She isn’t sure where she is. It’s nighttime. The sky must be cloudy because she can’t see the moon, nor any stars. The air is warm, yet damp and humid, causing her to sweat. She’s walking down a sidewalk along a four lane boulevard. Streetlights along the median shine an orange glare onto the wet asphalt. Looking over her attire, she’s dressed in black jeans, a black sweatshirt, and black boots. She feels her head, and she has on a heavy woven hat. She takes it off. It’s black. She never wears monochrome ensembles. She asks herself, Why am I dressed like this?
Feeling itchy after taking the hat off, she starts to scratch her head. Instead of scratching her thick coarse hair, she touches what feels like a bandage that’s wrapped around her head. Something happened to me, she tells herself. Something bad has happened to me. She puts the hat back on her bandaged head.
There’s nothing but dark, empty space to either side of the road. She sees a structure ahead that looks like a tollbooth, with all its entries boasting a solid red light at the roofline. As she approaches, a damp jersey barrier topped with metal wire fencing separates her left side from the road. A moist concrete wall begins on her right side. She finds herself funneled, headed to a tollbooth for pedestrians.
She stops walking. This doesn’t feel right. She realizes this isn’t a New York Thruway tollbooth like the ones she encounters going to Albany or Utica. This structure feels more intimidating, like a border crossing, similar to the ones she’s been through when traveling to Niagara Falls or Montreal. During her two trips to Canada, she’s always found the border guards to be more intimidating during her return to the supposed land of the free than the guards on the Canadian side. The American guards made her and her traveling companions feel like they’ve committed a crime during their stay in Canada. It seemed to take longer to go through the American border than the cars in front of them. Am I going to Canada? Am I heading back to Watkins Locks?
Watkins Locks! She hates telling people she’s from Watkins Locks, New York. People from outside the Mohawk Valley tend to say they’ve never heard of it, requiring her to explain it’s about 40 miles west of Albany and is named for three series of locks along the Erie Canal. Those from the Mohawk Valley laugh. They know the town. It’s an industrial, working class town, with empty downtown storefronts, low-wage industries, and worn-down row housing. Pessimism prevails. People want to leave Watkins Locks. It’s like the settings of Richard Russo novels; totally hopeless.
She’s always wanted to leave Watkins Locks. Now she feels homesick. It seems like wherever she is right now, it’s very far away from her one bedroom apartment above Dino’s Pizza, one of the few Watkins Locks’s businesses that make money. She wants to get back. But how? Should I approach this tollbooth/border crossing building? She may be able to find out where she is if she continues moving forward. How can I find out without talking to someone? She hasn’t seen one sign identifying her location during her walk.
Anxiety starts to overwhelm her. She needs to stop and think. She leans the lower half of her body against the jersey barrier with her back against the fence. She asks herself, Where’s my purse? Wallet? She checks her pockets. No ID. No money. Nothing. She can’t continue. She needs to backtrack.
As soon as she makes that decision, a light suddenly shines on her. She tries to glance at its source coming from the crossing but it’s too bright. She has to look away. She runs away from the light. It continues to shine on her as she runs. It’s illuminating the upper part of her body against the concrete wall. She realizes she needs to keep moving but she must keep herself out of the light. She crouches and keeps close to the jersey barrier using it as a shield. It must be a searchlight.
As she reaches the end of the concrete wall, she hears a motor vehicle start up in the distance. She assumes that it’s coming from the crossing. The searchlight is no longer on her. She leaves the sidewalk, jumps a metal guardrail, tumbles down a slight incline into what appears to be a clearing.
Another searchlight is turned on, facing her direction, but illuminating a patch of the field ahead. She halts and crouches down. She looks back to the road, sees headlights from a vehicle pointed in her direction with a searchlight attached somewhere above the headlights. There seems to be a rhythm to the searchlight’s movement, back and forth. She creeps slowly to the area lit up. She will run once the searchlight makes its predicted pass.
When she glances back to check the road, she sees that something is rapidly headed her way. It’s definitely an animal, most likely a dog. She has a tough choice to make. Run into the searchlight’s path or surrender. She’s been fleeing who knows what. Isn’t it time to figure out what’s going on? She wants to know where she is and who is chasing her. A dog is coming after you! Run!
She’s running into the path of the approaching light. She’s actually feeling good running. She feels she’s going to make it, but then she sees a ditch ahead. She dives into it just as the searchlight approaches. She looks up at the embankment. The dog is at the top, barking at her, the spotlight shining on it. Someone shouts a command at the dog. It lies down but it’s baying. She gets up and sees she’s at the edge of a swiftly moving river. There’s no choice. She jumps into the river.
©2021 Tim Sheehan