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1:35 a.m.
Nov. 21, 2000
I left the office at 3:30, and if "la dolce vita" is driving around the city for 9 1/2 hours trying to find a viable route home and trying not to get stuck, and get unstuck, and having verbal confrontations with people who yell at your bad driving because you keep getting stuck, and having money extorted from you for purposes of dislodging your car, and being ensnared on the East Side of Buffalo for at least a good four or five hours, you can have it.
I'm bushed. This night has been unbelievable in every sense of that word.
I can't even begin to articulate just how crazy it was--from near-accidents to buses turned sideways, to abandoned cars every 5 feet, to driving the 33 when it was closed and nearly ending up like a dead bird on the side of the 1-98 exit.
It was HELL.
Watch the news, you'll see.
It really was THAT bad.
Lest anyone think this millennial snow inauguration was overblown by even one snowflake or hailstone, to be sure, it was hellacious. The evening's tenor: fear and loathing. Only, perhaps, the addition of, say, a twister, could have made the evening slightly more overwrought, and finally, laughable.
Hour No. 1
Stuck in work parking lot. Snow is teeming. A guy has a shovel, he's going to dig us out. I think I'm fine, until I try to reverse the car. Stuck. He's shoveling, I'm watching, like an ass. He instructs me to roll it gently, to and fro, and when I catch it on the upswing, gun it. He's standing perilously close to my car, I'm worried I'm going to hit him. He snaps, "Don't worry, I'll get out of your way. And don't stop once you get going."
Traffic is slow going onto Millersport, but soon we're moving, sluggish, down the road. The first opportunity is to turn down Sheridan, but I continue, fearful of getting stuck in the piles of snow, onto the road ahead. Traffic now has slowed to a crawl. Essentially, we're in a parking lot.
Hour No. 2
Drivers are looking weary of where we're headed, a.k.a., nowhere. I'm singing with Jeff Buckley, laughing at their serious faces, grave with disgust. I make it almost to the corner of Bailey and Grover Cleveland, seems to be some sort of calamity up ahead. University students walk by and I roll down the window to ask if they know what's going on. Laughter ensues. "Good luck. There are, like, three bus accidents, it's a total mess. Nothing is moving. Nothing." So that's that.
Conveniently parked in front of a funeral home, I turn my Honda into the lot, knowing full well it's a risk. Getting back out, that is. I walk in and mosey around to find the attendant. My bladder is about to burst. I pass a body laid out for a funeral that night. Still no signs of the living. I ring the bell, the attendant comes to the door, and I ask, plead, really, to use the ladies' room. I return to my car, and get stuck. Everyone just stares. It's amazing what people won't do when faced with the obvious. Finally, a passerby stops to nudge me out, but he insists on yelling at me because "your wheels aren't straight." If I could see them, I would straighten them, yeah? Two others join him, push me out, he leaves because he's disgusted with my lack of snow-driving prowess.
I roll out into the road, and move, say, 3 feet ahead. A man gets out of his minivan, asks me, "Having fun yet?" His wife is driving, he's out of the van, doors wide open, quieting his son in the back.
Hour No. 3
We've now moved onto Bailey, heading toward Main. Milestone progress. Civilians have taken the road hostage, and are trying to keep the vehicular peace. A man who looks like he just jumped off his Harley is telling me to move into the center lane. "That's the only way we're going to get traffic moving, OK?" He's firm.
Some man is having a conniption fit in his car, to my left, because it's stuck. I ask him if he needs a push. "Well, I can't go anywhere!" he screams. Patience is running thin. It's already getting ugly. The concept of teamwork exists only in afterschool specials. I retreat to my car, strap in and brace for the long ride. On the way up the hill, a man tells me, soothingly, he can see I'm starting to bug out in my car, "Hon, just roll it. Tap the gas so light you're barely on it. You're all right. You're all right." And I am. For the next 4 feet or so.
Hour No. 4
Made the grisly decision to continue on Bailey instead of heading down Main. Plow through the light after a push, see clearing ahead, get excited, falls apart rudely over the hump. Stuck on Bailey, and it's hailing out now, the "Thunder Snow" coming through the window (a meteorological phenomenon! we're told later), landing on my jacket, it's not even melting it's so solid.
Lightning strikes somewhere nearby, the boom shakes the whole of my car, and the street lights go out. It's black and blue all over, and the snow keeps falling. It's almost apocalyptic. Almost. People are walking by, shovels in hand, babies in hand, food in hand. I wish I could walk home.
Hour No. 5
It's getting to be quite a blur now. Mind, sky, road. The wind is rocking the street into a frenzy. I'm thinking about my gas situation. Glad to have some, I'm never this prepared. Just waiting until I can turn on some street, any street. I'm distracted by the snow melting on my windshield, like a tear falling, a solitary drop rolling, the lightning is sexy. I'm so bored.
Hour No. 6
Off Bailey. Finally. Sitting, waiting, wondering. I barely make it down this stretch it's so thick with snow. Not so much of a jam here, until I come up on two school buses, no passengers, the drivers aren't moving. Both facing in the oncoming direction completely blocking traffic. I lay my head on my steering wheel and let loose the sobs of frustration that have been building. I'm trying not to get angry; I'm inclined to lose my shit. The bus finally moves, I pass, get stuck. Someone, anyone, it seems, is pushing me out.
A man in his van is spinning his wheels to loosen the unmovable ice beneath his tires. I get out, "Do you need help?" He breaks out the shovel, I'm ready to push. He dislodges, then proceeds to get stuck into the snowbank on the side of the road. It's like that everywhere tonight--one misfortune slides into another. vNow on Grider, maybe, near ECMC, and I'm circling, trying to find a way out, and end up stuck rounding a corner, when a pack of young girls, maybe 15 years old, comes to my window, their spokesperson announcing that for 5 bucks they'll dig me out.
I say ok, rifle through the wallet, see I've got three singles or a $10, and say, politely, "I'm sorry. I'm coming up short. I'll give you 3 dollars?"
Quick as a fox, she's all over me. "Don't give me no 'short' shit, lady. I saw that $10 in there."
Outraged and disoriented, I begin digging around my wheels with my snow brush while they're kitty corner at the bodega, watching with pleasure, laughing.
Humiliation is making me awfully hot, and along comes the Van Man and his campadre, ready to dig me out.
"Don't help her, she wouldn't pay!"
"City of Good Neighbors my ass," says one while the other reads me the riot act about getting some new tires. Mine are nearly bald.
"I know, I know."
They push, I'm off, someone else instructs me to take the 33, and I do.
I've lost count of the folks who have bailed me out thus far.
Hour No. 7
Truth be told, this is where I thought it was all over. The 33 is clear--because it's been shut down--not clean, and the abundance of snow is making driving very difficult. The only plowing here has been done by tires. I try to pass the 1-98 entrance ramp, swerve into the bank of snow there, get stuck, and I'm staring in disbelief at the cars scattered like road kill along the stretch. Abandoned. Snowed in. Barely visible under feet of powder. I keep moving, when I get unstuck, panicking now, crying again, can't see, and then a man is waving, screaming, my window is down, "Clear path, clear path. Just drive!" I follow the car in front of me. We're possibly the only two cars on the 33 for miles.
I'm stuck on the East Side, I'm on East Ferry, I think, when people start walking around, loosening up. A man brandishing a 40 with a cigarette hanging out his mouth approaches me, asks for a light.
"Sure." I am ready to abandon ship and head to the bar on the corner. He laughs, says to me,
"Honey, you're in the wrong part of town, don't you think?" I laugh, roll my eyes, light his cigarette. As if I could leave.
"Look at me, let me see your eyes."
I do.
"Nah. Damn. You don't have any marijuana in there, do you?"
"Nope, but I wish to hell I did." He tells me I'm the 531st person who's said so, and leaves, most grateful for the light.
I turn off my car, get out, ask what the hell the hold-up is. There is no acceptable, or reasonable, answer. We're just stuck. Get used to it.
I run to the church at the corner of Michigan and East Ferry, get inside, ask to use a phone. People stare, some laugh, I'm the only white person here. I feel awkward, but I persist. "Please, I just need to use the phone."
A woman there lets me use her office phone, finally, I'm so grateful I could kiss her. She offers me use of the bathroom, a hot cup of coffee. "Thank you, thank you, but I have to go."
Hour No. 8
Traffic has finally moved. But everywhere you go to get onto a main thoroughfare, it's a total wall of cars. No one is moving. The side streets are dangerously icy, people are raging at the weather, at each other.
A man in his car shouts across the way, "So, enjoying your holiday?" He's the most friendly of the evening, chatting it up over the lane, and we're both exhausted. He's been in his car for 5 hours. Everyone is counting the minutes, it seems. There's nothing else to do.
Hour No. 9
I make it back to East Utica, which is where I was some two hours ago it seems, and the impasse has been broken. We're moving, slowly but surely, toward Main. The incline is brutal on my car, I get stuck several times, shell out the three bucks for some guy to put his hand on the back end of my car, along with two others who came a minute later, and push me forward. People are really pissing me off trying to extort money. I'm faced with a thin strip of road to get by on, and I panic, stop, I can't make it, I'm going to hit the oncoming car, the pedestrian. Things just are too tight. Some guy, full of bravado and impatient, like the rest, gets out of his car, walks up to my window, and lays in.
"Honey, what's wrong with you, can't you drive? This is, like, the third time you've gotten stuck since I've been behind you."
I roll my window down. He just cut my last string.
"Don't f--ing tell me I can't drive! I've been in this f--ing car for f--ing 9 hours, so don't even start with me, I'm ..."
"Okay." He sees my anger is a thin veil for a cresting wave of hysterics. "Just roll it back a little, and then I'll push."
Unstuck, faced with a cop at the intersection, the only one I've seen tonight, I yell, trying not to stop, "Which way?"
He points, I drive.
Thankfully, it's the right way.
The final stretch
The snow has gone to my head, or the fumes, I'm almost out of gas, I have to get home, I can't take this anymore. I see Mr. Macho get out of his car, and I walk out of mine, toward him. His arms fly up into the air, his eyes wild like a deer's in headlights.
"Sweetheart, I'm sorry. My fault, my fault." He must think I'm packing heat or something. "No, no. I wanted to apologize. I'm sorry for yelling. I'm just really stressed out."
It's a fine line between love and hate, help and hindrance, rescue and rioting, this night. Main is unbelievable. We're all moving an inch per minute or so, literally, and trying to maneuver around Metro buses and cars that have been left for dead. People truly are restless, some get out to stretch, others are swearing, some are winking at me, one man on foot inquires as to whether I'm married. "No hubby? No boyfriend? Where you live?"
Idle conversation with strangers is appropriate, has been the norm this evening. There are only so many ways to entertain yourself, alone, in the car.
It's comforting, in a sick kind of way, to know so many people are enduring this episode together. I catch a break, turn down a small side street, manage through, break out onto Linwood, take it to Delevan--where I had been headed all night--and finally, to Delaware. Home is so close.
The pavement is flying loose--no, it's not the pavement, but the ice frozen on top, now coming apart from the salt. It's like someone threw a grenade onto the road, shards of it making driving difficult, but not impossible.
3:27 a.m.
The night, surreal on the mountaintop of road, wobbling on my skis of a car, between life and death. Not really so dramatic, but scary, chaotic, Hollywood-like in a way that's hard to explain unless you're only just thinking about how you got home.