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MINNESOTA FOX TALES
An Easter Story
I had always thought that it was something to do with the nature of Mexican culture and beliefs that the writing of Mexican novelists seemed more strongly
mystical than that of the writers de Norte Americana.
Then I traveled to Mexico myself. More than the climate changes when you cross the border. For one thing, there are the Federales with
machine guns, lounging around in public places, suggesting that you are in a less civilized place.
My boyfriend and I traveled to Chiapas, many years ago, and rented a small pension, on a mountainside overlooking San  Christobal de Las Casas. A spectacular view, and
our little one-room cabin was lovely, and had a fireplace, and the firewood was laid just so, every night, we had only to strike a match, and a lovely fire would spring up. This lovely place was
run by an expatriated American, on the European plan, which involved a free drink before dinner. The German-speaking Central Americans were pleased that the choice of drinks included chilled beer.
To my dismay, as I wasn't much of a drinker, I found that the proprietor would NOT serve chilled Coke. He
felt there wasn't room in the refrigerator for it. Chilled Coke is a real treat when traveling in a hot third-world country, and I was determined that there must be a way..the
alternative, drinking room temperature 95 degree Coke is not very pleasant.
It was Good Friday. In the morning, I went to the kitchen door, and very sweetly asked one of the kitchen workers, a Zinacantan Indian, if he would be kind enough to set a
Coke in the refrigerator for me to drink that evening. Then we drove out into the countryside and visited the villages of the Zinacantan and Chamoola Indians. We were
privileged to witness Good Friday religious ceremonies underway in these villages.
The religion of the Indians seemed to be an intermingling of Roman Catholic and Indian superstition. The shrouded statues of the Saints in the Zinacantan church, as seen dimly
through the clouds of incense smoke, looked Catholic, but my friend whispered to me that underneath the shrouds, they were without arms! A fire some time before had
leveled the church . The outraged Zinacantan had cut off the arms of the Saints as they "had not lifted a hand" to save the church.
During the afternoon, we arranged a trip by horseback up into the mountains. It was a
beautiful but hot, dusty day. When we returned, I was more than ready for the chilled coke that I was sure would be waiting for me. I went to the kitchen, and was met by the
same Zinacantan, who shook his head sorrowfully, and informed me that El Padrone had found the Coke and removed it from the refrigerator.
I was hot, thirsty, and very disappointed. I might also have been a little bit angry. I
stormed back to our cabin, and sat down in a lawn chair in front in the warm sun, where I had a spectacular view of the valley. I thought about the problem; it seemed
insurmountable. It would take, I thought to myself, an Act of God to have a chilled Coke in this place!
I had hardly had the time to form this thought, when...from over the mountaintop behind me, dark clouds formed, and a sudden hailstorm developed. Within a few minutes, the
ground was covered with at least two inches of hail--more hail than I had ever seen before in my life!
I jumped up and ran back to the kitchen. The Zinacantan Indian appeared. "Give me a Coke, a glass with ice, and a bucket!" I asked. He did. I ran back to our cabin. I
scooped up a bucketful of hail, and filled our bathroom sink with it. I nestled the Coke in the hail. Five minutes later, I retrieved the chilled Coke, and took it outside. I poured it
into my glass of ice, and said a small prayer of thanks before drinking my chilled Coke. Was this a miracle? I don't know. It was certainly an Act of God. I don't mean this
facetiously in any way, but I do think that God speaks to us each, if only we listen, and his powers are much greater than we can comprehend. Maybe this was simply coincidence, or ... maybe God has a sense of humor!
yours truly,
Dot
your faithful correspondent,
© 2001 by Rachel Scott
NEW YORK UNEASY
I am a subway rider.
I know it is unusual for me to write again so soon, but I have been in a state of
agitation since my friend B's unresolved medical problems arose, and agitation is an engine of achievement, but not nearly as pleasant as a visit from a muse.
We'll discuss the reality versus the poetic image of a muse's visit at a later date.
One notable occurrence was that during the week of my dear friend's first hospitalization, a large basket of bulbs she had sent me burst into full, glorious blooms.
It had been billed as a "white garden," but someone got mixed up. Instead, blooming before my happy eyes, were fuchsia hyacinths and lilac hyacinths, clumps of shy white
crocuses, and tall beautiful tulips, deep orange and red. It gave me great pleasure to see the blooming flowers so sensually close every day and it seemed to me as if B's  tolerant generous heart was on blaze before me.
Well, it could have been a coincidence. Once in a while, a pre-planted bulb basket really delivers on the promise of blooms out of what looks like the scar
tissue of onions. Usually, though, the blooms are stunted or a flower you know to be hardy in the wild is ridiculously fragile and brief lived.
I began to think about coincidences, and my favorite collection of coincidences, unexpected congregations. All of the following are true. One day about twenty years ago I was driving down a major
road in Houston, Texas, and I saw a flock of approximate forty tired, dusty, and dispirited robins standing in the wide grassy median strip of the highway. I did a double-take. I was afraid it was a
bad Disney flashback. But it was real. Forty dusty, dirty, dispirited robins breathing in a lot of carbon monoxide.
Next coincidence is grouped with that coincidence because it was somewhat similar. Quite a few years ago, I was taking the Texas Bar exam. Anyone who knows a
law student knows that the Bar exam time is the time of no time for anything else coupled with daily manifestations of extreme anxiety. N.T.F.A.E.C.W.D.M.E.A.
Because of the anagram, it is casually referred to as the "not a time that any woman or man can endure" or for short, "nut-cracking time." The latter usage is usually by men.
Well, I was driving to my Bar exam and about to park in the modernist woods of the University of Houston, when there on the groomed lawn of the woods, not fifty yards
from the site of the Bar exam, stood a flock of Myna birds. I, of course, thought it was merely a psychotic manifestation of my NTFAECWDMEA, which, you have to
understand, was extreme (even if by definition it was extreme), but I ventured off the path and examined several of the birds closely. They were Myna birds. I knew my
biology. I had been to the zoo. There was a flock of Myna birds standing around the Bar exam site. Well, I thought this was funny and the funniness took down the
NTFAECWDMEA by a notch or two. When I finished the Bar exam, the Myna birds were gone.
My next coincidence story is also about a bar exam. I had moved to New York, and because of circumstances too tedious to explain, was subjected to the New York Bar
Exam. Well, I wasn't eager to take it, but on the other hand, I had tasted NTFAECWDMEA before and survived, so I supposed I would take it. I signed up for a
bar review course, also attended by Robert Kennedy, Jr., which took place in the old Peninsula Hotel across from Pennsylvania Station. If you would think that something as
grand sounding as the Peninsula Hotel would be a pleasant, hospitable, even elegant place of lodging, you would be incorrect. The Peninsula Hotel's clientele came from the
Madison Square Garden crowd, and the international garment district just a few blocks away. The Peninsula Hotel also housed another clientele, too, the kind of people who
shouldn't be where they are, doing what they're doing. The kind of people that a number of the nice young people studying law in the "Grand Ballroom" of the hotel would later
prosecute.
This was pre-Giuliani New York. Koch was on the citizens not to litter, but virtually
every other crime could occur at any time, not that it was necessarily going to happen to you. I came up out of the 2,3 train stop at 33rd Street and would walk to the Peninsula
Hotel sick with nervousness. Then I would study law for a few hours, which always acts as a sedative, and return home. One time, I came up out of the 33rd Street stop and
saw, to my disbelief, a bride and groom walking down the street. Well, it was New York, and God knows what was going, perhaps a costume show or people on their way
to a performance. I walked towards the Peninsula Hotel. I saw another bride and groom. Seeing two sets of brides and grooms in the garment district was really out of
the ordinary. Then I saw another set, and another set, all walking, not in formation, but as couples on their own timetable, to Madison Square Garden.
I went in to study law, not sure if I was on the correct planet. I went home, and all of the brides and grooms were long gone. I read in the paper the next day that the brides
and grooms were on their way to Reverend Moon's mass marriage ceremony.
The final coincidence I'll discuss is one, like the dusty robins, just so odd that it
deserves mention. I'll tell it plain and simple. I am a subway rider and have been one for seventeen years. If you are a subway rider, you know that the subway is a place
which this planet has chosen as the place for anything that exists to suddenly appear next to you in the next seat. So the subway is an underground tunnel of life, filled with
one phenomena after another.
New Yorkers cope with this by reading and listening to music on headphones. When you have to make a transfer, you can be stuck for a long time. The
Jay Street stop in Manhattan is a central artery of the borough, because you change for the F there. The A takes you out to one set of neighborhoods, and the F takes you out to a very different set. People are often
stuck waiting for either the A or the F, lounging about the Jay Street stop, which conveniently has a Spanish/English magazine and newspaper shop.
I was standing on the Jay Street platform a few years ago, and the F was taking an unusually long time to come. What I do sometimes is to walk the perimeter of the
platform until the train comes. I started down on one end of the station and suddenly I noticed a man with one arm. It shook me up a little bit, because I can usually viscerally
sense a person missing a limb, and this man took me by surprise. Other than that, he was a grizzled old guy, just hanging around for his train, doing no one any harm. I kept
walking and got up to the newspaper/magazine shop and was browsing through the literature when I noticed that the man standing next to me was missing an arm.
I gave up the idea of circling the perimeter and bought a magazine and tried to bury my head in it. I couldn't help myself. I saw at least seven one-armed men on that
platform. They weren't talking to one another, and didn't appear to know each other. They were all individually engaged in their own lives. Seven one-armed men standing
on the Jay Street platform at the same time.
I have no idea what it means other than it illustrates that although coincidences can
be dismissed by science as simply that, sometimes they can be quite magical despite their supposed randomness.
Your New York Uneasy Correspondent.
© 2001 by Sarah Scott
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