The Undertaker

Together, we jumped down into the express lanes and I saw this was the big leagues. There were four lanes rather than three and the stream of cars was thicker and faster than in the locals. We could see panic on the face of almost every driver who flashed by us, and I'm sure they could see it on ours.

“Now!” I screamed and we cut behind a delivery van and kept moving through a gap between a Honda and Cadillac. We stopped, halfway there, toeing the white line as we waited for a break in the third lane. Behind us, I heard loud honking of horns and a sudden squeal of brakes followed by a sickening “Thump!” I looked back in time to see a blue-clad Chicago cop bounce high off the hood of a Toyota in the local lanes. He cart-wheeled through the air, arms and legs extended, followed by a loud series of sharp crashes as a half-dozen cars rear-ended each other trying to avoid the cop and the careening Toyota. The, all Hell broke loose, with more crashing metal, more squeals, and more loud horns.

“Well, that ought to slow them down a tad,” she yelled, wide-eyed.

Maybe, but we had enough problems of our own at that moment. Cars were speeding past, front and back. I glanced left and saw a Greyhound bus changing lanes, heading right for us, straddling the bright white line we were standing on.

“Oh, shit!” Sandy said as she pulled me forward. We darted in front of the bus and kept running, across the last lane of traffic, and onto the relative safety of the El station median. Hand-in-hand, we jumped onto the low concrete retaining wall as a big Mercedes sped past behind us, horn blaring, narrowly missing us. The wall was perhaps twelve inches wide and four feet high, separating the busy express lanes from the steel tracks. Twelve inches wasn't very much. Sandy tottered back and forth next to me as we fought to keep our balance. Maybe I was too concerned about her making it up to the top with me, and maybe I was a bigger klutz than she was to begin with, but I couldn't stop. I let go of her hand, but my momentum carried me over the top and I fell face-first on the grimy, sharp-edged gravel of the railroad bed.

“Eee-Yeeagh!” My hands and knees rebelled in pain.

“Uh, Talbott,” Sandy shouted a warning. “See that blue-black rail in the middle? The one next to your left hand?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I looked down. My shins rested on the brightly polished track where the train's wheels ran and my right hand was a few inches away. Next to my left hand, where I had narrowly missed landing, was an evil-looking, blue-black rail.

“That's the third rail. There's about a gazillion volts of electricity in that thing. You touch it; it'll ruin your whole day.”

“Hey, I'm from LA,” I replied. “What do I know from rails?” Carefully, very carefully, I rose to my feet and brushed the dirt and gravel off my hands, giving the third rail a wide berth. Sandy jumped down next to me and we looked up at the subway platform. The concrete slab was even higher than the divider, at my eye level, and there was no ladder or stairs to climb. To make matters worse, I saw the front headlight of a fast moving train coming up the northbound tracks, heading straight for us.

“Here,” I said as I put my hands together and bent my knees. “Give me your foot. Quick. I'll boost you up.”

“No sweat, it'll slow down as it comes in,” she announced confidently, slowly raising her left foot and placing it in my hands. As she did, I glanced past her again. The train was close enough for me to see the panicked expression on the engineer's face as he saw us standing on his tracks.

Fortunately, Sandy did not weigh very much. “One, two… three,” I yelled and flipped her upward. She soared onto the air in a tight, acrobatic flip and landed on the platform on both feet, light as a feather.

I looked left again and I could see she was dead wrong about the train. It had not slowed a bit. I was tall and in pretty good shape. Desperation and a speeding train can make great motivators, so I put my hands flat on the platform and launched myself upward, rolling over the edge just as the lead El car roared past.

“Oops. Guess that was an express,” I heard her say as I lay on the platform looking up at the concrete roof of the station, thankful I was able to look up at anything at all.

That was when I heard a loud, sarcastic, and very black male voice say, “My, my, what do we have here?”

“They be the Fucking Wallendas, Jamal. You know, them dudes in the circus,” a second voice added.

“Yeah, das who they be,” came a third voice, “the Fucking Wallendas.”

“Check out the mess they made back on LaSalle. Dey fucked that up good.”

“Check it out, Rashid. All them po-lice cars? Cops gonna be really pissed.”