I was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on a rainy night when we came to one of the tunnels, and the three children in my car all at once started screaming as loud as they could. I have no idea why. The rain of course stopped though the windshield wipers didn't; suddenly I saw something so chilling I'll remember it the rest of my life.
In an oncoming, or westbound, car, greenish if I remember correctly, a man had a gun pointed at the woman driver. Someone else was in the front passenger seat, but knocked out, asleep or dead, and he had pushed himself up between the front seat to get the gun pointed at her head. SHe had a look of abject terror in her eyes but kept the car going straight; she was going highway speed. I could see it clearly but only for a split second. My concern was whether the kids had seen it but they were screaming so loud I kind of doubted they could.
When I was out of the tunnel I looked for a place to pull over and call nine-one-one, but I was shaking and almost couldn't stop when a place came up after a few miles. Still shaking, I got out of the car in the rain and put a jacket over my head and the phone so I could make the call. I told the police what I saw. The signs wouldn't tell me which tunnel it was but I figured they could deduce that from my location. All I could say was what I'd seen. I didn't remember much, as it turned out, except that the car was a greenish color. It had all flashed by pretty quickly.
The kids were all somewhat concerned that I'd bolted out of the car in the pouring down rain out in the middle of the turnpike right after we'd gone through a tunnel, so I told them everything was ok and we got started back on the road as soon as we could. Little Jummy was right behind me; he was the one who wasn't mine. We were taking him to live with his grandmother in Philadelphia as his mother had died unexpectedly back in Pittsburgh. Bobby and Jane were mine, 5 and 3 respectively; Bobby and Jimmy were kindergarten buddies. I had left my wife and a smaller baby home. I had somehow been roped into this due to association with a church that Jimmy's mother had attended for a while. Somebody had to deliver this kid to his grandmother. The father apparently was not part of the picture.
The image of what I'd seen disrupted my driving all the way into Philadelphia. It had been dark when it happened, though it was only about six, but when we got into Philadelphia it was still raining and I had a lot of trouble finding that grandmother's house even though I had GPS and all the modern ways of doing it. It just seemed like a very scary world where a guy can hijack a car right in the middle of a tunnel on a cold and rainy night, and get away with it. I somehow figured that woman would end up dead one way or the other.
The grandmother was very nice to us and insisted we stay for the night. She put all the children, plus one she had named Chloe, on one huge bed that was hers, while she insisted on sleeping in another, and put me on the living room couch but insisted on making tea first. I didn't want to burden her with the cold facts of what I'd seen and what made it such a disturbing journey. Instead we talked about Jimmy and what he'd need growing up.
She admitted she'd made mistakes bringing up her daughter, Jimmy's mother, who had had a rough life before she had just apparently committed suicide by jumping off the Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh. This had happened in the middle of the night and poor Jimmy had been found the following day afraid and left an orphan. Poor kid, no wonder he had nightmares and even now he was babbling to his grandma about his aunt and some guy with a gun. I thought of the situation in the tunnel once again wondering if he'd seen it and thought, if the kid had seen that it would trigger all kinds of unpleasant nightmares. Grandma was soothing to him and assured him that everything would be ok.
In the morning the kids and I got packed up and ready to go on the long haul back to Pittsburgh. I didn't look forward to those tunnels but there was no easy way around; you pretty much had to shoot right through them day or night, rain or not. The grandmother got a call from her other daughter who was apparently stranded somewhere out in the boondocks of Pennsylvania, no car, no money, no nothing but a horrible story which I didn't hear because I heard only the grandmother's voice. The grandmother agreed to send her bus fare to get her back to Philly as soon as she could. After she hung up she told me she was already keeping that daughter's child, Chloe, and that was the girl, about four, who entertained her cousin Jimmy and my two, and of course they'd all had a pretty good time though Jimmy had one of his nightmares. Grandmother didn't tell Chloe what had gone bad with her mother - how much can children take?
It rained again all the way home and I practically shut my eyes in the tunnels hoping not to see anything as bad as what I'd already seen. The grandmother agreed to stay in touch as people in the church all wanted to know if she would be ok with Jimmy and if she needed anything. She was a pretty tough lady and would probably be fine, but Jimmy appeared to be somewhat damaged by the chain of events. It turns out it was his father in his aunt's car, holding the gun, and that his mother didn't just jump off the Warhol bridge. The father had just stolen the car, though, and didn't actually hurt Chloe's mother; he wrecked it out in Ohio somewhere the following day in a crash that involved a semi and a police car. By the time I heard this though I was back home safe and sound, with the baby sleeping in the main bed, and my wife worried that I would roll over on her. I now had nightmares too, but it was always the same one, what I'd seen in the tunnel, and I never did find out exactly what Jimmy had seen.
Friday, March 25, 2022
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Amateur Night
It's St. Patrick's Day at Murphy's Pub, in a small town in Colorado. Because Murphy's has a shamrock on its sign and is easily identifiable as the Irish place, it's crowded, and is selling a lot of alcohol.
Jerry O'Brian is Irish and is a regular at Murphy's Pub. He doesn't like St. Patrick's Day, which he calls "Amateur Night," because there are too many non-drinkers at the bar and too many of them are drunk. He himself holds his alcohol - he can drink whiskey all night and not do anything rash or violent, but these people, one or two beers and they start yelling or punching each other like they'd been holding it in all year.
One of these so-called amateurs is named Jake, and he has been hitting on Rose, another regular at the bar. Jerry, like many guys at the bar, is somewhat protective of Rose if only because she's a regular. They've all hit on her too at some point or another and who knows who she has actually ever gone home with, not Jerry for sure. But Jerry gets in Jake's face at one point because he's being too forward with Rose. He tells Jake to bug off and go find someone else. Jake takes a swing at Jerry. But he's so drunk he ends up falling on the floor, the swing missing Jerry by a country mile.
Now people rush in to keep the two separated. They make moves to get Jake out of there; he's the guilty party. Jerry watches Jake with a hardened eye - it's hard to tell whether he is memorizing his features so as to pound him later, or whether he simply doesn't believe anyone would be stupid enough to take such a wide swing at him.
Rick the bartender has played the biggest role in trying to get a fallen Jake out of the bar, tossed out onto the curb and told not to come back tonight. He hasn't gotten very far because the bar is so crowded. With a man on the floor everyone has to jostle around to get their drinks and take them to their tables. One guy, Scott, actually spills his scotch onto Rick while Rick is dragging Jake across the floor.
This is the last straw for Rick, who stops what he's doing and just tells Scott to leave the bar also. "Just leave before I pop you one," he tells Scott, but Scott is also drunk beyond his usual limit, and doesn't take him seriously. Besides, he'd just bought a Scotch and was now eager to drink part of it. He swigs what's left in his glass and looks seriously at Rick. It's like he's trying to figure out if Rick is serious or not.
But Rick is dead serious, and he knows he should never back down from a demand he's made of any customer. If he thinks Scott should leave, Scott should leave, and he'll stare Scott down until he does, and get back-up help if necessary. There are at least four people working the floor, three of them big enough to help him in a pinch. He wants Scott to leave and he's not backing down.
There's an Irish band over in the corner. This is quite unusual for a small town in Colorado, but this bar found the band, and employed them, and they're busy playing lots of Irish music. The fiddler, Seamus, is out front and he knows he needs a lot of elbow room to do his job. He's not happy that people keep spilling drinks so near to their cords and mics and electric equipment. He's somewhat superstitious about losing all the power just because people are so drunk and so crowded they can't hold a drink upright. He's got his eyes on Rose who for some reason got his attention the minute they started playing.
Rose for her part has stayed close to Jerry, thinking that if she stays close to him, he won't pound that Jake guy who is drunk on the floor and being dragged out of the place by Rick. Jerry puts his arm around her and gives her a big wet sloppy kiss. They are old friends if nothing else and it's St. Patrick's Day, maybe they feel it's their way of celebrating to just let go and enjoy the situation. Seamus steams a little as he watches but he's busy fiddling; there isn't much he can do.
The bar has degenerated a little into a fight with lots of pushing and shoving. This started because Scott took a swing at Rick the bartender, and missed and hit some other guy, who then jumped into it like it was his opportunity to let go of a year's built up stress and tension. It was an accident, for God's sake. But this guy doesn't care, and goes swinging at everyone, Scott, Rick, whoever is anywhere near him.
When the police show up he's the guy they're after, because he's already decked three or four guys and he's not afraid to do as much damage as he possibly can. He's all dressed up, but strong underneath all those fancy clothes, and nobody's ever seen him before, like he just popped in out of nowhere with an agenda to beat everyone up. At one point a gun appears, in the hands of some guy that got popped in the jaw, but cooler heads prevail and this is just before the police arrive, so in that situation it's best to keep the gun out of sight and out of the fight. Jerry at some point goes over to deal with the guy with the gun and after that, to explain to the police a little of what happened, and he gets drawn into the argument about who started it all.
This is Seamus' opportunity, and he offers Rose a ride home, which she accepts. The night is over. Too much damage has been done already. The band takes down its equipment and gets ready to go home; it's at least midnight anyway. The police are now swarming the place, having called for backup, so no one is going to have a good time from this time out, unless you count those who have slipped out the back, like Seamus and Rose. It's another one for the books. The management of Murphy's just wants to close the place and have everyone go home. Out on the street, police are patrolling for drunken drivers, who are plentiful, so it's best just to walk home, if you live in the town.
Jerry O'Brian is Irish and is a regular at Murphy's Pub. He doesn't like St. Patrick's Day, which he calls "Amateur Night," because there are too many non-drinkers at the bar and too many of them are drunk. He himself holds his alcohol - he can drink whiskey all night and not do anything rash or violent, but these people, one or two beers and they start yelling or punching each other like they'd been holding it in all year.
One of these so-called amateurs is named Jake, and he has been hitting on Rose, another regular at the bar. Jerry, like many guys at the bar, is somewhat protective of Rose if only because she's a regular. They've all hit on her too at some point or another and who knows who she has actually ever gone home with, not Jerry for sure. But Jerry gets in Jake's face at one point because he's being too forward with Rose. He tells Jake to bug off and go find someone else. Jake takes a swing at Jerry. But he's so drunk he ends up falling on the floor, the swing missing Jerry by a country mile.
Now people rush in to keep the two separated. They make moves to get Jake out of there; he's the guilty party. Jerry watches Jake with a hardened eye - it's hard to tell whether he is memorizing his features so as to pound him later, or whether he simply doesn't believe anyone would be stupid enough to take such a wide swing at him.
Rick the bartender has played the biggest role in trying to get a fallen Jake out of the bar, tossed out onto the curb and told not to come back tonight. He hasn't gotten very far because the bar is so crowded. With a man on the floor everyone has to jostle around to get their drinks and take them to their tables. One guy, Scott, actually spills his scotch onto Rick while Rick is dragging Jake across the floor.
This is the last straw for Rick, who stops what he's doing and just tells Scott to leave the bar also. "Just leave before I pop you one," he tells Scott, but Scott is also drunk beyond his usual limit, and doesn't take him seriously. Besides, he'd just bought a Scotch and was now eager to drink part of it. He swigs what's left in his glass and looks seriously at Rick. It's like he's trying to figure out if Rick is serious or not.
But Rick is dead serious, and he knows he should never back down from a demand he's made of any customer. If he thinks Scott should leave, Scott should leave, and he'll stare Scott down until he does, and get back-up help if necessary. There are at least four people working the floor, three of them big enough to help him in a pinch. He wants Scott to leave and he's not backing down.
There's an Irish band over in the corner. This is quite unusual for a small town in Colorado, but this bar found the band, and employed them, and they're busy playing lots of Irish music. The fiddler, Seamus, is out front and he knows he needs a lot of elbow room to do his job. He's not happy that people keep spilling drinks so near to their cords and mics and electric equipment. He's somewhat superstitious about losing all the power just because people are so drunk and so crowded they can't hold a drink upright. He's got his eyes on Rose who for some reason got his attention the minute they started playing.
Rose for her part has stayed close to Jerry, thinking that if she stays close to him, he won't pound that Jake guy who is drunk on the floor and being dragged out of the place by Rick. Jerry puts his arm around her and gives her a big wet sloppy kiss. They are old friends if nothing else and it's St. Patrick's Day, maybe they feel it's their way of celebrating to just let go and enjoy the situation. Seamus steams a little as he watches but he's busy fiddling; there isn't much he can do.
The bar has degenerated a little into a fight with lots of pushing and shoving. This started because Scott took a swing at Rick the bartender, and missed and hit some other guy, who then jumped into it like it was his opportunity to let go of a year's built up stress and tension. It was an accident, for God's sake. But this guy doesn't care, and goes swinging at everyone, Scott, Rick, whoever is anywhere near him.
When the police show up he's the guy they're after, because he's already decked three or four guys and he's not afraid to do as much damage as he possibly can. He's all dressed up, but strong underneath all those fancy clothes, and nobody's ever seen him before, like he just popped in out of nowhere with an agenda to beat everyone up. At one point a gun appears, in the hands of some guy that got popped in the jaw, but cooler heads prevail and this is just before the police arrive, so in that situation it's best to keep the gun out of sight and out of the fight. Jerry at some point goes over to deal with the guy with the gun and after that, to explain to the police a little of what happened, and he gets drawn into the argument about who started it all.
This is Seamus' opportunity, and he offers Rose a ride home, which she accepts. The night is over. Too much damage has been done already. The band takes down its equipment and gets ready to go home; it's at least midnight anyway. The police are now swarming the place, having called for backup, so no one is going to have a good time from this time out, unless you count those who have slipped out the back, like Seamus and Rose. It's another one for the books. The management of Murphy's just wants to close the place and have everyone go home. Out on the street, police are patrolling for drunken drivers, who are plentiful, so it's best just to walk home, if you live in the town.
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