I got off the Broad Street Line to do a corporate sound gig at a nameless, litigious four-star hotel in Center City. My happy ass needed to be there by six-thirty AM and the subway dropped me off on time, despite the snowy January weather. One would think that snow wouldn’t disrupt an underground line, but the drivers still need to make it to work.
Only a total moron would be out in that lonely mess that early in the morning. A lawless, isolated, vibe prevailed, the moment right before gunslingers say “draw!” in the Westerns.
My Payless dress shoes slid on the patches of icy sidewalk. This was in the early 2000’s before the proliferation of security cameras, cell phones, and Orwellian Big Brotherly love. So if I fell, it wouldn’t make it to America’s Funniest Home Videos. My thoughts concentrated on two things: coffee and where to obtain it.
As I waited for the light to turn, my eyes wandered across the street and focused onto a big dude carrying a gym bag large enough to carry at least two bodies. Unless the steroid convention was in town, I think he was on his way to Bally’s Total Fitness down the way to either lift weights or install even heavier ones. I looked away and minded my own business, like a good citizen. Soon after, I heard a powdery thunk.
The thunk originated from the impact of snow falling from the rooftop of a building directly onto the back of my man’s beanied head. His hand slid to the back of his head and confirmed the snow on his fingers. His eyes narrowed and trained on me like a rifle scope.
Oh no. He thinks I just pegged him with a snowball!
He changed course and his tan colored steel-tipped Timbs stomped in my direction.
Like Robin Williams on crack, I manically pointed to the roof, reenacting through pantomime the series of events that had brought our lives together that windy morning.
He paused and reflected, but then deemed further inquiry necessary. I was thinking of how I could explain that I don’t set my alarm and put on a suit to throw snowballs at the biggest dude I could find at the ass-crack of dawn. I looked at the icy patches on the sidewalk, preparing to book it. I remembered the crack I heard when I saw a guy get knocked out at Lucky Thirteen for sticking his tongue out at the wrong girlfriend, and didn’t want to hear it again. I’m a runner not a fighter. Feets, don’t fail me now!
One key delineation between journalism and fiction, since truth is stranger than fiction, is the allowance of the forbidden Deus ex machina ending. Considered lazy writing, the god in the machine ending is when either the capital G God or some other god swoops in out of nowhere at the last minute and saves our hero. Like He did that day when His holy breath blew another snow drift off the building, proving my innocence to the advancing behemoth.
When the guy saw the snow land in the same spot, he seemed a bit disappointed at the missed opportunity to stuff me into a trash can, but then went along his merry way while I pretended everything was cool, legs wobbling like Elvis. I expressed gratitude that I had already eliminated before I left my house.
I didn’t need coffee that morning.
Next In Line Magazine 