We All Fall Down

The last few notes from a late-night dirge

We All Fall Down

Down in the windy caverns of the city, the snow started to blow in stinging little pellets. Some people tried to shrink into their coats and scarves; others reached up to hold fancy hats so they wouldn't blow away. Christmastime in the city is like this, too, Helm thought. A million beautiful magical things to look at, but even window shopping came at I price. I don't know about window shopping, but the price for some late-evening off-key music is going to be losing three fingers to frostbite, if the temp keeps dropping like this, he thought, crushing his black fedora to his head.

The wind continued to gain power, the snow became heavier, the temperature continued to drop. Snow quickly began to drift into piles in the doorways of the closed shops and stores. The mercury in the thermometer had dropped precipitously during the last 45 minutes of the concert, and unexpected gale-force winds prowled along the riverfront. Even people who had dressed for an evening with an expected low of 35 degrees were feeling the arctic bite as they stepped out of the auditorium into single-digit cold. Helm saw, as he squinted his eyes into the wind, a homeless man sitting against the stone wall of the closed and locked Brooks and Hargrove building, starkly visible in the light of the streetlamp. The man's eyes were open, glassy, and starting at nothing; the man was dead. Helm started to feel afraid.

He hunched his shoulders and tried to shake the image from his mind's eye. Stupid old fool, he thought. I don't see any frozen rats or dogs out here, he ranted in his mind, seeking refuge in the heat of indignant anger. If the animals have enough sense to find a way to stay in warm in this, there's no reason that bum didn't! Helm thought of the old Jack London story where the guy froze to death because was too arrogant and overconfident, and he wondered if the homeless guy had ever read that story. On the heels of that, the underling knowledge lurked in his mind that all the buildings were closed and locked at this hour, their warm safety teasingly out of reach.

The unprecedented storm increased in intensity, the snow grew heavier, and the wind grew angrier still, sweeping debris from the streets--newspapers, foam cups, grit and road dust. An old newspaper came flapping loudly out of the blinding whiteness of the driving snow, directly toward Helm. He threw up his arms reflexively to protect himself, and his hat joined the general migration in the wind.

His bald head grew cold quickly, and he began to panic in the blinding blizzard. Where did I park? Where's the god damn car?!

He left it front of Aaronson's, on Fifth street. What street am I on now? Jesus Christ, am I actually lost in downtown?! Street signs were invisible; one could barely keep his eyes open for five seconds at a time, and even if one could, a longer look was useless in the sudden, terrible storm.

Helm saw the grey Chevy and tittered with hysterical relief. But when he put his key to the lock, it jammed. That froze fast, he thought. But when he pushed it harder, he felt the unique resistance of a key in the wrong lock: this wasn't his grey Chevy! He dropped his keys when he picked them up and tried to put them back in his pocket, and realized that he couldn't feel his fingers. He couldn't feel his nose, either. Cramped, barely coherent thoughts began to race through his mind. Ohmygod! Lostblindfeezinglost ohmyGOD!!! He heard his teeth chatter, but didn't feel it. The unexpected, hatefully intense cold was winning, had perhaps already won! And black, blind panic took him, utterly and completely.

As the city dug out from the unexpected blizzard the next morning, he was found a mile and a half from his car, sitting propped in the doorway of the old book binding shop at Eleventh and Fort Dunston Way, snow mounded up to his waist.

His eyes were open, glassy, and starting at nothing, and the rats ran past him disdainfully, perhaps wondering why he hadn't had the sense to get out of the storm.