The Snarkout Boys & The Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater

Author:Daniel Pinkwater [Pinkwater, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2014-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

XVIII

Neither Winston nor I had ever heard of Lower North Aufzoo Street. However, when we got to Upper North Aufzoo Street, we recognized it immediately. It's that curving street that runs along the Baconburg River on the edge of the business district. It's sort of a thoroughfare; there aren't any stores or entrances to buildings along it. There's a sidewalk on either side, a sort of guardrail made of concrete on the river side, and that's all. The cars go whizzing along at about forty-five miles per hour.

What we'd never noticed before about Upper North Aufzoo Street was that there was a concrete staircase leading down from the sidewalk at one point. It looked as though it might be going down to a subway, but it wasn't.

We went down the staircase.

It was quite a contrast. Upper North Aufzoo Street, above us, was nearly deserted and quiet. Lower North Aufzoo Street was a jumble of activity. There were bright yellow fluorescent lights making the street-below-a-street as brilliant as day. Big trucks rumbled along. Some were parked, being loaded or unloaded. Truck drivers and guys who work loading and unloading stood around, chewing on cigars, talking, and joking. There were piles of garbage, broken cartons, and big barrels of wastepaper filling the sidewalk every so often. There was a lot of noise down there. Trucks grinding gears and honking horns and banging into the curb, guys hollering, things bumping and crashing, all amplified by an echo. It was almost too much to take in all at once.

"Welcome to the underworld," Rat said.

A blind guy with a big German shepherd dog was playing his saxophone. The guys from the trucks tossed coins into his cup. There was also a guy doing elaborate pictures on the sidewalk with colored chalk. Rat said he was a screever, the only one in Baconburg. The pictures were pretty good. Most of them were portraits of famous people—the President, TV actors, that sort of thing. There was also a portrait of James Dean. This got Rat started, talking about how the great tragedy of her life was that James Dean had died before she was born. She said she wanted to hitchhike to Hollywood someday and visit his grave.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"It's fairly obvious," Rat said. "This is the city beneath the city. There is where the guts are. It goes round the clock. I'm sort of surprised you didn't know it was here. You see, all the truck deliveries to the business district come through here. Also, this is where all the garbage gets picked up. Besides that, this is how you get into the network of steam pipes that heat all the big office buildings. Some of the guys you see coming and going are maintenance workers. Some work in the sewers or installing the underground phone lines; others just get to and from work through here—janitors, clean-up people, night watchmen, all of those. You can get in a service elevator here and go up into the big hotels and office buildings and stores.

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