Epilogue: I've always been fascinated with the concept of the Penny Dreadful that was popular in 19th century Great Britain. Then I saw Sweeny Todd and I was hooked. I love the melodrama and corniness, the darkness laced with humor, a valid statement on human nature presented in the most cartoonish way possible.
So that's what this is. Yes, it's supposed to be corny. And funny. And sometimes uncomfortable. And fantastical, and give you a pertinent moral, while entertaining you. So no, this is not supposed to be serious fiction. Serious art ... I hope so. Approach it as a cross between
Dudley Do-Right and
The Twilight Zone.
*
In a snowy, remote area of northern Montana, there was an 12 year old boy named Max Cole who was so cold hearted, so mean, that across the county he was known by the chilling nickname “Intolerably Cold” Cole.
The kindest, most loving person in the tiny village of Snowy Glen was old Greta Warmhearth. Once, out of sheer cold heartedness, the boy sneaked into her chicken coop in the dead of winter and turned off the heaters. When all of Greta’s chickens had frozen solid, he took a hatchet and hacked off all their heads which he then hung from hooks in the small pine tree in her yard. When Greta awoke Christmas morning, this was the sight that greeted her: the heads of all her beloved chickens hanging like grisly ornaments in the bright morning light. Of course she knew immediately who the culprit was -- even without the message he’d left in yellow in the snow under the tree:
Merry Xmas Greta, love Intolerably Cold Cole. Her equally kind and warm husband Gus was of the opinion that if Intolerably Cold’s heart was half the size of his bladder, he’d be all the better a boy for it. Poor, distraught Greta, who at the age of 91 had never been known to utter a single negative word against anybody in all of Glazier County, was overheard muttering to herself “That little bastard will hang someday.”
Greta was not the first to make such a morbid prediction. That distinction went to Intolerably Cold Cole’s late mother. His cold, mean behavior caused her so much stress and heartache that she was often heard throughout the village, begging him to be good lest the whole town hang him high once day. Sadly, Intolerably Cold Cole had lost her to a strange accident, when a dead cat somehow became lodged in the vent pipe of the stove. As she went into the kitchen that morning, as usual, to fix breakfast, the hot oven cooked the dead cat which fell out into her omelet, and exploded. The semi roasted cat innards and egg covering her hair and face were too much for her already taxed nerves and she died of a heart attack on the spot.
Intolerably Cold Cole’s father was inconsolable. Wracked with grief, he became more and more withdrawn until finally Snowy Glen's Sheriff Isaac took him away to an insane asylum in distant Helena. There he still sat today, wrapped up snug in a straight jacket, rocking back and forth muttering two words over and over:
Intolerably Cold. Some of his doctors insisted he was calling for his son to rescue him; others theorized he was commenting on the temperature in his cell (Wintergreen Asylum was known to have thermostat problems); others had darker suspicions. As Sheriff Isaac had taken him away, he echoed his poor, dead wife: “Mark me well, Intolerably Cold Cole. You’ll hang one day.”
So, except for one creature on earth, his gray and black dog, Jimsy, Intolerably Cold Cole seemed to care for no one and had no one in the world who cared about him. Left for an orphan, he became the ward of his Aunt Frieda, a meek woman with, it was whispered, a fondness for vodka and Xanax. She rarely knew or cared where she herself was, much less the doings of irascibly mean Intolerably Cold Cole. She even more rarely mentioned him except to echo her sister’s prophecy: “That boy will hang someday.” Only Jimsy, with her loyal heart and her wagging tail, seemed to love him no matter what.
One chilly, sunny April day he was sent home from school for drawing sex organs in the dust of the assistant principal’s new Miata. There, he found his Aunt Frieda passed out cold next to the toilet, in a pool of her own vomit. Intolerably Cold Cole wondered for a moment if she might be dead, then grabbed a snack and went outside to play with Jimsy. The sky was clear and the wind was light, so Intolerably Cold decided to take a hike up Little Shell Mountain to a secret place he’d found many years before.
This secret nook was one place in the world he felt was truly his, somewhere he belonged and would never have to share with anybody. It was a pool of black water in a small recess almost hidden by five towers of oddly stacked boulders. Over it, in the spring, the entangled vines and loblolly pine branches made a shady, airy canopy. He swam in that inky pool every summer for as long as he could remember and even though the water itself was opaque black, it tasted sourly delicious. It had not taken him long to realize that on those rare occasions that he was feeling a twinge or two of remorse at some meanness or cold hurtful prank, a quick dip in his frigid secret pool would refresh him and even inspire in him even greater ideas for mischief. Something about the acoustics of the nook gave it the best echo in the mountain. Intolerably Cold would sometimes come to shout vulgar words, just to hear how they sounded in his voice. Every day he went there he shouted "Helloo!" as soon as he was near. In his echo, he pretended the pool itself was greeting him.
That day he took the short trip with Jimsy to Little Shell Mountain. He wanted to see if his pool had thawed. The woods on the sloping foothill were quiet and the cold was so pure he was sure he could smell it. The vines that wove through the trees overhead were dead from the winter, but the pines’ branches were still green, full, and pungent.
"Helloo!" he yelled.
"
Helloo helloo hell..." came his echo. He climbed between the two tallest piles of boulders and trotted down to the edge of the water. It was still as glass, but not frozen. He dipped a finger in it and put it to his tongue: tart as lemonade but when a cloying sweetness, as always. Suddenly Jimsy growled and began to bark furiously, staring across the pond.
"What is it, girl?" asked Intolerably Cold Cole.
“Delicious, ain’t it?” came a velvet drawl from within the shadows of the farthest tower of boulders.
Intolerably Cold Cole froze. As far as he knew, no one in the whole of Montana knew of this place except him. He picked up a fist-sized rock and held it over his head. He scanned the shadows for the intruder and he was ready to hurl it at him.
A pale figure stepped forward gracefully into the light. It was a chubby man in khaki shorts, a bright festive Hawaiian shirt, and skin white as fresh frost. He smiled and walked across the surface of the pond playfully flipping a coin into the air and nimbly catching it, never taking his eyes off Intolerably Cold Cole. Jimsy, usually very mellow and friendly, began snarling furiously. The rock in Intolerably Cold's hand was poised for hurling, but somehow he felt that the man would not harm him. The man stopped in the middle of the pond, held out both arms wide and grinned.
"C'mon, kid. Gimme your best shot," he said.
Intolerably Cold Cole noticed something odd; the more Jimsy snarled and barked, the colder the rock became until it was so frigid that he could not hold it. As it started to burn his bare hand with its coldness, he threw it at the man with all his might.
Intolerably Cold had a strong throwing arm, the best in Glazier county, yet the rock only flew slowly, awkwardly, as if it were moving through sludge. As it reached the man, it stopped in midair, just inches from his face. The man winked at him and blew on it. Intolerably Cold watched with fascination as the hovering rock became white at the touch of his breath and fluttered sparkling to the water as a rush of snowflakes. When the man let out a loud laugh, Jimsy yelped and ran off down the mountainside. She barked at him frantically, as though begging him to come away with her. Intolerably Cold Cole blinked and suddenly the man was no longer standing in the middle of the pool but right in front of him, bending down so that their faces were just inches apart. The man’s eyes went from blue to yellow to red to black and back again. Intolerably Cold’s heart raced.
“Hey there, Max,” the man said. “Or do you prefer ‘Intolerably Cold’?"
He took four huge, horrified steps backward and tripped over a root. He braced himself for the fall but the man reached out and caught his arm to keep him from falling. That was when Intolerably Cold Cole realized the man’s arm was now stretching twice as far as ought to be humanly possible.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? How can you walk on an unfrozen pool?” he demanded, shaking out of the man's grip.
The man laughed. He let go of Intolerably Cold Cole’s sleeve and suddenly, again, without seeming to move, the man was mere feet from him.
“Chiiilllll, Max,” the man said. “C’mon, breathe, son. I ain’t here to hurt you. I’m here to give ya somethin’.”
There was a gentle strength in the man’s voice that calmed him. When he dropped sitting on the soft orange pine needles that lined the pool, the man was suddenly sitting beside him.
“First off, my name is … um, well … you can go ‘head and call me Uncle Ned.”
He wondered why he wasn't more afraid, because while there was something warm and inviting about Uncle Ned’s smile, there was something terrifying about it, too. Also, Intolerably Cold noticed there was something weirdly familiar about his face, something he couldn't exactly identify.
"Where's my dog?" he asked.
"She'll all right ... fer now," said Uncle Ned.
"She doesn't like you," said Intolerably Cold Cole.
"The feelin' is mutual," said Uncle Ned. "I don't care for dogs. They raise my hackles. I'm more of a cat person, myself."
Intolerably Cold Cole peered at Uncle Ned's face, cocking his head first to the left and then to the right. Then it hit him: Uncle Ned looked like him! He was a chubbier, older version of Intolerably Cold Cole himself! "Are we kin or something?" he asked.
Uncle Ned's grin disappeared and his face suddenly got deathly serious. His eyes widened. "Oh, we are indeed, son. I'm akin to all mankind, even though some ain't likely to claim me."
"How did you find this place? I thought I was the only person who knew about it," asked Intolerably Cold Cole.
"Find this place? Son, I didn't find this place because, well … ‘scuze me if I brag, but I created it. Made it myself.” Uncle Ned suddenly howled, not as with laughter but more like a joyful call to war: "Aaaaaooooo!" Intolerably Cold listened for the echo that never came.
“Yeah, right,” Intolerably Cold Cole said with a sneer. “Nobody made this place. It’s part of the mountain. Did you sneak in with bulldozers when nobody was watching and dig out this pool and set up these trees and rocks?" Intolerably Cold's derisive laugh echoed to the other side of the pool and back, and seemed to bounce off the 5 tall rock towers on its perimeter.
“Surely you know that somebody had to make this here mountain, don’t you, son? It didn't just appear here by itself outta thin air," Uncle Ned said.
Intolerably Cold got a sinking feeling and struggled to hide his fear. “Um … are you saying that you are … God?”
Uncle Ned hooted and slapped his thigh. “God? Why would you ask that, Max?”
Intolerably Cold gulped. “You …. you just walked on the water.”
He gave Intolerably Cold Cole an avuncular squeeze on the arm. “Yep, I s’pose I did. But trust me, Max. Any showboater with the right connections can walk on water. No, I ain’t God."
“Well, then --- who …. ?”
Uncle Ned leaned in close to him and his voice got even more calming and deep. “Let’s just say I’m a spirit of the times.” He stood up and squinted his eyes and howled again at the top of his lungs, "Aaaaaooooo!" No echo answered Uncle Ned.
"Aaaaaooooo!" Intolerably Cold howled too, and his echo came back twice before it faded away.
"That's weird," said Intolerably Cold. "When I howl I get an echo ... but you don't. Why is that?"
Uncle Ned looked bored. He flipped the coin once again and caught it. “Son, you remember how your mama told you there ain't no such a thing as a stupid question?"
"Yeah," said Intolerably Cold.
"Well she lied, so shut up," said Uncle Ned. "I came to give you a gift, not to answer no dumb-ass questions. Take this." He handed him the coin.
Intolerably Cold looked at it.
“A whole quarter? Gee, thanks, ‘Uncle Ned’, but I hope this doesn’t bankrupt you or anything.”
Uncle Ned looked deep into Intolerably Cold’s eyes and for the first time in his life, he shivered at something other than a cold temperature. “You can be anything that you want to be, Max. All you gotta do is touch this quarter and wish for it."
Intolerably Cold stood up, doubtful but intrigued. Uncle Ned had just walked on water. He’d turned a solid rock into snow. He’d made his arm stretch over 5 feet to keep him from falling. There was no doubt that Uncle Ned had magical powers ... so there was no reason to believe he could not give him a magic coin, too.
He turned it over. It looked like a regular quarter, with the usual eagle on the one side and George Washington’s disembodied head on the other side. It was minted in 1999, the year of Intolerably Cold Cole’s own birth.
“Give it a try,” urged Uncle Ned, and his irises became candy-apple red.
Intolerably Cold held it between his finger and his thumb and thought, ‘Be anything I want …'
“Anything at all,” said Uncle Ned. “Do it.”
“Okay. Um… I want to be a 7 foot tall muscle man,” he said. A warmth with a sting to it started from the soles of his feet and tickled up to the top of his head. Suddenly he was looking down on Uncle Ned.
“Ah ha ha ha aaaaaoooooo! Excellent!” cried Uncle Ned. “Wonderful!! Turn around and see yourself now, son!”
Intolerably Cold looked behind him and there between two boulder-towers was a tall standing mirror, ornamented with beautiful dark varnished wooden snakes that seemed to ooze slowly around the glass. His astonished reflection was his own normal head affixed to a hulking man’s body. His best winter coat had torn into three parts and hung off his muscular body like rags. The melon-like biceps on his arms made his flannel shirt sleeves strain not to burst.
Intolerably Cold was beside himself with happiness. Then Uncle Ned’s voice whispered in his ear -- even though Uncle Ned himself was still two feet below him: “Check between your legs, Max.”
There was one secret in his whole life which Intolerably Cold Cole would never tell anybody in the world, and would not even fully admit it to himself -- a deep fear that his thingamabob was abnormally small. This suspicion was based on an old DVD he found in Aunt Frieda’s sock drawer, of men and woman having sex on a boat somewhere sunny and warm. Those men’s doohickies seemed impossibly large and thick. Intolerably Cold was afraid that his, in comparison, was doomed to be small and pitiful forever. Now, he reached down to fumble with a heavy tube of flesh hanging from his lower torso, and he laughed along with Uncle Ned.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man! This rocks, Uncle Ned! I’ll never want to be my little, small self again."
“Wellllll….. for convenience’s sake, you might,” said Uncle Ned. “If you do, just touch the quarter again and wish to be yourself.”
Intolerably Cold's head was spinning with possibilities. "I could be anything?"
"Anything." said Uncle Ned.
“Could I be the mayor?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” said Uncle Ned, grinning.
“The governor of the whole state?”
“Ruler of all the Big Sky Country? Hells to the yeah, you could.”
Intolerably Cold Cole caught his breath. “Could I be … the president of all of America?”
“Yessir, you sure could," said Uncle Ned. "And you’d be a whole hell of a lot more useful to me than Obama. I had some pretty high hopes my buddy Mitt would win, myself.”
“Cool! Oh, I know! If I can be anything, can I be a machine gun, like an AK-47?” he asked excitedly. He pretended to shoot Uncle Ned with an automatic rifle. "Pyoo pyoo pyoo, pyoo, pyoo, pyoo!" he shouted and his echo came back
YOO YOO yoo yoo yoo yoo.
Uncle Ned held up a chubby finger. “Hold on. We got just one major rule about turnin’ into stuff, mah man. You gotta be able to wish yourself back to being you. If you turn into somethin' like a machine gun, how you gonna do that? Guns ain't got brains. Guns can't think. How you gonna wish yourself back?”
Intolerably Cold Cole was mean but he was tolerably intelligent. “Hmm.. I see. Guns can’t think, so they can’t wish themselves back to being a person.”
“Zackly,” said Uncle Ned smiling.
Intolerably Cold Cole wished to be his normal self, and with a little shudder, he was his usual, small-willied, 12 year old self again. The mirror was gone and his jacket was whole and untorn. He whipped around to face Uncle Ned, but he was gone too. For a moment he wondered if it might have all been a dream or hallucination but he felt a sting on his hand. There on his right palm was an ice burn shaped like a wry smile or an upturned banana.
That night, he lay in his bed changing back and forth from a 7 foot tall muscle man to himself, dreaming up all the fun he would have giving the village of Snowy Glen a day of meanness they would never forget. He made a list of all the cold hearted things he wanted to do and the first item on his list, what he hated about Snowy Glen worse than anything, was the brass bell in the city hall tower.
How he hated the sound of that bell! It tolled for all happy occasions, trivial or not: weddings, births, anniversaries, graduations, bar mitzvahs, the opening of a new fabric store, winning football games, graduations, and of course for Sunday church services. Once they rang it 12 times when his stupid classmate got a poem published in the Helena Independent Record newspaper, one ring for every line of her sonnet.
The more he thought of getting rid of the town’s precious bell, the happier he became and before long, he was too excited to sleep. He became 7 feet tall and muscular again, and set out for City hall. Along the way, he broke the tail lights on all 4 police cars, and toppled gravestones in the cemetery in a pattern that from the air read “F U”, broke into the library and made 100 photocopies of his huge deely-bopper, threw a brick through the window of the Snowy Glen Starbucks, rang the doorbells of six different homes before running away, and left dog poop on the front door of the Congregational Church.
Intolerably Cold Cole could never remember having this much fun. His only regret was that Jimsy wasn’t with him, but she refused come near him. All night, as Intolerably Cold darted around in his 7' tall costume, causing all the mischief he could think of, Jimsy seemed frightened of him. She kept him always within sight, as if she were watching out for him, but she kept her distance too. She clearly did not trust the big man he had suddenly become.
As morning grew near, he yanked open the door of City Hall and climbed up into the tower. There, with superhuman effort, he pulled down the bell, and threw it over the side of the belfry, smashing it with a deafening clang on the sidewalk below, howling "Aaaaaaaooooo!" as loudly as he could.
The whole village heard the noise. Sheriff Isaac and the Snowy Glen police tried in vain to catch him, since he was not only strong but uncannily fast despite his massive body.
“It’s Intolerably Cold Cole!” cried the villagers. “He’s seven feet tall and buff as the dickens!”
He had quite an adventure leading them on a long wild goose chase. Then, as morning crept over Little Shell Mountain, he ducked behind The Dairy Curl, the local hamburger restaurant, and wished himself to be one inch tall. The cops ran right past him as he hid behind a discarded napkin.
The aroma of breakfast filled his nose, so he wished himself tall and buff again and burst into The Dairy Curl only to steal breakfast tacos and English muffins right out of people’s hands. He gobbled them down as rudely as he could then took out his huge tallywacker and shook it at them, laughing the whole time. Then Sheriff Isaac walked in at just that instant, but Intolerably Cold simply swung his monstrously large member at him.
“You’ll hang one day, Max Cole,” said the befuddled policeman.
“See you tonight at supper, losers!” he promised them, and zoomed off.
The gathered citizens of Snowy Glen began to ask one another what they would do about that boy. That is when they and Sheriff Isaacs sat down together to devise a plan.
Intolerably Cold made his way to Aunt Frieda’s house, stepped over her as she snored on the kitchen floor, and locked every door and window.
A short time later, Sheriff Isaacs and other Snowy Glennians came to Aunt Freda's house. Intolerably Cold could hear them talking about him as they peered into the windows.
Quick as a mouse trap snap, he touched the magical coin and wished himself to be 3 inches tall. He hid behind one of Aunt Frieda's gnome figurines that had fallen and broke on the floor. From the window, the sheriff noticed her passed out in the kitchen and came in to try to revive her.
He slapped her lightly on the face. "Frieda? Frieda Cladney? Can you hear me?"
She stirred a little and half opened her eyes. "Mmmm? Wha .... ? Is it over? Did you hang him?" she muttered then passed out again.
Sheriff Isaacs lifted her off the floor and brought her to her bed. Then, deciding that Intolerably Cold was not in the house, they agreed to resume their search in the morning, and left.
He transformed back to his original size and called for Jimsy. He called her for a full five minutes, but she was not there. He flopped on the sofa which seemed cold and spacious without her. That was the first time in years that he watched Saturday cartoons without her curled up at his feet. That was sad. But also, he never remembered being happier, thinking of all the mischief he had caused and people who were right now angry and unhappy because of his actions. He slept like an angel.
When he woke from his nap he felt invigorated. He had great fun that afternoon being 7 feet tall and maniacally evil. He found two SUVs unlocked on Main Street turned up all their radios to full volume; he walked calmly as you pleased into Penny Quinn's grocery store, grabbed great handfuls of candy, and walked out without even offering to pay; he ransacked Allorph Rosen's fitness club/florist shop, tossing 25 pound weights and day lilies around the place willy-nilly. Allorph was a big man too, a body builder, but he was dwarfed next to Intolerably Cold's 7 feet of muscle and mischief. It was hilarious to make Allorph chase him through the gym and floral shop, shouting "I'll hang you myself, you little jackass!" Intolerably Cold Cole grabbed a black marker off Allorph's front desk and dashed over to Crystal Jelid's beauty shop, drawing mustaches on all the pretty girl posters on her walls. Last, true to his word, he burst into The Dairy Curl to steal his supper. The owner, Mr. Sharp, had waiting for him a plate of steaming hot burgers, fries, and best of all, his favorite food -- hot dogs dripping with chili.
“Here, Max,” he pleaded. “I have food prepared for you. Take it with my compliments! Enjoy! But please don’t take the food out of my customers’ hands!”
But Intolerably Cold just laughed at him and shook a hammy fist in his face. “Nice try, old man, but where’s the fun in that?”
He snatched a cheeseburger out of the hands of Kolt Isaac-Rosen, the eight year old son of the sheriff and Allorph, just as he was taking a bite.
“Hey, dawg! Uncool!!” exclaimed Kolt, looking as if he were about to cry.
The younger child’s morose look made the cheeseburger taste all the more savory to Intolerably Cold as he shoved almost half into his mouth. “See all of you tomorrow, Snowy Glen suckers!” he said, spraying his half chewed food all over the the local Catholic priest, Fr. Szhivery, who had the misfortune of sitting the closest to the door.
“You’ll hang one day, Max Cole!” cried Fr. Szhivery after him. Intolerably Cold Cole laughed and chewed and walked contentedly all the way to Aunt Frieda’s house.
When he got there, he was exhausted from a wonderful day of cold hearted meanness and he touched the quarter and whispered “I want to be back to my normal size." He rested on the sofa to watch TV. He called for Jimsy, wanted the feel of her loving nuzzle on his hand, but again, she was nowhere to be found. He was so very tired and exhilarated that he actually felt light headed. The last thing he remembered was watching a cartoon about people who could create fire fighting with other people who could create ice.
When he woke up he didn’t know where he was. Everything was white, sparkling clean, and had a fresh smell; he knew he was not at Aunt Freida's house. When he needed to scratch an itch on his nose, he found he could not move his arm. His eyes opened and he saw he was strapped to a stretcher with handcuffs on both wrists.
“Hey, let me out of here!” he screamed. He looked around the room desperately and noticed Sheriff Isaac, Mr. Sharp, and Fr. Szhivery standing at the foot of the makeshift bed. Miss Rimey, the school nurse, was sitting nearby.
“What have you done to me?” he cried, with a tremble of rage in his voice. "Where am I?"
"You are in the high school infirmary. We have restrained you for your own good, Max Cole,” said Miss Rimey. “We cannot allow you to continue this cold-hearted, mean streak of hooliganism. We are going to find out what caused you to become so miraculously big and muscular.”
“Sorry we had to drug you son,” said the sheriff, who didn’t look sorry at all.
“You … you drugged me?” he asked. “How?”
The policeman and restaurant owner exchanged quick looks.
“Sheriff Isaac knew you wouldn’t go for the hamburgers and chili dogs I’d reserved for you at the Dairy Curl, Max," Mr. Sharp explained.
“So we put one of your Aunt Frieda’s Xanax in the mayo on another burger,” said Sheriff Isaac, “Then we asked Kolt to sit near the counter. We gave him the drugged cheeseburger because we knew you couldn’t resist being so cold and mean as to steal food from an eight year old child.”
"But your kid, with the cheeseburger ... he looked so ...." Intolerably Cold sputtered.
"Three years running as Toby in the Snowy Glen Players' production of "Sweeney Todd." said the sheriff proudly.
All four adults in the room looked awfully pleased with themselves, a fact which infuriated Intolerably Cold Cole beyond telling.
At that instant, he thought up a plan to escape his shackles. He crinkled up his face as if he were going to cry and made his voice shake with false emotion. Kolt Isaac-Rosen wasn't the only skilled child actor in town.
“I’m … I’m … so sorry!” he said and pretended to weep. “I guess I just … just …” *choke, sniffle* “want somebody to love me!” He threw all his heart and soul into a fit of seemingly uncontrollable sobbing. “So a stranger up on Little Shell Mountain gave me a trinket that lets me to wish to be anything!”
He watched with concealed glee the adults’ faces softening as they bought into his performance. His plan was to lull them into trusting him, then take out the quarter and turn into a huge lion that would devour them all slowly and gorily. He might even purr while they screamed.
“If none of you would love me, I thought being afraid of me would be enough. The only person in the world who loves me is Jimsy!” he wailed.
Suddenly, Mr. Sharp and Fr. Szhivery looked anguished.
Sheriff Isaac’s face became a little pale.
“Max, my lad,” said the sheriff kindly. “There is something I have to tell you about Jimsy.”
Intolerably Cold’s fake bawling stopped. “What about Jimsy?”
Nurse Rimey sat down next to him on the gurney and put her hand on his arm with a motherly touch. “I’m sorry, Max,” she said. “But Jimsy was waiting for you at City Hall. She was on the sidewalk when you tossed out the bell. When it fell, you crushed her flat.”
It took a few moments before Intolerably Cold realized he was not breathing. He felt as if there were a block of ice in his stomach but his face was burning. “Jimsy … is gone?”
“Yes, Max. Dead as the proverbial doornail. Smashed to a pulp by your own hand,” said Sheriff Isaac. “We had to use a sand shovel to get her horribly mangled body off the concrete. Let me tell you that it wasn't pretty.”
When Intolerably Cold didn’t say anything for a few minutes, Nurse Rimey patted his arm and stood up.
“Maybe it’s best if we leave you with your thoughts about your actions, poor faithful Jimsy’s death, and using magical trinkets to be cold hearted and mean. Good night, dear," she said. Sheriff Isaacs unbound his arms, and the four adults left him alone.
Max had no concept of time. He spent the night with painfully sweet memories of Jimsy, romping in the summer grass, playing in the shallows of Coal Bank Coulee, exploring up Little Shell Mountain. His sobs now were real and wrenched something loose from his heart. By the time the sun began shining through the blinds of his little prison, he had decided never to use the magical quarter again. He was turning over a new leaf. No more cold hearted meanness for him. Never again would anybody feel the need to warn him that he would hang one day.
In the morning, Nurse Rimey came in and he told her everything. When Sheriff Isaac and Fr. Szhivery arrived, she assured them that Intolerably Cold Cole had learned a valuable lesson and would start a new, warmer chapter in his life.
“But one thing concerns me, young Max Cole,” the minister said with a worried look. “What about this stranger and the magical trinket he gave you? I am concerned that such a thing could only come from the father of lies, the devil himself.”
“It’s here, Father,” said Intolerably Cold, taking the quarter out of his pocket and holding it between his thumb and index finger.
The 3 adults took a step back, in horror of the power of such a magical coin.
“You must give it to me so that I may destroy it!” cried the priest.
“Of course, Reverend,” said Intolerably Cold. “I never want to be a 7 feet tall muscle-man again. From now on I swear to you that I no longer want to be known as ‘Intolerably Cold.’ From this day on, let me be only ‘I. C.’ Cole.”
The words had barely left his lips when he began to feel an oddly familiar chill begin in the center of his chest and flow quickly outward to his head, hands, and feet.
The sheriff and the nurse gasped in unison and Fr. Szhivery gave a shrill short cry.
“What has happened?” cried the nurse.
“Why, he’s … he’s completely frozen!” answered the sheriff.
“One of the devil’s favorite tricks, I fear,” said Fr. Szhivery. “A word play or a ‘pun’, if you will. When Max declared himself ‘I. C. Cole’, he became … well, icy cold. I’m afraid he’s done for now.”
Nurse Rimey jumped into action. “Not on my watch! Quickly, Father, bring me some towels in that top cabinet next to the radiator. Officer Isaac, my hair dryer is under the sink in that restroom. Please get it immediately.”
For almost 10 minutes, they worked on him slowly, gently thawing him with the hair dryer and keeping him dry with warm towels. “We must do this slowly, to avoid damage to his vulnerable epidermis,” said the good nurse.
When Intolerably Cold was completely free of ice from his head to his toes, Sheriff Isaac asked, “Will he live, Nurse Rimey?”
“I am hoping that he froze so fast that it preserved oxygen in his brain and that as he warms, his parasympathetic nervous system will kick back in. We could use a few well placed prayers about now, Reverend.”
Fr. Szhivery had no more than taken out his rosary and made the sign of the cross when Intolerably Cold gave a cough and took in the first breath of his new life. He thanked them with a faltering voice and the policeman and nurse took him to the nearest hospital in Havre. He realized he was still clutching the evil quarter in his hand and put it into his pocket.
After two days of recuperation, the worst Intolerably Cold Cole had from his being frozen solid was a rather persistent head cold, so Mr. and Mrs. Sharp brought him back to Snowy Glen. They set up a grand welcome home party at city hall where they happily announced their plans to adopt Intolerably Cold Cole as their own, as well as to get his Aunt Frieda into the Snowy Glen Xanax, Meth, and Bath Salts Rehab Hospital.
It was a grand feast. The children teased him because his head congestion affected his speech; the word ‘my’ sounded like ‘by’ and ‘told’ sounded like ‘toad.” When Intolerably Cold said “I have a stopped up nose,” it sounded like “I hab a stobbed ub dose,” at which even he had to laugh.
Mr. Sharp provided all the cheeseburgers and chili dogs Intolerably Cold Cole could eat. After all the food was eaten and many tears were shed, sweet old Greta Warmhearth kissed his cheek and gave him a picnic basket full of her famous fried chicken.
Sheriff Isaac stood up and tapped a spoon against his glass of ice water.
“May I have your attention, citizens of Snowy Glen? I think our man of the hour would like to say a few words."
Intolerably Cold Cole stood up and began to speak: "I want to thank you for helping me to turn my life around and for welcoming me back.” His heart felt light and full for the first time in his life. Real tears came to his eyes as he blew his nose into his white handkerchief.
“Excuse me, please, if I sound a little stopped up” he said. “I’m a little teary eyed, but that’s compounded with a cold that has me completely congested.”
The crowd applauded him and begged him to speak on.
“Thank you, friends, my new family.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the evil quarter.
“This terrible coin will never cause any problems again because tonight I am giving it to Father Szhiverly to destroy. Because I won’t ever be ‘Intolerably Cold” Cole again. Instead, I will always be ….”
Sheriff Isaac ran up and clamped his hand over Max's mouth. “Don’t say it!” he cried. “Don’t say ‘I. C. Cold’ again, or…”
Intolerably Cold gently pried the sheriff’s hand from his lips. “Don’t worry, Sheriff! I’m not so stupid as to fall for the devil’s trick again. While I was in Havre I had my name legally changed to Melvin. So from here to forever, I only want to be the best, purest 'Mel' Snowy Glen has ever known.”
What happened next is still talked about in all of Glazier County with mournful faces and dreadful tones. Thanks to Mel’s cold, which had closed off his sinuses completely, the ‘M’ of his new name sounded like, for all intents, a ‘B’.
Fr. Szhivery picked up the cold, metal quarter as it lay where, just a moment before, Max/Intolerably Cold/Mel Cole had been standing. “Ah yes,” he said with a heart full of sorrow. “The devil’s favorite trick.”
After a suitable period of mourning, the people of tiny Snowy Glen decided that the most respectful thing to be done was quietly and solemnly to hang their shiny new town bell from the tower of city hall. Allorph, as the strongest man in the village, hoisted it up. (He later swore that as he touched it, he could feel a slow, warm pulse in the metal.) As they bolted it to its beam and Allorph released it, the pendulous clapper within it swung heavily and it rang once, a sonorous, mournful “donnnng”. As that peal echoed across the valley, in a padded cell in faraway Helena, a man in a straight jacket looked up. A solitary, silver tear rolled down his cheek.
“I always knew that one day you’d hang, Intolerably Cold Cole,” he whispered, unheard by anyone.
The hospital orderly heard maniacle laughter coming from a cell, but ignored it, and went back to the reality show on his small television. He sipped at his Frappuccino. After a few minutes, all the world was quiet again.
