Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [153]
“I suppose so. Don’t you want a place?”
“Sure. But, you know. Wherever you are is a place.”
“If you see Chessman will you tell me?”
“Sure I will. I was gonna do that anyway. I’m curious myself.”
Frank wandered on up Connecticut, looking into the coffee shops and student cafés. He was not reassured by the woman’s words. Thinking about it, he started making calls to people whose whereabouts he did know. The Quiblers were fine, Charlie and Anna working from home, school cancelled, fire in the fireplace. Anna noted that hoarding had begun at the grocery stores and that this was a breakdown in social trust that could be very debilitating to normal supply dynamics. It was starting to happen at gas stations already, lines to tank up, people freezing as they waited, all on their cell phones out stamping their feet. Frank promised to drop by and say hi. Same with the Khembalis, who again offered him a place to stay, despite the crowd. He promised to drop by.
He gave Spencer a call, and the shaman picked up after the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hey why no frisbee, what the hell?”
Spencer laughed appreciatively. “We tried, believe me! But if the disks hit a tree they shatter! We broke a whole bunch of them Monday, although we did establish the low-temperature record, of course. Maybe we should try again.”
“That would be fun. Where are you guys staying, are you keeping warm?”
“Oh yeah, we’re squatting around like always, it’s fine. There’s a place on McKinley just off Nebraska that’s got good insulation and a big fireplace, you should join us, have a meal.”
“Still doing the fregan thing?”
“Sure, it works even better in this cold, the dumpsters are like big freezers.”
“Well maybe I’ll just look for you in the park.”
“Ha ha ha, you chicken. We’ll give you a call next time we go out, give me your cell phone number again.”
Then it was back on the street.
The cold snap had been going on for so long that it had somehow stabilized. Search and rescue had been turned over to the professionals, and Frank didn’t quite know what to do. He could go back in the park, he could drive into the office and do some work, he could go to Optimodal and take a hot shower . . . he stopped himself from thinking about plans. There was a lot to do still in Northwest, surely.
And just as he thought that he saw Cutter, out in the street working on a tree that had split and fallen across three of the four lanes. Frank joined him and offered help that Cutter gladly accepted. As they worked Cutter said that a column of water had evidently filled a crack in the trunk, then frozen and split the tree apart. Frank picked up cut branches and carried them to the pile they had established on the sidewalk. Cutter thanked him without taking an eye off his work. “You seen the park guys?”
“Yeah I ran into them, they appear to be okay.”
Cutter shook his head. “They oughta get a place.”
“No lie. You’ve got a lot of new work like this, I take it?”
“Oh lordy! We should cut down every tree in this city. They all gonna fall on something they not s’pose to.”
“I’m sure. When it’s this cold, will it kill them?”
“Not necessarily. Not except they split open like this.”
“So how do you choose which ones to work on?”
“I drive till I see one in the street.”
“Ha. Is it okay if I help you some more?”
“Of course.”
It was good work, absorbing and warm. Dodge around the work and the cars, never stop moving, get the wood off the street. The chainsaw was loud. It took four people lifting together to get the biggest section of trunk over into the gutter.
Frank stayed with them through the rest of that afternoon. The days were getting a little longer. After a while he felt comfortable enough to say, “You guys shouldn’t wear cotton against the skin, it’s the worst possible stuff for cold.”
“What, are you a vapor barrier man? I hate that shit.”
They were all black. They lived over in Northeast but had worked mostly Northwest when they had worked for City Parks. One of them went on about being from Africa and not