Dixieland Freeze (A Christmas Story), Part One

PART ONE: THE ICE STORM

The storm hit on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. The snow turned to rain and the rain turned to ice, covering the sidewalks and roads, collecting on wires, limbs and branches. From behind an open window in the comfort of a warm living room, the beauty was breathtaking.

It sounded like a war zone that first night. The sudden freeze compressed metal, glass and wood, causing transformers to explode like mortars. Electrical wires and water pipes snapped, branches cracked and whole trees lost their grounding.

The initial aesthetic of a winter wonderland was lost in the grim vision of the morning after. The roads were impassable, power was down and panic was gripping the city. The rush to get supplies, food and water was on. Vehicles of every description were abandoned on the roadside, in bogs and ditches, and the usual criminal element was in action, stealing anything that was left unguarded.

That was six weeks ago, before the ice returned to snow and the snow kept falling and falling and falling. I was in the city when the storm hit, consuming my sorrow in a sea of Christmas spirits, toasting my newfound liberty. My divorce was final. I was officially alone – except for the dogs. All I could think about was getting home.

Nashville was ill equipped for snow, no less an ice storm. There were not enough salt trucks, not enough plows, and not enough experience in emergency management. I had to get home while I still could.

Home was in the country ten miles out of town. Looking back, in my little Mercury without chains, it was a borderline miracle I made it. Now, five feet of snow later, I wondered if I made the right choice. In town, at least there was a relief effort and others to share the burden. Then again, I had the dogs to think about.

The outdoor dogs, one resembling a wolf and the other the lone survivor of a litter of three, might have been able to get by but Sadie, a border collie mix with the spirit of a champion, would have been trapped inside. All had suffered some degree of abandonment. It was a common bond and I was determined it would not happen again.

There was no means of communication – no link to the outside world. It was a time for introspection, a time for contemplating the direction of my life, a time to acknowledge failures and rediscover success. It was not a time for delusions or mindless amusement. It was pointless to muse without someone to be amused.

The neighbors were of little value. They stopped by several times in the early going with the latest reports they gleaned from a battery-powered radio: endless theories on global climate change and dire predictions of a new ice age. Scientists were scrambling for explanations to the suddenness of change and its worldwide scope: A tilt in the planet’s axis, a cosmic radiation storm, solar flares, an interaction of industrial pollutants and extraterrestrial elements. As the days wore on, the explanations grew incomprehensible and all but irrelevant. The reports always seemed to end with: We just don’t know.

A back-to-earth couple a little older than me, the neighbors were making plans. In the beginning, it was all about unity and survival in a frozen wilderness but when the chill of reality set in and the prospect of a made-for-TV movie dimmed, they got out while there was still time. They were heading south but beyond that, they had not decided on a destination.

I might have gone with them but I had the dogs to think about and a vision of being stranded somewhere in a sea of snow with no one to hunker down with but them. They were good people, generous and kind enough, but they brought with them a strange mix of Tennessee country and new age communalism. They perceived themselves as some brand of spiritual leaders and I was not of a mind to follow.

In a gesture of goodwill that seemed melodramatic at the time, they left me a .22 rifle, a box of bullets and a couple boxes of canned goods. I was modestly grateful and as the snow continued to fall with each passing day, my sense of gratitude deepened.

The last word I got came from a sheriff on a snowmobile. He said looters had cleaned out all the stores in the city and marauders were beginning to roam the countryside. He asked if I had a gun and left the impression I might have to use it. He told me the law was breaking down, the officers and soldiers disbanding and heading home. When he departed, I had the distinct feeling he would not be back.

A week passed and all was quiet. The sound of a new ice age, it seemed, was silence. It was broken by the crack and thud of falling tree limbs, the howl and yap of prowling dogs abandoned by their caretakers, the whispering wind, the screaming wind and the occasional burst of gunshots.

Every episode of sound was an event that marked the passing of time. In the spaces between, I became aware of how dependent my sense of life was on the constant presence of sound: the hum of electricity, the drone of a refrigerator, the chatter of television, music on a radio, and the measured rhythm of traffic – even on a country road.

I came to realize what silence meant to me – or at least what it had meant before the freeze: Silence was death.

This was a new breed of silence, however, and it required a new definition. How long would it be before I heard the heartbeat of nature, the song of the forest, the rhythmic balance of heaven and earth? How long would it be before I sensed the force of my own being in a world that had always been indifferent? My whole life had been dependent on the perceptions of others – interpersonal relations, data transference, digital transactions, all the artificial creations of the mind, separate and distinct from the world in which I lived.

This was not just an environmental catastrophe. It was an opportunity for self-discovery. It was a chance to find out who we are and why we exist. The meaning of life had long seemed an adolescent exercise, a ritual of aging, a futile pursuit, but now it seemed the only pursuit worthwhile.

It was a world of constant wonder, perpetually transforming itself from one set of rules to another, spawning revelation after revelation, none outliving the moment.

Survival is a powerful instinct. When it comes to the fore, all else subsides. Art and philosophy, defining forces in a civilized world, are confined to idle thought. Time ceases to function on an even continuum. Past and future recede as the moment is dominated by the need for food and shelter.

Dogs were gathering in packs. People were running short of food and letting their dogs fend for themselves. They roamed the countryside, scavenging for scraps in garbage cans and dumps, fighting off rivals to protect territories, hunting for rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons and larger prey. The sound of a big kill filled the cold, silent air with horror for miles around.

Gunfire was becoming more frequent. Occasionally, the sound of shots was coupled with the yelp of a dog, telling a tale of the unspeakable and the unimaginable to come. People were now competing with their former companions on the hunt. How long would it be before the companion became the hunted?

I remembered the story of the Donner Party – a tale of desperation and cannibalism – that sent shivers down my spine as a child. I wondered, gazing at my little dog Sadie, if it would come down to that final, dehumanizing act. Better to die, I thought. Better to die and be eaten than to live as a beast. Even a beast will not consume its own kind.

Nearly everyone in the country had dogs and guns. It was not a comforting thought.

Taking stock of my supplies, it was not time to panic. With careful planning, I had enough canned goods to last the winter. Under a spell of paranoia, I buried half under the snow out back – just in case anyone came calling.

It was inevitable. When people ran out of food, they would come with open hands. They would come with guns. They would come with hungry children and grandparents.

What would I do when they came? How could I turn down a neighbor in need? If I welcomed them, how much would they require? How many more would come? How long before there was nothing left?

I had not shot a gun since I was teenager. I shot a jay with a pellet gun and swore I would never shoot at a living thing again. I had kept that promise but now it seemed the world had changed. I could not have envisioned a time when survival might depend on killing.

I began to obsess on the sheriff’s story of marauders. I made a plan. I buried all but a few cans of food. If intruders came, I would head out the back and up the hill to a spot I had cleared with a good view of the house and the road. They would take the few cans of food and leave – or so I hoped. If they didn’t, I would fire a warning shot. If that didn’t work, I would cover the chimney with a wet cloth and smoke them out.

It was my home and a man has a right to defend his home.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOSTDANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS) AND THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS). SEE RANDOM JACK: WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.