last night, the snow began at around eight or nine. white rain from the god of wealth, whose birthday is today according to
spicebush's fung shui calendar. at ten thirty i got out of work and began a laborious trek over the betsy ross bridge, which hangs like the proverbial bird of doom that shifts and cracks, over old art deco factories with thirty foot windows and seventy foot rusted smokestacks cropping up out of the rotten textile and cement industry spead beneath. cops run there with no lights in pairs silent, only sounds the hiss of wheels, but i wouldn't know, that's kensington and "YOU don't go there" is what my white co-workers tell me. it loks like the burbs in atlanta where i dug ditches in the red clay, the same red clay would stain my socks, get in the creases of my skin, little mica chips and sweat would stick to my forehead and slide into my eyes.... the glittergrit eyeshadow of hard work. at the end of the day i couldn't wait to wash that earth's blood down the drain. i hated hard labor, but it was always nice to feel that dirt come off. kensington seems strangely compelling. the death one looks at over the edge of a high building. they can't mean me. i'm invincible, and everyone is very nice here. no one really means me harm, and all the white folks are paranoid, they tell me not to go to gertmantown, or to the north of philly, but i go there all the time, cruising ogontz avenue and chew street. right through the warzone. nobody cares. i'm sure it is the same in kensington, just like i know i'd float, not fall towards the death at the edge of a building.
anyhow, over the bridge i go, "two lanes to phila" staying to the left, while the crazybrave and the damnfool rip by to the right. huge trucks, fast little sportscars with no low gear, old primered beaters... all blast by me, the road a white wasteland, visibility is good, a hundred yards of foggy DMZ, fading into static ahead, static behind. the road is cold, the snow is powder, not slush, so it isn't real slick, until we hit the freeway, here the trucks have laid salt, and the snow has given away to slush and frozen almost immediatelytto a rock hard rink. here the crazybrave hit trouble, the porsche is stranded (what's the difference between a porcupine and a porsche? a porcupine has the pricks on the
outside.) good joke, but this particular prick
isn't on the inside, he's out in the lane, trying to punch cell phone buttons on his afterthought of a cell phone with his rabbit fur lined leather gloves... london fog felt coat blowing in the wind, scarf flying out in front, smacking him in the face from time to time. i pass the beater on the elevated ramp connecting 95 to 476 (Central Phila, the sign states in it's green and white informational way. orange sodium vapor lights behind it are diffused so much by the snow that the whole sky from horizon to horizon is sort of a midnightblue fading to burntpumpkin.) the beater looks like he started to skid on the onramp, forgetting that the wind below was cooling the surface of the road some 20 to 30 degrees more than the earth beneath the freeway... when he began to skid, he slowed down, and now can't get the traction to get going again. he's trying to coast down the breakdown lane backwards, to get back to the freeway and take a run at it.) he is tough to get by.
on 476 the traffic volume has melted a lane of traffic, and everybody is piled into it, praise god, there is pavement again! (it's a trap. sometimes god wants you to take the hard road,) water falling from the bridges above has frozen on the exposed pavement, the snowy lane, less travelled, towards the left, has escaped this... on ramps from the city dump new victims into the fray, each sliding through one intersection, then another before getting over into the snow and slowing down to 25, nearly causing conniptions for the entering drivers who dart for pitcher plant salvation of the exposed left lane.
76 is a replay of 95, the crazybrave and damnfool are back, but truckers are tempering them, they are strung out in the left and center lanes, positioned so that all traffic has to slow, they are tempered by time and experience, they know that until the plows get out here, this is death... they force the traffic on 76 down to 35. towards city boulevard, a SUV makes a break, all four hubs locked, and then all four tires begin to spin... much faster than the forward motion betrays... the lady in the suv floors it, speed equals traction being the thought here, i guess.. the back end fishtails and she hits the brake, (while trying to recall physics formulas in her head, i'm sure, force equals mass times.. times.. times...what?) when she skids further she tries to correct and takes her foot off the gas... the SUV's automatic transmission shifts into a lower gear, turning all that wasted motion into torque. the tires bite and the suv straightens out. she floors it again and the tires spin once more. she cruises down the road this way, managing to achieve another ten miles per hour, and miraculously, begins to navigate the web of semis.
fortunately, i get off on kelly drive. ridge avenue, a gentle slope... is blocked by two city busses and about twenty cars. the busses slowed for their stops and can't get the momentum to get going once more. i assume the drivers are fitting chains, at least i hope so. hazard lights are monotonously telling me not to go up that way. i go down to main, and up a much steeper set of backroads... i have to stop for about two minutes while a tow truck tries to extricate a step van from the road. "you'll never get by" he finally tells me, but there is barely enough room, like that sliver of hope on the edge of the building, or on the left exit off the betsy ross bridge exit off of 95, that would take me away from work, down aramingo ave and into kensington. i wait a second, and the driver moves the truck just a foot, enough to erase all doubt about the matter, and i ease easily by into our parking lot.
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