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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eddie woke to a cold drizzly morning. He put his suit in a hanging bag in case he had to go to the office, dressed in pressed navy work pants, light blue dress shirt and navy tie and put on black work boots. He grabbed his black leather jacket and headed for the door.“ Where are you going? It’ s early,” Tanya yawned.“ I heard the rain and figured traffic would be bad. I can’ t be late. The crews start work today.”“ What time will you be home?”“ It depends on how late the guys decide to work. I’ ll call,” Eddie assured, kissing her and heading out. The first rain after the a couple of weeks of perfect weather guaranteed gridlock on the freeways. Eddie purchased his coffee from a doughnut shop and was glad to be driving away from downtown as he saw the southbound lanes of I-45 at a standstill. Even the barricaded lane for car-poolers and buses was jammed. Ten rows of red brake-lights as far as the eye could see snaked into the city. Eddie wondered if the people in charge of the mass transportation system in a city as large as Houston ever tried to get anywhere on a bus.
The system had not changed in the twenty-five years since he worked in a shop in west Houston and lived a twenty five minute drive to his apartment in northwest Houston. With his car in the shop for two weeks he decided to take the bus. Two and a half hours on three buses made him late to work for the first time ever. After joyously getting his car back, he saw the answer on public television. Someone designed a people mover that ran on an upside-down“ V” track. Two trains running in opposite directions on a single elevated track. Eddie imagined a simple spider web of transportation. The main supports suspended over a modern city. One line running north and south along I-45 and another east and west along I-10. The two freeways met downtown. It would be easy to add one track to the 610 Loop that encircled the city, giving access to the Galleria area, the Astrodome, and the new Reliant Stadium. Buses did not have to be trapped in gridlock, they could move across the heaviest flow.
Eddie remembered watching the evening news and saw where a new light rail system’ s train hit a city bus and thought about the millions of dollars his city had paid in accident claims. The ugly electric poles with their wires dangling dangerously above the streets, the clanging bells and crossing gates reminded him of the train sets of his youth. The only modern thing about the system were the trains themselves. All the rest screamed early twentieth century technology, running through areas where people were most likely not familiar. He loved his bustling city. It had everything... almost. Eddie wondered how far Frank’ s connections ran up the Houston political ladder.
The yard was dark and shiny as his headlights swept the wet surface. He opened the building and taped his drawing to the table. Eddie sat darkening the lines of his labor and listened to the gentle drip of the water from the eaves. The sound of an approaching vehicle broke the silence. Three men in work clothes stepped from the rain.“ Are you Eddie Dodge?” one of them asked. Introductions were offered by the group about to install the I-beams. Eddie showed them the marks he and Frank had put on the floor and asked how long they estimated the job to take. They were going to have to drill and epoxy six studs in the concrete for each beam. They should be done by six. Eddie wrote his phone number on the paperwork.“ Call me if you get done early,” Eddie said, and packed up his stuff.
Sitting in his truck he called Rodney.