S1W35: “Dirty Hands”

© 2012 Phylicia Joannis

The Congressman, the Old Woman and I all grabbed at the dirt and debris with renewed vigor. Hearing the voice of the Nurse on the other side had raised our spirits higher than I thought possible.

“I can see you!” the Nurse shrieked in excitement over the shrinking mound of dirt. “I see your fingers!”

I smiled. Despite the strain of the past few hours, and after at least a half hour of frantic labor, I could see the Nurse’s glowing face. Well, part of it.

“We can see you!” the Old Woman called through the hole. “How is everyone?”

“We’re fine,” the Climber called from behind the Nurse. “At least, we’re no worse off than before.”

Moments later, we’d cleared enough debris to climb through to the other side. The Congressman hoisted me up first, followed by the spunky Old Woman.

“How are all of you?” the Nurse asked, giving each of us a once over.

“We’ll survive,” the Congressman mumbled.

“Let’s hope so,” Dreadlock chimed in. “I can’t scale a dirt wall though.” Dreadlock pointed his thumb towards the cave-in cutting us off from the remaining subway car.

“Have you been able to dig through?” the Congressman asked the Climber, who shook his head.

“Too hard,” the Climber explained. “We tried, but there’s some pretty heavy chunks of cement blocking our way. Too big for me, a cripple and a woman-” the Nurse gave him a pointed look and he corrected himself. “A strong woman to handle by ourselves. We figured if you were alive…”

“We could help dig and get out of here,” the Congressman finished his sentence.

The Congressman walked over with the Climber and the Nurse to examine the wall. After pushing and tugging on giant chunks of cement they all returned, dejected.

The Old Woman looked at them expectantly, but the Congressman shook his head.

“Even if we weren’t hungry and exhausted, it’d take a forklift to move that stuff.”

My heart sank.

***

Mayor Blume stepped towards the microphone as he began the afternoon press conference. He placed his hands on each side, squared the single sheet of paper outlining his notes, and cleared his throat. His audience consisted of a variety of local news and radio reporters, chief members of local community boards, and officials from national news media networks. Behind him stood Commissioner Wright and his assistant Perry, the city’s chief architect, Mayor Blume’s staff and a few other city officials.

The tension and frustration in the room was palpable. Normally, press conferences were awash with light chatter before the speaker made his or her announcement. Today was different. Everyone was quiet, not wanting to miss a word. Mayor Blume began.

“Ladies and gentleman of the press, officials, staff, and citizens of our great city who may be watching this at home, the news I bring you today will unfortunately both sadden and outrage you. Today’s incidents put our beautiful downtown proper in an uproar- igniting panic, fear and substantial financial loss for residents, businesses, and transit systems. Our initial reports indicated that the first occurrence of this massive ground collapse was isolated. However, after further investigation, and the occurrence of a second collapse, our reports have concluded that both of these occurrences are in fact sinkholes.”

Reporters wrote furiously and cameras clicked frantically as a quiet wave of chatter came over the crowd.

The mayor held his hand up. “I know what you’re thinking. How could this have happened? This city is strong, its infrastructure uncompromised, and we have some of the most innovative architectural technology in our region.”

“So how did it happen?” One reporter shouted impatiently.

Mayor Blume made a face. “I was getting to that. Folks, this will go a lot smoother and quicker if you don’t interrupt me.”

The reporter grunted but didn’t speak, and Mayor Blume continued.

“Earlier today there was an incident in our mass transit system that caused a train to go off track and into the recesses of an old tunnel route. This same route runs parallel with where both sinkholes occurred, and we believe it was this incident which caused the sinkholes.”

“A train went off track and caused two sinkholes?” the same reporter repeated the mayor’s claim in disbelief.

“How could something like this happen?” another reporter jumped in.

Mayor Blume gave Perry a knowing look and straightened his shoulders. “It brings me great sadness to say that these tragedies are the result of corruption within my own administration.”

The reporters erupted with questions. Commissioner Wright raised his eyebrows. The Mayor increased his volume to speak over the frenzied news anchors.

“Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a small contingency investigating allegations that one of our very own was putting the public’s safety at risk for his own political gain. These tunnels could have been dealt with long ago, but in an effort to push forward his own political ideals, this man had the demolition process unnecessarily delayed. We have now discovered that this man is none other than Commissioner Wright, which is why I am demanding his immediate resignation!”

Commissioner Wright’s eyes grew wide in disbelief as a barrage of questions were flung his way.

“What are you talking about, Mitchell?” the Commissioner hissed in the Mayor’s ear.

Mayor Blume turned towards him with a look of disdain. “I expect your resignation to be on my desk in an hour. You have disgraced the good name of this administration long enough.”

Commissioner Wright turned towards the reporters. “This isn’t true! It’s all lies!”

“Is it also a lie that you had twenty-seven people sign nondisclosure agreements just this afternoon in an effort to cover up the same incident that caused the two holes in my city?”

The Commissioner shook his head and looked wildly at Percy. “No! Ask Percy! He’ll tell you! It wasn’t my idea!”

Perry frowned. “Commissioner, I’m sorry. I gave them everything. They have the emails you sent me this morning telling me to settle everything quietly. They have documents and paper trails of the money that’s been filtered away from infrastructure in order to promote your automation campaign.”

Commissioner Wright shook his head. Mayor Blume walked up to him and smirked. “One hour.”