'You think the kids will be all right?' Howard asked.
'You want me to drive?' his wife said.
'You know you can't worry and drive at the same time. This is the
village of the happy nice people, John. At least compared to where we
live. They are in a crowd full of people playing with boomerangs, for
God's sake, they'll be fine.'
They were driving through a tunnel on Highway 26 that led into downtown
Portland. The walls of the tunnel were white tile, and they were
pristine. Not just white--there wasn't any graffiti painted on them.
Clean.
'This is the cleanest town I've ever been in,' she said, echoing his
thought.
'No trash, no beer bottles, it's like Disney World.'
Somebody honked, just like somebody always seemed to do in a long
tunnel, just to hear the sound it made. He nodded in the direction of
the honker.
'Yeah, too bad they can't get rid of the morons.'
'Stay in the center lane,' she said as they exited the tunnel.
It was a pretty city. There were more buildings than he remembered
from his last visit, and the views of the mountains were not quite as
open. Mount Hood still had snow on it, even in June, and to the left
Mount Saint Helens did, too. He'd talked to people who'd lived here
when the volcano blew its top off, back in the spring of 1980, and it
had apparently been quite impressive.
The initial blast had not only blown powdered rock upward, it had
spewed outward, knocking down trees, a 'stone wind' that had scoured
everything in its path. The explosion created ash and snowmelt
pyroclastic flows that had filled lakes and rivers, knocked out
bridges, buried 3
a tourist lodge--empty, fortunately, save for the old man who ran it
and refused to evacuate. Most of the people who died had been inside
the safety zone established by the state, and it could have been a lot
worse.
According to an old staff sergeant Howard knew who had been in town
when it blew, the volcano had looked like a nuclear blast, great clouds
of pulverized rock boiling into the stratosphere. The wind hadn't been
blowing toward the city that day, so they'd missed the big ash fall,
though they got some in subsequent eruptions. It was like living next
door to a concrete plant when that happened, the sarge said, fine
clouds of gray dust swirling in the streets like powdered snow. Jets
had to detour around the city when the ash was at its heaviest; it
would eat up the engines otherwise, and car air filters clogged and had
to be changed within a few hours. People wore painters' masks to keep
from choking on the stuff. It was hard to imagine it.
And you couldn't tell by looking at it now.
'Stay in this lane.'
'I heard you the first time. Who's driving this car, me or you?'
'You're driving. I'm navigating. Clearly the more important job.'
Howard grinned. Was there anything more wonderful than a bright woman?
