I met an old man here in Fargo; he has schizoaffective disorder – it’s a combination of hallucinations and delusions along with periods of depression and mania. He is bald only on the top of his head, his skin is chalky white, and his eyes you can tell used to be blue but are gray now. He has facial features almost like a young boy even though he’s old; it’s like he’s inside of a photograph that started fading a long time ago.
His father was a sugar farmer about an hour outside of Fargo; a Norwegian immigrant – that’s where the locals get their accent from (think: what you’ve heard in the show or movie ‘Fargo’). He was telling me about how his father was an alcoholic. In guessing what it must have been like, I told him a story from my own Dad whose father was an alcoholic, too. Harlan looked at me square in the eyes like I’d recognized something special, something secret, “ – that’s exactly what it was like,” he said. It’s like I was suddenly holding treasure, or like I threw a dart and it hit some place in his heart he thought was cold and alone and unknown. “That’s exactly what it was like,” he said.
The sun starts going down before 5PM around this time of year. The sun explodes across the snow; the light seems brighter somehow. The apartment I’m staying in has pipes that moan throughout the night. There are photographs of wolves on the walls, and another one showing a bison standing in the snow.
During my first week here, the heater was broken in my apartment. Outside it was -10° F. I’m not sure what temperature it was in here, but I was still cold with two pairs of socks, two sweaters, two blankets, and a beanie. I got sick. The water was shut off for 24 hours. Three of my toes went completely numb and turned white; I found out this was due to a combination of the cold and the pressure from the two pairs of socks. In a hot shower, I looked down in disbelief as the first toe that had turned white remained white for what seemed like several minutes. I thought – I couldn’t have gotten frostbite from just sitting in this apartment, right?
A few blocks from me there’s an old colonial building with big white pillars holding up the awning above its porch; it’s a church, I’d come to find. I pulled the neck of my jacket over my face as I walked there – frostbite can show in about 30 minutes when it’s this cold. In front of the building, a few people were hanging around smoking cigarettes. They had neck tattoos and piercings and the kinds of personal adornments a midwestern mom might clutch her purse to even think of.
Inside I found myself sitting next to a man with a tattoo on his face of a cherub holding an AK47. One of the services was interrupted by someone drunk, walking to their seat, heckling the pastor. Someone else stood up and shared how she’d abandoned her children for her boyfriend who was a drug dealer. And right after the pastor shared their fundraising goal of $75,000, he announced a member of their congregation had died of an overdose; he encouraged everyone to attend his memorial even if they didn’t know him. This church is, I've discovered, from the front door to the pulpit – for those struggling with addiction; the congregation is aimed at recovery. I’ve joined their weekly meetings, Sundays and Thursdays.
There’s a stark brutality to Fargo. There are no mountains on the horizon. It’s flat. Your eyes see Fargo and only Fargo and then the sky. Like maybe Fargo is all that exists. A local told me, “I don’t know why anyone lives here.”
The lonely cold makes any warmth you receive even warmer, though. When I shook someone’s hand and had a nice conversation, or when I stepped back into my apartment, the warmth embraced me more than it would’ve had I stepped in from weather less brutal.
In the cold, and without mountains on the horizon to remind you you’re part of something greater, maybe it’s like you have to be that for each other here – each home has to paint mountains on its own horizon and light its own fire. Maybe that’s where that midwestern kindness comes from. “It’s cold outside, and there isn’t too much going on, but it’s warm in here, and we have a seat for you."
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