La noche de los santos mexicanos

The New York Thruway on Boxing Day, or as it is properly called elsewhere, St. Stephen’s Day.

The snow hit at about 4 in the afternoon. The traffic slowed. 60, 50, 30, then 15 miles an hour. By five it was dark, so at least the whiteout could no longer be seen. The cars crept along, following each other’s tread marks in the mounting piles of snow. 5 miles an hour. Next Exit: 8 miles.

Then we stopped.

After a while people got out of their cars to see what the hold-up was. The ghostly blinking of red brake lights far ahead, the howling wind, the driving snow. Aside from the garishly lit three lanes of our southbound expressway, with its hundreds of headlights forming a ribbon of intermittent brilliance, all around was blackness. There was no way of knowing what had happened.

An hour passed.

Every ten minutes or so you had to get out of your car and wipe away the snow and ice from the windshield and bang the wipers free of frozen slush. Then back in the car, with the heat turned up to full blast on the window, in the futile hope of keeping a clear field of vision.

Another hour.

The radio did and did not help. The AM news stations were too terrifying. Already stories of abandoned cars and stranded travelers were being breathlessly reported. Repeated warnings: stay at home, do not drive. The FM proved a little better. A good reggae show calmed the nerves as the car rocked in the bitter blasts of wind. Then it was over, too soon, followed by some inane talk show. A flip of the dial. Country. No. Oldies. No. Hate radio. No. Christian. Definitely not. A search of the glove compartment yielded a few cds left there by my teenage daughter. What the hell. I slipped one in.

It was now eight o’clock. Off to my right, in the middle lane, a pick-up truck danced crazily, trying to gain some traction. It rocked, fishtailed, but could not advance.

Uh-oh.

I put my car into first. Gently played the clutch and gas pedal. Then went into reverse. Then back to first. Reverse. First. Reverse. First… Nothing.

I was stuck. We had been immobile too long, the snow was too deep.

Outside again to clear the windshield, I could hear over the roar of the wind the high-pitched, mocking whine of wheels spinning uselessly. Dim figures were digging, shoveling, pushing, a long line of ants busy in their desperation.

Back to the warmth and the music. Yes, Avril Lavigne, you have lots of problem, but so do I.

A third hour passed. I closed my eyes. Forget about the damn windshield. I directed the heat to my soaking feet. I dozed. I had a full tank of gas. What, me worry?

A sharp rap to my left. I hit a button. Miraculously, the power window still worked. It slid down all the way, snow cascaded into my lap.

A man was standing there. Fortyish. Short, stocky, with kind eyes.

“Señor. I help. Later.”

Then he was gone.

The torpor vanished. Outside again, to tend to the windshield too long neglected. The scraper struck thick ice. Scrabbling at it bare-handed, pounding the wipers. At last it was clean.

Ahead, at a distance of about ten car lengths, a riot of flashing lights. I trudged up the road to see what it was.

A garbage truck turned tow truck. Turned snow plow.

Yes!

It had grabbed a few tractor trailers from the middle and outside lanes and hauled them to the inside lane, which it had just plowed. They rumbled away, the first forward movement any of us had seen for three hours.

A half-hour later the traffic in the inside lane inched ahead. The middle lane turned into a scramble of determined bedlam, as passengers pushed, dug, pushed, to move the few precious feet onto the cleared lane.

We, in the outside lane, dug and clawed at the snow that had drifted in front of our tires. Escape was twenty very long feet away.

“Señor.”

It was him again. He held out a shovel, looking with amusement at my soaking red Vancouver Olympics mittens.

I dug a notional path for my tires toward the middle lane. Straight, no fancy turns.

The two hundred or so cars in the inside lane had all passed. The middle lane was emptying, slowly.

Another hour. But no one paid any attention to the blizzard now.

At last came our turn. I saw my man two cars up. Must not lose him.

I joined him and another man pushing a grey sedan. Two women finally got out of the back seat to help. Laughter.

“Dominicanas,” my friend explained.

They were off.

The three of us returned to the car ahead of mine, a black BMW. More rapid-fire conversation.

“¿Dominicanos?” I ventured.

“Mexicanos,” came the reply.

My guy and I pushed and pushed. Instructions were shouted. “¡Ahora!” “¡Otro lado!” “¡Atrás!”

The BMW swerved, slid, screamed, then finally found purchase and rolled forward. Across the middle lane and then, at last, onto the inside. It moved off, its red lights disappeared into the night.

There were very few of us left on the road. I turned to my friend.

“¿Tu coche?”

He nodded in the direction behind my car. At a distance of about thirty feet, his white SUV stood athwart the middle lane, ready to roll. He could leave right now.

We looked at each other. He smiled reassuringly.

The man was a saint.

We dug some more. He took the wheel, I pushed. No movement.

The shovels again.

“You guys getting out?”

A state trooper was slowly cruising along the inside lane.

“We need help,” I shouted. “One more man to push!”

“Right,” he said in a friendly manner. Then he drove off.

We turned back to my forlorn Passat. More pushing, grunting, spinning.

Then another person was beside me. The BMW guy!

“I park,” he explained.

Another saint.

The car inched forward ever so slightly.

The first saint got out. The two Mexicans discussed matters for a moment. Apparently, it was decided that the BMW man would drive.

From that moment on, things happened very quickly. The driver was an expert. He rocked the car expertly back and forth, gaining enough momentum to move forward a few feet. We two shoveled in front of him, like sweepers at a curling rink. Then one last push and the car made the cleared lane.

And then kept on going…

It disappeared.

I looked at my friend in alarm. He laughed, waved me forward.

“Go,” he said.

I stumbled through the snow up the road. Whenever there was a break in the line of cars going forward, I jumped into the inside lane and broke into a run.

The wind was still howling, the snow still blinding. Yet running up the New York Thruway in a blizzard at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night seemed a perfectly normal thing to do.

In less than a quarter of a mile, I saw the BMW and the Passat. He had found a clear part of the shoulder and pulled over.

It was my turn to tap at a door. The window of his car slid down to reveal a broad smile.

“Bye,” he said.

Then his car rolled forward and disappeared.

I got back in my car. First gear. I was moving. Second. Then third.

It was over.

All right, Ms. Lavigne, I can listen to your problems now.