The Blizzard: Fiction

By the time the final flurry had fallen, a towering twenty-three inches of snow blanketed the city of Providence in a vast sea of white. The winter of 2005 came a close second to the state’s largest blizzard. The only past occurrence even comparable was the blizzard of ‘78, when a record-breaking twenty-eight inches had fallen, bringing all of Rhode Island to a screeching halt. On the day it started, Leo had signed out his taxi at 6pm for another 12-hour shift. It was a Saturday evening, and the weathermen were unanimous in their pleas, “Stay home!” The transition from light flurries to a deluge of fat flakes happened within minutes. Leo thought nothing of it. This was not his first snowstorm cruising for fares.

Nights like this could be a huge money-maker: people rushing to get home, last minute grocery store runs, and even some of the most resilient of the bar crowd venturing out. What he didn’t account for, and what few did, was how persistent the snowfall was, and how quickly it began to accumulate. An hour into his shift, Leo could hear all six of his fellow drivers knock off for the night via the two-way radio clamped to his center console. He chose to stay on. By the time the sun set, the world ceased to exist, it seemed. All other traffic disappeared and pedestrians were nowhere in sight. Leo shared the city streets with the occasional police car or snow plow, but nobody else.

Maneuvering the bright yellow Chevy Caprice was slow going. He hovered around the downtown area, tires trudging along slowly. Orange street lights reflected off of the glaring white surroundings, projecting a warm glow that betrayed the bitter cold. He did a lap around Providence Place, hoping to spot a potential fare, but even the mall was totally dark, having shut down early. He cruised by the major hotels: the Biltmore, the Westin, the Marriott, with no luck. The Kennedy Plaza bus depot was dim and desolate as well.

He was considering giving up for the night until he circled the train station in the shadow of the ornate State House, lit up blue for winter. At the rear of the station, amid a sea of flailing flurries, a silhouette of a huddled mass caught his eye. Immediately, he slowed to a stop to ensure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. It was human-like at first glance, he was sure of it. Leo slid the driver’s side window down and leaned out, peering into a virtual wall of soft spastic snowfall. A violent gust of freezing wind hit him head on. How could any living thing be out here, he wondered.

They had somehow perched themselves over a heating vent that spewed steam from the train track tunnels beneath the station. It was the one warm spot in an otherwise icy wasteland, and they had found it. Leo instinctively pulled up as close as he could get to what looked like a loading dock area. His headlights bathed the figure in a harsh glare and he was able to make out a middle-aged, dark-skinned man under the layers of tattered clothing.

Leo shifted into park and stepped out. The high winds were piercing; the snow already reached up to his knees. “Hey,” he shouted with a wave. “Come here!”

The man looked up. His expression was void of any emotion. His bronze skin had a soft bluish hue in spots where hypothermia was already setting in.

“You’ve got to get out of the cold for a while! That spot won’t last you all night. Hop in for a minute. It’s warm.”

While there was no hesitation in his amble to the sanctuary on wheels, there was also no real sense of surprise. It was as if he had been half hoping for some sort of refuge. He slid into the backseat alongside his single backpack. Leo guided the taxi back onto the snowed-in side streets of downcity. He turned the heat on full blast and heard a relieved exhale, long and slow from behind him. He took a moment to study the weathered face in the rearview. It bore smile lines and wrinkles in equal amounts. “My name is Leo,” he offered.

“I am Roger.” He pulled his hood down to reveal a glistening bald head. They sized each other up for a moment, as if to confirm that neither was a threat to the other, that each was safe.

“I want to thank you for stopping for me,” Roger continued, suddenly in awe of where he had found himself. The gratitude was palpable in his inflection. And for a while all they did was drive, just like that, inching across the city at a snail’s pace.

They listened to an all-night jazz station and somehow ended up parked by the water at India Point. There was an unspoken communication between them. Leo never turned on the meter, or made mention of money. Nor did he prod with questions on how one could find themselves in such a dangerous spot during a blizzard, or even homeless to begin with. It was not his place to ask, only to offer temporary escape. It was understood that he would be getting no fares this evening, and quite frankly shouldn’t even be out. But he would stay out until his 6am end of shift, at least until the shelters were open again for Roger.

They shared a lunch of whatever they had between them. Leo had brought a turkey sandwich that was split in half and a still-warm thermos of coffee. Roger had a sleeve of Oreos and potato chips. They nibbled in silence; no words were necessary. Outside the cozy confines of the warm Yellow Cab, the wind wailed and ice crystals crackled against the glass. Oozing out of the radio speakers, Miles Davis leaned into a mean trumpet solo, while far off the waters of India Point lie eerily still in a maelstrom of falling white flakes. •

Photo taken by author.