Strangers

The thin blond meteorologist smiled her perfect smile for a moment before trading it in for a more serious look as she began speaking in her perfect voice, “Again, the weather is tonight’s top story. Over the last few days the below-zero temperatures and bitterly cold wind-chill have been blamed for at least three deaths.”

A map appeared next to the woman’s beautiful face as she continued, “Accumulation yesterday was around three inches in most places, with those to the far north tallying almost six. Winter weather advisories are in effect throughout the region. Steady snows have continued to cover the area and by early afternoon temperatures climbed to just over 33 degrees causing some thawing, and resulting in the accumulated snow turning to the texture of wet concrete. This heavy mass of almost immovable snow has caused major delays for our evening rush hour. It has also left innumerable houses and businesses without power as tree branches have snapped under the weight of snow and ice buildup, taking out power lines and damaging some buildings and cars.”

The woman concluded, “By this time tomorrow we’re expecting a total accumulation of sixteen to eighteen inches for much of the region. Temperatures will hang around twenty five degrees overnight, then rise to almost thirty as the snow settles down in the morning and tapers off around noon. The current temperature is 29 degrees at 5:47. Have a good evening, one and all.”

Helen turned away from her television as she heard the news woman deliver her nightly tag line. She inhaled the aroma of chocolate chip cookies as she walked to her kitchen to check on the last tray still in the oven. Baking cookies was one of her favorite activities on winter nights. It made the snow seem so far away. It was a good excuse to get the house all warm and toasty. She sometimes felt guilty about the energy she was wasting, but it was quickly overcome as she bit into a soft chewy warm cookie. Mmm, heaven. She thought to herself.

As she was pouring herself a second glass of milk to go with her fourth cookie Helen heard a knock at her door. Who in their right mind would be out in weather like this? She wondered as she went to the front door.

Through her etched-glass window Helen’s porch light illuminating the shape of a man in a puffy blue parka. She couldn’t see much of his face, only his dark eyes and a bit of his nose and eyebrows. The rest was covered with two scarves, a headband and ear muffs. His jackets fur lined hood extended over all it all and was zipped up to his nose.

“Can I help you?” Helen said from inside her warm house.

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said a deep voice she was sure was not one of her closest neighbors, “The school a few blocks over has collapsed under the weight of the snow. I’m out looking for shovels and blankets.”

“Oh, my. Was anyone hurt?” Helen asked. She knew her voice carried through the window, but she spoke a bit louder so that it might get through the several layers of winter clothing.

“I’m not sure ma’am. I only just got there myself. I asked what I could do and they sent me to look for shovels and blankets.” The man looked her in the eye as he spoke. That was what made her decide to trust him.

Helen nodded and said, “I’ll be right back.”

She went to her guest room and found three blankets then detoured through the kitchen to grab her extra automatic garage door opener as she returned to the front door. She opened the door to hand the man the blankets. “Here you are. Those are old ones; you don’t worry about them getting back to me.” She then closed the door and raised her voice again through the glass. “I have an extra shovel you can have, too. It’s in the garage. I’ll open it from here with this remote. On the floor next to the door there is a box with a few pieces of wood in it. Just toss them on the floor and you take the box to gather supplies in. Take the shovel with the red handle. I’ll close the door behind you once you’re out.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sure is nice of you,” said the man.

“It’s nothing. You’re the one working out in the cold.”

“I suppose that’s true enough. You have a good night.”

Helen watched the man do as she’d told him and closed the garage door after him. She kept watching him as he moved on to house next door. She knew that Oscar would have plenty of blankets for the man if he was home.

She closed the doors, turned out the light in her front room and went back to the television to see if she could learn anything more about the school. The five thirty local news ended and the six o’clock national news came on. She didn’t expect to see anything on the national news, so she went to her computer. There wasn’t anything there either. Finally she bundled herself up as tightly as the man on her front porch had been and headed outside.

She left her house with a box of her own. In it she had a full coffee pot, Styrofoam cups and a large container of still-warm chocolate-chip-cookies. She had left six on her counter cooling rack, not quite willing to let go of them that easily.

She picked her way carefully through the thick snow and was glad to see that most people had shoveled their portion of the sidewalks recently. She had only an inch or two to tramp through in most places, but caught herself thinking evil things about those who had left the full seven or eight to accumulate and block her way.

As she approached her destination she saw a few people milling about, ogling the pile of rubble that had once been a small school, but most of the people were actively working. Helen felt a flash of anger at the gawkers, but as soon as the thought came to her head she realized that these must be people who were standing vigil for lost relatives. Helen couldn’t imagine coming upon the body of one of her own children. She suddenly felt deeply for these people, huddled together in their own world of grief. There were no tears to be seen, no wailing, no sound at all from the group.

Helen turned away from the sad picture and tried to find someone in charge, but everyone looked too much alike to pick out a leader. All were bundled much like the man who had come to her door. Jackets or parkas covered arms and torsos. Scarves, hats, earmuffs and hoods covered heads. Mittens or gloves protected every set of hands. A few people had snow pants on; and she assumed that everyone had at least one extra layer of long-johns covering their legs. Booted feet tromped through the snow with ease. Sticky snow formed an outer shell over pant legs and socks despite their constant movement.

There was no light from the school, or from houses to the east, but that didn’t hinder work in the least. Light from the city itself reflected back and forth between the clouds and the snow already on the ground. Each flake that fell could be seen clearly in the ambient light and so the rescue operations went smoothly, even several hours after sunset.

Helen found a man sitting on the tailgate of a truck, gloves at his side, strong black fingers working to readjust his socks within his boots.

“This your truck?” Helen asked.

“Yep,” he said, looking up quickly, continuing to work.

“Can I use it to set up my coffee? I couldn’t carry my card table and this box at the same time.”

“You surely can. How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much for a cup of coffee?”

“If you’re working on the school, it’s free. And, for lending me your truck, you also get a cookie. I think they’re still warm. Try one and tell me.” She set her box on the tailgate, laid out a towel, and set the coffee pot on it. She set the cups on the towel as well then opened the Tupperware box with cookies inside. She dug one out from the middle of the pile and handed it to the man.

He took it with two fingers and fit the whole cookie into his mouth at once. He let it sit there for a moment before he began to chew, slowly, savoring it. Helen noticed that he had closed his eyes as he chewed.

“Ma’am, that may be the best cookie I’ve ever tasted,” he said when he was done.

“Would you like another one?” Helen asked automatically.

“Well now, that hardly seems fair.” He winked at her as he motioned to his boot. The sock and jeans were now laying flat and the boot was tightly laced. “It’s back to work for me.”

“Let them know they can have a cup and a cookie if they need a break.”

The coffee lasted a little under an hour; the cookies were gone within ten minutes. As she served coffee and handed out cookies Helen watched, and talked, and listened.

“Where are the emergency crews?” She asked one man who had been there for three hours. He had brown eyes, pale skin, and a voice that reminded her of a fireplace, all crackly and warm.

“I called them when I first heard the collapse, even before I knew what the sound was. Then I called again when I got here and saw what had happened. They said they were sending someone out, but no one ever arrived. I called a half hour after that and I was told that they were swamped with all sorts of life or death calls and were doing the best they could. She said the best thing I could do was stay off the emergency lines and be patient.”

“What about the injured?” Helen asked, placing a cup of coffee into another set of gloved hands. She motioned over to the camping tents that had been set up on the far side of the parking lot.

“Well, there haven’t been any yet.”

“None?”

Another worker joined the conversations as she sat on the ground, leaned against the tire of the truck and exhaled her tensions. “I think it’s empty.”

“The school?” Helen confirmed.

“Yeah. We’ve been digging for over four hours now and we’ve seen no sign of anyone. No injuries, no blood, no survivors, no dead.”

“Then why keep digging?”

“Just in case I’m wrong.”

Once the coffee was gone Helen went to help at the building.

The volunteers had created a fireman’s line where the person in front took a piece of rubble and handed it back to the person next to them, that person handed it back to the next one in line and so on. In this way the rubble was being piled into three areas of the parking lot.

Helen saw no one she knew, and so she stepped into line next to a woman in a bright pink jacket. She wore a hat made of fuzzy yarn that looked attractive, but impractical. The two inch long tassel at the top swung back and forth with each piece of broken concrete that the girl moved from her left to her right before handing them to Helen, who then passed them to a man who eventually had to leave once his thin gloves could no longer protect his hands from the sharp concrete and brick that they were working with. He was replaced by a man with green hip waders and a fluorescent orange hunter’s cap. Eventually, Helen’s strength gave out and she had to leave the line, letting the woman in pink pass to the fisherman.

She carried her box of supplies home. Several inches of snow impeded her progress on every sidewalk.

Snuggling into her bed that night her last thought was a prayer of gratitude, for she had seen no bodies.

The next morning, Thursday, Helen woke as the sun came up. She stretched without getting out of bed and felt many sore muscles that would trouble her in the days ahead. She considered staying in bed, but finally, she thought better of it. She went through her morning rituals as she prepared to face the day.

Showered, dressed and made-up, she moved out to the porch where she found her daily paper under about an inch of fluffy new snow. As she pulled it out and dusted it off, she noticed the smaller weekly paper buried nearby.

It was delivered on Thursdays, but because it needed to be printed the day before, the news was always at least two days out of date. Some neighbors had cancelled their free subscriptions, but Helen liked to patronize local businesses and used the ads, she also read the police reports. The two papers supplemented each other and on Thursdays she read them both over a quiet breakfast.

She carried the papers inside after pulling them each out of their protective plastic sleeves. Only then did Helen break with tradition. Usually, she poured herself a glass of orange juice and prepared a bowl of cereal. Instead, today, she poured herself a glass of milk and ate a cookie for breakfast, then a second, and finally a third as she read her papers. She looked at the three remaining cookies and knew they wouldn’t last the morning.

The front page of the daily paper held a color photograph of a car teetering at the edge of a bridge, an ambulance and fire truck next to it. “Mother and daughter safe after long ordeal!” was the headline. A smaller photo of a youth wrapped in blankets while sitting in the back of the ambulance was inset in the story. The child’s smile was radiant.

Helen opened the weekly paper and received a shock. The school they had been working on last night was pictured in black and white. There were hundreds of people in the parking lot, but in the photo they were wearing tank tops and shorts. Balloons and animals could be seen as children raced through the crowds at last summer’s Community Carnival. “Save Our School!” screamed the headline.

The story read:
The city planning commission has closed the International School indefinitely for what they are labeling, “structural integrity issues.” On Tuesday of this week police padlocked the doors and placed notices that the building is being considered for condemnation.

Mayor Michael Robert Anderson said, “At this point, we’re waiting for a final report from City Inspectors, but they agree that there are dangers in the foundation which cannot be ignored. Once the official paperwork is finalized we will replace the small white notices with larger, more sturdy and official condemnation notices.”

The school has been in existence for over one hundred years and housed generations of students. Public school funding was ended in 2003, but the government held on to the building itself and has leased it to multiple civic and educational organizations. Over the last year it has served sixteen separate immigrant populations, five regional recreational sports leagues, and acted temporarily as a battered woman’s shelter when their original building was being threatened. It is the center of many community organizations. It holds meetings for old and young alike at all hours of the day. There is a small, but hardworking group of local residents building a grass-roots plea for the city to save the building by making needed improvements. Mayor Anderson’s response was, “The cost of refurbishing the building far outweighs any possible value we could ever hope to place on a building with such limited size and scope.”

For more information on attempts to save the school, please contact Darlene Jacobs or Trudy Williams.

Helen gently flattened the paper by running her hands across the fold. Ink collected on her palms and smudged the corner of the photo. She looked again at the people enjoying the summers day. She wished she had gone. They all seemed to be having such a good time. But, Helen didn’t like to feel like an outsider, and there was no one she knew that had been going, so she had stayed home. She had probably watched television, or worked in her garden. I should have gone, she thought to herself.

The rest of the front page was filled with little blurbs collected from people who had been associated with the school somehow. “It was old when I went to school there,” a woman Helen knew was quoted, “and I’m no spring chicken, myself.”

‘More photo’s and history of school on page five,” lead her on. At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing. In the middle of the page was a large image of a painting with many people all looking out at her. It was hard to distinguish any single person, both because they were so tightly packed together and because it was a black and white photo of a piece of color art. But that wasn’t the whole reason it was hard to see. The painting seemed to have cracked, or broken, and then been pieced back together.

Helen read the caption, “Seventeen local artists, ranging from ages eight to seventy-three, worked for over a year to create this mural, which graces the front entryway of the school. The original piece, by Norman Rockwell, is a symbol of unity and a call for peace.”

[WC: 2963]