Getting There (a strike story)

"I'm sorry. It's awful, I know."

"It's- Yes."

"I tried four times. I can't write block letters. It's the reason kenan never let me draw the stadium posters. I was only allowed to color them in."

"Look, it's fine. Do you have a ruler we can use to hold it up?" He folded the piece of paper in half so that the lettering was more prominent and the crossed out M resembling a W was no longer visible underneath.

"But nobody will be able to understand what it says."

"It's ok. Anybody who sees two kids with a sign is going to know they want a ride and that they want a ride to Manhattan."

"Greatest city in the world."
Yesterday and the day before, some desperate drivers took us in through the tunnel to meet their quota. So our plan was to try to shorten our walk and get a ride TO the tunnel, or even better, to the bridge.

"Look, this time let's not get in just any old car that stops for us. Let's make sure it's an ok car first."

I looked at him, pulling my scarf tighter around my face. "That guy yesterday was safe."

"We almost got in an accident."

"I thought he was an excellent driver."


"You two going to Manhattan?"

"Woah, that was fast." He had barely,shyly stuck his arm out with my pitiful excuse for a sign when the black car slid over and a girl poked her head out the window.
Hurray!

We flew in, forgetting our own advice, breathless from the cold, thanking profusely, greg grinning ear to ear. Our little car zoomed past the other walkers, whizzing over the Pulaski at the amazing speed of thirty miles an hour which converts to one mile in two minutes, or rather, eight times faster than we could walk. But there was something terribly wrong with this car.

“It costs twelve dollars per person to go to Manhattan,” said the driver. Oooh, Brooklyn with its unmarked cabs. Five very uncomfortable minutes later we were back out on the street, holding our sign in Queens.

“You guys want a ride to the bridge?” A very nice lady with bags of playdough on the floor of her car and a wooden cross hanging from the mirror. We were smokin’! Another two miles covered in minutes!

At the base of the bridge, a yellow cab. But we were smarter this time. “We don’t have any money!” shouting to him from the intersection.

“No, free! Free!" he stuck his arm out the window and waved it desperately at us. "I need two more people before they let me on the bridge.”
We sat up straight in the cab, peering out the window at the view, no traffic, so it went by fast, gave him a little tip for his efforts, and piled out of the car at 60th street. Manhattan!

We made it! We made it! I looked at my watch: 8:17 am. We made it in TWENTY MINUTES!! We had shaved forty-five minutes off of our hike. Jumping up and down, hugging each other, hugging my perfect sign.

“I don’t have to be at work until nine! We do you want to do with our free time?”

“I don’t know,” he said, pocketing the sign for tomorrow. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

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