Storm Front

by Robert Conroy

  If only she could get past that tie-up, she might be able to get the Corvette back home, get herself to school and get away with her little stunt. She could say she was late because she was sick. Female problems, she’d explain. Nobody ever questioned those. Although, she really didn’t consider driving it a stunt. She saw no reason why her brother should deny her the right to drive the car. After all, he wasn’t driving it and somebody should. It wasn’t like she was an irresponsible airhead. Even though she was blonde and cute, she was not an airhead. She was an honor student, along with being a cheerleader and a sprinter on the track team.

  She noticed that traffic north of the construction site wasn’t moving very fast either. The damn snow was almost blinding. She lowered the window for a better look and was rewarded with a wind full of wet snow in the face. She swore mildly and closed the window. She wondered when it was going to begin to taper off so she could see.

  A car in front of her moved and she inched forward again. Cindy checked the fuel gauge. She had more than half a tank, so that was okay and the car wasn’t overheating. Good. Finally, she was almost up to the site of the dig. It looked like a water main problem. As usual, there were several guys standing around watching one of them work. She wanted to scream. If they all worked, the problem would have been solved and she’d be on her way.

  “Ha,” she said to herself. An opening appeared in the line of cars to her left. She could cut in and save some time. She hit the gas and the Corvette lurched forward while an inexperienced Cindy gasped at the unexpected roar of power. Suddenly, she was almost on top of the parked squad car. She hit the brakes hard. Overpowered and overbraked, the Corvette swerved out of control while Cindy shrieked.

  Stan Petkowski sat in the patrol car in front of the ditch. He was warm and dry and not at all envious of the crew digging the hole, and the work they would have to do in the cold, wet, mud. It was almost ten feet deep and a full lane wide. At least they’d stopped the water from gushing out.

  The guys back at the station probably thought he was sitting in his car smoking and eating donuts. If so, screw ’em. He did have a jelly donut in his hand, but he didn’t smoke. At least the sloppy wet weather and the resultant tie-up held down drivers’ speed.

  And, on a Monday morning, it was highly unlikely that anyone was drunk. Hung over, yes, but not drunk. He’d caught seven offenders the past Saturday and considered it a good haul. State law required jail time, but a good lawyer, or a bad one, could get that reduced to a fine and community service. Petkowski didn’t care if that’s all the first-time offenders got. Many of them were scared and shamed into not doing it again, and that was great with him. He wanted the stupid bastards punished, and if that meant some middle-aged businessman had to spend weekends picking up trash along the roads, it served him right. If the punishment scared the fools into never doing it again, that was even better. He was still tormented by the sight of finding his niece’s head twenty feet from the rest of her body.

  Stan felt secure in his car. The flashers were going and he had orange cones behind him. Thus, he was stunned when he saw the Corvette careening behind him. He barely had time to brace himself when it hit, throwing him backwards into the headrest.

  The Corvette’s right front fender crunched into the rear of the police car, propelling it forward, and, as Cindy Thomason watched incredulously, downward. The Corvette bounced off, spun sidewise, and rammed into the car to her left. The airbag went off in Cindy’s face. She screamed with pain and fright. It quickly deflated and she checked herself. Her nose hurt like the devil and blood was pouring from her nostrils. One of her front teeth was loose and she immediately wondered if all the months spent in braces were going to go to hell. Her father was a doctor and rich enough, but he would be mad.

  She held a tissue against her nose to control the bleeding and stumbled out of the car. She fell on her knees, skinning them. A cop had climbed out of the squad car, which, she saw, was now halfway down the hole in the road. The cop had a bruise on his forehead and there was gooey red stuff all over his face. Worse, he was angry. When he saw her bleeding, he immediately softened.

  “You okay, Miss?”

  “I’m going to be killed,” Cindy wailed.

  Despite himself, Officer Stanley Petkowski smiled. Even though the kid had blundered terribly, it was a relief to see she wasn’t seriously hurt. He gently pulled her hand away from her face. Her nose was definitely broken.

  “I think we’re going to get you to a hospital.”

  “Oh God,” Cindy moaned. “Now my parents are going to find out. And you’re hurt too. Oh Jesus.”

  This time Petkowski did smile as he checked his face. Goop from the jelly donut was all over his cheek and forehead. “It’s nothing,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t recognize it for what it was. He wiped it away with a Kleenex. “I think they were going to find out even if you weren’t hurt.”

  Petkowski looked at the deepening traffic snarl. His squad car was half in the excavation ditch, while her Corvette was rammed into a Chrysler. The workers had scattered and wouldn’t be back until the place was cleared, which wasn’t going to be for a while. MacArthur Highway was totally closed by three corks in a plug. Nor was traffic north of the site moving. Something had happened up there as well. Probably another fender-bender, he thought. There would be a lot of them in this weather. Now the snow was almost blinding and swirling in the wind, and, along with silly girls driving overpowered Corvettes, there were too many fools who thought owning a four-wheel-drive vehicle made them invincible Gods of the Road.

  No, he wasn’t going to get Cindy Thomason to the hospital, or anywhere else for that matter. In fact, he wasn’t going anywhere either, unless he hoofed it. Damn, he hated walking. Stan’s idea of fun was riding a motorcycle. He couldn’t afford one of his own, so the police motorcycle he rode in the summer was his baby. He hated his squad car. Damn. The police station was half a mile away and there wasn’t anything he could do here. Trying to direct traffic would be a joke. No, he’d go to the station and later send a rookie out, on foot of course, to take control of the situation.

  He and Cindy and a handful of others began to trudge towards the police station. Cindy had a nose to get fixed and Stan had a bunch of tickets to write.

  * * *

  “What the hell is going on,” muttered Police Chief William Bench. Bench was fifty-three, seriously overweight, and, if the rumors were true, drank too much because he was grossly in over his head as chief. He had risen through Sheridan’s ranks when it was a much smaller town with smaller, simpler problems. Now, confronted with the more serious and complex issues that population growth brings, even in a quiet town like Sheridan, he looked and acted more and more confused. The way he did now.

  Mike Stuart turned from the television monitor. Through gaps in the wind and the snow, they could see that MacArthur was totally jammed, as were most of Sheridan’s other streets. Where something did move, it moved at a crawl, and that included the interstate just to their south. The exits were backing up with cars trying to enter Sheridan’s already clogged streets. This was going to be miserable, Mike thought. This wasn’t even heaviest traffic time. Petkowski had reported his car out of action and was on his way back. Cops in two other cars had reported themselves totally stuck in unmoving traffic. The fourth squad car’s driver was trying to figure a way back to the station by using the roads through the subdivisions and not having too much luck. In effect, there was no police presence on Sheridan’s streets, and not much he could do about it.

  Mike’s earlier confidence that he could do the job in Lieutenant DiMona’s absence was evaporating rapidly. Chief Bench wanted solutions to the problem and Mike had no idea what to do until the snow let up and they could get a handle on it.

  “When will the salt trucks and plows be out?” Bench asked as he wiped sweat from his brow with a dirty handkerchief.

  Mike shrugged uncomfortably. He didn’t like being the bearer of bad news. “The county says th
ey’re having a hard time getting their drivers in, and our drivers and contractors say the same thing. It could be a while.”

  Bench grunted. He seemed pleased to find someone else was a potential source of the problem—therefore, he could not be blamed. Some of Sheridan’s major roads were plowed and salted by the county, while others were Sheridan’s problem. Snow removal companies had contracts, but it was obvious they weren’t going to do anything anytime soon. It reminded Mike of the old Volkswagen Beetle commercial that asked how the snow plow driver got to work. Why, he drove a Volkswagen, of course. Then he realized—even if they could get drivers to the trucks, they couldn’t move because the roads were getting jammed.

  Mike checked some of the other monitors. Cars in the streets were now little more than unmoving white lumps when they could be seen through the snow. Sometimes he could see people standing around. The interstate was still moving, but extremely slowly and not for long.

  A chilled and wet Petkowski arrived and stood beside Mike. A policewoman was escorting a sobbing Cindy Thomason to the john where they could try a quick fix on her nose and clean her up.

  “Hey, Mike,” Petkowski said softly as he cradled a cup of hot coffee in his hands. “Congratulations. Only one day on the job and you’ve gone and got your ass into a real class-A cluster-fuck.”

  * * *

  Wally Wellman glared angrily at the people gathered in the TV6 conference room. “Okay, boys and girls, what do we do with this? Personally, I am tired of giving vague and inoffensive warnings that are a joke. It is snowing hard and it is going to snow more.”

  “National Weather Service and the Weather Channel now say we might get six inches,” said Ron Friedman sullenly. It was beginning to look like Wally had been right and they had erred in the wrong direction.

  Wally laughed harshly. “Hell, what’re they smoking? We’ve already got more than six. What’re they gonna do? Take some back?”

  Wally was right. All anyone had to do was look out the window and, if they could see through the swirling gusts, they could tell that the snow was over six inches. Of course the inconsistencies could be explained by the fact that the “official” weather stats were kept at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which was about fifty miles away. That far away the sun could be shining brightly and the birds singing. Up here, Wally joked, there was no sun and the birds were all dead.

  “What do you want to do?” Friedman asked, conceding the high ground to Wally.

  “What I don’t want is the Isaac Cline award for stupidity.”

  “Who and what are you talking about?”

  “Quick, what’s the worst disaster in U.S. history?”

  “Was it one of our syndicated reality shows?” Friedman asked cheerfully. “No? Okay, how about the San Francisco earthquake or the Johnstown flood?”

  “Neither, dingus. The worst disaster in American history was the Galveston hurricane of 1900. Somewhere between six and ten thousand people were killed. They never could figure out the exact number since so many families simply disappeared. Isaac Cline was the weatherman in Galveston, and, despite evidence to the contrary, he insisted that no hurricane was going to strike, and he kept on predicting that until it was too late. What happened was the worst hurricane on record.”

  “Okay, but a snowfall is not a major hurricane,” responded Friedman.

  “Right,” said Wally, “but there is still the potential for real problems if it snows and we’re not prepared for it.”

  “How much more do you think we’re going to get?”

  Wally shrugged, “At least another six inches in the next couple of hours. If it doesn’t slow down, then another six and then another six. For it to slow down, this front’s got to move in the first place and it’s barely budging. This could be the mother of all storms, to coin a phrase.”

  “Jesus!” someone exclaimed.

  “If he’s a friend of yours, call him,” Wally laughed harshly. “If we give a forecast of heavy snow, maybe some businesses and schools will close early, and maybe some people won’t go out shopping and get stuck. It’ll give people a fighting chance to get home before it gets really bad.”

  “Do it,” Freidman said, but without conviction. He could see the snow in the parking lot and wondered how anybody was going to get home even if they were released early. The traffic copter was down and the various television cameras situated throughout the metropolitan area were showing only a world of white. All flights either into or out of Detroit Metropolitan Airport in downriver Romulus had either been cancelled or were being delayed. How much longer would cars be able to move? Still, they had to make the announcement and let people decide what was best for them. As for closing schools, he wondered if that was even feasible. Would buses be able to move? Would parents try to pick up their kids?

  Wordlessly, they all began to wonder when the first people would begin to die.

  * * *

  Ted Baranski regularly attended the nine a.m. Mass at St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church in Sheridan, even though he thought the young priest, Father Torelli, was a pompous twit who thought he knew it all and didn’t know when to shut up. At least he wasn’t diddling the altar boys like so many priests he’d read about. At first Ted thought some people had a vendetta against the Church, but had changed his mind when the number of accusations skyrocketed and included some priests he knew, and it only got worse when some of them pleaded guilty. It had disturbed him deeply, even sickened him. Priests were supposed to be above reproach. The breach of faith and trust had almost sent him away from the Church as it had so many. So far, Father Torelli had kept his hands to himself. He had a beard that the parishioners joked made him look like a portrait of Jesus, so maybe he actually took his job seriously.

  Ted also thought that the organist, an overweight woman in her forties, played with her feet and sang with her ass.

  Baranski was eighty and Torelli maybe thirty-five. So how did that give the young priest the right to lecture to an old man like him? Baranski had seen the world. He’d fought and been wounded in Korea; he’d earned a Bronze Star. He’d worked all his life, and retired from General Motors with a decent pension that so far included damn good health care. He’d married, had children, grandchildren, and now, great-grandchildren. If only his wife Catherine were here to help him enjoy it.

  Can’t have it all, he thought sadly. She’d died more than five years ago and his memory of her was still bright. His kids teased him that his mind wasn’t as sharp as it used to be and maybe they were right. But he remembered everything about Catherine. So what if he sometimes misplaced his car keys, or lost a library book, or couldn’t remember if he took his heart medicine—he remembered his past. He didn’t care much for the present and the future at his age was difficult to comprehend. The kids wanted him to go to a senior residence or even a nursing home, but he’d rather die before he’d let that happen. The trouble with nursing homes was that there were too Goddamned many old people and so many of them had Alzheimer’s or dementia. He had friends in nursing homes and some of them didn’t remember him.

  He liked being independent. In his own home he could grow his plants and flowers, and so what if he forgot to flush the toilet or occasionally peed on the floor. He wasn’t starving and he wasn’t hurting anybody. His home was a ranch, which meant he didn’t have to worry about stairs unless he went to the basement for some beer. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. He hadn’t bothered to shave today and who the hell cared. At least he’d taken a shower. Some old people stank. He didn’t want to be one of those.

  So finally Father Torelli finished the Mass and the organist hit a last discordant note. Hallelujah and amen. Baranski had prayed and suffered quietly through an overlong sermon they now called a homily. Didn’t matter what they called it, Father Torelli was a bore as a preacher. He remembered when the Mass was in Latin. At least then you could get a decent nap. Of course, Catherine always poked him awake when he began to snore. She was embarrassed and the kids thought it wa
s funny, which got her upset. She tried to be angry with him, but it didn’t always work.

  He dutifully shook the priest’s hand and opened the door where he was slapped in the face with a blast of snow.

  “When the hell did that happen?” he asked in surprise and laughed. Like he had a choice; everyone else was laughing, too, even Father Torelli. Hey, it was funny.

  Fred Foley, his good buddy, answered. “It’s snowing, you big butthead. You spent so much time pretending to be praying that you forgot about the rest of the world.”

  Ted sniffed. “That just means I’m a better Catholic than you are. Right, Father?”

  Father Torelli laughed again. He’d watched the two old men argue ever since he’d been assigned to St. Stephen’s a year before. They were part of his environment. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both great guys. Now kiss and make up.”

  Baranski thought that maybe the young priest wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. The sermons were awful, but the skinny kid was okay when he wasn’t trying to preach to the choir. Maybe he’d go to Confession and try to shock the priest by telling him he’d been practicing birth control at eighty.

  Foley looked out through the window in the door. “Can’t see a thing. Maybe we’d better wait until this clears up. Can’t last long at this rate.”

  That seemed like a plan, so the two older men and a handful of others sat down to wait out what was obviously a snow squall or shower, while Father Torelli made the very short walk back to the rectory. It was only a few feet away and the bulk of the building could barely be seen. Snow showers were frequent and intense, but, like a summer thunderstorm, let up after a short while and were forgotten.

  An hour later, they they’d run out of things to say and the snowfall hadn’t diminished a bit. Ted Baranski stood and stretched. The church pews were tough on his skinny butt. He didn’t want his hemorrhoids acting up, either.