The angels and elves had stirred up trouble again.
It was snowing in San Antonio, coming down hard. It blanketed highways and backroads, downtown and even the two acres of dirt south of Broadway that would soon become another shopping center. I wondered how many more poor people that would push further south. I wondered how many of them would be alive by next Christmas.
A 500-year event, the weatherman said. But people here will tell you—just ask them—they remember January 1985 like yesterday; kids sledding in driveways, young men firing snowballs at their crushes, snowmen bumming rides on the backs of pickup trucks, dogs licking up melt across from the Alamo.
I looked outside the fingerprinted window at Whataburger and thought, You’re somewhere else. Then the same old strain on my neck.
The migraine was coming.
I sipped coffee and flipped another page of my book, Sam Shepard’s final novel, Spy of the First Person. He’d died back in July. ALS. Didn’t tell nobody. Death is like that sometimes.
The book, my first by the steely-eyed actor-author who would act and write no longer, was on top of my notes. I could barely stand them anymore.
I read because my daughter loved to read, and she read because her daddy did so. Who was modeling who?
“Last Christmas” blasted from somebody’s phone. My mind drifted back to the start.
This too shall pass, I thought. This too shall last.
Flash.
They killed him, the blind man who ran the ramshackle shelter on Zarzamora. Shot both his useless eyes out, stole his wallet, Rolex, a couple cheap paintings and a few bags of donations. Used clothes. They left him like a piece of trash. I told myself a long time ago I should’ve went into journalism. As if that would’ve been any brighter.
The blind man was a widower, a pastor. He ran his shelter with his daughter for ten years. Good man, she called him. They handed out little green New Testament Bibles to addicts, pampers to single mothers. They were usually one in the same. Kids.
My guess is it was a jealous boyfriend, a baby-daddy who was Blood or MS-13. But that hardly made sense because the blind man, Mr. Reyes, dead on arrival, was in his seventies, no record. His daughter was divorced, college educated, also no record. She was tore up when she said who could do something like this. And why? I was embarrassed to admit I asked myself the same things—asked myself the same things every day.
I checked my watch. Five till ten. Time to head home. Good thing since the words on the page had become just words on a page. Once the migraine hit, I’d be out of commission.
I gathered my notes and downed the rest of my coffee, which gave me a shot of nausea and goodwill. I was two or three steps outside Whataburger when I looked back and saw an old man and an old woman slowly approaching the door. They were tiny, barely five feet tall, barely could walk. She was the one holding him up.
“Allow me,” I said, holding open the door.
They looked up at me with trepidation, then worn-out smiles.
“Thank you very much,” said the woman.
“You’re very kind,” said the man. “Good people here in San Antone.”
I nodded and thought, If only you knew I missed my daughter’s birth, that I dream about having been there to cut her cord.
When I think about her infancy, I see her fingernails, small and lovely, insanely delicate in design. It blows my mind not enough parents relay this to their children.
Walking back to my truck, the snow crunched under my boots like cockroaches. I felt my hair getting wet. A 500-year event, they said. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I started my truck, put my palms against the air vents blowing heat.
Where I was parked, the highway—410—appeared as a giant gray serpent jutting out from the ground. From hell. My mind had long thought weird like this. The shrink said that was okay. People are the weirdest creatures of all.
Staring at the tall highway, which looked like an ungodly roller coaster, I remembered where I was headed. I let my hands warm up some more and then put my truck in Drive. I checked my phone. A few missed calls from the station, a text from Karina from her mother’s phone.
Daddy it’s snowing!!! I miss you.
She was with her mom this week, probably next week, too.
Miss you too, princess.
I drove through the flurry and thought, You’re somewhere else. Then I asked myself at some point, “Will you be pushed further south too?”
“Way down south,” I answered. “Way way down.” The shrink said it was also okay to answer your own questions. People are very, very weird.
Before the migraine knocked me out—it was starting to squeeze the back of my eyes—I was sure I was in Chicago, or Detroit, or New York. Yeah, I was in New York, where the snow and the dead piled as high as the Empire State Building. “Let them live,” I heard the green woman called Lady Liberty say. “Let them die—I don’t give a shit.” My mind was talking crazy again. Good thing I was almost home.
What I want you to know about the night it snowed in San Antone, December 2017, is how the snowflakes shined like pale diamonds in the streetlights. God, so gorgeous. The kids would remember it for the rest of their lives. Tell their kids and their grandkids. They’d pray from the pews for another night like it. Maybe our Lord and Savior would listen. A 500-year event, they said.
The next day, by noon, all the snow was gone. The dead blind man greeted me at my desk bright and early. His files were there with the others, getting cold. Colder.
I remember thinking with a lingering migraine pinching my eyes, Before I’m done here—before I’m pushed way down south—I’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll find the answers, the angels and elves will throw me a bone. I’ll make Mr. Reyes’ sad daughter proud. I’ll make my own daughter proud. I’ll stick around for the next big snowstorm, Karina in my arms, enjoying the snow globe all around us, two children singing.