Waltz of Her Life

"What can I say," she replied. "It's Zeppelin. Hey, where are we supposed to spend the night tonight?" She looked around for Greg and Jeannie, who were walking ahead of them, with Lauren in between.

Greg said "You're going to follow us to our house."

"Where did you park?" Linda asked.

"Underneath the stadium."

Jeannie piped in: "It might be good if you two just came with us and then we could drive you to your car. Where did you park?"

Wryly, Linda replied "On some cobblestones along the river."

"Uh-oh!" Seth said with exaggerated horror. "Let's hope your car's still there."

Linda felt her heart start to race. Sweat broke out onto her brow. Again she envisioned poor little Myrtle floating on the river toward a bridge piling. She reached out for Seth's arm, stopping, grasping it hard. "What do you mean?"

"Ow! Strong little thing, aren't you?"

"Seth, don't be such a jerk," Jeannie said. "Linda, your car's going to be fine. We park there all the time."

They emerged from the Coliseum on the other side, where the concourse overlooked the great square slab of the parking lot on which Riverfront Stadium had been built. Linda could already see streams of cars lining the roads spiraling away from it. Greg observed "It looks like we've got a long night ahead of us."

By the time they reached Greg's van, they had to sit there for several minutes waiting for traffic to clear enough for them to venture out into the snarl. Greg turned on the stereo to a radio station who was playing Led Zeppelin songs non-stop. Linda soon realized that the high notes of the songs were jabbing at the inside of her ears like ice picks. "Would you mind turning it down? I think my hearing needs to recover."

If it was going to recover, she wondered. When Lynard Skynyrd played at the County Fair, they'd seemed louder than Led Zeppelin. However, that had been held in an outdoor amphitheater, where the sound was able to dissipate into the night air.

Twenty feet at a time, the van crawled along through the ramps and turns inside the multi-tiered concrete parking lot. Jeannie, Linda and Lauren sat on the floor of the van, atop shag carpeting. There were no windows. Greg said it used to be a carpet cargo van.

He bought it, fixed the engine and put in the killer stereo, but that was it. Jeannie said "It ain't too comfortable, but it works!" Going by the stale smell inside, Linda knew she was talking about the fact that the van "worked" as a party-mobile because police could not see inside of it.