Shining Light, Casting Shade

Snow had begun to fall thickly in the evening, covering the city streets, and taxis were looking scarce. The cab companies were answering only with recorded messages. I was considering making my way toward the nearest train station about a mile away, but it was already dark and the sidewalks were crunchy and slippery. Crossing one street was proving to be a challenge, even with my suitcase on wheels. 

I had a very early flight to catch for a funeral across the country and had been in a whirlwind of phone calls, packing, and arranging details. With a bad weather forecast, getting close to the airport the night before was my best chance of making the flight.

At that moment, a small but new red and green taxi came down the lane and I waved at him. He stopped and let out a family who bundled off into the cold, while I bundled into the back seat, perspiring under my long wool coat and scarf. The car was clean and pleasant, the driver, friendly and outgoing.

I told him I was concerned about us making it all the way to the hotel with the conditions the roads were in. He assured me that we would be fine, that he had snow tires and that he would drive slowly. 

We had about a forty-five minute drive and he was in a mood to talk. This seemed to help him to stay alert and to concentrate on his driving. Being able to listen and not say a lot helped me, as I needed to delay grieving and just get to my family. I suppose the driver and I were doing our best to soothe ourselves and each other.

We got a cell phone call from his wife. He didn't answer it, because he had to keep both hands on the wheel. 

I said, "She must be so worried about you being out in this." My family was also texting me regularly to make sure that I was all right, too. But I had the luxury of answering them back. Not connecting with her prompted him to talk about her.

He said, "We have two children, four and two. She also works as a nurse. She works very hard. She is my hero." My smile, if he saw it, kept him going.

Photo still of angel on trapeze from the 1987 film Wings of Desire, 

an example of chiaroscuro n. the treatment of light and shade in drawing, painting and photography

He talked about getting married young, and his friends at college making fun of him for that, saying, "'Dude, no, why are you doing that?' Now, these are the same guys who still go out to these clubs to meet women, and here I am married and have two children. But who are they going to find at those clubs?" As the young and idealistic often are, he was quite pleased with how he had arranged his adult life so far, and I felt happy for him. By contrast, in the days to come, I would be facing a lot of thinking and talking about life and family in the past tense.

The exit ramp from the freeway was slippery, and soon we came upon a wide red car that was sliding off the road backward into the snow. The car in front of us stopped and then two guys got out. Another guy got out from the car behind us. Through the snowfall further ahead, I could see another car that had slid off the road and been abandoned, and the sad heap was getting shrouded in a thick powder.

My driver had his responsibility to his passenger, I suppose, and we stayed inside. As the men pushed and the tires spun, I started to worry that the line of cars slowing to a stop behind us would cause sudden braking and accidents, and we'd all end up on the nightly news from the view of a traffic helicopter above us, shining its floodlight down.

Somehow, the stuck car eased back onto the road, but not before one guy lost his footing as the car lurched forward and he fell hard onto his knees. Fortunately, he didn't seem hurt as he was helped up, and they all jogged quickly back to their cars, breathing out white puffs. Our impromptu parade of people--crazy enough to be out in that weather-- ambled forward.

Once we reached the first intersection, the same wide red car ahead of us began the same futile spin, but this time toward a city bus, coming in the opposite direction, which began to slide toward him. My driver and I made frightened "ah, ah, oh, oh, no!" noises, but the spinning car hit the median and came to a halt safely in the left-hand turn bay. The bus recovered itself and continued, as if it were a great white shark that had suddenly changed its course of attack, veering off.

My driver sat in the middle lane, away from all of that, and moved forward very slowly. I'm not sure if either one of us was breathing at that point. Thankfully, my hotel was only a block away and he escorted me to the lobby entrance, holding my bag. I urged him to call back his wife immediately, to go straight home to his family, and tipped him well. 

He had delivered me to my destination unharmed, made a little extra to take home to his family, and was proud of his job and cab. He had been the knight to my pilgrim, he would be coming in the door as the providing hero to the family he clearly adored. He might also tell them about his adventure, and the brave guys who had helped out the driver of the spinning red car.

Disembarked now into the safe and brightly lit lobby, with its empty armchairs and soft music playing, the sliding doors shut behind me, as if I had entered a remote emergency room during the ungodly hours. I approached the desk to the uniformed clerk behind it. She was watching the taxi drive away and said, "Ugh. I would never ride in one of those things." 

I said, "You mean late at night in a snow storm?" trying to keep it light.

"No," she said. "Just, any of those guys. Ugh." She clenched up the shoulders of her blazer in a fake shudder.

And then I felt everything inside me weaken. I was frustrated that I wanted to say something, but had no energy to say it. I was exhausted, on high alert from all that had happened, and I didn't now have it me to take on race or socio-economic relations. Her prejudice irritated me.

But I didn't see someone bad behind the desk. Just someone who was blocking the light that had arrived in a tiny red and green car and stayed with me through a short but dark passage. Her scrunched face turned back to me was like being jarred by an unexpected pothole.

I couldn't know her reasons for reacting in this way, but I also couldn't wait to get away from her chilly shade.