An Impost Too Far

This is the cross-city tunnel on the first day that it was free. I had to go through. I had become obsessed with the cross-city tunnel as symbolic of everything that was wrong with the city. I took Joyce and the kids, so we could all say we had been through it. Normally it would cost three dollars fifty six on a compulsory e-tag one way; and fed into other networks which also cost money. They were narrowing William Street to compel people into the tunnel. It was unconscionable. It was all in the contract. Personnel went from public to private. Public-private partnerships began to stink. I was just somehow so disappointed in the whole damn lot of them. It was like being taken over by the mafia. These people didn't have a clue. How could you treat the city's people like that? I had this fantasy that one day there would be one more impost too far and the entire city en masse would just throw up the candle and say it's not worth it anymore. And just stay home, barricading in the front door, getting in supplies. There just came a point when the figures just didn't add up. He felt like everything, everything had gone to mud right in the pit of his stomach. Panic. And he paid another taxi driver and went to another function; and he was treated fine in treacherous dens. We moved quietly. And there was never another way out.