Welcome to Dukeport

“Taxi!” and she stood on the brink of the street with her hand up.

Calling out was silly. No driver would hear her over the din of a thoroughfare in Steel Town. Four lanes of traffic tore past, going between the modest, boxy towers of the town center and the long, grey warehouses that served the docks, with the suburbs beyond. But the cabbie’s eye caught on the unmistakable gesture, the waving hand at the top of a long arm. He pulled his car over fast and put it neatly in front so she only had to open the door and slide in.

“Hello.” She settled herself in the back seat.

He returned the greeting and waited. With strangers he was a reserved man, which suited a cabbie. He was a foreigner and insecure about his accent. He’d been trying to eradicate it but it was stubborn over his vowels sometimes. He knew english well but he spoke it slowly, thoughtfully.

There was a beat of silence. Then his passenger offered, “I’m Penelope O.”

He watched her in the mirror. She was sharp-boned and pale. Her light hair was severely straight and cut short so that it framed her chin and face like a helm. But her expression, coming through her big eyes, was open and bright. Not guarded at all. Also a bit vacant? The cabbie felt a tiny, inexplicable affection for her. He wouldn’t know it was a common condition for strangers who met Penelope O. He even felt charming. “What does the O stand for?”

“No, that’s it. O. Like the expression.”

“Oh.”

Another beat of silence.

“Where you going, miss?”

“Um.” Had she forgotten? “Just get over the river. I can lead you from there.”

She meant the Trent River to the southeast where Steel City had its ports in the water. The only thing over the river was the tremendous metropolis of Dukeport. It had ports too, and behind them were towers and towers going back for miles. It was the usual American mess of colors and eras and styles. All around the feet of the towers were the broad avenues, the restaurants, the parks, the playgrounds, the parking lots, the busy squares, the undemolished old inns and mansions of the old town, and the boutique shops, and the shabby encampments of the bums in the alleys, and the open air markets, and the schools, and the tacky circus bits for tourists, and the desperate bits, glamour, money, boredom, beauty, life. The cabbie knew the city very well. If his passenger could have given him an address he’d have had her there no problem. Instead she gave him a very puzzling instruction.

“Will you take the tunnel please?”

There was no tunnel under the Trent River and he told her so.

She looked at him crooked. “Ya there is.”

“Miss, there isn’t.” There was a GPS on the dash. He fiddled with it to be amiable, but he knew it would return nothing. He pressed the buttons and then turned his palm up helplessly. “I know the city very well. There are five bridges over the river. Danover, Utley, West Kilkenny, East Kilkenny, Empire. That’s from the mouth of the river going up. It’s the Duke in Dukeport. That’s how to remember.”

“What is?”

“D.U.K.E.” He added. “The two ‘K’s count as one.”

“Hmm.” Her mind was elsewhere. She seemed surprised they weren’t moving.

“Let me take you across the bridge.” The cabbie felt gallant.

“Sure.” The tunnel was already forgotten.

They set off, crossing at the Utley Bridge upriver from the harbor. Dukeport looked bronzed in the hazy afternoon light, somber and mysterious. The big freighter ships always came in the afternoon. They seemed motionless and small, like intricate toys on the water. The cabbie drove quickly. The high bridge hosted them to the skyline another moment and then dropped sharply, putting them in the street.

Penelope O. called from the back. “Turn right.”

The cabbie obeyed. They went awhile along the waterfront.

“Left here.”

They cut into downtown. Now there was traffic and the spectacle of crowded intersections.

“Go up to the next light, then left.”

The cabbie turned.

“Ok, left.”

A long block of warehouses.

She pointed ahead. “What’s this building here?”

He told her. It was an old landmark post office with two art deco eagles carved beside the door.

“Make a right.”

They went on. The cabbie wondered. Was she lost?

“Make a…lef…” she hesitated. “Make a right here.”

Through the mirror he glanced at her. “To what neighborhood?”

“The Patch.”

The Patch! It was behind them and another few miles north. She was lost. “I know it.” And he spun the taxi. He had them there in ten minutes along an uncommon route of one-way streets.

Penelope O. pointed out a grey-brick gothic church with a round stained window like a blossom above the arched door. “What’s this?”

The cabbie had started to pull over, thinking they had arrived. He corrected the course. “Trent Chapel.”

“Beautiful building.”

“You’re visiting from Steel City?”

“No. I live here.” She offered a kind of explanation for her obliviousness. “But I never drive. You drive everywhere. I’ll bet you’re never lost.”

He smiled politely, surrendering to his fate. They were going to wander. He was going to be a little relieved to be rid of this passenger.

But finally they came to a corner and suddenly Penelope O. had her bearings as sure as a compass. The Patch had been a sparse, industrial district but recently the empty lots had been snapped up by developers. Construction was everywhere. She directed him carefully and he dropped her at her door, an inconspicuous walk-up between a framing shop and a hardware store.

“Thank you so much.” She paid and got out.

He went back toward downtown. But the street he chose was closed. Orange signs and cones blocked the way. He went back, took another street. Parked tractors blocked the corner where he needed to make his turn. A block further the street was ripped up, sewage pipes exposed. There was no getting through. The cabbie followed a set of detour signs that sent him winding through the barricades. He turned, turned, and was irritated to be back in front of the hardware store and framing shop.

Penelope O. was still outside. “What happened? Did I forget something?”

He offered a kind of explanation. “It’s construction everywhere.”

“Lost?” She laughed adorably. “I was wrong about you.”

She directed him from memory. The route got him clear of the mess. He found himself approaching the river again on a newly paved road over land that had once been a dump. Strange how quickly things changed out from under him. Would he be dropping people off at new towers here soon, in this former wasteland? Then he saw something that really shocked him. A cyclone fence stood around a huge excavation. A new road led into it. The structure looked nearly complete. A printed tarp hung on the fence and stamped with the civic seal read: Trent Tunnel coming! The date was just several months out. There was a stack of signage to be hung in the tunnel. The one on top could be read: Welcome to Dukeport.