by Forsythia G-Robin and L. B. Apocalypse
I take the same route to work every day: I walk from the west side, Easton Avenue, down the hill past the train station, down the slope on Albany Street to George Street and downtown. And as I wait for the lights to change, I do get strange looks sometimes when I talk back to those new audible crosswalk signs. But aren’t they rather bombastic and bullying? Even dictatorial?
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
“I’m waiting.”
“WAIT!”
“We’re all waiting.” We stood and watched the illuminated red hand on the opposite side of the crosswalk: myself, a young lady, two college kids.
“YOU CAN CROSS ALBANY IN 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2—IT IS NOW SAFE TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET.”
The red hand changed to the white image of a pedestrian.
“Thank you.”
The young lady smiled, glanced at my face. As we took to the crosswalk, she asked, “Do you always talk to automated street signs?”
I nodded. “When they talk to me. It’s only polite.”
In truth, that sharp, metallic voice is disconcerting. It’s raspy, creepy, maybe like a loud Peter Lorre. I guess that’s why I first started talking back to it.
I continued on my commute. Albany is a main road, two lanes each way with a thin median. It’s a stretch of the old Lincoln Highway, which runs down the US east coast. I had to cross it to get to my cubicle on Paterson, off George, just a few blocks over. I tended to come in early and leave rather late in the evening. As a new lawyer, most of my work was tedious research and copying documents, but I knew I was lucky to have that job.
I’m even luckier now.
It was late in the evening. I was on my way home, which, as I implied, is all uphill. I guess I live “uptown,” although nobody ever calls it that. It’s not a fancy part of town. In any case, I was waiting to cross Albany at George before climbing the hill to my apartment.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!”
I said, as I always do, “I’m waiting.”
“YOU CAN CROSS ALBANY IN 12-24-8-37-14-72—IT IS NOW SAFE TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET.”
“Thank you.” I started to cross . . . and abruptly stopped in the middle of the southbound lane. “What?”
“YOU CAN CROSS ALBANY IN 12-24-8-37-14-72—IT IS NOW SAFE TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET.”
Well, something’s kind of screwed up there, I thought. Never heard it do that before. And never heard it repeat itself, either.
I crossed, but as I continued on my way home, passing the little grocery on Easton, I had the thought I could play those numbers, and the thought delighted me. I almost never played NJ Lotto, but then again, I’d never had a street sign shout random numbers at me before. I had no idea what the day’s winning total would be, but I bought a ticket.
And won.
I won enough to pay off my student loan, start a retirement fund, and open my own practice downtown. It wasn’t a huge amount, much less than a million, but it was far more than I had ever dreamed of having in my hands as one lump sum.
So, the day after I received the generous deposit in my bank account (I couldn’t believe I’d really won until I saw the money in my checking account! People like me don’t win stuff like that.) I said my usual thank you to the automated street-crossing sign, but I added, “Thank you very, very much.”
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
I waited.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
And I waited.
But I then noticed the light was green my way. Yet, the red hand stayed lit. The white walky guy refused to come out of his hiding place.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
“But the light’s green,” I replied to the street sign.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
Okay, I thought, this thing’s definitely out of order. Something’s frazzled in its little electronic brain. Hence the weird numbers, although . . .
No, winning the lottery was just a coincidence. Things like that happen all the time.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
The light changed to red. Then, after the usual amount of time, it returned to green to cross Albany. And red hand remained lit.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
I started to cross anyway. The cars were stopped; I had the right of way.
As I got halfway across, I heard:
“WAIT!
“WAIT!”
And then faintly, when I was in the middle of the street:
“Don’t go. I love you.”
Needless to say, the next day, on the walk to my new office, I crossed Albany at Easton, went up Church Street, and then down to Patterson, avoiding George Street completely. I mean, it freaked me out! I was doubting I actually heard that—I was thinking I must be going nuts!—so I decided to just circumvent the weirdness on the corner of Albany and George.
Then, after two days of going out of my way to my new office, I decided that my imagination had gotten the better of my common sense. I took my usual commute and walked down the hill on Easton, past the train station, down the slope to George Street.
I said hello to my crosswalk sign, just as a lark.
“WAIT!
“WAIT TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET!
“WAIT!”
I said what I usually would: “I’m waiting.”
I was alone on the corner. A few people had jaywalked when the traffic thinned, but I stood on the curb as I always had.
“YOU CAN CROSS ALBANY IN 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2—IT IS NOW SAFE TO CROSS ALBANY AT GEORGE STREET.”
“Thank you.”
I stepped out.
A car screeched and swerved around me.
Another one braked. Someone leaned on their horn.
I jumped back to the curb. My god, I thought, are they all running the light? Then I realized they had the green.
I swear I heard the red hand snicker. It was kind of like a loud grating buzzing, but I had no doubt the red hand of love was laughing at me.
I tried to stay away, but would you? How would you deal with this? I mean, I can’t believe that it’s sentient, but then again, given the evidence, I can’t believe that it’s not. So I keep coming back to Albany and George. My office is in that direction, in any case. It’s not like I’m going out of my way.
But now sometimes I visit that corner in the middle of the night, and I talk to it. It never says anything interesting, it almost always just tells me when to wait and when to cross, so I carry the conversation. The police know me, I’m the lawyer sitting on the sidewalk talking to the red hand, my audible, oracular crosswalk sign. I’ve heard blues songs about meeting the devil at the crossroads. Sometimes I wonder if he’s at the crosswalks too.
Maybe the lottery numbers were a just coincidence. Maybe I imagined it said it loved me—and then tried to kill me. Maybe I’m hallucinating sentences in the static even now. It never answers my questions directly, and there have been no more Lotto numbers. Maybe it’s just a inanimate sign with a profound software glitch. But still I sit, cross-legged on the concrete, conversing. You wouldn’t call it a relationship, and neither would I, but you know, past midnight, when no one’s crossing Albany at George, when no one’s there at all, the red hand is talking to itself, over and over. And I’m listening. I’m the only one listening. And in the shadows cast by the streetlights, I can see the red hand reaching for something—or someone—through the dark and lonely night.
image: AI generated