It Turned So Cold at the End of the World

It turned so cold at the end of the world.

It turned so cold, I heard that West Virginia got its first snowfall of the year, way up on top of the real mountains four hours away, but down here in the foothills it’s just chilly. It’s so chilly that the guinea pig can’t go out in the evening to nibble the grass. The cat who lives on the porch keeps trying to sneak past me to come into the house and warm up every time I open the door. Michael has the night shift at the restaurant, and he has to pack his coat and gloves when he goes to work because it’s been near freezing when he leaves in the pre-dawn hours.

The mad king is going to build a ballroom, for himself and his intimate friends. That’s old news by now. In addition to the ballroom, he just revealed that he remodeled the Lincoln bathroom as well, with mottled white marble that makes it look like snow on an old-fashioned television screen. People want me to be upset about that bathroom, but I just don’t care very much. I was angry when he demolished the East Wing, but I don’t have time to be angry about this. It’s a bathroom.

I don’t have time to be angry, because I’m too busy worrying about my friends.

They don’t know how they’re going to eat this month.

The grandmother of the Baker Street Irregulars keeps trying to give me food. I can’t get through her head that I’m not on food stamps anymore, so the EBT crisis doesn’t directly affect me. We’re still pretty poor but we make a little too much money for food stamps. She has to keep her family eating for the next few weeks, for the next however long this crisis lasts, and she has more mouths to feed than I do. But she doesn’t understand. She can’t not be generous in a crisis. Yesterday she cheerfully handed me a box containing nine pounds of dried pinto beans, two salads and a half pound of blackberries– things from the food pantry that her children weren’t going to go through. “These are hard times and we have to take care of each other!”

I thanked her. It’s too much to try to explain again. All she knows how to do is feed people, so this is what she’s doing now that she’s afraid.

I’ll try and make the pinto beans into something nice for the soup swap this weekend. The soup swap was another neighbor’s idea, though I don’t know if she coined the name or not. It’s sort of like a grab-and-go potluck for the entire neighborhood. Everybody in the neighborhood who can spare any food, is bringing a big pot of their best soup and a canned good to share, and anybody who wants can take a bowl of each of the soups home for the fridge. It’s not going to save anybody’s life, but it’ll be a few warm meals and a way to make friends. Both are good things. I’m trying to count the good things. I can’t afford to feed the neighborhood, but I can make a pot or two of soup.

Twice last week, the mad king was court ordered to use the funds Congress reserved to get people their November food stamps, but he’s refusing to do so. He’s fighting to keep the poor from getting fed unless the Democrats agree to help take away their healthcare. Last night, while all this was happening, he had a luxurious party at his summer palace, Mar-a-Lago, featuring Roaring 20s costumery. There was an ice sculpture with a chute in the middle to cool your drink, and skimpily-clad dancers cavorting on a stage. His wealthy friends danced and ate merrily.

The people I love, my friends and my neighbors, could starve before Christmas.

I was told I’d burn in hell if I voted against the mad king, because the mad king was pro-life.

My other friend, the one in Chicago, sends me photos and videos of the ICE raids. I’m more and more afraid for her children. One of her sons is badly disabled. If an ICE agent grabbed him for being a brown-skinned, bilingual Mexican-American in the wrong place at the wrong time, and shoved him into a van– how could she ever find him again?

My friend has all the courage I lack. She’s strong in the face of all of this. She won’t keep her children home from school. She heckles when she sees the ICE truck.

I looked at the pictures of priests celebrating Mass outside the ICE detention facility again, even though the soldiers are shooting clerics with pepper balls.

It looked as though it was taking place on a foreign planet. Catholic priests in Steubenville don’t act that way. They would never defy a Republican president.

One of the priests was wearing a wool snow hat, because it had turned so cold.

It’s turned so cold and it’s going to get colder.

Jimmy’s boy came over this afternoon, excited to trick-or-treat in his funny alien costume. We went for a walk up and down the alleyways, looking for more lemon balm before it all dies. He was chattering about carving the pumpkin we got on our trip, excited to go hiking at the waterfall with me when I had the time. I promised we’d go soon. I promised I’d take him to the Christmas parade next month, and any other fun activities I could find.

The trick-or-treaters filled the street a little before dark. There were children of all ages, milling from house to house, and cheerful grownups passing out sweets. Jimmy himself brought the boy over in the late evening for candy. He promised to finish those last repairs on my car, so it’s sure to stay roadworthy for years. I promised him we’d pay him every penny we still owe him, and told him to just ask if he needed any help this month, things being what they are. He thanked us, and said “I know yunz are good for the money,” and that he’d see us tomorrow.

Will anyone remember how kind he’s been?

Will anyone remember the grandmother of the Baker Street Irregulars giving me food?

Will they say that my friend in Chicago was brave, and that my friends in Ohio were generous, and that I was sick with worry and tried to cook a sack of beans that somebody else gave me?

When they write the history of this time, will anybody put in a note that in a good-for-nothing corner of Northern Appalachia, in a town too small to be a city and too large to be really rural, there were people who tried to feed each other by pooling their resources and making soup? Or will it only be the cold people will remember– the cold, heartless, wealthy and decadent people who fought to starve the poor and threw a party as the country fell into ruin?

When it’s over, will anyone remember that we were people?

The moon was bright, and then a pall of clouds rolled in. It turned so cold, I had to turn up the furnace before I went to bed.

And it was night.