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Red's Christmas
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17174 |
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LIFE
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| Issue
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12 / 1990 |
3,807 Words |
| Author
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James Randall
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Jets of flame bursting above the oil tanks illuminated the creeping geometry of elevated piping systems flanking the New Jersey Turnpike. Like other travelers that cold Christmas Eve, we had to run the gauntlet of this petroleum-age inferno to pass around New York City en route to a family Christmas on Long Island.
The kids had long since exhausted their mother's patience. All three of them - Nancy Louise (nine), Margaret Ann (eight), and Amy Elida (seven) - had lost interest in the passing nonscenery and had begun punching each other.
I was peering out the window into the deepening gloom ahead. Behind me, the great copper disk of the dying sun poised momentarily between the airport's tarmac horizon and the gray snow clouds beating in from the west before vanishing behind the horizon.
A state trooper's cruiser drifted up on my left, tilting hard on his left wheels. I tapped the brakes slightly, a conditioned reflex. My brake tapping caused a silent, ominous pull to the right.
Twilights would be brief, and there surely would be snow before morning. "No place to get stuck," I muttered, thinking of the desperate straits a motorist might find himself in with a disabled car on Christmas Eve on the outskirts of Newark.
I tapped the brakes a second time. Same slight pull to the right. My dozing kids and my distracted wife seemed to come alive all at once. "Is something wrong, Daddy?"
I moved into the fast lane and accelerated. The pull didn't go away. I tapped a third time and got the same result.
"A flat, maybe?" I mused, as I coasted to a stop on a stretch of straight shoulder. Northbound traffic whizzed by on the left, not six feet away. "Everyone sit tight, don't move," I said, opening my door ever so slightly.
I had to move quickly. The oncoming traffic was hurtling past at an unmerciful speed, seemingly trying to tear the door off. As I struggled to my feet, I looked south, right into the teeth of a belching behemoth of an eighteen-wheeler. I saw the driver's right arm reach for the Klaxon lever and a second later heard its nerve-shattering blast. Turning away from the rush of cold, winter air, I slammed the door shut, covering my eyes with both hands.
I opened my eyes. The kids were all looking at me wide-eyed and unblinking. Dorothy had her face buried in her hands. The only sign of my erstwhile tormentor was his winking taillights, fading into the twilight. I circled around the rear of the car, the blinking my trousers a bright holiday red, and came abreast of Dorothy's window. "Crank it down," I gestured.
Looking steadily at Dorothy, I managed an insincere smile for the kinds. All that I held dear in this world was crowded together in the front seat, watching my every move. After all, I was supposed to be the head of the family. But at that precise moment, I had no idea what was wrong and had no idea what to do about it.
Two Glaring
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