As I came off the jet bridge at Nashville International, a very large man with a prominent bulge under his sports coat sidled up to me and asked, “You Thomas Selfridge?” I started to answer, but realized that I didn’t know who this guy was. “Do you have any identification?” I asked.
He sighed, pulled out his wallet and flipped open an FBI badge. I nodded and fell in beside him. “How did you know it was me?” I asked.
“They told me to look for the saddest-looking guy on the plane,” he said without even a smile. I fell in beside him, depressed to think that my misery was obvious to everyone.
“Um, I didn’t catch your name on your badge,” I said, trying to be a little sociable.
“Henry,” he said as he walked on down the concourse.
“Er, is ‘Henry’ your first name or last?” I asked, hurrying to catch up.
“Yep,” he said, still walking.
I shook my head. Between my melancholy and Henry’s taciturnity, the drive to Oak Ridge ought to be a barrel of laughs, I thought dejectedly.
I’d checked the Google map in the airport before I’d left, and I knew Oak Ridge was slightly over 150 miles almost due east from Nashville on I-40. That meant we had a two-hour drive ahead of us.
As I’d expected, Henry kept his silence for most of the way. But when we passed the exit to Harriman, he unexpectedly nudged me and nodded out toward the left. I glanced up and did a double-take. There poking up through the low ridges and trees were two of the largest smokestacks I’d ever seen. Even with the winter afternoon shadows darkening the surrounding area, the towers were still tall enough to catch the light. The view was surreal, almost like something from a De Chirico painting.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Kingston Steam Plant,” Henry said. “It generates 1.7 gigawatts of electricity, most of it for your NSA guys and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.”
We crossed over a bridge, and now I could see the entire structure. “How tall are those things?” I asked.
“Just over a thousand feet,” he said, “taller than the Eiffel Tower.”
As I digested that, I suddenly realized that this was the longest conversation that Henry and I had held the entire trip. “How come you know so much about all this?” I asked.
He glanced over at me. “I grew up around these parts,” he said. Then he abruptly pulled off the interstate onto State Route 58 and headed north toward Oak Ridge. Shortly afterwards he turned into the parking lot of a roadside motel “Too late to go visiting tonight,” he said. “We’ll stay here.”
He caught my skeptical look. “Don’t worry. The rooms are small but they’re clean,” he said.
“Great,” I thought. “A terrible day just got a little worse.”
December 27
Actually, the motel turned out to be more comfortable than I expected, and the breakfast they served the next morning was delicious. I’d never had grits before, but to my surprise I liked them.
Afterwards we got back in the car and made our way to the gates of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Even though we were on their approved visitors list, the security was still very thorough.
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