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  Mintz held up his hand. “You’re too good to me Harry,” said Mintz. “Much too good,” Mintz sniffed. “I’ll be fine,” he assured Kirsch. Mintz straightened his shoulders and turned around to leave.

  “Isaac,” said Kirsch. “I have seen more than a couple cases like this you know.” Mintz had not turned around to look at him. “Isaac,” said Kirsch again, putting his hand on Mintz’s shoulder. “You have done everything you could for your child. You have done as much as anyone could expect and more then most. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  Mintz still did not turn around and Kirsch realized that he would not be able to get through to Mintz tonight. He thought to himself that in a week he would call Mintz and try to give the man some perspective. Then he had one final idea.

  “Come join Rachel and me tonight for dinner,” he said. “We have nothing special planned but when was the last time you saw Rachel?”

  Mintz still did not turn around. “It’s been a long time Harry,” admitted Mintz, his voice quivering. “Some other time, alright?”

  “Sure,” said Kirsch. “Let me show you out,” he said. He then walked to the door and opened it for Mintz. When the two were in the hallway he put his armed around his friend and client and whispered to him. “Isaac, things will work out. You have done a very good thing here. You made one mistake but that is not the end of the world.”

  Mintz finally looked back at Kirsch with a glazed look on his face. “You think so?” he asked.

  “I do,” said Kirsch.

  But all that Isaac Mintz could think to himself was that Harry Kirsch had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

  ***

  After leaving Kirsch’s office, Mintz re-entered the elevator and pressed the button for the basement parking lot. He now felt as if a huge weight had just been lifted off his shoulders. He realized that he had done what he had intended and that the responsibility of his child was no longer his. He had provided for his boy as best he could and there was now nothing more he could do for him. Although he had been a failure as a father, Mintz felt that, by providing a home and security for the boy, he had achieved some small sense of redemption.

  Mintz began to sob uncontrollably in the elevator has it made its way down to the basement. He leaned against the elevator wall and slowly slid down it until he was sitting in the corner of the elevator on the floor. Realizing that he was not yet ready to drive, Mintz reached up to the elevator button panel and pressed the stop button. He then sat there for an indeterminable amount of time wallowing in his own brand of self pity.

  Then Mintz was walking aimlessly up and down the snow covered streets. He asked each passer-by if he had seen his son but the answer was always the same. The passer-by did not know Mintz had a son. Mintz was becoming frantic. He was now running up and down the streets as the snow accumulated. He was trudging through mountains of snow looking for his son. Finally the snow was so high that Mintz could no longer walk. Eventually the snow was up to his shoulders and Mintz was stuck. He called out but no one heard him. Just as his head was about to be covered with snow a telephone began ringing. A telephone?

  Mintz woke up. The emergency telephone in the elevator was ringing. He stood up, opened the little door that hid the telephone, and answered it.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Is everything okay in there?” asked a voice.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “The elevator seems to be stuck,” said the voice. “I’ll call the emergency number.”

  “Oh,” said Mintz. “I think I may have hit the stop button by mistake.”

  “Oh?” asked the voice.

  “Hold on,” said Mintz and he pulled out the stop button. The elevator began moving again.

  “The elevator is working again,” said Mintz. “Thank you,” he said.

  “No problem,” said the voice.

  Mintz replaced the telephone and closed the little door. He thought about his dream. He really did feel as if he was being smothered. The weight he had been carrying was gone but the smothering feeling would not go away. He took a deep breath. He was having problems breathing.

  Once back in his car, Mintz exited the basement parking lot and began driving through the blizzard. The snow was worse than before. The snow flakes were thicker now, falling in clumps, and there were more of them. The wind was also more furious than ever. In addition to the deteriorating weather, the vodka that he had been drinking in Harry’s office had made it more difficult to navigate through the snow covered streets. Even if he could see where he was going, Isaac’s head was becoming too fuzzy to drive. The fact that everything in front of the car was white made driving that much worse. Mintz pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked. He would close his eyes for a minute, long enough for his head to clear.

  He was again walking through the streets looking for his son and, again, no one knew where his son was. Some passers-by shouted that they did not know that he even had a son. He heard a bang and looked down at a sewer grating. Someone was banging from inside the sewer trying to get out. Bang! Bang! Ba—

  Mintz woke up and looked around. He saw a policeman standing next to the car pounding on his window with a gloved hand. Bang! Bang! Mintz rolled down the window and the snow that had accumulated on the outside of it fell into the car.

  “Yes?” asked a groggy Mintz.

  “Are you alright sir?” asked the constable.

  “Oh, sure,” said Mintz, shaking himself out of his dream. “It was getting a little difficult to see so I pulled over.”

  “Well,” said the policeman. “Normally I would tell you to stay put but the blizzard is only going to get worse. Can you drive home?”

  “Oh,” said Mintz slowly, as if searching for the answer. “Oh, yes, I can drive,” he answered.

  The policeman gave a look of concern when Mintz answered so slowly.

  “Are you sure?” asked the policeman.

  “Oh, yes officer,” said Mintz, now speaking more normally. “I’m fine now.”

  “Alright then,” said the policeman. “Drive carefully.”

  “Good night, officer,” said Mintz. “And, thank you,” he called out the window as it rolled up.

  Mintz pulled away from the curb and continued driving. He did not know where he should go. He could not go home. What would he do there? Have more dreams? Drive himself crazy? The thoughts depressed Mintz. He now felt worse than he did before he saw Harry. He drove on through the white on white streets until he saw a light ahead. What was it? A building? It was so difficult to see. As he drew closer Mintz could finally see that it was a liquor store. A liquor store! Mintz thought he could use a little drink. He was mildly concerned about drinking and driving, but he told himself that the drink would keep him warm through this horrible weather. He also thought he was responsible enough to know when he had had enough to drink.

  Mintz parked and walked into the liquor store just as the manager was turning the lights off.

  “Sorry, we’re closed,” said the manager.

  “The door was open,” said Mintz.”

  “Sorry, I forgot to lock it,” he explained. “We closed a couple of hours ago. I’m just waiting for my wife to pick me up.”

  “Oh,” said Mintz, walking over to the vodka section of the store. He picked up a bottle of Smirnoff and looked at the manager. “I just need this one bottle,” said Mintz.

  “Sorry”, said the manager apologetically. “Can’t do it. It’s illegal to sell you anything now.”

  “Oh,” said Mintz.

  Mintz looked at the manager but he could see the manager was not going to change his mind. He pulled five twenty dollar bills out of his wallet and handed them over to him.

  “For your trouble,” said Mintz.

  The manager looked at the bills for a moment and then quickly took them and put them in his pocket. “Well,” said the manager. “I guess I could ring it in tomorrow.”

  Mintz smiled. “Appreciate it,” he said.<
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  “I guess this is just your lucky day,” said the manager.

  “Yeah,” agreed Mintz, trying to avoid thinking about his day. Then, to himself, he mumbled “My lucky day.”

  Mintz drove slowly through the snow covered streets until he came to an onramp to the Gardiner Expressway West. Without thinking, he entered the Expressway but he did not think about a destination. He just found the drive relaxing. Outside the weather continued to beat at his car while inside he felt safe and comfortable. As he drove he continued to drink from the vodka bottle. The vodka made him feel better and worse at the same time. He felt better as the alcohol dulled his senses and enabled him to think about himself in the third person. Everything that had happened to him now felt as if it had happened to someone else. He felt worse as the vodka forced him to dwell on the futility of the situation, the hopelessness of the life of this someone else. With every mile he drove, Isaac became more and more depressed. He thought of his affair with Elizabeth and how much he had loved her back then. He thought of his child whom he would never again see. He thought of the disappointment of his family and friends and the fact he would probably never allow himself to marry and have a real family of his own. He thought of his God and how disappointed He would be in him. He thought through his life since Elizabeth and realized that he had ruined any hope of living the life he had dreamed of as a child.

  The oncoming headlights of a car startled Isaac as they nearly blinded him. Isaac instinctively turned the wheel away from the oncoming car and hit the brake pedal. The Cadillac lost its traction and the car began to spin. Isaac felt dizzy as the car spun around 360 degrees but still did not stop. The surrounding landscape spun so fast in front of him that he could not register anything. It was all a blur. “Shit!” exclaimed Isaac out loud to no one in particular. His heart was racing and he thought he was going to throw up as the car spun through another 360 degrees. This time around everything started to slow down and the car eventually came to a stop. Isaac looked around him. There were no other cars on his side of the highway and his car had not left the road. Miraculously the car had spun around twice while staying on the highway and was now even pointed in the right direction.

  Isaac was out of breath but his racing heart did start to slow. He could feel the rhythm of the pulse in his head slow down. His face was beaded with perspiration but he was no longer flushed red. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his coat and looked for the lights that had startled him. He saw a car in the median ditch facing his direction, its headlights still on and pointed toward him. He ignored the car, took his foot off the brake, and gently pressed on the accelerator. Isaac regained his composure and continued driving. He picked up the vodka bottle and took another quick drink.

  It was now more difficult for Isaac to keep the Cadillac on the road. The accumulation of snow, the lack of other traffic, the dearth of salt trucks and snow removal equipment, all meant that the car had very little traction. Isaac slowed the car down so that he could continue driving and thinking.

  What would his life have been like if he had not met Elizabeth? Would he now be married? Would his wife be pregnant and would they both be excited about the new addition to their family? Would they be decorating the nursery in anticipation of the new arrival? Would all of his family and friends be as excited? Putting aside all of these considerations, would he be happy?

  The car skidded sideways towards the right hand ditch but Isaac managed to pull out of the skid and keep the car on the road. Looking ahead, he thought he saw a shadow on the road in front of him through the snow but he dismissed it. He had been seeing shadows all night. Besides, he could barely see anything through the blowing snow. Then, as he drew closer to the shadow, he began to see more detail. This was strange, he thought. It looked as though someone was walking along the shoulder of the highway. Despite the detail, Mintz was so tired and so drunk he felt certain he was imagining this. Who would walk on the highway in this weather?

  Then, as an afterthought, Mintz decided that he might be driving too fast and so applied his foot to the brake. The wheels of the Cadillac locked and the car started sliding down the highway. He was rapidly approaching the shadow at the side of the road and, again, the car started to slide to the right, to the shoulder where the fictitious shadow was lurking. Mintz started to panic as he closed the distance between himself and the shadow. He tried to steer the car away from the side of the road by turning the wheels to the left but the car continued to slide down the highway and, then, slowly, continued to slide to the right.

  Mintz knew he was in trouble when he was able to visually confirm that the shadow was in fact a person walking on the shoulder of the highway. For the second time tonight his heart began to beat faster and faster. He could feel the pulsing in his head quicken and perspiration accumulate all over his face. For the first time tonight Mintz was scared because he knew that he was not thinking clearly. Finally he pressed down on the horn. Inside the automobile the horn was barely perceptible but he knew Cadillac’s horn was blaring loud outside. The pedestrian heard the sound, jumped in surprise, and turned to see where the sound had come from. At that point Mintz could see that he was fast approaching a man. The headlights of the car lit up the man’s face, a face exhibiting complete horror at the spectacle of the headlights approaching behind the swirling snow.

  Then everything took place in slow motion. The male pedestrian tried to move further off the highway but the Cadillac was just moving too fast. The man continued to face the car and, though Mintz could not hear the man’s scream, he could feel its intensity from his view of the face. After several very slow seconds, where the man’s screaming face was held in frozen animation in front of Mintz’s windshield, there was a loud thud. The man lay on the hood of the car as the Cadillac slid for another hundred feet before coming to a stop.

  Mintz’s eyes were closed at this point. He prayed that he had been dreaming and that, when he did open his eyes, there would be no man on his hood. He opened one eye first and confirmed that the man was still on the hood of the car. Mintz then got out of the car, stepped into the blizzard, and slowly walked up to the man. He found that he had difficulty keeping his balance, and slipped on snow-covered highway more than once, but he did eventually reach the man and feel for a pulse. There was none. “Shit!” said Isaac into the windswept snow.

  Despite the cold wind and the blowing snow, Mintz continued to sweat. He also found it difficult to breath. What to do? Since the man was dead, Mintz decided that waiting for the police would not solve anything. The shame of the day had already been so much to bear but this final event was the final straw. Mintz made up his mind. He pulled the man off the hood, left him in front of the car at the side of the road, and returned to the car. He backed up the car, manoeuvred around the body, and then continued driving west.

  He was now driving so slowly that he would be within the speed limit of a school zone. The windshield wipers continued to fight the accumulation of snow on the windshield despite being on their fastest setting. The snow continued to attack the windshield from the front. Isaac took another drink from the vodka bottle.

  He was now really beginning to lose his ability to think. A life ruined, he thought to himself. One stupid mistake, a single mistake, and his life had been ruined. And now he had killed a man because of this mistake. That’s two mistakes, he thought to himself. Then, suddenly, as an epiphany, a thought occurred to him. He had now provided for his child. Elizabeth was gone and he owed her nothing. It occurred to him that he need not live with this misery. He realized that there was another way.

  Up ahead Isaac thought he could see something. For an instant it looked like the highway rose up toward heaven but Isaac knew that it could not be that. As he drew closer he realized that the highway did rise up, but not to heaven. Well over 100 feet high and over a mile long, it was the Burlington Skyway bridge.

  Isaac remembered the bridge well because it had been built when he was a teenager. He even
remembered when it was opened: Oct 30 1958. He wondered why he knew that date but then dismissed the thought. Isaac now knew what he had to do. He slowly began to push harder on the accelerator. The wheels of the car started to spin frantically without accelerating the car. Isaac eased up on the accelerator until the wheels stopped spinning and waited until there was enough traction to push the car up the bridge. The car was beginning to go faster now. Failure, that was all that Isaac could think of now. His life was a lost cause. Until just now he had been so depressed about his failings but now he was beyond depression. Tears began to well up in his eyes. It was a shame, he thought to himself. He was not a bad person. He did not deserve this fate. But who had ever said that life was fair? The car was going much faster now up the bridge. There were no other cars around him and he was now halfway up the Skyway. Unlike the road, which was white with snow, the bridge was black, having been well salted. He was now doing well over the speed limit and was still accelerating.

  Isaac flinched and took his foot off the accelerator. Would everyone think that he had committed suicide? How would that affect his family? To commit suicide under Jewish law was a horrible crime resulting in a burial without a tombstone. That would be very hard on his family and, somehow, ironically, Isaac thought it would be hard for him too. He very quickly thought through his plan and realized that his death might not be considered a suicide. Everyone would think it was an accident. He had been drinking and the weather was insane. Who would ever think it was anything other than some irresponsible drinking combined with some very bad luck?

  Isaac pressed his foot down on the accelerator again and kept the car in the left lane. His plan was to go as fast as possible and then suddenly turn the car into the rail that lay just outside the right hand lane. The car would go careening off the bridge into the icy water below and his troubles would go away. All of the misery would stop and he would be peaceful, as if at sleep. He made a blessing for the child he was about to orphan and he made a blessing for the child’s mother, Elizabeth. Finally he apologised to his God for taking his own life. He took one last drink from the vodka bottle and then suddenly turned the wheel to the right.