Vic Socotra

16 October 2009

eZPass

(eZPass toll Plaza)

The space-time discontinuity ended abruptly as he nose of the Bluesmobile approached the I-270 split at the 11:00 o’clock position on the Beltway. It is free to travel this way, and hence it is prone to clogging on work days.

The wired and wonderful sensation of absolute freedom dancing along the nerve-end, powered by the V-8 Police package suddenly went screeching across a phase shift; 85 knots to nothing, and the suddenly contemplation of the folly of mankind, and the grasping spatial needs of my fellow motorists.

Ultra-violet to indigo to deep blue the colors went, then a flash of yellow with the deceleration, orange flashing off the rear window of the Jeep in front of me and then just plain red as the mundane reality of the District imposed itself rudely across the dashboard. It all came into sudden focus, like the Obama-Biden sticker on the Volvo that blithely cut me off after hurtling up the HOV lane.

I sighed. Home again, almost, but not quite there. Anything but easy. It was a half hour creeping up to the Legion Bridge at Cabin John, and then the glass from the Sunday accident crunched under he new Michelins of the police car, a distraught woman gesturing at her damaged Corolla talking to the Trooper on the verge approaching the span.

Shit. A jam like this on a Sunday afternoon. We are always near saturation here, one small miscue away from complete gridlock. The sun fled west to cloak his face under the deepening gray sky. The clouds had pursued me across the Midwest, but I was able to race ahead of them out on the open road, but now the chill moisture had me dead in its site.

Static once more. A target.

I had plenty of time to think about that as the week unraveled. The portents were not good, and my youthful reserves of energy had fled. The jolt of time travel had taken more of a toll than I had imagined.

There was business out by Leesburg. The Company had selected the venue to ensure that there would be no distractions. The timing and agenda were intended to be dramatic, and I could have arrived early and stayed at the resort, but I frankly traveled enough of late, and determined to trade some time in the morning to make the drive and still be in my seat, looking attentive, by 0750.

I was still thinking about the people I had seen, all free-falling through this world on their own trajectories, and of Dad on the journey that is all his own.

I should have had an hint as I flashed through the express lane of the Dulles Access Toll Road. I did not see the green light come on as the Bluesmobile thundered through, but that is not uncommon. Frankly, I was still thinking of some of the women in the crowd at the reunion. They were awesome.

The segment where the Access Road transitions into another toll segment is a different matter. The Greenway is another private development intended to open the fields along the Virginia shore to development from Dulles out to Leesburg. It is successful in that regard, and the adoption of eZPass auto sensors and billing had enabled the toll authority to slash the jobs of the toll takers. Most of the lanes now only have RF sensors, not people, but the toll barriers remain across the lanes, and raise with the successful link between the sensor on the dash and the one in the gate.

eZPass is pretty slick. The system automatically bills your credit card when the available balance gets low. Or, perhaps I should say, the system does that if you have not been out-of-state and out of time. The barriers between the operating systems have not been overcome as yet, since that is not as easy as you would think.

I rolled up through the concrete Jersey barriers dividing the lanes, built strong and tall enough to withstand the impact of an out-of-control truck.

The electronic sign has no express eZPass RF device on the dashboard had worked without fail on the long journey, up and back, and I suppose I was thinking of fate and youth when I saw the electronic sign display the words “Insufficient funds.”

I looked around for options, but there were none. No place to swipe a credit card; no basket for coins. I looked up and saw headlights bearing down on me, and shortly we would all be trapped in the concrete chute.

There are some considerable advantages to driving a police cruiser, and gesturing out the window, I put the big car in reverse and backed out of the gate until I was clear of the concrete barriers, blood thundering in my ears. These cars are specially strengthened to withstand rear-end impact to 70 miles per hours, not that I wanted to find out.

I drove over some plastic poles and into a more welcoming lane with alternate means of payment. In this one, two white vans from a home construction firm were trapped, their drivers not able to speak English, apparently, nor possessing the means of credit to operate the automatic kiosk.

I made the meeting almost on time, but sitting at the rear of the auditorium, I began to think that the town did not seem to fit somehow. It would take more than a few days to ease back into this. The rah-rah session with Corporate was urging me to new heights of innovation and creativity to beat the competition in the coming times of retrenchment.

I sighed and wondered how Mom was doing with Dad, and if he had tried to wear his shoes to bed again.

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