The door slid open from right to left and I stepped into the
vault. I took the cylinder with my right
hand and stuffed it into my bag. I
pushed as much air (or toxic gas) out of the bag as I could and tied it up at
the neck. Then I turned around to
leave. But of course, the inner door to
the airlock had closed. The guard went
to an intercom and spoke through it.
“I have to void the airlock.
Are you going to be okay?”
How the fuck did I know?
I guess if the cylinder had been slowly leaking helium and I took a few
breaths, the only negative effect would have been that I’d have sounded a bit
like a cartoon character as I cursed the guard.
On the other hand, if there was something a bit more malevolent inside,
then I might start to grow another arm out of my ass. Or die. Two existential thoughts occurred to
me right then: (1) when does the exploitation of the worker at the hands of his
employer approach culpability in a potentially criminal negligent assault, and
(2) how much longer I could hold my breath?
But it really didn’t take all that long before the gas had worked its
way out of the airlock and the guard signaled that it was safe for me to enter
it. I stepped in, still holding my
breath because whatever it was that had been floating around in the vault had
followed me into the airlock and I glanced over my shoulder to watch as the
door closed again. I turned back towards
the outer door and stared at the guard.
“Just one minute!” he shouted, not even bothering to use the
intercom.
One minute! Jesus, I’d
been holding my breath for what felt like the better part of two! I knew this wasn’t actually true though. I’m usually only good for about 90
seconds. With that cheerful thought, I
tried to keep myself focused on something else.
When you’re in a stressful or dangerous situation, it’s good to
concentrate on your breathing, which was clearly out of the question at that
particular moment. I decided to try
monitoring my heart rate, which also proved to be a bad idea as it was
hammering like hell. I remembered
reading in a textbook somewhere when I was in high school that carbon dioxide
and water combine in your bloodstream to make carbonic acid as oxygen is
absorbed. The build up of this acid
causes the amount of spinal fluid to drop in the medulla, which is the part of
your brain that controls automatic functions, like breathing. Eventually, the medulla gets pissed off and
overrides your own efforts to turn red and then blue in the face as you refuse
to take a gulp of air. It’s a pretty
unpleasant sensation all by itself and I gently cursed my high school biology
teacher, Mr. Ashton, for littering my brain with this helpful information. Combine all of this with being trapped in a
small space while you watch the only person who can save your ass, while he
struggles with the controls that might set you free, and you have all of the
necessary ingredients for a full-fledged panic attack. I stared intently at the guard and to my
relief, the airlock door opened and I was able to step out.
“You okay?” asked the guard.
“Sure,” I gasped. I
looked at him and noticed that he was moving away from me, toward the front
door to the room. He opened the door and
held it for me. Nervously, he led me
down the hallway to the stairwell.
“You going to walk, or did you want to take the elevator?”
“I guess I’ll take the stairs, since I’m here.”
“Cool!” he said as he hurried off to the elevator door, which
was on the opposite end of the hallway.
I took a look at the bag in my hand and realized that as long
as I held it, I was the least popular person in that building. It’s funny how things work out. A few minutes ago, the guy had been happy as
all hell to see me too. I guess some
people are just fickle. I took the steps
two at a time and in a couple of minutes; I was at my car again. I placed the
bag on the back seat, got in and drove back to the Interstate.
Everything seemed to go well until I hit the turnoff where
128 and Route 93 meet. The traffic began
to slow, as I had expected it might. By
the time I got to the tunnel at the Central Artery though, the whole thing
stopped dead. I turned off radio station I had been listening to, switched on
the tape I owned of the Grateful Dead’s September 3, 1977 performance and
watched as all of the cars in front of me were methodically swallowed up by the
darkness ahead, at glacial speed. While
I sat in traffic, I had one of those realizations that would have been a hell
of a lot more useful to me had it occurred several hours earlier. As most motorists know, one of the worst
places to be in a traffic jam is in the middle of a tunnel. The carbon monoxide that the internal
combustion engine emits is one of the deadliest gasses on Earth, at least to
humans. I understand that plants love
it, but not being so predisposed (I do not photosynthesize well – it’s a family
trait), I have always made it my habit to roll up the windows and to put the
air supply on “Recirculate” before entering a tunnel. I put the windows up, turned the volume on
the stereo to a near deafening level and settled back, as the car inched into
the tunnel. I must have been actually in
the tunnel for several minutes before realized that I’d sealed myself into a
very tight space again with my mysterious friend in the back seat. I hurriedly glanced in the back and saw to my
horror that the black bag had begun inflating!
Whatever the Acushnet Company had wanted out of their vault was
threatening to pop the clearly unsuitable container that I had improvised for
its transport to Don’s place in New Hampshire.
There is an old Zen fable that describes the plight of a man
who ends up jumping over the edge of a cliff to escape a tiger who saves
himself by grabbing onto a vine before he hits the bottom. He looks below him and sees another tiger
waiting for him to fall. He looks above
him and observes that mice are nibbling at the vine. I felt a bit like that troubled gentleman at
that moment in the tunnel with my ever-expanding plastic bag, faced as I was
with the choice between breathing highly concentrated auto exhaust or whatever
toxic nasty was filling up the garbage bag in the rear seat of my car. The traffic wasn’t moving and I realized that
I had placed myself in an airlock, surrounded by toxins for a second time in as
many hours. Clearly, I must have been
some kind of genius to do so. It was the
only explanation. I contemplated my own
version of the tale of the tiger and the mice for another 45 minutes though
before I was through the tunnel and into the more comfortable flow of traffic
that led out of the city and back to Vermont.
I drove to Don’s house and heaved a fully inflated contractor’s bag of
god-knows-what unceremoniously onto his front porch.
The next day when I went by Don’s office to collect my money,
I made a point to ask him what had been in that cylinder.
“Oh, it’s best you never know,” he said with a shy
smile. He counted out my money and slid
it across the desk to me. “I really
appreciate you taking care of that for me, Michael. Acushnet is an important client of mine.”
“How does that work?” I asked as I put the bills in my
pocket.
“Well, they ask me to consult on some of their product
lines. I help them with details that
concern the materials they might want to use.”
“The college doesn’t care that you moonlight?”
“I don’t make it their business to know.”
“You know,” I said, while I watched him lean back in his
chair and fold his arms over his chest, “you’re being pretty fucking
inscrutable right now.”
Don started to laugh.
His shoulders bounced up and down while he did this. As I mentioned, Don had a great laugh and he
was literally turning red as he let loose.
It got to you, watching him so happy and so I always found that I
started to smile every time he did this.
Don thought this was the funniest thing he had heard all day, maybe all
month and so when he finally calmed down a bit, I pointed to him.
“You gonna tell me the joke?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied.
“The guys down there at Acushnet paid me $2000 to get that cylinder out
of there.”
“So, what was in it?” I asked again.
“Fucked if I know. I
sent you down to get it, so I figured it didn’t make any difference.”
“But I left it on your porch!”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m
not going back home for a while. The
college is out all of next week. I
thought I’d go to Maine and see some friends.
By the time I get back, that damned bag you put over the cylinder will
have popped and it’ll be safe to throw the whole mess in the dumpster.”
There were two lessons to be learned from this:
(1) The concept of environmentally sound disposal practices
had a bit of evolving to do.
(2) If someone offers you a pile of cash, you had better be
ready to earn every bit of it.
***********************
The next installment will be posted on September 16.
If you'd like to read the entire book today, GO
HERE.
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