GK: It's good to be in New York. Our crew left Minnesota Friday morning and a freezing rain was falling, and the pilot taxiied out to the end of the runway and he seemed a little down (TK ON PA: It doesn't look good. But I guess we'll go for it. What the hell.) (JET REV) And they took off. A couple of Holsteins in back got airsick. (NAUSEOUS COWS) But they made it. Winter is hard on us in Minnesota. We're fine in the fall. We read books, we go to concerts, we support the arts (BIG VIOLIN CADENZA). And then (BLIZZARD, WOLF) winter locks in and people who you used to see listening to Handel and Haydn at St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts (GRUNTING AND MUTTERING) turn into these large sullen hairy people hunkered around a fire eating large portions of animal fats and tubers (GRUNTING AND SNARLING), obsessed with heating and with the plumbing in their earthen huts (TOILET FLUSH, TR GRUNTS APPROVAL) and with the unreliability of the internal combustion engine at temperatures below what you see on a thermometer. (CAR START ATTEMPT) Thermometers in Minnesota have extensions on the bottom, but sometimes we get temperatures so low the mercury disappears (CAR START ATTEMPT) ICE CHORDS). Sometimes it gets so cold in Minnesota that it hurts your face to go outside. (TK SHRIEK) It hurts so bad you want to die. (TK SHUDDER OF PAIN) But only for awhile. And then you feel warm. ("ROCKABYE BABY" SLOW, SLIGHTLY OUT OF TUNE) Warm and sleepy. And there's grandma.
CF: (REVERB) It's time for supper, Buddy. I made your favorite. Beans and weinies and marshmallow Jell-O salad.
TK: (WEAK, SLEEPY) Oh....okay. What is that tree doing there?
CF: That's not a tree, Buddy, that's Gramps. And Rex is here too. (DOG WOOFS) Come. Take my hand.
TK: But Rex died...you're all dead...
CF: Oh no. Come, Buddy. (FADES) Come....
(MUSIC DISSOLVE ----)
That's how I want to die, peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather did --- not terrified and screaming like the passengers in his car.
Winter comes on fast in Minnesota. It's fall and everything is nice and people come to dinner and we make pasta with scallops in a nice garlic and oil sauce and a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino and we talk about books we've read and then (BLIZZARD, WOLF HOWL) the great darkness falls (COWS, DRIVEN BY TR & TK IN SWEDISH) and Torvald and Ingemar bring the cattle into the dining room, which is covered with straw (SWEDISH GIBBERISH) --- and we put bricks on the floor and make a fire and open the window so the smoke can go out and we hunker (GRUNTS AND MUTTERS) and one night your son turns to you and says....
TR: Eat, Old One. Tonight, it is time for you to say goodbye and go out the door and take the long walk across the ice, into the blizzard.
GK: Oh, I don't think I care to go for a walk, honey. It's much too cold.
TR: It is time, Old One. You must walk across the ice. For the good of the People.
GK: Honey, the good of the people --- I don't know what you mean. I'm intending to enjoy my sunset years: develop hobbies, travel, meet new people, maybe marry a young woman and have some more kids and try my hand at senile parenting.
TR: You yourself, Old One, taught us that it is a good thing to make sacrifices for the common good. It is time now. The sun has set.
GK: The long walk across the ice? I don't think so, honey. How about, instead of the long walk, I go to New York?
TR: Okay. Same thing. Go to New York, Old One. (MUSIC)
GK: And that's how I happened to come to New York this month. (HORNS, SHOUTS, TRAFFIC PASSING) It's good to come. I sure like it here. Though it takes an adjustment for a Midwesterner. You have to remind yourself that, when you step into an elevator, you're not supposed to say----
TR: HI! EVERYBODY HAVING A GOOD DAY?
When you get in a subway car, you don't---
TR: HEY!!! LET'S SEE SOME SMILES, PEOPLE! WHAT DO YOU SAY??
You don't walk down the street smiling and nodding at people.
CF: What are you looking at?
In New York, you need a New York face, one that says: don't mess with me.
CF: What's your problem?
A face that says: don't even think about messing with me.
CF: Would you mind looking at something else? Okay? Would you mind? (HUSH)
©1996 BY GARRISON KEILLOR