220 and a half main

220 AND A HALF MAIN













A NOVEL(?) BY:



         Michael malavito

















For Lauren, you are all of my miracles.  Even tho in this one, I took out all the mush…sorry babe.


‘morons’
Jon was waiting for the white puff of hair in the dark red 1990-something Buick to find the accelerator.  All he could see was knuckles, the hair on the top of her head (which shook a little side to side), and brake lights.  He let it slip a little though, because of the veteran plate, and…well, it was wet today, and work had really dragged.  He needed a little chill time and sitting at a light with music was not the worst thing in the world.  It was, after all, Wednesday.  With the weather only slightly better than shitty, sitting at the traffic light with the music playing was not the worst thing in the world.  Finally, ‘Ethel’ (what the hell, good odds for a name choice with someone her age right?) oozed forward. 

The turns were the worst. 

It seemed as if she had to maneuver the car in oneconstantmotion.

As if she was doing tai chi whilst making the most perfect of all turns.  Maybe she was using the force or something.  She didn’t turn, she swooped.

The turns were the worst.

Jon caught himself starting to swoop a bit with his own technique, and promptly readjusted himself in the seat. 

“JEEZUS…”
He rolled down the window.

Wow, it was still at least 45 degrees.  Swooping and Jon’s wrangler just didn’t jive too well together.  He felt like he was trying to time a 100 meter dash with a grandfather clock.
Besides, it all worked out in the end.  Yesterday he had caught himself going 40 down this street.  It was just one of those wide open streets…except for the rail crossing before the bridge.  Today, just as he was contemplating the dotted yellow line…(could you really pass in town?), the deceptively low brow of the police cruiser sitting in the grade school loading zone came into view. 
Seriously, what are the rules for passing in town.  Have you ever done it?  You’ve thought about it…c’mon, you’ve been behind ‘Ethel’ before too.  Why have a dotted line if it wasn’t o.k.? 
Today, Jon was glad he hadn’t, no matter what the law.

Mashana was a very interesting place.  The entire town sat on the north bank of the Fox River, square in the heart of Wisconsin.  This particular street ran up from Roma, the city on the south side of the river.  You couldn’t tell the difference between one or the other, they ran together without a hitch.  Main then crossed a double railroad track that used to feed the factory, and then promptly crossed the river over the metallic green grated drawbridge.  It was the kind of street that had a seemingly pointless stoplight every 20 yards or so.  Pointless, until the foundry workers let out, and needed to cross the street to their cars.  Pointless, until summer came, and the drawbridge went up every 13 seconds it seemed.  Pointless, and made so by the railroad lights that always fell, without any sign of a train. 
There was a museum right there, in the old bridge watchtower.  It looked like an old castle turret with windows that were ‘modern’ in the sense that they had been hastily replaced in the 70’s, and hadn’t been cleaned since. 
He and Lolo had taken the spiral staircase inside and listened to all the little speeches and poked at the worn and only partially functional buttons.  Mashana was a small city who suddenly found itself rediscovered, square in the middle of a larger one.  Everything here was built in the late 1800’s.  The building they lived in was built in 1865.  1865!  He had found a picture online of their street.  You could see their building, and a few others, especially the one on the corner as it had that distinct Y shaped intersection around it. 
Old cities almost always seemed to have corner-shaped buildings.  There were dirt roads and horses, where now the roads and parking stalls stood.  He had also found a photo from 1913 or so, when a train carrying President Roosevelt had arrived at the train station on the campaign trail.  You could see the steam locomotive dressed to the hilt in red white and blue bunting (black and white photo, but still obvious), surrounded by people actually holding those old bikes with the ridiculously huge front tires.  He drove by that station every day on the way to work. 
‘we’re not going to make it lady…come on…’
They were going too…’damn it!’
The red and white railroad wands started to fall, blinking and wailing…although everybody applying the brakes knew flipping well there was no train coming.  No train ever came. 
Mashana was a town of about 20 thousand, but it seemed really busy.  It was surrounded in a close cluster, by the rest of the fox cities.  Totaling about 160,000 people total, they had all the amenities of a big city, and all the frailties of a tiny one.  It was quaint and cultured all at the same time.  It was a woman from Nebraska, standing bewildered in Times Square. 
The lights on 3rd had been broken for at least three months.  He had seen a city truck out here once…maybe a week ago, when he had come through early for a meeting at work.  It was a big square white bucket truck, replete with yellow revolving lights and blinking cones all around.  It was too foggy to figure out what they were doing.  Since then, for the last three weeks, the warning lights go down almost every time without reason, and there are no more trucks. 
Tonight, the Buick’s tail lights lit up as soon as the lights started to fall.  ‘Ethel’s head continued to waggle back and forth, in time with the clanging red conniption in front of them.  It was creepy.  Like one of those possessed cymbal monkey toys that starts banging away in the middle of the night…right before something terrible happens. 
CLANG-BANG-DING.DING. CLANG-BANG…
For no reason at all.
Tomorrow, if that cop isn’t there…I’m passing…
Jon shifted into neutral and let the wrangler glide in behind her.  Led Zeppelin wailed away on ‘Ramble on’, but he turned it down.  It was kind of eerie, but a good eerie, coasting to a stop in the strobing reddish glow through the mist.  The orange streetlamps had those wedge shaped capes below them and one of them clicked off, probably from the light show now ricocheting off of everything.  They sat at the crossing.  The monkey lights clanged away to the amusement of about 30 blinking red faces.  Usually, after about 3 or 4 cars had assembled on each side, they stopped.  Tonight was a long one.  Everyone was in business suits and had the ‘dinner’s getting cold on my front seat…’ look on their face.
Jon turned the Zeppelin completely off.  He could hear the poly-mantra of all the engines gurgling away while the bells and lights chased each other from the watchtower to the metal deck grating of the bridge, before skipping across the hoods and windshields.

And then everything stopped.

The lights and the faces faded together, and then everything was still, and black.  The monkey faded into the bedroom shadows and was scarier than when its eye’s were glowing and it was clanging away.  The bulbs filaments faded into dark within their puck~shaped casings and rose silently out of sight.  He waited with the radio off and heard the wind gust ever so slightly.  For a brief moment, no foot had yet received the go signal; no engine surged.  30 or so fading red faces cooled out of sight, and he swore he could hear all the transmissions clicking through reverse and neutral to drive.  Just above a brief gust of wind. 
Eventually, Ethel oozed forward.