Waltz of Her Life

A sense of dread also entered her, and she reminded herself of why she was taking the crazy, long trip in the first place. Eleven people had died on the concourse at the arena.

She felt a tug at her heart when she thought about Lauren, Naomi, Jeannie, Greg, and especially Seth. Around the next bend, she saw a sign that read "Cincinnati - 8 miles," and she hunkered down, noticing the patchy flakes of falling snow that had followed her all the way from Illinois.

From her trip in the spring of 1977, she remembered that they plummeted down a hill to arrive at the river and the bridges of Cincinnati. Around the next bend, the long incline downward started and she could see the glow of the city lights. She was there! Now she could literally see the arena in the distance ahead, looking like a block of cheese on a countertop. Though she knew nothing to the turnoffs involved to get her from across the river to the parking lots beside the arena, she followed her instincts, like a bat.

After the bridge carried her across the river, she exited into downtown and swerved through alleys and one-way streets until she reached the river and the cobblestone parking lots. They were empty, since it had been a while since the concert probably ended, but the telltale indications remained: beer cans and whiskey bottles had been strewn around the edges of the lot, along with wrappers and brown paper bags.

Exhilarated with the sense of victory at finally having arrived, Linda parked Myrtle, grabbed her purse, and ran along the sidewalks toward the arena. The bitter, cold whipped strands of her hair around her face and ears. Up ahead she could see the wide, wooden steps that rose from the street to the concourse level of the arena. She was almost there!

The first thing she saw when she reached the platform and arena doors was a fleet of news vans. A tower of lights had been erected, the lights still shining, but solemn, somber crews of workers swept up trash or communicated to each other with two-way radios. Linda wondered how all the vans had gotten up there. Crowds of people also shuffled around, many of them carrying candles and sobbing. A few police officers talked with various members of the crowd.

Linda felt queasiness in her stomach as she saw all the discarded winter coats and slick liquid on the concrete that looked like blood.

She rushed up to a tall, fatherly looking police officer with a mustache and sad eyes. He carried a flashlight. When she reached him, he looked down at her with his full, undivided attention. She started to speak loudly, so he could hear her over the drone of the sirens and the noisiness of the crowd, apparently holding a vigil.