The word from the street
TONY
“Feel my hands, both of them. Feel them.”
PHILIP
“Why would you want me to do that?”
TONY
“You’ll see. My left one is colder than the right one. I can hardly move these two fingers. Been that way for months. And when my hands are out in the cold, I can’t move them at all. I gotta see the doc about this, I guess.”
TONY
“I hear you put in the blog the thing I said about Edmonton having a dry cold.”
PHILIP
“Yup. Funny, eh?
TONY
“It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid. I actually kind of liked it when it was really, really cold.”
PHILIP
“Did you hear about Edmonton? Their temperature dropped to -46 degrees [-51 F]. Now that’s cold.”
TONY
“But you gotta remember it’s dry cold. And I know the difference, if you know what I mean.”
PHILIP
“Cold enough for you?”
TONY
“You gotta admit too, I’m tough enough for it. Not many people can say that, if you know what I mean.”
TONY
“You know, I almost got arrested the other night, you know when it was really freezing and there was no electricity?”
PHILIP
“This seems to be an all-too-regular occurrence, if you don’t mind me saying so. I mean the ‘arrested’ part.”
TONY
“Well what can I say.
“Anyway, I found this trailer so I got inside. One of my regulars owns it and I figured he wouldn’t mind even if he knew I was there. I was so damn cold I had to get out of the wind somehow.”
PHILIP
“So how did you nearly get arrested?”
TONY
“Well I had my bike light that I was using for light inside, and then it started flashing and a cop car was cruising by and the cop could see my light flashing from inside the trailer. So of course he comes to investigate and he finds me and gets me out, you know, to question me. So I just tell him the truth, that it was really cold and I didn’t break anything or steal anything. Well he tells me he could charge me with B&E, but he’s not that kind of guy, and besides, he probably would have done the same thing in my situation.”
PHILIP
“Sounds like a pretty decent guy … “
TONY
“No kidding. That’s not even half of it. He has me get in the cruiser with him and we drive to down the Coffee Time but it’s closed just like everything else with the power problems they had. So we find some place that’s open, he buys me a coffee and then he drives me back to Ronces. It was bitter cold out there but at least he went easy on me.”
