Traffic Life : Passionate Tales and Exit Strategies
Edited by Stephan Wehner
An Anthology
 
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140 Parking Structure Three mon sense, parking lot buttons, the damned people who designed them, and idiots who honked their horns. The car jerked to a sudden stop, the tires screeched on the smooth concrete surface, and John bumped his fore- head on the dash. 'Ouch. Sonofa... Why?' He rubbed his forehead and turned to Millie. Millie pointed at another sign, To Go Up, First Go Down Two Levels. John said, 'Just do the deal.' 'But we need to go up to level five, not down.' John scowled at her and said through clenched teeth, 'Do it.' The next level down was marked Level Minus One. John said, 'They ought to hang the engineer who designed this structure.' He looked around. All the cars on this level were old. Vintage about 1980. Kept in real good condition though. Polished, shiny, mint condition. John looked at Millie. He was being an old S.O.B. Too hard on her. She couldn't help the fact that she wasn't logical like him. She didn't even have a law degree. He looked lovingly at her young face-the smooth face of a nice forty year old, not the wrinkled face one would expect on a fifty year old. He eyed her black hair. She must have dyed it again, and he hadn't even noticed until now. 'I love you. You look real pretty tonight,' he said. 'Humph,' she answered. The next level down was marked Minus Two. The air smelled damp and moldy. The parking spaces were filled with classic cars, all from the era of about 1950 to 1960, and each vehicle was in amazingly good condition. There was some real money here. 'Wow,' he said, 'Is there a car show here today?' John squinted out the window into the darkness. There, a dozen yards short of the next turn, his parents' old 1956 pickup was parked in one of the spaces reserved for the handicapped. He recognized the license plate. A stooped old man stood next to the car. It was John's dead father.
  
Wes Alderson 141 His father looked up, caught John's eyes, and darted into a doorway leading down a long corridor that receded into blackness. 'Wait. Stop,' John said. He yelled at Millie. 'That was my Dad. Dad was right there by his car.' 'Oh John, John, John,' said Millie. 'Your father has been dead ten years. Your mother too. And their old car was hauled away to the junkyard and sold for spare parts.' 'No,' John insisted, 'It was him. Him.' John's breath came in fast shallow gasps. Millie glowered at him. 'Whatever is wrong with you tonight? Have you lost your mind?' John looked out the car window again. He thought, She's right. Dad is dead. Maybe I'm losing my mind, or at least my sense of logic. Besides, they were 100 yards un- derground on this so called Minus Two Level. Where would a doorway and corridor lead to? He wiped his wet forehead with his shirt sleeves. 'Here we go,' Millie said, 'Here's the up ramp to the higher levels. Now we're getting somewhere.' She sounded young, musical. John turned to look at Millie. She looked like a teenager. Or was it just the darkness of this level? Several bends later, they passed a sign which said, Plus Two Level. All the cars here were ultra-modern looking, al- most weird. Stubby electric vehicles, low slung cars with ergonomic shapes. Some even had wings. There must in- deed be some sort of car show going on. Maybe they could stop by the show after Millie made him sit through the lec- ture on obsessive-compulsive disorders. He would at least humor her. He looked at his watch. It was already 7:15 PM. The date was wrong though. It said, Tuesday, 2011, and it was really only 2001. Stupid watch. He hated defective mer- chandise. Another trip to the damned shop. His fingers began to twitch again-he rubbed them along the seams of the fuzzy acrylic wool seat covers. 'We've already missed the first fifteen minutes of your useless lecture,' John said.

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