Hot Flash, Part III "Relief"

The man in the chili pepper apron announces a ten-minute break before the next performer, and a line of six or seven people quickly forms in front of the small one-person restroom behind the stage.
  “S’cuse me.” Becky stands gingerly, pushing herself up from the table with both hands.
“Where you goin’, Beck?”
“Outside for a minute. I, ah, need to walk around.”
“Just a sec’. I’ll go with you.”
“No!  I mean--no, Hamp, you stay and talk with these guys. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t be silly, Beck. It’s dark outside. I’ll come with you and have a cig.”
Becky plops back into her chair. “Never mind. I’m not going,” she pouts.
“What’s the matter with you, hon’?”
“Yeah,” says Amy. “D’you feel, like, okay? You look a little flushed.”
“I’m fine. Can we just please change the subject?” Becky turns toward the end of the table. “Mike, didn’t you t ell me you met Butch Tendler once?”
This conversational distractor generates a chorus of Wow!s, Really?s, and No Shit!s from the group.
“There was a picture of him in the paper,” says Amy  “He looked pretty dirty--greasy hair and all that.” She wrinkles her nose.
“Naw,” says Mike. “He’s a good guy. That’s just the look those guys have. I met him when I was workin’ in a little bar in Spokane. Before he got well known.”
“D’ya get his autograph?” asks Ginny.
“Naw.  I’m tellin’ ya,’ he wasn’t anybody then.”
“I’m not sure he’s anybody now,” says Ted. “I mean, the Hot Flash Burrito Company, Pocatello, Idaho, isn’t exactly the main concert circuit.”
“Oh shut up, Ted.” Ginny flips her straw at her companion, and a few drops of Diet Coke splatter the table. “You’re just jealous.”
      Three loud taps on the microphone echo through the room, and the man in the chili pepper apron clears his throat. “As soon as everyone is seated, we’ll continue,” he says. A general scurrying follows this announcement, and everyone at Becky’s table turns to face the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” says the man in the apron, pausing portentously, “...Butch Tendler!”
  Amid cheers and boisterous hoots, the musician emerges from the tiny Hot Flash kitchen and rushes toward the stage, holding a cordless electric guitar over his head and riffing his own accompaniment to his entrance  He takes the steps two at a time, gaining center stage in one long-legged stride. Nodding acknowledgement of the audience’s welcome, he slides into an energetic reworking of John Mayall’s “Gasoline Blues.” He clutches his guitar high to his chest, holding it upright like a cello. One thin, black-clad leg keeps the beat, stomping up and down in its worn leather boot. Long, thick ropes of dark hair jump and sway heavily across his face, brushing the strings of the guitar. Butch jerks and bobs to his own music, rushing from one instrumental to the next, as the remote transmitter bounces wildly on the strap of his guitar. His eyes are narrow slits in his pale, craggy face, and a smear of four-day-old beard darkens his jaw.
“What’d I tell you?” snorts Amy. “Disgusting.”
“Well, I think he’s cute,” says Ginny, clapping her hands in time to the heavy beat.
“I don’t.  Looks filthy to me.”
      Karl, over by the pop cooler, is distracted for a moment from his attentions to Cherie. The music loops over his head, drawing his body a little away from hers. Karl pays close attention to the way Butch fingers the strings of his guitar. He notes the chords that sound in minor tones, the bluesy ones that touch the gut and move past it to the soul of the audience. Man, if I could play like that, he thinks.
  Cherie feels Karl drifting away and renews the pressure of her arm against his body. He turns his face to hers; it’s pinked with excitement and slightly shiny. As if on impulse, encouraged by the music, Cherie kisses him wetly on his neck, where the muscles disappear into his shirt collar. The music is working with Cherie now. She has Karl’s full attention again. They stand together, arms around each other’s waist, their matched pulses in sync with the beat. On Cherie’s other side, Nadine rotates her bar stool a quarter turn back and forth and drags the last of her Diet Coke through its collapsing straw, making the happy, splurpy, sucking sounds of a ravenous baby.
  The stout woman fans herself vigorously with her menu, her wrist snapping along with Butch Tendler’s stamping foot. Funny how songs keep coming around again. I remember when this one came out years ago. This is peppier, though--not bad. Good thing Sharla didn’t come after all. She’d hate the noise.... 
  Becky tries hard to concentrate on the music, which seems to her to go on forever, but, as more and more people tap their feet, the vibrations from the floor have a worsening effect on her stomach. The cement mixer image rises before her. She remembers several years ago when her father had their driveway repaved: the lumbering truck with its bloated, rotating tank, the exit chute folded up against the pressure of the newly-mixed cement. She remembers how, when the truck was correctly positioned, her father helped the driver lower the chute, and thick, lumpy cement gurgled down the open tube into the framed-in driveway. Becky’s insides heave to this image, and she half-rises from her chair, just as Butch finishes his set. Stage or no stage, I’ve gotta go, she vows to herself, and pushes her chair back with such force that it knocks against the table behind her. Cheers and cries of “Yes!” break out all around her, and for one disorienting moment she thinks they are for her.
  “C’mon!” shouts Ginny, grabbing Becky’s hand and hauling her toward the stage. “Let’s get him to sign our menu!”
  A small but vigorous group of other people have the same idea. Becky is pushed and pulled toward the stage where Butch Tendler, his guitar still humming from its final drubbing, smiles and shakes hands and scribbles his name on cocktail napkins, matchbook covers, and copies of his own CD.
  “Ow!  You’re stepping on the back of my shoe,” Becky says to a beefy young man in a Zildjian t-shirt, but the man only moves closer, and his bulk pushes Becky up the stage steps and against the stair rail nearest Butch. Butch turns her way and holds out one hand, the other poised with a pen to sign his name. “No, really, I just want to go to the....” pleads Becky, but in the tight press of Butch’s fans, her words are lost. The cold, metal bar of the railing presses low and deep into Becky’s abdomen, and with a slow puff, like the popping of a soft, helium-filled balloon, the tired leftover from a birthday party, Becky’s tension is relieved.
  Becky gasps and blushes bright red--omigod, I can't believe I just farted!--then takes a fumbling step backward down the stage steps. She loses her grip on the railing and nearly falls, but the bodies behind her buoy her up, then close around her, eager to take her place. She stumbles blindly back to her table, mortified and hot.
  Hamp steadies her chair as she drops into it. “What’sa matter, Beck? Couldn’t you get his autograph?”
  Becky shakes her head dumbly.
  “Have some more to eat.” Hamp nudges the nacho tray toward her, but Becky pushes it away, knocking it into the salsa bowl. Its contents rock up and over the edge. A thick puddle of green chili salsa soaks into the tablecloth.

The crowd around Butch Tendler is thinning now; one by one, people step down from the stage and move back to their tables, finishing their drinks and examining the checks left by the waiter who has been hurrying from table to table, taking last minute drink requests. He hands the stout woman her to-go order, a bag of burritos. The woman takes the bag, collects her scarf and purse, and moves slowly toward the door. She swaps the bag from hand to hand as she pulls herself into her jacket. Well, that was nice.  Even though Sharla never showed up.
      Karl holds Cherie’s coat for her while she pleads with Nadine.  “C’mon, Nadine. We’ll meet you there. You take your car. Karl will give me a ride.”
  “You know you’ll never make it to the First Nash. I’m not going in there by myself.”
“Yes we will. Really. Karl just needs to stop by his place for a minute.” Cherie turns a beseeching look over her shoulder at Karl. “To pick up some more money or something.”
  “That’s right,” he affirms.
Nadine looks at Karl over Cherie’s shoulder. She says nothing, just stares without smiling or blinking, and Karl drops his eyes.
“See ya,” says Nadine flatly. She picks up her coat, slaps a five-dollar bill on the table, and quickly threads her way through the tables toward the door.
“Nadine!” calls Cherie to Nadine’s back. “Really. We will!”
  Nadine doesn’t turn around. She shakes her left hand at her side, as if she were shaking snow off her glove or shooing down the attentions of an obnoxious puppy.
Cherie sighs  “She’s so difficult.”
Karl settles Cherie’s coat on her shoulders, then lightly massages the back of her neck with one hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, his lips close to the side of her head.
      The group at Becky’s table is contentedly listless and quiet. “No need to rush off,” says Hamp. “It’s kinda nice just to sit here.” He turns to Becky. “Unless you want to go, hon.’”
  “No, I’m okay now. In fact, I’d like a Diet Coke.”
  Hamp beckons the waiter, and the group orders another round.
Mike shakes his head knowingly. “That Tendler was damn good. Much better than last time I heard him.”
“Well, he was all right, I guess,” says Amy. “Did you, like, get his autograph, Gin?”
“Yeah. He signed the menu. Hope they don’t mind me stealing it.”
“Doubt you’ll be the only one,” Ted interjects.
“He was really nice about it.” Ginny pauses and holds the menu close to her face. “But you can’t read his signature. It could say anything. And you know something, Amy? You were right about
him.”
“Whattaya mean?”
“He really is dirty. It’s not just a ‘look.’ When I got up close to him--he really stinks!”
      The stout woman joins the crowd inching up the stairs to the outside door. In front of her, the young man nuzzles the neck of his blonde companion, and her arm massages his back, moving sinuously under his Nike jacket. Good grief, get a room, the woman thinks, then she smiles and clutches her sack of burritos-to-go. Actually, the music was  really good. I should do this more often. The steaming paper bag crinkles softly, soothingly, under her arm.




[To order a copy of the book, Walking Pocatello, call the Idaho State University Bookstore, (208) 282-3237, or send me an email.]

Hot Flash, Part II "Poets and Lovers"

“Thank you for waiting, everyone,” the man in the chili pepper apron says into the microphone, and the room grows quiet. “Hot Flash is pleased to have two poets reading tonight: Ralph Innes and Monica Vandervoss. We’re also excited to have Butch Tendler here.” Applause bursts from the three tables directly in front of the stage. The man holds up a hand. “Butch’ll be on later. Right now, I’d like to introduce our first poet, Dr. Ralph Innes.”
      A smattering of applause accompanies a short, slightly-pudgy man as he takes the stage clutching an untidy sheaf of papers. He bobs his head at the audience, and, thrusting the papers under one arm, grapples with the microphone stand, sliding the mike up and down fussily. Two sheets of paper detach themselves from the rest and drift away, unnoticed by the poet. They go scudding over the edge of the stage like leaves in a gust of autumn wind. The man in the chili pepper apron captures them on the bottom stage step and holds them up to the poet, who ignores him and continues toying with the microphone. The man in the apron hesitates, shrugs, and places the papers on the top step of the stage.
      With the microphone finally adjusted at the level of his trim goatee, the poet places his papers on the rickety table, and, thumbing through the stack, selects a poem. He holds it carefully between the thumbs and forefingers of both hands, clears his throat, and swallows. Closing his eyes, he throws his head back dramatically and recites:
Racing with the wind
Racing the moon
Pulses racing
We pulse, pulse, pulse...
The poet swings his body from side to side on each “pulse,” drawing the words out in a wail. He pauses, lowers his head gravely, opens his eyes slowly, glances at his sheet of paper, then flings his head back again, eyes clenched shut against the sight of steam pipes and track lights hanging from the ceiling.
Sandy bodies dancing
In tune with ancient rhythms
Your rhythm diurnal
Mine nocturnal . . .
Across the room, the stout woman churns on her narrow chair, her mouth open slackly. Good grief, what is this? He looks like a chicken taking a drink of water...and what is this poem even about? Whew! It’s warm in here. She tugs at the scarf around her neck, drawing it out from under her collar in a long, ribbony movement, then pulls her plump arms out of her coat sleeves. The coat slumps against the back of her chair. Is it hot in here, or is it just me? She scans the audience, but everyone else seems comfortably cool, even chilly. The couple in front of her lean companionably together, their arms draped across one another’s shoulders. The boy in the Nike jacket is practically wrapped around the blonde girl next to him, and a man at the table to her left hugs himself and hunches over his coffee cup as if for warmth. The stout woman pulls the neckline of her dress away from her collarbones and takes the menu out of its little metal holder on the table. She fans herself with the “Hot Flash Special of the Day” advertisement.
      At the center table, Becky catches the waiter’s eye, points at the empty bowl in front of her, and silently mouths “More salsa.” She checks her makeup with the aid of the small mirror in her purse as the waiter creeps to the table, bending low so as not to disturb the view of the stage. Becky erases a tiny speck of smeared lipstick with the tip of her little finger and arches her eyebrows experimentally, finding approval in her reflection. The waiter places another bowl of green chili salsa at her elbow, and Becky munches and listens to the poet with only half an ear. She thinks about the guitarist, Butch Tendler, and imagines him already on the stage, stroking his guitar and gazing deep into the audience where she sits.
      The poet reads on. He exchanges page for page, working his way methodically through the stack on the table. Now his poems bend toward mythology: references to Zeus, Persephone, and Odysseus dot his pages and roll from his tongue. His body swoons in creative ecstasy, and still he addresses the ceiling:
All glistening his Diana came
Parthenonic glory his due
Rampant griffin, he
Eschewing the lambskin sheath . . .
The crouching waiter delivers a basket of corn ships to the table nearest the stage. As he passes the stairs, he gently nudges the two escapee-poems off the top step and onto his tray, then bears them off into the kitchen.
      When the first reader and his stack of poems are finally spent, he bows low to the polite applause, gathers his papers, and steps down. A woman sitting near the base of the stage jumps to her feel and skips up the steps to the microphone. She's near middle age, slender. "I'm Monica Vandervoss," she says into the microphone. She takes a breath and reads:

        Tonight I lie between two runners

Two dreamers in a race
Small stirrings flick my consciousness
Tease me from sleep
Small breaths caress.
One tiny, furred body, twitching
Pursues ball or mouse
Each night she runs, starts, sniffs
Curls again around my ankles
In her familiar place.
A purring comforter....
Well, this is a little more like it. At least you can tell what it’s about. A tear forms in the corner of the stout woman’s eye. Poor Bootsie. I miss her so. That stupid Sharla...“just get another one.” She never understood. She blinks hard, and the tear hangs itself in the web of her lower lashes. She bunches her scarf into a soft puddle on the table and squeezes the material between her fingers. Monica continues:
No comfort, love,
Is your mysterious race. 
You run, warm body restless.
Long muscles tense, release...
Cherie can feel Karl’s heartbeat through his Nike jacket. She’s turned completely away from Nadine now.  he two women perch back-to-back on their stools, one intent on Monica’s picture-words, the other on the pressure of Karl’s wordless wooing.
What do you pursue,
What bliss or demon drives your dream?
Do you run
Toward or away from me?
Under the table, Hamp takes Becky’s left hand and draws it toward him, pressing it gently. He runs his fingertip over the silky surfaces of her long nails.
      But Becky is only peripherally aware of his caresses. She’s also abandoned her daydream about Butch Tendler. Intruding on these pleasant romanticisms is a very unromantic sensation in her stomach and lower abdomen. Becky sits up a little straighter in her chair, puts down her salsa-heavy corn chip, and takes a deep breath, holding it a second or two before exhaling. The sensation in her stomach abates briefly, then returns with increasing insistence. Now she’s aware of a definite churning feeling, and for a moment she has a disquieting vision of a cement mixer whirling with a load of gravelly beans, chips, and slushy salsa.
      “Everything okay, Beck?” Hamp leans low and close, looking into her face. “Beck?”
      “Shhh. I’m fine. Listen to the poem.” Becky listens to her rumbling stomach. “Amy! Where’s the restroom?” she whispers across the table.
      Amy points at a yellow door in the wall next to the stage steps. “But you can’t go now,” she whispers back. “You have to walk, like, right in front of the stage. Wait ‘til the break, and I’ll go with you.”
      “Never mind.” Becky makes a dismissive, waving motion, and Amy turns her attention back to the poet.
      Monica has passed on to poems about aging and loneliness, and the room grows even quieter. Lovers cuddle their chairs together; friends touch each other’s hands reassuringly. The stout woman’s face and neck flame hotly, and she suppresses a sob, putting her elbow on the table and dropping her chin into her cupped palm. The corners of her mouth turn down, pulled by the weight of her sadness.
      Karl seizes advantage of the moment and snakes his arm around Cherie’s waist. He whispers her name against her ear. Hamp renews his stroking of Becky’s creamed and scented hand, worrying a little at her unresponsiveness. Becky is unaware of everything but her internal distress. Her arm lies across her lap, circling her belly protectively.
      At last Monica finishes her poetry and lowers the last page in front of her. The audience looses a rendering sigh, then a burst of applause. Monica nods her thanks and descends the stage steps, pulling the front edges of her jacket together across her chest. At the bottom of the steps, she pauses to accept a hug from a man whose large hands continue to clap even as his arms encircle her, then she rejoins her friends and sips her drink while the applause and murmurs subside.

Hot Flash, Part I "Ladies and Gentlemen"

The stout, fiftyish woman hesitates on the stairs by the front door, scanning the restaurant. Oh god, what am I doing here? “An evening of music and poetry!” I feel like a fool. Everybody in here is at least twenty years younger than I am. And where’s Sharla? What if she doesn’t show up? I’m just going to leave.... She turns abruptly and, grasping the painted iron railing, pulls herself up a step until she’s chest-to-chest against a young man. “Nike” says the young man’s jacket, and the swooping logo presses itself against the woman’s breasts. She blushes and leans backward as far as she can without losing her grip on the railing. “Excuse me, please, may I get by? I need to get out.”
      “Sorry, lady, can’t move. There’s people behind me.” The young man presses forward, insultingly so, the woman thinks, until she notices that his eyes are locked on something beyond her, across the room. Hmmm...  he says to himself. There’s a cute one...alone? No, but with her doggy girlfriend--yes! We have a ‘go,’ Houston.... He squeezes past the stout woman and crosses the floor with purpose.
      At a table in the center of the room, Becky shrugs her way out of her coat, leaving it dangling in her boyfriend’s hand. This should be fun. Hamp and I haven’t done anything with a crowd for a long time. Can’t believe Amy wore her black jacket  I told her I was gonna wear mine.... “Well, here we are!” she says in her sprightliest voice. With an impatient, freshly-lacquered fingertip, she indicates the chair she wants and waits for Hamp to draw it away from the table. She seats herself carefully, arranging her purse, scarf, and gloves on the tabletop like cutlery. “Hi, Amy! You look cute. Love your jacket.” Becky tosses introductions over her shoulder. “Hamp, you know Amy, and this is her boyfriend, Charlie. And that’s Teddy and Ginny and Mike.” The men shake hands, rising slightly and reaching over the heads of the seated women.
      Becky continues, “I heard this guy is supposed to be great. I’m so glad we could get tickets. Oh, not tickets? Well, reservations then. Never been in here before. Looks great. Very artsy. Are we eating? Umm, nachos and bean dip. I  had Mexican food for lunch, but....” She pulls the heaping platter toward her and scoops up a generous dollop of refried beans with a corn chip. Opening her mouth widely, so as not to smear her lipstick, she maneuvers the laden chip between her small, evenly-spaced teeth. Her mouth closes; she chews and swallows. “Yum! Have some, you guys!” Becky fills another chip with beans and, this time, adds green chili sauce from a small bowl that the waiter has placed on the table near her. “Hear we have to sit through some poetry before the music. Hope it’s not too boring. I never understand poems. Hamp likes poems. He even wrote one for me when we first got together, didn’t you, honey? How did it go? ‘Roses and lips and something-something.’ Something like that. Really sweet. So, Amy, tell me what happened in class Thursday. Did I miss anything?”

  A tall, lean man in an apron decorated with red and green chili peppers and the words “Hot Flash” taps the microphone that stands on a tiny, raised stage in one corner of the restaurant. A straight-backed chair and a slightly-rickety table fill the rest of the space on the stage, and in the harsh glare of the spotlight, all four of them--table, chair, microphone stand, and tall man--cast spiderleg shadows on the wall behind them. “Please, ladies and gentlemen,” says the man, and his voice ricochets off the brick walls and bounces metallically around the small, high-ceilinged room. “If everyone will please take their seats. We’ll start in just a few minutes. Yes, there’s still some seating up here.” He beckons to three young women who are standing on tip-toes. “Up here, ladies.” The women snake forward one after another, swiveling their hips to the right, the left, then the right again through the maze of tables and chairs.
  People continue to crowd into the small restaurant. The stout woman turns with difficulty and takes three steps back down to the floor. Trapped!  Sharla’s not coming, damn her. I’ll sit here by the door  Maybe I can duck out when they get started. She squeezes her bulk into a chair between the wall and a round table not more than fifteen inches across. She leans against the brick wall, and it cools her flushed back and neck.
  On the other side of the room, the young man in the Nike jacket leans on the edge of a high, narrow table that’s pushed up against a humming soda pop cooler. Two young women perched on tall stools at this table hitch themselves an inch or two to the left, making more space for him. “Hi,” he smiles, “Mind if I stand here?”
      The more attractive of the women, brown-eyed with spiky, frosted-blonde hair, smiles back. “Not at all.” She consults her friend without looking at her. “Do we, Nadine?” Nadine nods, glumly reluctant. “You here alone?” the blonde asks the young man.
  “S’posed to meet a friend, but I don’t think he’s coming.” He leans in close to the blonde and puts out a hand. “I’m Karl.”
  She touches his palm briefly with her fingertips. “I’m Cherie.  This is Nadine.” Nadine bobs her head and sighs, then studies the poster taped to the side of the pop cooler in front of her. A border of chili peppers dances around the edge of the bright yellow sheet, and large, black letters say:

AN EVENING OF POETRY & MUSIC  

HOT FLASH BURRITO COMPANY

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24th

7 P.M.

SEATING LIMITED

“We come here all the time,” says Cherie. “They make a mean enchilada. You should try it. It’s hot.” She looks closely at Karl and decides she likes his blue eyes, his dark brows and eyelashes, the way his jacket hugs his shoulders.
  Karl swivels in closer to Cherie. When the waiter looks his way, he holds up three fingers, says, “Dos Equis,” and points at the table.
  “I’m drinking Diet Coke,” Nadine announces to the poster on the cooler.
  Cherie nudges Nadine with her hip. “Don’t be difficult, please,” she hisses from the corner of her mouth. Nadine sighs again and turns her stool toward the stage.
“Nadine knows one of the poets,” Cherie explains to Karl. “She’s in his class at ISU. I came to hear the guitarist. From Spokane. S’posed to be very good.”
The waiter puts three sweating beer bottles on the table and takes the ten-dollar bill Karl pushes at him. “Yeah, I heard,” says Karl. “I’m in a band, myself. Bass guitar.”
“Really? What band? Maybe I’ve seen you.”
Karl lifts his beer bottle and wipes the wet ring it leaves on the tabletop. “Doubt it. We’re just practicing, so far. Gonna get a gig in Jackson Hole next summer.” He takes a long drink, tipping his head back. Cherie watches him swallow, notes the thick cords on each side of his neck, likes the way they spread down into his shirt collar and onto his shoulders. Karl swipes the back of his hand--the one holding the beer bottle--across his lips. “So, Cherie,” he says, setting the bottle on the table, “some friends of mine are playing at the First Nash. You wanna go over there?”
“Well--” Cherie hesitates, rolls her eyes toward Nadine. Karl leans a few inches closer. He’s so close now that, looking down at Cherie, his eyes are almost closed. Cherie can see only a sliver of light blue beneath the heavy lashes. She makes a quarter-turn toward him; her forearm brushes his abdomen lightly. The Nike swoop on his jacket puffs out and rests on her shoulder. Her arm feels warm, like it does when she rests it against the rolled-up car window on a sunny day. The heat moves up her arm to her neck, across her chest, down her torso. Karl exhales softly, and his warm, Dos Equis breath tickles a few frosted-blonde hairs on her forehead.  “I want to hear Butch Tendler,” she says, “but after that, I could go to the First Nash for a while.” She draws the word “while” out slowly.

Facts Behind the Fiction: The Center Street Underpass

The Center Street Underpass has filled with run-off from heavy rains at least three times in the last 25 years. Most recently (August 23, 2013), a heavy rainfall combined with a hailstorm lasting less than two hours filled the underpass nearly to the brim.

Above is a still from a video taken by a local observer that demonstrates the force with which the water ran into the underpass.

Soon after the storm began, the underpass was filled enough to flood the pedestrian walkways on either side.

Twenty minutes after the storm, the underpass was filled with about 10 feet of water (note the 12' 2" clearance sign). A few foolhardy citizens decided to swim in the temporary "Lake Pocatello," until police officers cordoned off the area.

The Center Street Underpass

If you want to walk from the Bourbon Barrel to The Office Bar, you have to go through the underpass. The railroad yard divides Pocatello in half, and the Center Street underpass is the main way to get from one side of downtown to the other. Cars can drive on the two-lane street that dives down under the railroad tracks, but pedestrians have to walk through enclosed tunnels that run parallel to the street, one on either side. These tunnels are cold, winter and summer, and narrow enough that if you stretch out your arms, you can touch both walls.
      From inside the tunnels, you can hear cars on the other side of the wall because drivers like to honk their horns as they zoom through the underpass, but when you’re deep in the middle of one of the block-long passages, all you hear is water dripping. The buzzing, fluorescent lights are dim and often broken by vandals. If a train goes by while you’re in there, you can feel the vibrations through the soles of your feet, which is odd, because the train is overhead, not underneath you.
      Walking through the tunnels is bad enough during the day, when you’ll probably have to quick-step past a snoring drunk or a steaming pile of shit. (Sometimes the pile has a scrap of toilet paper stuck on top like a little sailor hat.) After dark, the tunnels are even worse. Once you go in, you can only walk fast, hoping to clear the other entrance before you meet up with someone you’d rather not meet up with. You never run into anyone you know in the tunnel; it’s always a weird-looking stranger. 
      Occasionally, spotting a silhouetted figure coming at you, you get so spooked that you turn around and race back the way you came, retreating into the First National Bar or one of the other Center Street sanctuaries. Then you sit in the First Nash and drink a beer while your heart slows down and the person you thought was a rapist comes out of the underpass and walks by the window and you see that, yeah, he looks a little demented, but then so do you after your run for cover. And now you feel pretty silly, but you know you’ll probably do the same thing again next time.

      Whenever you come out of the underpass –walking fast—you look up to see if someone is leaning over the iron railing above you, maybe getting ready to spit or drop his beer bottle on your head. This has never actually happened to you, but you’ve heard about it happening to someone who knows someone you know, and you believe it could happen.
      Once a year some student group decides to clean up the underpass, and they take buckets of paint—red and white if they’re from Poky High, orange and black for the University—and cover up all the graffiti with slogans about their school. Two weeks later, though, the tunnel walls look the way they always do: Iron Maiden and Rams Rule and Monica + Brandon 4 Ever and I Will Suck Your Cock and Jesus Saves. Three months later, even these messages are scraped and scarred and stained by dribbles of piss.

      Parade routes go through the Center Street underpass, and you walk downtown early so you can get a good spot to watch the Homecoming Queen’s float and the Pocatello Chiefs’ trolley. You hang over the railing and try to beat some little kid out of catching the saltwater taffy that the District Four representatives throw at the crowd. You look at the people who run alongside the parade—drill team moms and uncles with video cameras—and you think about spitting or dropping your beer bottle and what would happen if you did.

      You realize that you always say, “Go under the underpass,” when you give directions to the west side of town, but that’s not exactly what you mean, because the underpass is already under: under the railroad tracks, under regular street level. You remember last spring when it got warm suddenly for one day and the snow on the hills melted and ran down into town. The underpass filled up with five feet of water and some fool drove his truck into it and had to stop and swim out his window. And you think about someday when the railroad tracks will be rerouted because the underpass is too old. It’ll be torn down and the tunnels filled in and drunks will have to find somewhere else to take a dump, and you hope that day doesn’t come until you’re too senile to care about the underpass or remember hurrying through it on your way from the Bourbon Barrel to The Office Bar.  

[To order a copy of the book, Walking Pocatello, call the Idaho State University Bookstore, (208) 282-3237, or send me an email.]