Between four and four-thirty this morning the dog went nuts. Beth got up and looked out the window. Two men were standing in the drive. She threw up the sash, opened the storm window, and asked what they wanted.
They had run out of gas.
“Tell them we have none,” I mumbled into my pillow, and the message was relayed. This was not a verifiable truth. There may have been a gallon or so for the lawn mower in the shed. I lay there another five minutes until my conscience got the best of me. I pulled on some clothes, a hat, gloves, a goose down lined coat and I sent the dog out to pee while I started the car.
It was another five minutes before Molly had made her tour of the perimeter, pointed out the abandoned ford pick-up across the road, sniffed up a few trees and made her decision about whether she’s join me in the car. No fool Molly, she went back in the house, as I drove off to the rescue.
Meanwhile the wandering pair had visited the neighbor down the road without much luck. I picked them up as they were trudging back to their truck, empty gas can in hand. It was 4:45AM, it was snowing and the temperature was 14 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. They had no hats, their coats were thin, they were on their way home from a Friday night pub crawl and they’d dressed for style, not for survival. They were running on fumes, they didn’t know my road, but they chose to take it in hopes of getting home before the gas ran out. So there they were, wandering around in dress coats and street shoes before dawn on a freezing snowy morning, rousting irascible old men out of bed in hopes of getting a favor.
I picked them up and drove them into town where they filled their gas can, then I drove them back. I listened to their conversation, turned down the couple of bucks they offered for the lift, turned down the pinch of snuff from the proffered tin, fought down the urge to offer advice on the overuse of cologne, and generally wondered what I was doing in this company at that hour of the morning.
When we got back to their car, I watched to see that they got it started. They succeeded, and with a merry honking designed, I guess, to insure that if Beth had gotten back to sleep she’d be rousted one more time, they were on their way. They’ll have to cook up another act for this year’s entry in the Darwin Awards. Freezing to death on Lalor Road, or any of its variants, isn’t happening for them in 2024. To all my fellow humans, my apologies. These are young men, and their genes remain in the pool.
