A Lot Like Christmas: Stories

  He led the way over to the interstate, being careful to signal lane changes and not to get too far ahead, so B.T. wouldn’t think he was trying to escape.

  The carnival must have stayed the night in Zion Center, too. He passed a truck carrying the Tilt-A-Whirl and one full of stacked, slanted mirrors for, Mel assumed, the Hall of Mirrors. A Blazer roared past him with the bumper sticker “When the Rapture comes, I’m outta here!”

  As soon as Mel was on the interstate, he turned on the radio. “…and snow-packed. Partly cloudy becoming clear by midmorning. Interstate 80 between Victor and Davenport is closed, also U.S. 35 and State Highway 218. Partly cloudy skies, clearing by midmorning. The following schools are closed: Edgewater, Bennett, Olathe, Oskaloosa, Vinton, Shellsburg….”

  Mel twisted the knob.

  “…but the Second Coming is not something we believers have to be afraid of,” the evangelist, this one with a Texas accent, said, “for the Book of Revelation tells us that Christ will protect us from the final tribulation, and when He comes to power we will dwell with Him in His Holy City, which shines with jewels and precious stones, and we will drink from living fountains of water. The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and there…be…more—”

  The evangelist sputtered into static and then out of range, which was just as well because Mel was heading into fog and needed to give his whole attention to his driving.

  The fog got worse, descending like a smothering blanket. Mel turned on his lights. They didn’t help at all, but Mel hoped B.T. would be able to see his taillights the way Cassie had. He couldn’t see anything beyond a few yards in front of him. And if he had wanted a sign of his mental state, this was certainly appropriate.

  “God has told us His will in no uncertain terms,” the radio evangelist thundered, coming suddenly back into range. “There can’t be any question about it.”

  But he had dozens of questions. There had been no Megiddo on the map of Nebraska last night. Or of Kansas or Colorado or New Mexico, and nothing in all the prophecies about location except a reference to the New Jerusalem, and there was no New Jerusalem on the map either.

  “And how do I know the Second Coming is at hand?” the evangelist roared, suddenly back in range. “Because the Bible tells us so. It tells us how He is coming and when!”

  And that wasn’t true, either. “Ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh,” Matthew had written, and Luke, “The Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not,” and even Revelation, “I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come.” It was the only thing they were all agreed on.

  “The signs are all around us,” the evangelist shouted. “They’re as plain as the nose on your face! Air pollution, liberals outlawing school prayer, wickedness! Why, anybody’d have to be blind not to recognize them! Open your eyes and see!”

  “All I see is fog,” Mel said, turning on the defrost and wiping his sleeve across the windshield, but it wasn’t the windshield. It was the world, which had vanished completely in the whiteness.

  He nearly missed the turnoff to Redfield. Luckily, the fog was less dense in town, and they were able to find not only the rental car place, but the local Tastee Freez. Mel went over to get some lunch to take with them while B.T. checked the car in.

  It was full of farmers, all talking about the weather. “Damned meter-ologists,” one of them, red-faced and wearing a John Deere cap and earmuffs, grumbled. “Said it was supposed to be clear.”

  “It is clear,” another one in a down vest said. “He just didn’t say where. You get up above that fog, say thirty thousand feet, and it’s clear as a bell.”

  “Number six,” the woman behind the counter called.

  Mel went up to the counter and paid. There was a fluorescent green poster for the carnival taped up on the wall beside the counter. “Come have the time of your life!” it read. “Thrills, chills, excitement!”

  Chills is right, Mel thought, thinking of how cold being up in a Ferris wheel in this fog would be.

  It was an old sign. “Littletown, Dec. 24,” it read. “Ft. Dodge, Dec. 28. Cairo, Dec. 30.”

  B.T. was already in the car when Mel got back with their hamburgers and coffee. He handed him the sack and got back on the highway.

  That was a mistake. The fog was so thick he couldn’t even take a hand off the wheel to hold the hamburger B.T. offered him. “I’ll eat it later,” he said, leaning forward and squinting as if that would make things clearer. “You go ahead and eat, and we’ll switch places in a couple of exits.”

  But there were no exits, or Mel couldn’t see them in the fog, and after twenty miles of it, he had B.T. hand him his coffee, now stone cold, and took a couple of sips.

  “I’ve been looking at the Second Coming scientifically,” B.T. said. “ ‘A great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea and the third part of the sea became blood.’ ”

  Mel glanced over. B.T. was reading from a black leather Bible. “Where’d you get that?” he asked.

  “It was in the hotel room,” B.T. said.

  “You stole a Gideon Bible?” Mel said.

  “They put them there for people who need them. And I’d say we qualify. ‘There was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood. And the stars of heaven fell into the earth. And every mountain and island were moved out of their places.’

  “All these things are supposed to happen along with the Second Coming,” B.T. said. “Earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, locusts.” He leafed through the flimsy pages. “ ‘And there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth.’ ”

  He shut the Bible. “All right, earthquakes happen all the time, and there have been wars and rumors of wars for the last ten thousand years, and I guess this—‘and the stars shall fall from the sky’—could refer to meteors. But there’s no sign of any of these other things. No locusts, no bottomless pit opening up, no ‘third part of trees and grass were burnt up and a third part of the creatures which were in the sea died.’ ”

  “Nuclear war,” Mel said.

  “What?”

  “According to the evangelists, that’s supposed to refer to nuclear war,” Mel said. “And before that, to the Communist threat. Or fluoridation of water. Or anything else they disapprove of.”

  “Well, whatever it stands for, no bottomless pit has opened up lately or we would have seen it on CNN. And volcanoes don’t cause locust swarms. Mel,” he said seriously, “let’s say your experience was a real epiphany. Couldn’t you have misinterpreted what it meant?”

  And for a split second, Mel almost had it. The key to where He was and what was going to happen. The key to all of it.

  “Couldn’t it have been about something else?” B.T. said. “Something besides the Second Coming?”

  No, Mel thought, trying to hang on to the insight, it was the Second Coming, but—it was gone. Whatever it was, he’d lost it.

  He stared blindly ahead at the fog, trying to remember what had triggered it. B.T. had said, “Couldn’t you have misunderstood what it meant?” No, that wasn’t right. “Couldn’t you—”

  “What is it?” B.T. was pointing through the windshield.“What is that? Up ahead?”

  “I don’t see anything,” Mel said, straining ahead. He couldn’t see anything but fog. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw a glimpse of lights.”

  “Are you sure?” Mel said. There was nothing there but whiteness.

  “There it is again,” B.T. said, pointing. “Didn’t you see it? Yellow flashing lights. There must be an accident. You’d better slow down.”

  Mel was already barely creeping along, but he slowed further, still unable to see anything. “Was it on our side of the highway?”

  “Yes…I don’t know,” B.T. said, leaning forward. “I don’t see it n
ow. But I’m sure it was there.”

  Mel crawled forward, squinting into the whiteness. “Could it have been a truck? The carnival truck had a yellow arrow,” he said, and saw the lights.

  And they were definitely not a sign for a carnival ride. They filled the road just ahead, flashing yellow and red and blue, all out of synch with each other. Police cars or fire trucks or ambulances. Definitely an accident. He pumped the brakes, hoping whoever was behind him could see his taillights, and slowed to a stop.

  A patrolman appeared out of the fog, holding up his hand in the sign for “stop.” He was wearing a yellow poncho and a clear plastic cover over his brown hat.

  Mel rolled his window down, and the patrolman leaned in to talk to them. “Road up ahead’s closed. You need to get off at this exit.”

  “Exit?” Mel said, looking to the right. He could just make out a green outline in the fog.

  “It’s right there, up about a hundred yards,” the patrolman said, pointing into nothingness. “We’ll come tell you when it’s open again.”

  “Are you closing it because of the weather?” B.T. asked.

  The patrolman shook his head. “Accident,” he said. “Big mess. It’ll be a while.” He motioned them off to the right.

  Mel felt his way to the exit and off the highway. At least it had a truck stop instead of just a gas station. He and B.T. parked and went into the restaurant.

  It was jammed. Every booth, every seat at the counter was full. Mel and B.T. sat down at the last unoccupied table, and it immediately became clear why it had been unoccupied. The draft when the door opened made B.T., who had just taken his coat off, put it back on and then zip it up.

  Mel had expected everyone to be angry about the delay, but the waitresses and customers all seemed to be in a holiday mood. Truckers leaned across the backs of the booths to talk to each other, laughing, and the waitresses, carrying pots of coffee, were smiling. One of them had, inexplicably, a plastic Kewpie doll stuck in her beehive hairdo.

  The door opened again, sending an Arctic blast across their table, and a paramedic came in and went up to the counter to talk to the waitress. “…accident…” Mel heard him say, shaking his head, “…carnival truck…”

  Mel went over. “Excuse me,” he said. “I heard you say something about a carnival truck. Is that what had the accident?”

  “Disaster is more like it,” the paramedic said, shaking his head. “Took a turn too sharp and lost his whole load. And don’t ask me what a carnival’s doing up here in the middle of winter.”

  “Was the driver hurt?” Mel asked anxiously.

  “Hurt? Hell, no. Not a scratch. But that road’s going to be closed the rest of the day.” He pulled a bamboo Chinese finger trap out of his pocket and handed it to Mel. “Truck was carrying all the prizes and stuff for the midway. The whole road’s covered in stuffed animals and baseballs. And you can’t even see to clean ’em up.”

  Mel went back to the table and told B.T. what had happened.

  “We could go south and pick up Highway 33,” B.T. said, consulting the road atlas.

  “No, you can’t,” the waitress, appearing with two pots of coffee, said. “It’s closed. Fog. So’s 15 north.” She poured coffee into their cups. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  The draft hit them again, and the waitress glanced over at the door. “Hey! Don’t just stand there—shut the door!”

  Mel looked toward the door. Cassie was standing there, wearing a bulky orange sweater that made her look even rounder, and scanning the restaurant for an empty booth. She was carrying a red dinosaur under one arm and her bright green tote bag over the other.

  “Cassie!” Mel called to her, and she smiled and came over.

  “Put your dinosaur down and join us,” B.T. said.

  “It’s not a dinosaur,” she said, setting it on the table. “It’s a dragon. See?” she said, pointing to two pieces of red felt on its back. “Wings.”

  “Where’d you get it?” Mel said.

  “The driver of the truck that spilled them gave it to me,” she said. “I’d better call my sister before she hears about this on the news,” she said, looking around the restaurant. “Do you think the phones are working?”

  B.T. pointed at a sign that said “Phones,” and she left.

  She was back instantly. “There’s a line,” she said, and sat down. The waitress came by again with coffee and menus, and they ordered pie, and then Cassie went to check the phones again.

  “There’s still a line,” she said, coming back. “My sister will have a fit when she hears about this. She already thinks I’m crazy. And out there in that fog today I thought so, too. I wish my grandmother had never looked up verses in the Bible.”

  “The Bible?” Mel said.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s a long story.”

  “We seem to have plenty of time,” B.T. said.

  “Well,” she said, settling herself. “I’m an English teacher—was an English teacher—and the school board offered this early-retirement bonus that was too good to turn down, so I retired in June, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I’d always wanted to travel, but I hate traveling alone, and I didn’t know where I wanted to go. So I got on the sub list—our district has a terrible time getting subs, and there’s been all this flu.”

  It is going to be a long story, Mel thought. He picked up the finger trap and idly stuck his finger into one end. B.T. leaned back in his chair.

  “Well, anyway, I was subbing for Carla Sewell, who teaches sophomore lit, Julius Caesar, and I couldn’t remember the speech about our fate being in the stars, dear Brutus.”

  Mel stuck a forefinger into the other side of the finger trap.

  “So I was looking it up, but I read the page number wrong, so when I looked it up, it wasn’t Julius Caesar, it was Twelfth Night.”

  Mel stretched the finger trap experimentally. It tightened on his fingers.

  “ ‘Westward ho!’ it said,” Cassie said, “and sitting there, reading it, I had this epiphany.”

  “Epiphany?” Mel said, yanking his fingers apart.

  “Epiphany?” B.T. said.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “I keep thinking I’m still an English teacher. ‘Epiphany’ is a literary term for a revelation, a sudden understanding, like in James Joyce’s The Dubliners. The word comes from—”

  “The story of the wise men,” Mel said.

  “Yes,” she said delightedly, and Mel half expected her to announce that he had gotten an A. “ ‘Epiphany’ is the word for their arrival at the manger.”

  And there it was again. The feeling that he knew where Christ was. The wise men’s arrival at the manger. James Joyce.

  “When I read the words ‘Westward ho!’ ” Cassie was saying, “I thought, that means me. I have to go west. Something important is going to happen.” She looked from one to the other. “You probably think I’m crazy, doing something because of a line in Bartlett’s Quotations. But whenever my grandmother had an important decision to make, she used to close her eyes and open her Bible and point at a Scripture, and when she opened her eyes, whatever the Scripture said to do, she’d do it. And, after all, Bartlett’s is the Bible of English teachers. So I tried it. I closed the book and my eyes and picked a quotation at random, and it said, ‘Come, my friends, ’tis not too late to seek a newer world.’ ”

  “Tennyson,” Mel said.

  She nodded. “So here I am.”

  “And has something important happened?” B.T. asked.

  “Not yet,” she said, sounding completely unconcerned. “But it’s going to happen soon—I’m sure of it. And in the meantime, I’m seeing all these wonderful sights. I went to Gene Stratton-Porter’s cabin in Geneva, and the house where Mark Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, and Sherwood Anderson’s museum.”

  She looked at Mel. “Struggling against it doesn’t work,” she said, pushing her index fingers together, and Mel realized he was struggling vainly to free
his fingers from the finger trap. “You have to push them together.”

  There was a blast of icy air and a patrolman wearing three pink plastic leis around his neck and carrying a spotted plush leopard came in.

  “Road’s open,” he said, and there was a general scramble for coats. “It’s still real foggy out there,” he said, raising his voice, “so don’t get carried away.”

  Mel freed himself from the finger trap and helped Cassie into her coat while B.T. paid the bill. “Do you want to follow us?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “I’m going to try to call my sister again, and if she’s heard about this accident, it’ll take forever. You go on.”

  B.T. came back from paying, and they went out to the car, which had acquired a thin, rock-hard coating of ice. Mel, chipping at the windshield with the scraper, started a new offshoot in the rapidly spreading crack.

  They got back on the interstate. The fog was thicker than ever. Mel peered through it, looking at objects dimly visible at the sides of the road. The debris from the accident—baseballs and plastic leis and Coke bottles. Stuffed animals and Kewpie dolls littered the median, looking in the fog like the casualties of some great battle.

  “I suppose you consider this the sign you were looking for,” B.T. said.

  “What?” Mel said.

  “Cassie’s so-called epiphany. You can read anything you want into random quotations,” B.T. said. “You realize that, don’t you? It’s like reading your horoscope. Or a fortune cookie.”

  “The Devil can quote Scripture to his own ends,” Mel murmured.

  “Exactly,” B.T. said, opening the Gideon Bible and closing his eyes. “Look,” he said “Psalm 115, verse 5. ‘Eyes have they, but they see not.’ Obviously a reference to the fog.”

  He flipped to another page and stabbed his finger at it. “ ‘Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.’ Oh, dear, we shouldn’t have ordered that pie. You can make them mean anything. And you heard her, she’d retired, she liked to travel, she was obviously looking for an excuse to go somewhere. And her epiphany only said something important was going to happen. It didn’t say a word about the Second Coming.”