The Crossroads of America
M.A. Dubbs
The problem with highway noise barriers
lies within the engineering itself.
They’re far too short to fully block the sound of semi horns
and sporadic car backfires from seeping into suburbia.
Instead, the stubby walls block the sight of car roofs from house roofs,
which was perhaps the point all along.
The second issue is the use of concrete.
Any acoustical engineer will tell you that concrete bounces back sound,
throwing it back into traffic.
Something softer and more sustainable like recycled tires or chewed up plastic
would eat up all that sound.
But then you could see the wadded up trash,
in tight cubes like Wall-E,
and the white picket fence dwellers would not be pleased.
Now a sound architect might want those nice soft cushions,
the black foam curved pads you see in sound studios and well-to-do streamer homes.
Those foam pads, however, don’t serve as good walls,
especially in the Midwest weather of wet and humid summer months.
Soft foam also doesn’t stop an intoxicated SUV driver
from plowing off the road and into the side of some beige house.
Although, one can imagine a car bouncing softly off the foam,
using the physics of cartoons.
But animators never took into consideration the daily impact of DUIS or
grandmas mixing up their pedals from early onset dementia.
This is precisely why the Department of Highway Safety
doesn’t consult with the likes of artists.
The Department and other government bodies do regulate where these walls,
as inefficient as they are, have to and should be.
The northern part which contains high grossing suburbia
are required, by law, to have these inept walls.
An access door is permitted for things such as reach for a fire hydrant or
to allow maintenance workers to quietly work out of sight
but otherwise they are to be closed at all other times.
In the east, the blue collar neighborhoods do not require any noise barriers.
Instead there are fences of chain-link or plywood
that separate highway from chained dogs, lawnmowers,
and children in plastic turtle sandboxes.
Chain-link holes let in all sorts of things, but they give an illusion
of boundary, of control.
And that helps them rest easy enough at night.
The southern farms don’t have any walls.
There’s occasional road safety barriers that appear on a tight turn,
often with metal dented from teen drivers racing
on bored Friday nights.
The freeway traffic noise doesn’t travel too far out,
often blocked by trees or deep ditches or miles of over-farmed earth.
Crosses outnumber traffic signs:
a large steel cross advertising a church,
a bloodied Jesus nailed on a billboard with SIN written in red ink,
or tiny plastic crosses covered with pastel fabric flowers.
A memorial for a car wreck victim purchased from the local Wal-mart.
The heart of the city, downtown, has no barriers at all.
Nothing can stop the noise, the traffic,
the scream of road rage punctuated by the pop of a side arm.
It blares into the apartments and tenet homes stacked all upon one another.
This city was engineered in an afterthought of growth,
first built for streetcars, pedestrians, and horses.
Now the interstate snakes almost right through the buildings,
eight wheelers shaking weak bridge columns,
columns that serve as tent poles for those down and out.
There is no wall, no door, no refugee,
as they sleep off hunger and heat between cop beats.
A college kid, ears adapted to the groan of axles,
notes the mere inches that separate sidewalk from 80 mph.
As they continue their walk to campus, they’ll keep it in their brain for safekeeping
so if the thoughts come back they know where to go.
They know the place where they can take a step
onto the crossroads of America.
