The Polar vortex is back this winter breaking temperature records and pipes in a neighbor’s house. It was 0 F. when Lambert the weather proof West Highland white terrier ran out into the fresh snow and looked light brown. Four inches fell last night and it is too deep for his short legs, but it is powdery enough for him to jump through it with ease, as if pouncing repeatedly on some buried prey. Bel crunches along the side of the plowed road towards me in the silence only snow can bring, except for a crow rasping the atmosphere above us in the hickories.
When bel reached me I had been shoveling snow piled up across the entrance to the driveway by the plow as it pushed along the road in the night. Bel has on an orange knitted hat that covers her head and neck down to the collar of her red down jacket.
“Your car is all dressed up Fred.”
“Yes, with nowhere to go!”
The sun is still low and orange like her hat against the clear morning sky now filled with the roar of a jetliner coming into National Airport.
“How are you and Steve?”
“We are fine but Daisie had a pipe burst last night. It is in an outside wall. She called to see if Steve could turn off the water.”
“Did he find the valve?”
“Yes but he and Albrecht had to move the dryer out the back door to get at it.”
“What was Albrecht doing there?”
“He and Boyd were both there but didn’t know where to find the valve.”
“That’s strange.”
“Daisy tells me Boyd sent the Militia to check on her the other day. He has been attentive lately.”
“Daisy calls it intrusive.”
“I know. She has had enough of him and Albrecht too.”
“Seems as if Boyd chose the right time with this emergency.”
“Yes, maybe, but I think Daisy might have called him in her panic about this burst pipe.
“So what did Boyd bring Albrecht for, bel?”
“Oh I think they live together now. You don’t get one without the other. They share that rental house on Wicket Street past the Safeway parking lot.”
A rusting old dump truck loaded with salt and grit is scraping down Oval hill having just turned at the top with a blade mounted in front. Lambert barks at the strange sound gradually getting louder. The truck pushes snow ahead and spreads grit behind, and rattles and bumps into Lambert’s site at the bottom of the hill opposite us. He stands watching the truck push a pile of lumpy snow and ice across the intersection, which fills the ditch and piles up. Dordrecht’s name and logo is printed on an orange plastic rectangle stuck to the door. The company must have rented the truck for the storm. Lambert has lost interest in the plow. He has turned to bark at Maximillian and Diddlie who are walking towards us in the middle of the road where a layer of ice under the snow was gritted by the truck. Max is wearing a multicolored knitted coat around his long dachshund body with a gold button fastening at the front by his right ear. It looks as if it were knitted with hundreds of short left over bits of wool from many different projects. The two dogs twist their leashes as they go around and around each other, nose to butt.
Someone in a blue down parka is brushing off a snow- covered Volvo station wagon down the road. It has been half in the ditch all night with both left wheels burried.
“Who is that Fred”? bel is looking toward the car with her hand shading her eyes from the sun.
“Don’t recognize the car or the man.”
Diddlie has separated the dogs and looks down the road too. “There’s the Fauxmont militia to the rescue!” As she speaks the black Militia Hummer pulls up by the stranded car, and Albrecht gets out, also in black. We watch as he and Boyd in matching black fatigues with countless pockets, and the man clearing snow, chat and the man lights a cigarette and breaths blue. After helping to clear snow off the car and from around the front wheels Boyd brings a tow line from the Hummer. They both get down on the ground to look under the car and hook up the Volvo. Albrecht brushes off his uniform and climbs in behind the wheel of the Hummer and moves slowly toward us taking up slack in the line. The man flicks his partially smoked cigarette in an arc over the roof of his car before getting into in his Volvo while Boyd stands by watching. Albrecht stops, gets out of the Hummer and talks to Boyd. They go over to look under the Volvo again. Boyd drops his long black flash light, or it comes unfastened from his outfit as he gets up. I am not sure if he used it to see under the car. Albrecht picks it up and attaches it to his belt.
Miximillian is pulling Diddlie towards the incident while Lambert is sniffing a large snow bolder the plow has rolled to the roadside. We all start walking slowly. I am pulled by curiosity following Maximillian, but Albrecht runs over, holding both gloved hands above his head and waving us away.
“Stay back folks! Stay back!”
Maximillian barks at him with tail wagging and we stop while Lambert is still engrossed in his roadside investigations. Boyd walks up and puts a couple of cones in our path indicating we should go no further, though we are at least a hundred feet away. At last Albrecht is revving his shiny black Hummer. It must have been parked under cover last night. It pulls the car clear of the snowy ditch with ease. Boyd dashes over to unhook the cable while Albrecht gathers the two cones and puts them back in his Hummer. We all walk alongside the Hummer as the Volvo drives away with some dents and a broken right headlight.
There’s a voice coming out of the Hummer’s open window, where Albrecht can be seen, showing no sign of the cold, at the wheel with his mirror aviators on and a military style lined cap with the ear flaps up. The ‘don’t tread on me’ logo of the Gadston flag flies from a yellow pennant attached to the antenna in back.
“Hold on!” says the voice from the radio, “Patriotic Americans know the threats we live under. Yes we do. Are you going to let FEMA grab all the available emergency rations? I mean purchase every last one of them? Are you … ”
Albrecht turns down the radio, to speak himself. “You hear that?”
“What was it Albrecht?”
“Diddlie that was America’s favorite white man!”
“Oh really, and who is he?”
“Glen Gazburg, the man America listens to. Do you know FEMA is hoarding all the available emergency food rations, just buying them up?”
“No I had no idea Albrecht, but I don’t see the problem. I mean they will distribute them in a disaster.” Diddlie has pulled Maximillian up close by her feet. “What do you mean our, ‘favorite white man’?”
“I mean Diddlie that Glen is the only white man speaking up for the white race against our liberal socialist government and its Moslem president!”
Bel and Lambert have caught up and Lambert is now held close by his shortened leash. Bel is grinning. “Albrecht, Glen is not my favorite anything and the president is your president too, yours mine and all Americans.”
“Well good morning bel.” Albrecht takes off his aviators and lets them dangle loosely in his gloved fingers, with his arm extended straight out the window. He smiles. “Of course he is bel. Though I didn’t vote for him, I know that. I know how our system works, but let me say that he is taking our country down the wrong road.”
“Albrecht let me tell you that the president isn’t a Moslem.”
“Well of course not literally Diddlie, but he might as well be.”
“I don’t see any connection at all.”
“Bel you Liberals are just blinded by your ideology that’s all. It is as plain as day. His policy is handing the Mid East over to the Islamicists, the terrorists and their sponsors. He has pulled our forces out! Isn’t that right Fred?”
“He has pulled most of our forces out, but …”
“Oh come on Fred!” Diddlies’s impatience leads her to pull on my shoulder from behind and step between me, and the Hummer door. She is looking up at Albrecht and banging her hand on the door under his face. His glasses swing from his fingers so close to the back of her head it seems she will knock them on the ground in her agitation. I feel Maximillian’s leash against my ankle as he tries to get around me without enough leash to do so. Albrecht looks down at her frowning. “Easy there girl, you’re going to hurt yourself and mess up my new paint job.”
Boyd is leaning forward shivering in the passenger seat to see past Albrecht. His opens his mouth as if to speak but Diddlie starts again, and he silently releases a plume of condensing breath.
“Listen Albrecht, just get this, okay! The president is getting us out of a war we didn’t belong in. The president of all Americans is …”
Albrecht has pulled his arm in and put his glasses back on. Then he holds his hands up in mock surrender. As he does so his cap is brushed askew by a pocket flap on his arm and he knocks his glasses off too. Boyd ducks out of sight, picks them up and hands them to back Albrecht. Who then interrupts Diddlie, who had interrupted me in her haste to refute him.
“Okay Diddlie.” She bangs on his door again … “and don’t call me ‘girl’ young man.”
“Diddlie, I apologize. I would appreciate it if you would call me Albrecht and not ‘young man’.”
I look over at bel, who is trying to stifle her laughter and failing. She moves closer to me. “Fred, tell me I am dreaming!”
“I don’t think you are bel. It might be a nightmare though.”
“Well Fred, some times we have to laugh to stop from crying.”
I hear Albrecht saying in a voice loud enough to tell us all. “Boyd, don’t you just love winding up the crazy Liberals?” He eases the Hummer forward while Diddlie bangs on the side with the flat of her hand. “Stop Albrecht, stop, you are going to run over Max.” The vehicle stops. “Diddlie, will you please stop hammering on my new paint job!”
“Albrecht just let me get this dog out the way of your horrible gas guzzling monstrosity!”
“Baby this thing got that guy out of the ditch didn’t it?”
“Albrecht I am not your ‘baby’ and that was a job for a tow truck!”
“What ever you say Diddlie. Have a great day folks. Fred, remember to speak up for America!”
Bel waves with a flabby fingered hand. “Bye bye Albrecht.”
He is still moving very slowly and has turned up his sound system and opened all the windows. For a few moments Mimì and Rodolfo’s duet ‘Sono andati?’ from Puccini’s La Boehme fill the snowy quiet with a diva’s voice. Could that be Albrecht’s latest CD? Then the windows go up.
(how it should be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtfLB2a_q20)
