Twin Cities Noir

the hills. The high winds and driving sleet were interrupting power. The Aerial Lift Bridge behind them seemed suddenly transformed into a giant strobe light. And that’s when they saw it. Jack Start froze in horror. Tommy Robek, too, dropped his jaw, his eyes bulging from his head.

In every storm at sea there is one wave that dwarfs all others. The mother wave, if you will. The wave that sinks ships, and destroys homes along the shore. Suddenly and without warning, everything behind the sprinting Pudge went as black as black can get. From the sea to the sky, from the earth to the heavens, there was nothing behind the Duluth teenager but the specter of utter blackness. It took a few seconds to register with the boys, but that blackness was a solid plain of water. It had shape and form. It seemed to possess life. And it was about to possess Pudge Abercrombie.

“Pudge, run!”

“Run, Pudge, run!”

He never looked over his shoulder, never broke stride, but the two boys could tell from the fear on his face that he was reading the terror in their eyes. Then Pudge Abercrombie, star halfback at Duluth High, was swallowed alive by Lake Superior.

The mother of all waves twisted young Pudge like a corkscrew. He was sent tumbling and spinning at the same time. Pudge washed up within ten yards of his friends, who were backpedaling for their lives. For a second, and it was only a second, it looked like he was safe, that he could stand and walk away. But then the wave from hell began its retreat, dragging Pudge Abercrombie with it. The sheer force of the raging water tore the lampposts out of the concrete. In fact, the whole scene seemed surreal, a desperate struggle for life played out in three- quarter speed. Pudge Abercrombie was being pulled into the lake by an unearthly force. It was clear that he was yelling, but his desperate cries for help could not be heard over the roar of the storm and the crashing of the waves. He went literally kicking and screaming. He fought the lake like a man afire, and it looked for an instant that he might be saved by the lighthouse. But it was not to be. The killer wave actually carried the boy up and over the light.

The last thing Jack Start ever saw of his friend Pudge Abercrombie was the boy’s terrified face poking out the top of that wall of water. His mop of dark, curly hair was already frozen white. Icicles framed his jaw. His arms were stretched out to his side, like a bird in flight. Only Pudge was flying backwards, away from the lighthouse, away from life, back into the dark. Slowly disappearing into the raging abyss of black water.

Jack Start and Tommy Robek collapsed in shock, waiting for the next wave, hoping against hope that the big lake the Ojibwa called Gitchee Gumee would sweep their buddy Pudge back up the walkway and spit him out. But the next giant wave never came. On the contrary, there was a sudden cessation of the wind. Whitecaps washed over the lighthouse and the spray of icy water washed over the boys, but it was as if the great lake had gotten what it had come for, and now it was through.

As power was restored to the town, the two boys sat beneath the lift bridge staring into the blackness. They were freezing. Their wet clothes were stiff like boards. Their hair was frosty and hard. The revolving light of the lighthouse swept over their faces, revealing the tears that were spilling from their eyes. Superior, it is said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November blow early. Their friend, Pudge Abercrombie, was never seen again. Well, not on this earth, anyway.

25 Years Later

They were enjoying drinks at Grandma’s Saloon the first time God showed his pudgy face. Grandma’s was crowded that night, people streaming in from the Lakewalk. Every time the saloon door swung open, an end-of- summer breeze rushed in just in time to refresh the smoky joint. Jack Start and an old friend got lucky and found two empty stools directly beneath one of the television sets. Jack threw a copy of the Duluth Newspaper on the bar. He hung his walking cane on the rail and ordered two beers. The two men lit up cigarettes and caught the score of the Twins game.

Jack’s drinking partner that warm summer night was Old Coach Young. As a much younger man, he had been the head football coach at Duluth High. The last football coach the school had. The kids had loved him, sober or drunk. But the old high school had been closed in the economic downturn of the 1970s. The big red-brick building halfway up the hill was still standing, but it stood empty. Lifeless. Nobody wanted it torn down, but nobody knew what to do with it. Nobody had known what to do with the football coach, either. With shrinking enrollments and closing schools, there were few teaching positions available on the Iron Range. For years the man simply drifted from shit job to shit job, until one day Coach Young became Old Coach Young. He was on disability now, and enough of his former players were still around town to loan him a dollar or two, or to buy him a beer. Besides, the coach knew everybody in town. On both sides of the law. For reporter Jack Start, new again in his old hometown, his high school football coach was a great source.

The television set flickering above them was tuned to KDUL-TV. Home of the Minnesota Twins. “Get this, Coach,” said Jack Start, hoisting his first beer in twenty-four hours, “that cheerleader I interviewed, Miss Grand Tetons… she has an identical twin.”

“Whoa! Do you mean to say there’s four of those puppies?”

Jack Start spit laughter across the bar. Wiped his mouth. “I said identical.”

The Twins were playing the Red Sox. The sound of the announcers could barely be heard above the buzz of the bar.

“I remember their mother was a real looker,” the old coach said in his deep, gravel voice. His gray-white hair was combed straight back, revealing the severe redness of his face. He carried the thick arms of an ex-athlete, and the overlapping belly of a lush. “A real looker,” he repeated.

Jack Start nodded his head in agreement. “You know, I always wondered back then if you guys really looked… I mean, you teachers.”

The coach laughed. “Kid, there was a lot more than looking going on back then.”

“Really? Someday you and I are going to have to have a long, long talk, Coach.”

It was a little past 9 p.m. They were waiting for the baseball game to end so that the local news could begin. It was the top of the sixth inning. The Twins were down one run to the Red Sox. Jack Start and his old coach ordered two more beers. And that’s when it happened. It wasn’t fast or flashy, it was just alien. Unexpected.

With a Red Sox batter at the plate, the TV signal went fuzzy. Then it faded away. Nothing but snow and static. When the picture cleared again, some guy was sitting at a desk talking into the camera. It looked like public-access cable, or like a cheap video taped in an old house. The strange man smiled, a truly engaging smile, and said, “Hi, I’m God.” The man paused for effect. Then he held up a tacky little nameplate that read: I’ M G OD. He added, “Don’t worry about the game. There won’t be any more scoring again until the pitching change in the eighth inning.”

He was a fairly handsome man, in a slovenly sort of way. A heavyset guy who had a round, happy face, with thin brown hair on a receding hairline. There was something mischievous in his smile, but nothing malicious. A benign comedian. He was wearing a blue work shirt. The kind of guy who would fit right in at Grandma’s Saloon. The messy desk he was seated behind looked as if it were located in a spare bedroom, or maybe a room in the basement. The background was cheap wood paneling, the kind installed to hide the holes in the wall. An old Hamm’s Beer sign could be seen over his shoulder. In other words, it could have been in any one of a thousand homes in Duluth. In fact, the whole scene was no frills, no airs, North Shore Minnesota.

“This is the first of what will be seven appearances,” the man who claimed to be God said into the camera. “It is a new millennium.” Then he cracked up. “Millennium…God, I love that word.” He caught his breath. “So anyhow, the time has come to review where you are at as a people, and where you are going. And, quite frankly, if at the end of our little chats I don’t like what I see, I’ll probably flood the whole damn planet, starting with Duluth.” He began laughing. “No, seriously, that was a joke.”

Jack Start and Old Coach Young were staring intently at the television screen, the image of God filtering through the haze of cigarette smoke. A hush fell over their corner of the bar as the bartender and the patrons surrounding them strained to hear the message, apparently being delivered from heaven.

God opened a desk drawer, pulled out a pack of Marlboro in the box, stuck a cigarette in his mouth, and lit