A Very Cold Night

 

 

Talk of the cold! through through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail

                                                                               Robert Service

 

Whiskey is the most popular of the remedies that wont cure a cold.

                                                                               Jerry Vale

 

  "HEY PILGRIM!! YOU BORN IN AN IGLOO?? CLOSE THAT DOOR!!!

A stranger blew through the door of Kochevars Bar & Grill in a fog of frozen

vapor & stood blue of lip, shaking violently.

  "CCCCold oooout ttthere." He stammered to the boys at the bar. "CCColder than aaaa fffrogs bbbbelly."

The boys looked at each other wisely, as if an unspoken truth, a brotherhood secret was being bandied about between sly smiles.

"Heck mister," Bob from over at Crested Butte Auto was the first to break the ice, "This aint cold...why when it gets cold here I've seen tires explode, transmissions freeze solid, windshields crack. Why I've seen gas turn into Slurpies, & fan belts shatter, when was it boys? Winter of 81? Now that was cold...colder than a polar bears nose..."

"That's true Bob," Pete O'Roark a local fireman agreed, "But remember 78? Why we had five different kids tongues attached to five different bumpers all in one day...... 

"HEY THAT WAS THE DAY I GOT MY LOWER LIP FROZE SOLID TO A SEWER PIPE!!! Blurted Al, from Al's Backhoe.

The boys were staring at Al for some explanation when Pete went on....Then that same night up at the ski area, a guy sneaks down to the hot tub with his best friends wife.....

"This is news??" we chimed.

"Well when they stepped out of that tub & start pussy-footing toward the Condo, low & behold that steamy couples feet froze solid to the deck. They couldn't move an inch.  A small crowd gathered about the naked couple. The fire dept. was called, sirens, the works. The 'other' couple appeared......it was a mess......Colder than a seal snot that night!"

"That's cold Pete!" said Flash, three layers of long underwear protruding from his Aloha shirt, "But I was over at Botsie's house a couple years ago....

Flashed paused as a revered "ahhhh" went down the bar, for it was well known Botsie maintained a very chilly abode.

"And Botsie takes the coffee of the stove, pours it steaming from a foot above the cup & darned if that coffee didn't freeze solid before it hit the cup. Kind just tinkled into the glass....iced coffee you could say. Colder than my girlfriends heart."

"Well now you pip-squeaks don't know diddly. Why there's been a heat wave here in the Butte the last 50 years!" Whitey Sporsich took the floor. "Why when I was a child, before backhoes.....

"NOOOO!! A roar of disbelief went up.....

"The ground would be to frozen to bury the dead. So anybody that had the plain bad taste to die in winter, would simply be stacked up like cordwood in Kochevars back room, a room as you know that is colder than an Arctic anchovy most of the year....

"We all nodded knowingly....

"Then come spring we'd have one big funeral for everybody." Whitey was smiling at the memory. "Kinda convenient really....

The rest of us were starring at the door which led to Kochevars back room.

"Gotta go boys," I rose, retrieved the Malamutant from the ladies room...it being the warmest room in the building, & headed into that January night.

The stranger had been right, it was cold...colder than a well diggers tokas.

The cold hit you like a frozen porcupine right in the kisser. It caught in the throat, condensed in the lungs, like breathing a Sno-Cone. It was cheek burning, nose hairs tingling, eye drying cold. Heart stopping, brain-racing like a caged weasel cold. It was why Crested Butte is still a small town cold.

 The seat of my snow-mobile was as hard as a frozen mackerel, the engine turned like molasses. Not without some effort I heaved the 200 LB Malamutant into his trailer, & headed toward Lake Irwin, the small outpost of Bohemian misfits located10 miles east of Kochevars.

I had just entered 'The Valley Of Dales Cabin", when low & behold that snow mobile just upt & died....as snowmobiles will do.....consistently.....

Squeezing from the frozen helmet my eyes beheld a night of Alien proportions. The entire universe was transformed into icy crystals, from the Milky Way, to the end of my nose. The moon hung like huge frozen cheese cake over the scene. The Malamutant was seized by the moment, this being the kind of weather the beast lives for. He threw back his head, pointed a steamy nose at that moon & proceeded to howl.

Then the strangest thing happened.

That howl left his mouth, went about a foot & froze solid.

That's right folks, that howl hung there like a frozen jelly fish & not a sound had been made.

I howled....no sound....two jelly fish. I tapped one, which immediately shattered into a million little jellyfish of silent frozen sound.

This was a very cold night.

It now came to my somewhat addled brain that the scientific guys may be interested in this phenomena. It also seemed apparent some type of proof may be almost a necessity.

So we started in, the dog & I, howling, screaming, blabbering until scores of tiny frozen words, yelps & shrieks hung suspended about us. Then ever so carefully I gathered them up into a large day pack.

Now where to take them? I would need a person of some respect in the community, someone fairly stable, someone near-by.  

Only one man fit that bill, near-by I mean, John Biro, self appointed Sheriff & mayor of Lake Irwin Township.

We dashed to Mayor Biros cabin & burst into the front room.

A fire blazed in his stove, the good sheriff was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly a howl emitted from my pack, then another....IT WAS TOO HOT, THE WORDS WERE THAWING OUT!!!

A shriek, unintelligible babble, yelps, howls, curses now rang loudly from the pack. Then seconds later silence.....

Biro was coming down the stairs, tying on a short, frilly, fur-lined number....

"WHAT'S THE RACKET??? He was screaming.

"Nice!" I complemented his evening wear.....

"Thanks." said Biro, "Frederick's Of Sawpit....winter collection...

"Your honor, quick!!" I steered him onto the front porch threw my head back & let out a mighty howl.

The howl didn't freeze, but echoed merrily down the valley. It had warmed up just enough...words were no longer freezing.

Sheriff Biro stood there in his fur lined teddy, tin star drooping from a padded breast,  looking at my as if I were crazy.

And ya know what? To this day people still don't believe this story.

But I'm telling ya....it was a very cold night.

     

                                   The End