Day time
night time
week in week out
the city never sleeps
--Rap-Trans Gaffito
Knox spots an opening and guns his Comet onto the Westside Freeway behind an old flatbed. Then he begins to relax, loosening his tie and trying to ignore the heat that even at seven a.m. is muggy and oppressive, making his underarms and crotch feel gritty. He cracks the window, hoping for a breath of fresh air, but just as he starts to suck in a deep breath, the derelict ahead belches out a thick cloud of dirty exhaust that drifts back and engulfs the Comet. "Jesus Christ," he swears half-heartedly, cranking the window up. He glares at the back of the truck driver's head, then sighs, and for a moment considers the possibility of riding Rap-Trans rather than fighting this mess every morning and evening. But he knows from graphic examples on the nightly news that wearing a suit on the train is just asking for trouble from one of the gangs that prey on commuters. Besides, all that graffiti and filth is too much to take--one of the stenos in the office told him an incredible story of coming home late at night and finding a used condom on the empty seat next to her. So, Knox shakes his head and resigns himself to driving the old car. After all, it could be worse, he tells himself, thankful that it's only a few miles from their apartment in the Towers on the north side to his office downtown.
Momentarily he glances west of the freeway and frowns at the Wasteland--as the media dubs the projects--the multi-storied gray buildings rising up out of a desert of cement and asphalt, not even a tree adding color to the monotonous landscape; then he quickly shifts his attention to his left, trying to spot the newest sculpture across the northbound lanes. Last Friday the partially completed work appeared to be something really large, maybe a dragon or a dinosaur. Ahead, the freeway splits, the left lanes curving east to cross the river on the Westside Bridge into the downtown area--
The sculptures are gone!
The flat stretch of bank between river and freeway is completely devoid of folk art constructed from driftwood, tires, plastic bottles and other debris washed up from the waterway bisecting the city; the ingenuity of anonymous artists responsible for the informal project that had eased commuter frustration for decades. But it's all gone, even the old stuff.
He knows there must be some reasonable explanation for the sudden disappearance over the weekend, but he can't think clearly, the disappointment adding to the discomfort of the heat which is continuing to rise. At the tollbooth--the latest dodge by the mayor to add to the machine's insatiable coffers--Knox hands the collector a five and asks, "What happened to the sculptures?"
She hands him back a book of tickets, her long fingernails painted in a Flo-Jo style. "Sculptures?" she asks flatly, as if it's a word she doesn't understand.
"Yeah, the ones over on the curve," he says with an impatient gesture over his shoulder toward the empty bank.
"Doan 'member no sculptures over there, and I been here since they started up the toll," she says, bending slightly at the knees so she can see his face, the boredom gone from her voice.
Another uniformed woman appears and hands the collector a box of ticket books. "Say, Tina," the collector asks, her tone playful, "y'all ever see any sculptures out there?" She points a red, white, and blue fingernail toward the riverbank. "Man here wants to know."
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