Winterpeg
“What to do? What to do?”
The damn General betrayed me. Left me out in the cold. Literally.
The General is what I call my old, trusted, and rusted 1973 ¾-ton Ford pickup truck with four-on-the-floor.
Correction… what I call my parents' vehicle that I commandeered for my own personal use.
But that’s not important right now. What is important is that it is a ruthless minus 38 degrees Celsius with a “feels like” wind chill of minus 46 degrees in the middle of January on a deserted Winnipeg street at two o’clock in the morning on this Godforsaken night. The year is 1984, and somewhere, George Orwell is shivering at the thought of this dystopian desolation.
I curse as I abandon the traitorous vehicle and walk away. I am not dressed for the occasion—no gloves, no tuque, and no stinkin’ long johns.
It’s been 72 seconds. Seventy-two Mississippi’s. I walk, hands stuffed in my coat pockets, and shiver along the desolate road. Painful, wind-driven shards of ice stab my exposed face. I imagine my family jewels desperately scurrying to find warmth. Apparently, thinking of one’s genitals is often a good sign that death is not yet imminent.
I hear something behind me. I turn around and expose my naked, hitch-hiking thumb.
“Miracle of miracles… a transit bus,” I murmur, incredulous, followed immediately by:
“Oh crap… the sign says: ‘Out of Service’”
And then, hot dang, the good Samaritan is stopping anyway!
An emotional whiplash. A wave of vertigo.
A friendly face appears as the door creaks open. “It’s a cold bastard, ain’t it?? Where’re you headin’ buddy?
“Saint-Boniface,” I respond through clacking teeth.
“I’m headin’ back to the bus depot, but I can get you to Portage and Main.”***
Now I am stepping off the bus, two kilometres from home, at the crossroads of Canada, Portage and Main. Also known as the windiest corner in Canada. I’m not kidding. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, the internet will agree. But that’s not helpful right now.
The transit bus driver looks at me with concern, creasing his forehead.
“Sorry, man, this is as far as I can take you. Good luck.”
“Thank you, man,” I respond. “You saved my life.”
Until now. I don’t say that last part out loud.
I look around.
Misery.
Years ago, savvy city planners chose to bury businesses deep within the warm bowels of the earth beneath this cold, windy intersection.
Well, that decision doesn’t impress me much, as I stand shivering and alone with nothing but abandoned railway sheds and the mighty Red River of the North between me and my destination.
The overcast night sky casts sepia tones on the dirty snow piles and the dull buildings around me, but I have no time to admire this vintage scene. A scene worthy of a centrefold in the Canadian Geographic Magazine – “Cold as Hail” edition.
I walk, then I run to get home faster. Mainly, I run to generate life-saving body heat. I read somewhere that if I start feeling really, really hot, it’s a bad sign. The uncontrollable urge to remove one’s clothing during a hypothermic crisis… well, apparently, that’s a terminal event.
“Frostbite can occur in under one minute,” said the radio announcer just as the ol’ General coughed and died. Wonderful.
My left ear aches. I can practically feel the flow of blood in the tiny arteries of my exposed ears slow and thicken as it passes from a liquid phase to a solid. I can visualize sharp, piercing crystals slicing and damaging my fragile capillaries, irritating the nearby sensitive nerve endings. My nerves are screaming at me: “No tuque! Are you nuts!”
Such nerve!
I panic, and I run. The self-generated wind chill is not pleasant.
Past faded red sheds, I expose myself to the elements as I cross the windy bridge over the frozen river.
I can't feel my ear. I lift my cold hand, and I feel a disembodied piece of fresh frozen meat on the side of my head. Is that my ear?
I can think of nothing now. My head hurts, and my brain is numb.
Walk. Run. I don’t know. I don’t care. Sacrifice an ear, a finger or a toe. But move.
The alternative is a cold slab in the morgue.
D.C.Fortier
