Motor City Gumshoe

I open about five of them until I finally find one that I can figure out how to work. I dial the number of Jimmy Watanabe, my old partner, who is working on the massive task force to find Lindsay Blowhand, the depraved missing daughter of our intrepid Governor, Willis Blowhand.

Jimmy's not answering, so I disguise my voice and leave him a detailed message for him outlining the current situation beneath our fair city's surface and the best avenues of approach. I cannot resist quoting two lines spoken by Richard Roundtree at the end of the original movie Shaft (the real Shaft). "Jimmy," I say, "your case just busted wide open. Looks like you gonna have to close it yo'self, 'shitty.'" Then I laugh maniacally, as did Roundtree.

I knew Jimmy, would get the reference and he'll definitely figure out who the caller is now. But Jimmy won't rat me out. He plays most things pretty close to the vest. I take the phone, stomp on it with my bare heel, and throw it down the sinkhole in a tight spiral.

I begin walking down Samuel L. Jackson Road. I am still nude and still sporting a boner. But I am not afraid of being discovered in this condition. This is nighttime in the big D, and no one walks these streets. Hell, no one walks them in daylight. It is not out of fear, but simply because everyone left long, long ago. That makes the uninhabited streets of the D the safest place in the world, I figure. If you don't count the packs of feral dogs, that is.

In the background I hear the clamor of hundreds, no make that thousands, of sirens, all presumably headed to the Salt Mine. I smile. They'll get Trixie out, even if they have to drag her screaming and kicking from the torture chamber she calls home sweet home. Same thing for Lindsay Blowhand. Of course, they would both be right back in their own personal hells as soon as they made bail.

I finally make it to my own abode on Wesley Snipes Boulevard. I climb the stairs. My keys are still in storage at the Salt Mine, as my skin has no pockets. At least, none that I would want to put my keys into. However, I know that the neighborhood meth and crack aficionados will have broken off the locks on my door by now. And sure enough, they seem have busted the rim latch lock, evidently the only one Mahrheahah used when she locked up. Said dope fiends would be long gone, once they heard me climbing up the stairs. They know me, and have no desire to meet me again.

Then I look out across Snipes Boulevard and see all the beautiful things of the world in a single girl: Mahrheahah.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Please don't send any cards and letters (i.e., post comments) about my maligning the glorious former world capital of the automotive industry. I have recently completed a 15-year stint working in the inner city of Detroit and have lived in the greater Detroit area for over three decades.

There are indeed 100 miles of roads in the underground salt mines under Detroit. The underground river called Conner Creek also exists. There are visions of a green Detroit, in which this river will be raised once again to the surface and the grasses will be allowed to reclaim the pavement in abandoned areas, as they have already in many deserted areas of the Motor City.

Detroit Dog Rescue reports that there are 50,000 feral dogs roaming the streets of Motown, organized in packs. Coyotes and coywolves (coyote-wolf hybrids) lurk in the downtown areas of most major cities in the Northwest, including Chicago, Toronto and New York. Detroit is no exception.

In Motown, there are no funds to fix nonfunctioning traffic lights, which abound in the Big Motor. It is every man for himself, even in supposedly "renewed" locations, such as the New Center Area. I have personally watched sinkholes devour entire vehicles. The response is generally to place orange traffic cones around the perimeter of the sinkhole, as depicted in the story. Also, you really do have to fax an alarm to Detroit Fire Department if you want a response. I have personally watched Highland Park and Hamtramck burn to the ground, one building at time, from my office on the highest floor of the Fisher Building. This incineration was the result a long-term financial holocaust that defunded the fire departments.

Abandoned buildings abound in the Big Motor, including former skyscraper hotels. Most have their windows punched out, the inner walls sprayed with graffiti (or street art, if you admire it). The walls, floors and ceilings on many of these buildings are covered with moss. One such building is the 15-story Lee Plaza Hotel, which I used to drive past twice a day. It is conveniently located right next door to Northwestern High School, offering the teens a convenient center for drug consumption and activities more nefarious than that imagined by William Golding in Lord of the Flies. One can only imagine that Western civilization comes to a halt once one climbs beyond the third floor of that structure.

Should these high school students' proclivities incline to the sexual, a "love hotel" (in the delightful parlance of Japan) is conveniently located right across the street.

Many modern adventurers are drawn to Detroit for "urban exploration," spelunking the forgotten and abandoned passages of the city.

I have often thought that Detroit should market itself as a post-apocalyptic theme park. An ad might show a fat guy getting a massage at a tropical spa, then switching to Clint Eastwood saying "Get off my decaying asphalt." He then looks into the camera and says, "Hi, I'm Clint Eastwood. Do you want to vacation in a spa like that overweight piece of blubber (points to an empty chair), or are you tough enough to come here, to Detroit, where you can battle wild dogs, explore chambers of horrors never seen before by human eyes, and balance on rotting timbers in collapsing high rises?"

The camera zooms in on his squinty eyes. "Do you have what it takes to survive in a post-apocalyptic urban nightmare? Well, do you, punk?"