Transponder
Her hand is older than her face but both are open and ringed. Her fingers are impatient, pulsing the air between my car and her booth. I give her the total contents of my pocket. She counts my change, throwing the M&Ms and extra pennies onto the highway.
“Go ahead,” she says.
I enter the tunnel. The radio is talking about how ants keep herds of aphids, like humans keep herds of cows. Static breaks in and I let it; I like how the stations are different underground. The tunnel slopes up towards daylight. The radio returns.
The next morning I give her two singles.
“I have it today,” I tell her.
“Good, okay,” she says. I notice a tattoo on her neck. It says Sammy in an echo
script.
“Are you a Mom?” I ask. She is looking at the Corolla behind me. My diesel engine is loud, forcing me to shout.
“Are you a Mom?” I ask again. I realize it is not the dirty combustion keeping her from answering. She makes a dismissive flick with her hand toward the tunnel. I go. I want to communicate with chemicals, understand attraction and terror as smells. There is no algorithm here, no easy pattern of pheromones to follow.
By Wednesday she recognizes my car in her lane. Her eyebrows rise. I’ve made an impression. I hand her a twenty.
“Get EZ pass,” she tells me. She gives me eighteen dollars. I put the car in park and count them. She is offended. The car behind me beeps and she raises her hands, palms up toward God and hunches her shoulders. I go.
I stop by the toll plaza office on the way home from work. A drunken Ukrainian stands in front of me in line. He has seventy-five dollars worth of fines. He doesn’t understand how this happened.
“You blow through the toll without money on your transponder,” they tell him.
“Transponder?” he asks. They ask him to sit down and think about it. He sits and reeks.
I am given a piece of white plastic with Velcro on the back. I am given the commuter plan; I’m told that it saves me money.
“I got EZ pass,” I tell her. I point to the device and smile, squinting a little in the gaining light.
“Why are you here? Look”—she points to the fast moving purple lanes—“you don’t have to stop.” I don’t think she is really frustrated, just pretending. Her little feelers taste my head for signals. I taste hers. They tell me to push ahead.
“What is your name?” I ask.
“Toll booth five, shift two,” she answers.
I go into the tunnel. The static is harsher than usual. It is building up and my turbo diesel is slowing down. I stop. I count the missing tiles on the ceiling of the tunnel. The cars pile up behind me. I get out of my car and walk on the thin, elevated sidewalk. The walls are wet and sooty.
“Do you need a jump?” someone shouts.
“Get the hell back in your car, you idiot!” someone else shouts.
“I’m going to be late because of you!” say several voices.
“I need to give back my transponder,” I tell the elderly woman behind the wheel of a Civic. She looks worried.
I walk to the opening of the tunnel. I throw the transponder over the highway wall, in the direction of the EZ pass office.
“Okay,” I say and return to my car.
