The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  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 20th 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 7th 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.

  Jesus HF watched as a lone bicycle came out from the same eastbound entrance to the Mt. Baker Tunnel.

  What the hell? His mob was a half-mile from the entrance, still laughing at the Deuce 8s problem, when the totally-out-of-bounds rider came wheeling out the tunnel.

  It was a woman, a young girl, actually; wearing only a shirt and, well, panties. She motored herself out of the tunnel, then stopped about fifty feet in front of the entrance. Over a hundred Hispanic and mixed race thugs were no more than a football field in front of her. To her right she could see that night had captured Seattle and that things were burning in places.

  She slowly approached; then stopped. A light breeze riffled her shirt, exposing what had to be a very cold midriff, not enough for the titties to hang out, but enough for imagination from a distance. She then slowly rode her bicycle in a circle, standing as high as she could on the pedals so her butt was sticking into the air; then repeated the circle again.

  A roar could be heard from across the length of the I-90 concrete. A white bitch had just told an established national gang to go fuck itse
lf. The reaction was visceral; beyond crazy. There was nothing Jesus could do but lead the charge.

  Out of breath, Karen rode as hard as she could back into the tunnel; which by now was mostly unoccupied. “OK, they’re going to be here in about two minutes,” she said, out of breath. Like spiders, the everyday people selected by Denny and now Karen as leaders, started running toward the darkness of the tunnel; stopping every twenty feet or so to click various key chains. Even though a car may be dead in the water or smashed in an accident, it still had the key response system embedded. What happens when you click the open door; the light comes on. What happens when you click the panic button? The panic button turns on; the lights start double-flashing and the horn starts to flash; and inside a tunnel it sounds like a New Wave intro to Halloween Part XVI.

  The gang members of SSL-13 rushed toward the Mt. Baker Tunnel, now approaching the entrance. Full of their manhood, but wary of the sounds and sights they were seeing; Jesus signaled with his hand to approach slowly, not exactly sure why, but if he had hackles on his neck, they would have been risen indeed; but, he didn’t; WTF on everyone’s lips. The sounds inside the tunnel were like the sounds he liked to use when approaching an unsuspecting or overmatched foe; loud, nonsensical noises; the odd noise/music make by Oriental instruments as heard by Occidental ears.

  With a hand motion he waved toward a 2012 Prius that had been gently, not completely, smashed in the later part of the Great Crash; probably could have been removed and turned around with the right manpower. In response, ten gang members went after the Prius with everything they had; smashing the windows, beating the crap out of the car with crowbars, ugly sticks, bricks and whatever could be gathered inside the tunnel.

  But, as they say down South, bless its heart; the Prius kept on ticking; its relentless beeping turning into an odd form of bleating; Blaappppt blaaappp a kind of a rude response to such a magnitude of manhood.

  The further into the dark tunnel Jesus went the more pissed he became; he urged his people to inspect the cars they found; rape and pillage. But there was nothing but darkness, and no people! After a hundred feet, the lights and beeping began to fade, but there was enough light to that the western entrance was blocked—as was any hope of getting to the eastern side. The smell inside the tunnel was a mixture of gasoline, body odor and exhaust, with gasoline the prevalent odor. The ventilation system was off and the Foam-Water Deluge System had not been manually reset.

  The SSL-13 moved forward relentlessly, crawling over cars;

  “Dead motherfucker! Two dead motherfuckers!” came two voices in unison.

  Along the gutter of the roadway the drippy slushy sound of water draining could be heard.

  “Three and four!” from the inside lane; then the numbers multiplied, soon up to 17 dead. From a distance the Prius now sounded like a goat being strangled.

  “Dead people everywhere back here!” A female shout echoed in the distance, which was followed by what sounded like car engines being turned on.

  Jesus was really getting pissed, shouting a string of expletives, half-expletives, mixed metaphors and general bad language; and he was getting louder, like everyone wad deaf, as were the ninety-two members of his gang still in the tunnel. The woman was teasing him, them, his gang; a gringa slit, a puta-bitch was making fun of him.

  Then from a distance of about two hundred feet the headlights of six cars came on, one after the other; bright lights. The cars were pointing in their direction. They can’t go anywhere! What the fuck is happening? Cars starting up, followed by bright headlights, were then followed by emergency Panic Button horns. The noise was deafening inside the tunnel.

  The sound that came out of Jesus’s throat was primal anger; instructions shouted were roughly translated as get the motherfuckers, a shout all 92 SSL-13 members picked up, and started advancing as quickly as possible through the carnage inside the tunnel. Multiple shots were fired toward the blinding high-beam lights, to no effect.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this?” Denny asked, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t have guessed it earlier in the day. Even now, I’m not sure; but shit, you set my shoulder and you rescued me from the elevator. You just don’t look like the hero type,” then, he smiled. “I’m going to be the one out there and you all. . .,” Denny eyeballed the other leaders that had volunteered. “. . .are going to have to pull it off.”

  “Would you rather have Jerry, or Denise or one of the others?” Karen asked. “Do you think anyone else can pull this off?” A pause. “You could,” Karen added. “But, I can’t do what you have to do,” she nodded to the Buick. She turned to balding Jerry, who shook his head no, unashamed of not being able to step up to risking his life getting the seriously injured out of the tunnel. There were 45 of them left, not counting the ones who had walked out on their own earlier in the day, leaving the group behind.

  The injured had to be cleared because there was going to be death and destruction in their wake.

  “All right, then you have to get them pissed and disoriented.” said Denny.

  ‘Pissed and disoriented’ would be a good description of Jesus’ troops as they advanced further into eastbound Mt. Baker Tunnel. The SSL-13 gang members with flashlights wildly covered everything inside the eerie tunnel; the new lights illuminated the sides of the tunnel. Every twenty-five feet there were was tiny one-foot-by-three-foot door, which wasn’t an actual door but a ventilation shaft; which if the ventilation system was actually working, would suck up the diesel and carbon monoxide fumes from the tunnel, transport it upstairs to the “lid” level where the scrubbers would magically convert it to a discharge that would be harmless to society and everyone would live long and prosper; thank you, Mr. Spock.

  However, none of that was working because a 9.45 earthquake had struck offshore from Bainbridge Island, WA at 6:20 a.m., putting everything into a State of Fuck.

  “It’s time,” Karen had slipped her fleece pants back on, along with her jacket. “How many cars?” Like it matters now; not much we can do if it isn’t.

  “Twelve,” replied Jerry, badly out of breath. “But half of them were already leaking.

  “Don’t you have a heart attack on me,” she said earnestly. “Is everybody up?” The noise in the stairwell above them answered yes. “OK, then we’re the last ones. Jerry, let me have your lighter. That would be a bugger to forget, wouldn’t it?” she laughed to herself. Jerry handed her his trusty Zippo.

  The Mt. Baker tunnel is 1440 feet long. Approximately 850 feet into the tunnel, at the point where the eastbound traffic can switch lanes and enter the HOV lanes there is a single door marked with the white letters EXIT. The fire door opens inward from the tunnel and is on the inside lane, the island between the HOV and eastbound lanes, doors discovered by Denny and Karen an hour ago.

  The door opened into a small landing, painted pukey green—floor, steps and walls. Opposite the door accessed from the eastbound lanes was a similar door providing access from the HOV lanes. Both doors opened inwards into the small landing; Jack and Jill doors. A flashlight up the stairwell showed EMERGENCY EXIT and a big red arrow painted on the stairwell wall; Denny estimated it would be forty feet up to the Mt. Baker lid, which meant since they weren’t climbing a ladder, about 60-70 steps, maybe a bit more. “Notice, they’re not saying how far the climb is,” he said with a wry tone in his voice. “Wouldn’t want people to get discouraged, climbing for their lives and all.”

  The lobby was jammed with stuff that they all hoped would prevent the SSL-13 gang from breaking through.

  “Bombs away!” Karen flicked the Zippo just once. What a dependable product and a nice flame appeared ready to fire up a cig. Karen dropped the lighter into the gutter of the eastbound lanes and quickly closed the door behind her. The liquid running in the gutter wasn’t water, instead gasoline. Karen could feel the heat on the other side of the door as the gasoline traces began to flame.

  The men in the group had done a good job gathering “s
tuff” from inside wrecked vehicles, including three backseat clothes poles, which just fit the distance between the two doors.

  “Hurry!” Karen urged Jerry. It was a simple block; three sets of snow tire chains laid flat on the concrete floor and hooked together, then three 15” wide snow tires laid end to end on top of them, which just fit between the two doors, with maybe an inch of wiggle room on either side, followed by three more sets of tire chains laid on top of the tires, linked together. While six tires would have been better, three did the job; it was impossible to open either door inwards.

  With thanks in her eyes she involuntarily linked her right arm with Jerry’s left.

  “I should have quit smoking a long time ago,” he said, perspiring heavily.

  “Let’s just go up a fast as we can; given the way the day has gone, you just never know what the hell is going to happen,” she replied as she shouldered her backpack, groaning slightly at the addition of weight to an already tired body; sleeping bag, tent, all the things that Denny had insisted on getting—were in her pack.

  The eastbound lanes of I-90 had become the Killing Fields for the SSL-13 gang members, including Jesus Hernandez. The flames from the Zippo ignited a tracer that raced back toward the western portal; every twenty feet or so, a line of fire broke off and headed toward a wrecked vehicle. The first car to explode was the 2012 Prius; true, a pathetic amount of gas, but revenge in this case was sweet. Other cars, simply booby-trapped by a screwdriver and a hammer to the gas tank, began to explode, one-by-one.