Locks

The other day I had to get to a meeting at the home office. This required me to leave my client's office and take public transportation across town and then walk a short distance. I kind of like taking the subway.
The idea of paying once and riding as much as you want -- on as many different lines as you want, as long as you don't pass through the exit turnstiles, is pretty awesome -- if you like riding the subway. It's the same model that the Great American Buffet chain of restaurants uses -- you could stay there and eat baked ziti and fried chicken parts all afternoon, but you probably wouldn't want to.

Also inherent to public transportation is a certain lack of responsibility. Once you get yourself to the bus stop or subway station, the pressure is off. You can't do anything until the train shows up, and there is nothing that you can do to hasten its arrival. This might not work for everyone. You need to have a loosely-knit work ethic in regards to being on-time which, luckily, I do.

The walk from the station to my office takes about ten minutes on a path that leads over the set of locks that separate Boston Harbor from the Charles River, and vice-versa. The walkway leads directly over the gates of the locks. On one side you have the high-walled rectangular concrete chutes with matching pairs of massive swinging doors on either end. On the other side you have the end of the Charles River and whatever floating refuse that has made its way down bobbing patiently at the gates.

When you’re a kid locks are those things you end up building in the sand at the beach when you realize that you don't have the talent and finesse to make a decent looking castle, or a realistically menacing sea-monster, and you settle on digging troughs in the sand. The problem, of course, is that the walls of your locks slide in as soon as you begin to pour the water from your plastic bucket. Then the wall dividing the two locks dissolves, leaving you with a single flat channel of quickly diminishing water. You might, depending on how bored you are, attempt a second flooding -- this time using your hand has a gate. But this isn’t any good either, so you accidently stomp on one of the outlying buildings in your sister's sand-castle compound on your way back to the blanket where you try to get a sandwich out of the cooler before your mother tells you to go and play for another hour because it's not nearly lunch-time.

The first time I walked across the locks, I was surprised that it was allowed by whichever government agency that makes rules and posts signs. The potential for injury and litigation seems exceptionally high; with the gaps in the metal plates, and the oversized gear teeth slathered with axle grease, and the water spraying through the gate's seams like a dam that is about to fail. All those moving parts, confined spaces, churning water. Despite all of that, you can walk across them. It's the Harbor Master telling you that he's thought about it, and he feels you're mature enough to handle it now – as long as you don’t ride your bike, roller-blade, or engage in any other horseplay. (That much is posted on a sign.)

As I walked, I was aware of a few persons in my periphery without actually turning my head to look at them squarely. A woman with someplace to be, power-walked past me like she was stomping walnuts beneath her sneakers. She was followed by a jogger with surprisingly jangly legs and, I guessed, a solidly developing 10 year plan. The third person, just behind me and to my right, was walking at the same unwavering pace as I. Again without actually looking I was able to determine that he was a.) large, b.) male, c.) walking with his head hung down and d.) breathing heavily. As we approached the narrow entrance to the walkway over the locks, I paused to let pass a couple who were walking side by side before continuing onto the diamond-cut textured metal. My new shadower did the same and I heard his footfalls start up right after mine.

It was daylight and I had a meeting to attend; any danger was below me, in the water that was being denied its rightful flow and the stoic iron gates that were holding it back. It wasn’t behind me breathing through his mouth swinging an empty lunch pail. All the same, just as when I’m driving on a highway at night and the widely spaced headlights of an old station wagon fill my rear-view mirror, I pulled over to let him pass.

Over the second of the three locks is a widened area in the walkway, presumably meant for people to stop and contemplate things like locks. Here I stepped to the side and feigned sudden interest in the spongy wooden pilings extending tiredly from the river, and for a moment I even bought into to my own ruse long enough to begin to try and determine what those piling where originally used for.

I watched the thing that happened next as a spectator – not just in recall, but as it was actually occurring. I saw myself looking to the right, towards the group of telephone-pole like black pilings that were bound together with wide steel straps like a bundle of wet cigars. I watched as the man, a comic side of beef in a blue canvas jacket, placed a hand with casual purpose on the back of my belt and quite simply flung me over the railing. It wasn’t a push or a labored lift with his legs; it was this stranger tossing me over the waist-high railing as effortlessly as if he here tearing a paper-towel off of its roll. He said nothing as he did this. The only noise was a slight “huff” from his already open mouth. As I dropped from his hand and out of view, he turned and resumed his walking at the same steady pace.

I hit the green water and the bag that had been slung over my shoulder was yanked upwards. With my eyes open I kicked to the surface. There wasn't much to see from that vantage point except for the outside of the metal gates of Lock #2. Stenciled on the gates in white paint was: "Sound horn three times. Wait for green light."

I was cold and breathing heavily and I knew that there was no way that I was going to make my meeting on time.