A Hamlet in Minnesota (Gray Cloud Isalnd, 1962, a Chick Evens Story)

A Hamlet in Minnesota
((Gray Cloud Island) (1962, a Chick Evens Story))

They drove out of the city limits (of ST. Paul) all four teenagers, drinking in the car; they seemed to have driven out of nothing into nowhere. And all of a sudden there was a crash, and Chick Evens standing looking down at the car, his car, a 1952, Desoto, and three bodies in the car, the car smashed to smithereens, totaled (he was in stone black stillness, as if high up in a tree, looking down), everything unmoving, his brain was numb, curious.
Then he appeared in real time, his brain now tired, and angry. He was a fellow who loses his temper. Sometimes smashing things; in this case, he kicked the car and kicked it hard, smashing the front headlight out with his kick, mad as the devil.
He tapped Ralph Eldridge on the shoulder, he was still alive, and then he pulled him out of the front seat of the Desoto, the two girls in the backseat, knocked out cold.

This was his the first time in his life he had come so close to dying (fifteen years old, drunk, and no license). He had three friends’ lives in his hands. He had only to walk way, don’t look back and they would have been dead.

∙

How vividly I remember this night when I turned that corner in Gray Cloud Island and I slammed on the brakes and the car ended up on the icy Mississippi River.
It was a freezing cold night in December. In Minnesota, December, January and February are usually the most enduring months. Everyone who lives in Minnesota all they do is sneeze and cough, and their chest and nasal passages are congested, until summer—sneezing all day long, coughing all night long.

I always used strong beer—even at age fifteen—to drive the chill out of my body, after and before eating; as I had done this night. But there was a snag.

∙

He had pulled Ralph out of the car, “What happened?” he asked, and started laughing.
“What’s so funny” remarked Evens—the car demolished.
“You only got one shoe on, and no sock on your right foot.”
That was odd, wasn’t it he thought…

∙

When I looked about—an empty wine bottle lay by the front tire of the car, empty beer bottles half under the seats, the car on solid ice, and leaning forward I made one of my odd but truthful observations—that seemed to have dawned on me unexpectedly, “I want you to notice something Ralph?” I said.
“What?” he asked. I began, “The two girls haven’t woke up yet, I can hear them breathing, so they’re fine, maybe I ought to get the hell out of here before the cops come?”
“That doesn’t sound completely right?” Ralph told me.
“Well, put it this way,” I said, “it’s a favor to the township of this little hamlet, I’m sure if they have to spend their time handling weary dissatisfied folk—on my account, it will only add to their dull lives’ tension. It all cost tax money too, to put us in jail, and feed us you know.”
Ralph smiled at me, “That’s put real sympathetically!” He commented.
“Ralph, you are unspeakably dull, and this is not dull business: better for us both that we become sober and out of here quick.”
We then woke the two girls up, and helped them out of the back seat of the car, stabilized them somewhat, and they flagged down a car, as the ice cracked on the river, and the car started sinking, and we, Ralph and I, hiked over to his sisters house.

Here we were in an automobile with two flashy, to be honest, more plain than flashy, young girls, and had taken them out for a ride, now we left them as they caught a ride back to town (I took the license plates off the car), and we quickly made up some cock and bull stories in case the police investigated the accident. But I read nothing about it in the newspapers the following week, and that lead me to live, a grey and somewhat cheerless life waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. As a result, I made my mind up to go to the police and let them know it was me who had had that ugly accident where everyone was okay; I had no intentions bringing anyone else’s name up, or into the story. And when I did go to the St. Paul Police Station, and start to explain my story, the police officer said, “What are you talking about?” (As he checked out his records for an accident report.)


Police Station
(St. Paul, Minnesota)


Police Officer: I don’t know what you are talking about Mr. Chick Evens, there is no such matter that has been reported, or brought to our attention (a look of dreary and meaninglessness on his face).

Chick Evens: (Thinking: if I stay and try to convince him of my fault, he would just talk thus, as I have just described aimlessly, throughout this quarter hour, and then we would have parted the afternoon anyway, the same way.) Thank you officer, have a good day. (Thinking: I do not feel I am a silly ass about this, just a tired one.)

5-14-2009 (SA)