and Mrs. Torres to distribute the water and lollipops. They started walking around along with the Scout leaders, doing their best to calm the outbreaks of crying. Mrs. Torres stopped in front of Rick. “You,” she said in the same tone of voice she’d used inside. She held the portable radio, playing news at low volume, in one hand.

  “Me?” Rick said. His stomach tightened again and said, Urg. I can withstand feeling bad from aftershocks or from yelling, please not both at the same time. “I’m really sorry you could lose your job because of what I did.” He hadn’t forgotten what she’d said earlier, that Mr. Platt had called to threaten her.

  But Mrs. Torres remained calm. “I may have expressed myself a tad overdramatically so my sister would feel guilty. I’d like to see that whiny lawyer try to take me down.” She pointed to the roads Rick had scratched in the sandy soil. “How are you doing that from memory?”

  Rick said, “It’s something I’ve always been able to do. I see a map once and I know it forever. I’ve pretty much memorized all the streets of LA.”

  “Mm-hmm. You’ve got some unusual neurons firing in that head. Meeting you makes some sense out of nonsense. I couldn’t figure out how my sister had stumbled upon a solution to the unsolvable problem of Sepulveda Pass. Or why she’d written that Colossus name on the back of some of the signs.” Ms. Diamond came up behind Mrs. Torres, and Mrs. Torres asked her sister, “Why didn’t you tell me this boy was behind it all?”

  “I didn’t want to unleash you on him until you’d calmed down, especially when I didn’t have a clue why he’d done it.” She turned to Rick and said, “I wish you’d talked to me first. You said before you did this to help your family? How?”

  “So they could get somewhere important on time,” he said.

  “Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “Not because you longed to change people’s lives with art?”

  Rick said, “That was sort of a side effect.”

  Mrs. Torres held up the radio. “Art’s not going to make a difference to our current situation. Based on initial news reports, the damage isn’t massive, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a long while before emergency crews can clear the major arteries and make it out this way.” She surveyed the yard. A nearby Brownie Scout with tears running down her cheeks was holding her Scout leader’s hand and repeatedly asking why her mom couldn’t come pick her up right now. “I was a Girl Scout. We don’t stand around waiting to be rescued. We do the rescuing.” She addressed Rick. “You’ve proven you’ve got creative ideas that work. Tell me you’ve got an idea on how to get these girls home before dark.”

  Before Rick could answer, Mrs. Torres’s attention was drawn to the sound of people shouting down the street. Rick looked and saw a knot of cars on the far side of the fallen palm trees, near Yum Num Donuts. It looked like too many drivers were trying to turn around or get out of parking lots, and they couldn’t agree on who should move first because they’d gotten so tightly packed in.

  Mrs. Torres said, “People shouldn’t drive after an earthquake until they know the condition of the roads, but it’s often the first thing they do, trying to get to their loved ones.” She watched the altercation for a moment longer, then said, “I’m going to go straighten that out. They need someone who’s prepared to yell louder than any of them.”

  She strode toward the knot of arguing drivers. She looked so confident, the group of shell-shocked people with signal-less phones standing in the street followed her. Rick watched her scarlet form command everyone’s attention, then wave her arms like a supercharged symphony conductor, directing the drivers on how to untie their snarl and park their cars. She must have convinced them to stay put for the moment, because everyone got out of their cars to join the pedestrians. Mrs. Torres led the group into Yum Num Donuts, which appeared to still be open for business.

  Abuelita got out of her car to hug Mila and then Rick. “Papi’s fine. Ricardo, your brothers are fine. Your parents said they want to come here right now to get you, but I explained the roads are blocked, probably not even safe to walk. The members of the TCD are telling me there’s lots more problems than these trees here: electric poles and wires down, car accidents, ay-yi-yi.”

  Mrs. Torres returned. “One traffic problem down, only eight thousand more to go.”

  She was trailed by a man on a bicycle pulling a trailer with a ten-foot antenna that Rick recognized as the Cycle-Powered Radio guy, who said, “’Scuse me, ma’am? I was broadcasting my donut show when everything went kablooey. First it was excellent apple fritters, then it was all ‘oh no, oh no.’ I saw you take control, so I said to myself, Arlo, you better follow her, she’ll know what to do.” He spoke into a microphone clipped to his T-shirt. “Don’t touch that dial! This is Cycle-Powered Radio, trying to find a way to get you what you need. Back after this silence.” He clicked the microphone off. “What can I do? I got lots of spray paint, if that helps.”

  Abuelita said to him, “Have we met? Does your brother Dale drive an ice cream truck?”

  “Sure does. You’re part of that Traffic Calming thing he does, aren’t you? Since I used to drive demolition derby, he brought me to a meeting once to see if I’d join up, but moving around on four wheels hasn’t been my groove for a long time, you know?”

  Mrs. Torres said to Rick, “Back to your creative ideas. We’ve got a yard full of scared girls who want to go home, an untold number of blocked roads in our way, and no useful technology, and we’re out of lollipops. If only we had more to work with.”

  Rick gestured helplessly. “I don’t think my talent—”

  Arlo interrupted. “Hey, we’ve got useful technology.” He waved at his trailer with the antenna. “And if that lady”—he nodded toward Abuelita—“is anything like my brother, she’s got a powerful ham radio in her car.”

  Abuelita nodded.

  “Someone get me some paper and a pen,” Mrs. Torres said. “I’ll organize our assets and liabilities. Do we have paper and pens among our assets?” Ms. Diamond went to her shed and returned with a bin full of construction paper and markers.

  Mila reached for Rick’s hand so he could pull her to her feet. She looked less out of it, and Rick’s stomach noticed they hadn’t felt an aftershock in a while. She said, “You can bounce ideas off me if you want. Maybe if we somehow mix together all our talents, we can save the day.”

  “Mix us in, too,” added Liz, who joined the discussion. “We won’t be so freaked out if we’re working to make things better.” Q.E. nodded.

  Rick frowned in apology. “I’m not exactly bouncy when it comes to ideas. I just know what I want to do, and can’t explain it.”

  “That’s probably because you don’t practice trying,” Mila said. “Here, I’ll start: if we could get your mom and dad to drive here and meet us on the other side of the fallen trees, we could go home.”

  Rick said, “Not happening. Abuelita said her friends reported too many clogged roads.” His brain fizzed the smallest fizzle. “Hold on,” he said to Abuelita. “Do you really have people from your ham radio group all around the city?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  “Can they give us details on which streets are clear and which are blocked between here and each Scout’s house? If the
y survey it, I can put the pieces together on a map to show the safe routes.”

  Abuelita said, “Sí, I bet we can do that.”

  “So, step one, Abuelita and I make the maps…,” Rick said slowly, trying to come up with step two.

  Arlo chimed in again. “You thinking what I’m thinking? Emergency cycle-powered taxi service!” Rick had definitely not been thinking that.

  Abuelita widened her eyes and clasped her hands together. “Yes, and an emergency grandparent-powered taxi service! We can work together. Come on, Ricardo, we need to get started on those maps.” She hustled toward her car.

  Liz threw her arms around Mila’s and Q.E.’s shoulders and said, “Let’s start making a list of everyone’s addresses. And organizing them by neighborhood. And telling Scouts to form teams from each neighborhood. The teams can start making construction-paper signs that say hopeful, uplifting things—and they’ll duct-tape them up when they get home to let everyone in our city know they are going to be okay!” She raised her voice to an impressive volume. “SCOUTS! LINE UP!”

  “Wait,” said Rick, overwhelmed by the torrent of suggestions. None of them seemed likely to help. “What if no one’s listening to Cycle-Powered Radio? What if the roads are too blocked? What if—”

  “No,” Ms. Diamond said. “Let the brainstorm flow. Different ideas build off one another, and you never know what might work.”

  “Just what I was thinking, Anna,” said Mrs. Torres. “Let’s do ALL of these things, people!” She slapped Rick on the back. “You started the ball rolling, Colossus.” She used the nickname without a trace of sarcasm. “Now help it keep moving forward, whatever direction you can.”

  THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE

  A BROWNIE SCOUT named Bibi hopped from one foot to another outside the passenger-side window of Abuelita’s car while Rick sat inside working on the map to her house. Abuelita successfully contacted TCD member after TCD member on her radio, and they told Rick which routes were clear around Yum Num Donuts and all the way to Bibi’s address. With each piece of new information, Rick sketched and resketched with a blue marker on yellow construction paper and finally said, “Done.”

  “Gimme!” said Bibi. “I mean, please!” Rick handed her the map through the window. Bibi ran it over to Arlo, who’d set up his miniature treadmill to keep his transmitter powered up. He said into his microphone, “BLAMs and SPLATs, SLUGs and SHRUGs, the earth may have shaken us, but it’s our turn to shake a leg. We got Girl Scouts here who need a ride home, and I know you’re the ones to help. Any bikes able to carry passengers are needed in the vicinity of Yum Num Donuts on Balboa. The following roads in this vicinity are clear.”

  Abuelita put the same information out to her TCD network, adding, “You are the best drivers in LA, and we need you! Those of you who are nearby, if you can get here safely, please come.”

  It didn’t take long until a rickshaw bicycle with room for two passengers showed up. The cyclist helped the thrilled Bibi and her troop leader on board. Bibi wore a roll of duct tape like a bracelet and held a stack of construction paper in her lap. The top piece said EARTHQUAKE, SHMEARTHQUAKE—LA STRONG. Off they went.

  Rick and Abuelita got to work on the next address on the list Liz had given them. Once that map was done, a wide-bodied classic car pulled into the Yum Num parking lot, calling attention to itself by flashing its lights and honking its horn. Liz came to collect the map from Rick, and shepherded the girls who lived in that neighborhood toward the car. Ms. Diamond made sure the departing group had duct tape, and as they climbed into the car with another Scout leader, she urged them, “Put those signs of hope you made where your neighbors can see them when you get home—they will lift spirits!”

  Abuelita said to Rick, “So, partner, how fast do you think we can make these maps?”

  “I guess we’re going to find out,” said Rick. He focused on putting the maps in his head onto paper while more passenger-carrying bikes and TCD cars arrived to ferry girls away.

  Thirty minutes or so into the process, a woman on a longtail cargo bike came blazing up the sidewalk. “Mom!” yelled Liz. It turned out that Liz’s mom, a member of the Bike-Loving Amazing Mamas, worked nearby at an In-N-Out Burger shop that was undamaged by the quake. She’d been listening to Cycle-Powered Radio, and as soon as Arlo described the safe route to Ms. Diamond’s, she’d filled her cargo bike’s built-in insulated compartment with cheeseburgers and fries and sprinted over.

  Mila handed Rick and her grandmother Double-Doubles through the passenger window. Rick took a big bite of his. It was still hot. We’re surrounded by people having the best ideas ever! his stomach said. We can eat more than one of these, right? It turned out that they could. You know, it continued between satisfied gurgles, this day could have turned out a lot worse.

  The flowing brainstorm of good ideas hit its apex at dusk, after Arlo asked Abuelita if anyone in the TCD owned a truck with extreme horsepower that might be able to help move the fallen palm trees so the people who were stranded could drive home using Rick’s maps. She’d put out the request, and the TCD came through. Boy, did they ever. Rick gaped at the two monster trucks with towing chains that showed up.

  Every person on the street cheered as the first and then the second palm tree got dragged to the curb by neon-colored trucks decorated with flames, skulls, teeth, and horns. One was named Grave Digger, the other El Toro Loco. The delivery guy got El Toro Loco to come into the driveway and help pull his delivery truck upright, off the electric car. Abuelita went and talked to the drivers about clearing a few other roads so she could take Rick and Mila home as soon as they were done making maps. The monstrous vehicles roared off.

  When it was time to go, Rick got out of the front seat of Abuelita’s car so he could join Mila in the backseat. Mila was holding a piece of construction paper on which she’d drawn a phoenix crowing WE FALL TO RISE.

  Before he clicked his seat belt into place, Mrs. Torres came to Abuelita’s window and reached in to shake her hand. “Well done. You stayed calm, thought fast, and helped come up with quite the plan.”

  “Thank you, señora.” Abuelita shook Mrs. Torres’s hand vigorously in response. “It’s so good when people listen to your ideas and say ‘Yes, do it!’ instead of ‘How old are you, lady?’”

  Mrs. Torres said, “When I meet someone who knows what they can do, I give them the space to do it. Speaking of that—Colossus?” Rick leaned forward and she passed him her business card. “I’d like to hear more about your traffic solutions under less stressful circumstances. Don’t hesitate to get in touch.” The card showed her work email address above the words If you want a job done right, give it to me. He cradled it in his hands. He’d finally gotten noticed by the right person.

  Abuelita had turned the ham radio off, but the car’s FM radio quietly played the news. “Some residents are taking rescue efforts into their own hands. An octogenarian driving an ice cream truck helped injured North Hollywood residents to the hospital, then delivered strawberry shortcake bars and rocket pops to all the doctors and nurses. Bicyclists have been seen with cans of spray paint, marking which roads are unsafe and which alternate routes are open, some adding the image of a purple octopus with alternating tentacles labeled Help and Hope.” It sounded like the car-and-bike network had taken on a life of its own beyond rescuing the Scouts.

  Mila made a funny muttering noise and her head leaned heavily on Rick’s shoulder. He saw she’d fallen asleep.

  Abuelita asked, “Want to come to our house with your parents for some food? When I told Maridol we were on our way, she said she set up the grill outside and is making cheeseburgers for the whole neighborhood.”

  Rick was still absorbing how everyone making space for each other’s ideas had let him be part of a big solution, bigger than anything he could have come up with alone. He needed time to process. He said softly, so as not to wake Mila, “Thanks, but I want to go home and stop doing anything for a while. I don’t need another ch
eeseburger yet.”

  Shush, you, his stomach reprimanded him. Cheeseburgers forever.

  The electricity was out at Rick’s house, the refrigerator had fallen over, and every bookshelf had spit its books onto the floor. Lots of things were askew, a few were broken, and Rick didn’t care. Getting sandwiched in a hug from both of his parents at once was what mattered.

  He helped clean things up at home and over at the Herreras’ for the next day. The earthquake was measured at a 5.9 on the Richter scale, which earthquake scientists considered moderate, bordering on strong. What that meant for LA was that many things were a mess, but a mess folks could recover from.

  Most of Smotch’s regular clients put their deliveries on hold while they dug themselves out of their problems, but Rick’s parents ended up busy anyway, getting paid by food banks and churches to supply meals. Mom’s industrial kitchen was cleared by the public works department as fit for food preparation, so Rick’s brothers came home while college classes were canceled to lend Mom and Dad their chopping and baking skills. Abuelita and her friends offered to make many of the deliveries. Only Rick wasn’t surprised at their speed at doing so.

  In the evenings, Mom and Dad brought home leftovers. Still electricity-less, the Ruseks stored the leftovers of the leftovers in a picnic cooler and played games by candlelight. Dad and Rick were an unstoppable team at Pictionary, and Mom laughed so hard when they did Mad Libs that she fell off her chair. If it hadn’t been the aftermath of a disaster, it would have been nice.

  After the electricity came back on in their neighborhood, schools were closed for the week for repairs and safety tests. Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary was one of the first schools to reopen. Rick walked his normal morning route, wondering what he’d find along the way. There were piles of debris to navigate, but no sneak attacks launched by any dogs, yappy or otherwise. He hoped they’d weathered the earthquake safely. Maybe, having faced Mother Nature’s power, they’d moved “attack small humans” lower on their lists of priorities.