There was a patch of ice on the front side of the roof, just inches from the chimney and virtually invisible to Luther. With Frosty in place but not attached, and while Luther was struggling to remove the nylon rope and pull tight the electrical cord and secure the canvas band around the chimney, and just as he was to make perhaps the most dangerous move of the entire operation, he heard voices below. And when he turned to see who was watching he inadvertently stepped on the patch of ice just below the crown, and everything fell at once.
Frosty tipped over and was gone, careening dawn the front of the roof with nothing to hold him back-no ropes, cords, bands, nothing. Luther was right behind him, but, fortunately, Luther had managed to entangle himself with everything. Sliding headfirst down the steep roof, and yelling loud enough for Walt and Bev to hear indoors, Luther sped like an avalanche toward certain death.
Later, he would recall, to himself of course, that he clearly remembered the fall. Evidently, there was more ice on the front of the roof than on the rear, and once he found it he felt like a hockey puck. He well remembered flying off the roof, headfirst, with the concrete driveway awaiting him. And he remembered hearing but not seeing Frosty crash somewhere nearby. Then the sharp pain as his fall was stopped-pain around the ankles as the rope and extension cord abruptly ran out of slack, jerking poor Luther like a bullwhip, but no doubt saving his life.
Watching Luther shoot down the roof on his stomach, seemingly in pursuit of his bouncing Frosty, was more than Walt Scheel could stand. He ached with laughter until he bent at the waist. Bev watched in horror.
"Shut up, Walt!" she yelled, then, "Do something!" as Luther was hanging and spinning well above the concrete, his feet not far from the gutter.
Luther swung and spun helplessly above his driveway. After a few turns the cord and rope were tightly braided together, and the spinning stopped. He felt sick and closed his eyes for a second. How do you vomit when you're upside down?
Wall punched 911. He reported that a man had been injured and might even be dying on Hemlock, so send the rescue people immediately. Then he ran out of his house and across the street where the Frohmeyer children were gathering under Luther. Vic Frohmeyer was running from two houses down, and the entire Becker clan from next door was spilling out of their house.
"Poor Frosty," Luther heard one of the children say. Poor Frosty, my ass, he wanted say.
The nylon rope was cutting into the flesh around his ankles. He was afraid to move because the rope seemed to give just a little. He was still eight feet above the ground, and a fall would be disastrous. Inverted, Luther tried to breathe and collect his wits. He heard Frohmeyer's big mouth. Would somebody please shoot me?
"Luther, you okay?" asked Frohmeyer.
"Swell, Vic, thanks, and you?" Luther began rotating again, slightly, turning very slowly in the wind. Soon, he pivoted back toward the street, and came face to face with his neighbors, the last people he wanted to see.
"Get a ladder," someone said.
"Is that an electrical cord around his feet?" asked someone else.
"Where is the rope attached?" asked another. All the voices were familiar, but Luther couldn't distinguish them.
"I called nine-one-one," he heard Walt Scheel say.
"Thanks, Walt," Luther said loudly, in the direction of the crowd. But he was revolving back toward the house.
"I think Frosty's dead," one teenager mumbled to another.
Hanging there, waiting for death, waiting for the rope to slip then give completely and send him crashing down, Luther hated Christmas with a renewed passion. Look what Christmas was doing to him.
All because of Christmas.
And he hated his neighbors too, all of them, young and old. They were gathering in his driveway by the dozens now, he could hear them coming, and as he rotated slowly he could glimpse them running down the street to see this sight.
The cord and the rope popped somewhere above him, then gave, and Luther fell another six inches before he was jerked to another stop. The crowd gasped; no doubt, some of them wanted to cheer.
Frohmeyer was barking orders as if he handled these situations every day. Two ladders arrived and one was placed on each side of Lather. Ned Becker yelled from the back patio that he'd found what was holding the electrical cord and the nylon rope, and, in his very experienced opinion, it wouldn't hold much longer.
"Did you plug in the extension cord?" Frohmeyer asked.
"No," answered Luther.
"We're gonna get you down, okay?"
"Yes, please."
Frohmeyer was climbing one ladder, Ned Becker the other. Luther was aware that Swade Kerr was down there, as were Ralph Brixley and John Galdy, and some of the older boys on the street.
My life is in their hands, Luther said to himself, and closed his eyes. He weighed one seventy-four, down eleven for the cruise, and he was quite concerned with how, exactly, they planned to untangle him, then lower him to the ground. His rescuers were middle-aged men who, if they broke a sweat, did so on the golf course. Certainly not power lifting. Swade Kerr was a frail vegetarian who could barely pick up his newspaper, and right then he was under Luther hoping to help lower him to the ground.
"What's the plan here, Vic?" Luther asked. It was difficult to talk with his feet straight above him. Gravity was pulling all the blood to his head, and it was pounding.
Vic hesitated. They really didn't have a plan.
What Luther couldn't see was that a group of men was standing directly under him, to break any fall.
What Luther could hear, though, were two things. First, someone said, "There's Nora!"
Then he heard sirens.
Chapter Eighteen
The crowd parted to allow the ambulance through. It stopped ten feet from the ladders, from the man hanging by his feet and his would-be rescuers. Two medics and a fireman jumped out, removed the ladders, shooed back Frohmeyer and his cohorts, then one of them drove the ambulance carefully under Mr. Krank.
"Luther, what are you doing up there?" Nora yelled as she rushed through the crowd
"What does it look like?" he yelled back, and his head pounded harder.
"Are you okay?"
"Wonderful."
The medics and the fireman crawled up on the hood of the ambulance, quickly lifted Luther a few inches, unraveled the cord and the rope, then eased him down. A few folks applauded, but most seemed indifferent.
The medics checked his vitals, then lowered him to the ground and carried him to the back of the ambulance, where the doors were open. Luther's feet were numb and he couldn't stand. He was shivering, so a medic draped two orange blankets over him. As he sat there in the back of the ambulance, looking toward the street, trying to ignore the gawking mob that was no doubt reveling in his humiliation, Luther could only feel relief. His headfirst slide down the roof had been brief but horrifying. He was lucky to be conscious right now.
Let them stare. Let them gawk. He ached too much to care.
Nora was there to inspect him. She recognized the fireman Kistler and the medic Kendall as the two fine young men who'd stopped by a couple of weeks ago selling fruitcakes for their holiday fund-raiser. She thanked them for rescuing her husband.
"You wanna go to the hospital?" asked Kendall.
"Just a precaution," said Kistler.
"No thanks," Luther said, his teeth chattering. "Nothing's broken." At that moment, though, everything felt broken.
A police car arrived in a rush and parked in the street, of course with its lights still flashing. Treen and Salino jumped out and strutted through the crowd to observe things.