CHRISTMAS ANGELS
by Jerry Black
Angels appear at Christmastime. I have proof.
Four of them appeared to me one Christmas past. It was Christmas Eve, 1984, and this was to be the annual trip to Montreal from Brampton, Ontario, a frantic, last-minute, six-hundred kilometer dash through whatever conditions Mother Nature had placed under her perverse Christmas tree in mock celebration of the spirit of giving.
That year’s trip couldn’t have started much worse. I didn’t have a car. Nor any credit. Only the day before had I finally secured the rental of a nondescript old clunker from a questionable agency; Rent-A-Wreck’s fees were way beyond my means.
We were three: my daughter Pam, our dying cat, Mildred, and I. Daily force-feeding of medication to Mildred had become necessary to keep her alive, so we had no choice but to take her with us on what became her final journey.
In the parking lot, the old jalopy idled, heater and fan struggling to provide a life-sustaining temperature inside. Luggage, and several bags and boxes of gaily wrapped presents filled the trunk, and overflowed into the back seat, half of which was left unoccupied, reserved for the large, wire cage in which Mildred lay immobile.
Waiting behind the wheel, I saw Pam emerge from the house with Mildred, then dash across the parking lot through the falling snow and the cold, biting wind. To my exasperated eyes, Pam, a teen in less than three months, appeared to be wearing just enough clothing to prevent her death from hypothermia before reaching the car! Evidently possessed of the attitude that looking cool (no pun intended) outweighed any slight discomfort that might result from freezing to death, and knowing that she wasn’t going to be sent back inside at this late moment, she hopped in the car with a defiant smile. Mildred’s wire apartment was clumsily belted in place, and with a couple of hearty slams each, the door latches caught and held, and we were off!
THE TRIP BEGINS
It was a con game – much like a video game. Everything starts easy, you swell with confidence, and then the screens start to change…. The car is warm enough inside, the highway is eight lanes wide across the top of Toronto, and the heavy traffic is moving smoothly. It’s six o’clock in the evening.
Light is plentiful. It comes from the all the vehicles sharing the road with you, from the light standards lining the expressway, from the concrete and glass cushion of buildings tucked in on either side; a veritable shower of fluorescent and neon bathes the night.
Even the snow “wafting” across your field of vision seems friendly, catching and reflecting the light from all these sources, brightening the sky.
And slowly, each is taken away. The highway separates: the number of lanes in each direction reduces to four, and finally, two. Gleaming commercial towers become smaller, darkened buildings, step back from the highway, and finally disappear altogether.
Automobiles carrying commuters to their homes on the outskirts of the metropolis no longer have need of your companionship. Even the lights standards eventually pack it in.
No longer impeded by city towers, the wind beats furiously at the driver’s side of the car, whistles through worn or missing insulation, howls under the moving frame in frustration at not being able to sweep you along on its mindless path.
Consigned to darkness for the first time, the weakness of your headlights is revealed. But that is the least of the weaknesses becoming apparent.
Earlier, just to coax your vehicle to accomplish some typical freeway manoeuvre, you occasionally found your foot all the way to the floor. It had given the noisy complaint expected of an older car. But now you’re out here, alone, and you realize that your foot has been to the floor for some time. And the complaint is now an endless drone.
The wind has polished the black strip in front of you to a high gloss, and by now you realize that any rubber remaining on your tires is primarily cosmetic. In short order, the road becomes coated with snow, just enough to conceal the ice, to offer the suggestion of traction where none exists.
Worn wipers stutter their way across the windshield against the wind’s fury, removing some snow, spreading the rest in a thick strip directly across your line of vision. Now you’re bobbing and weaving like a boxer after each hesitant pass of the blades, searching for an opening.
So you adapt. Play the current screen. Devise a strategy that works for now.
This translates into going forward as fast as you can, never veering from a straight line. On the 401’s rare curves, you can use both lanes to “straighten out” the path of the car – why not? – there’s nobody else out here!
Just don’t get in a situation where you might have to touch the brakes. Concentrate. Try not to blink. Only four hours left, now.
Continuously analyze every inch of the road surface. Avoid even the smallest ridges between the rapidly disappearing tread marks. If firm enough, they will send you hurtling off the path. Your confidence begins to return; this cross-wind is no match for the two tons of metal, glass and plastic you are wielding to slice through its fury.
The Trip Part II
My daughter’s asleep. Not a small mercy. Were she awake, she would be frightened that I dared not turn my head to look at her, dared not remove my attention from our path. For now the view is disappearing, disappears entirely on occasion. The temperature is dropping fast, and the windshield comes to resemble the lens of an aged eye, clouded with the onset of cataracts. What air the old fan is able to direct upwards against the glass is no longer sufficient to keep it clear.
My eyes are beginning to sting from the effort to blink as little as possible. Powerful gusts lurk within the gale buffeting us on the left, threatening to pummel us off the highway before I have time to react.
During these gusts, the road becomes momentarily visible, but the wipers can no longer fight the wind. Each time they return to the bottom of the windshield, snow accumulates in their path before they begin their delayed ascent. Vision becomes partially memory. What did the road look like just after the wipers made their last weary trek across the glass?
Twenty minutes later, the snow lets up. Even though the wipers are slower, the lights are dimmer and the temperature continues to plummet, at least I can see. My relief lasts all of ten seconds.
Beneath the car’s hood, a metal soul screams in death. The car shudders as shrapnel tumbles to the highway. It sounds (and feels) like a crate of bowling balls has been dumped into the engine compartment and, after careening into their surroundings, have made their way to the roadbed. My right leg is stiff from the effort of having kept the accelerator pressed flat against the floor for the last three hours. Nevertheless, when the car suddenly begins to slow, I try to jam it down even further, to no avail.
Above the car’s hood, a black ghost rises – takes leave of its mortal remains: smoke, thick in spite of the wind, is visible even without lights as everything else in this tiny universe is white. Oh, no! Flames. They dance across the backdrop of the black curtain of smoke, as the car hurtles forward on momentum alone.
Shoulders and arms also stiff from keeping the car on the road now desperately look for the fastest way to guide it off the road safely, before ……. my mind doesn’t want to finish the thought. Raised on a movie diet of cars erupting in balls of flame, I can’t even imagine a nice, leisurely fire. To my amazement, we reach the highway’s right shoulder. Jumping out, I feel for the first time how truly frigid it has become outside.
Running around to the other side to yank my (still-sleeping) child out of our highway coffin, I come to a sudden halt in front of the car, gazing intently at her through the windshield. It’s just too cold. Dressed as she is, I know Pam could not survive outside of the car for very long. Neither fire nor smoke is visible any longer, but could there be an errant lick of flame making its furtive way to the gas tank?
Although I can’t see any lights approaching from either direction, I know that I have to stop the next vehicle, in whatever manner is required. With one eye on Pam, still in the rapidly cooling car, and the other searching the long, deserted stretch of highway, I step into the middle of the road.
Christmas Angels – The First
With two lanes heading in the same direction, it would be very easy for a motorist to veer around any obstacle blocking either lane. I’ve narrowly missed deer frozen in place by doing just that. Straddling the snow-covered lane divider, I prepared to move quickly to either side to prevent the next vehicle from passing us.
An eternity passed, it seemed, before a single set of headlights became faintly visible, still perhaps as much as a mile away. I thrust my arms out like wings, and began the slow, regular movements that would have produced a perfect snow-angel, had Pam and I been happily playing in the snow.
A glance beyond the approaching car revealed nothing but black sky and the bleached earth. This one was our only hope. A great relief swept over me as the vehicle slowed and didn’t threaten to alter course.
Through the slit that appeared above the window in the driver’s door, I gazed into a woman’s eyes. As I conveyed the urgency of our plight, I couldn’t help but read her uncertainty, and her concern for her little girl, the car’s only other occupant. Then, before I could finish, she communicated her decision wordlessly; the warmth in her eyes revealed that we had met the first of our Christmas Angels.
While the wind screamed in fury, all presents in the passenger compartment of her sporty two-door vehicle were swiftly crammed into the trunk in order to take on this new, live cargo. The rear seat held Mildred’s cage, tightly book-ended by the girls; then the front buckets were inched forward to give them as much room as possible. Like happy sardines, our closeness a gift of warmth to each other, we pulled back on to the deserted highway.
Luggage, presents – everything that didn’t have a pulse – had to be abandoned.
READ ON!: CHRISTMAS ANGELS – PART TWO
“THE CONTRARIAN” COLUMNIST, JERRY BLACK IS AN EX-MONTREALER WHO RESIDES IN A LOW, DARK DOMAINE IN INGERSOLL, ONTARIO, SUITABLE FOR PONTIFICATION OF THAT NATURE. HE IS HAPPY TO BE “UPRIGHT AND SNIFFING THE AIR” – (STEPHEN KING.)
Read more from Jerry Black – ¨Let´s Get Spiritual!
