Spotlight on the Shadows: The Curious Case of Punxsutawney Phil

It was just before 3:00 a.m. when my cell phone jolted me to consciousness. It was a number I didn’t know, so I ignored it and buried my face back in my pillow. I always figure whoever is calling from a wrong number will hear my voicemail and realize it’s not who they’re looking for. A few seconds later, however, my ringer once again broke the silence. Perturbed and groggy, I grabbed the phone off my nightstand and mustered up the most coherent greeting I’m capable at this time of morning.
 
“Huhheheh?” I said confidently.
 
“Hi there, I’m trying to get in touch with Kevin Jordan,” the man replied in a pleasant tone, clearly unaffected by my time-related speech impediment or time in general. “There’s been a situation down in Pennsylvania that we would like you to write a story on.”
 
“Pennsylvania? I write sarcastic columns in Boston for a small, online college newspaper. Isn’t there someone down there that may be a bit more professionally and geographically suited to cover the story?” I asked him, hoping for another few hours of shut-eye.
 
“Well, yes, there probably is, Mr. Jordan. But this one is out of my hands. There’s been an arrest in Punxsutawney, and the guy they brought down to the station said he would only talk to you. This guy is a pretty big deal in our town. If people don’t get the real story this could cause a hell of a lot of problems for us.”
 
“Dammit,” I mutter as I realized who he’s talking about. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
 
                                                            ___________
 
Seeing as it was February 2nd, there was a surprisingly high volume of flights headed towards Pennsylvania. After a quick stopover in Pittsburgh I was able to find a connecting flight that would land me in Punxsutawney just after ten o’ clock. As I stepped out of the shadow of the eastern terminal and boarded the small, twin-engine plane the flight attendant flashed me a pleasant smile, wishing me a comfortable flight and a Happy Groundhog’s Day. Clearly she hasn’t watched the news today, I thought to myself, shielding my eyes from the bright sunlight as I passed. If she had, it’s doubtful she would have labeled this Groundhog’s Day as a joyful one.
 
                                                           ___________
 
The plane touched down on the runway of Punxsutawney Municipal Airport with the grace and poise of Charles Barkley hyped-up on a box of bear claws and the hopes of a blow job. After making sure I hadn’t wet myself on the landing, I grabbed my only bag from the overhead bin and headed towards the exit. As I progressed down the aisle I caught the eye of the flight attendant who greeted me as we left Pittsburgh. The comforting, radiating smile she had shown me a short time earlier had given way to one of disappointment and concealed concern. In a nutshell, she was displaying the reactions of Steelers fans to this past season.
 
“Don’t worry, Ashley,” I said after a quick glance at her name tag, “I’ll do my best to clean this mess up.”
 
I’m pretty sure she didn’t have any idea what I was talking about.
 
The man who had called me earlier in the morning had described himself as a slender man in his forties with brown hair and a mustache. He was certainly correct about the mustache, but beyond that I couldn’t entirely understand how he justified his comb over and protruding midsection with such a description. Nice rack though. He held a piece of bright white paper with the words “Kevin Jorden” scrawled on it in thick, black marker. As I approached him, I wonder how difficult of a name “Jordan” was to spell. I then wondered what the quality of education was in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. I then realized that their weather and climate specialist was a woodchuck, and I had my answer to both questions.
 
“Clinton Gerst,” I called out cordially. “How are you?”
 
“Oh, I’m alright, Kevin,” he responded with slightly more fatigue than he did when we spoke on the phone. “Although, it has been quite the stressful morning as I’m sure you can imagine.   We’ve got a town legend in jail and three prominent members of the town checked into the hospital—not exactly my ideal Tuesday.”
 
“Sounds like a slow Tuesday to me, Mr. Gerst. But then again, I’m not from a town that relies around the yearly reactions of a woodchuck to uphold the local economy.”
 
“What I am interest to know,” he began, ignoring the verbal punishment I sent his way for waking me up at three in the morning, “is why exactly Phil is only willing to talk to you.”
 
“Well, Clint, maybe it’s because he trusts me as a journalist. Maybe it’s because I’m a good listener. Then again, maybe it’s because he sees me as a role model. To be honest, it’s probably two of the three. I met him a few years back on a road trip. I was making my way through Pennsylvania and happened to stop at this place in Clearfield called Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub. As I sat down at the bar, impressed and also somewhat concerned at the sight of numerous hard liquors on tap, I noticed Phil at the other end of the bar with empty beer glasses and a burger as big as he was crowding the space in front of him. Curious why there was a groundhog in the pub and deciding I was up for a good bar story, I approached him and we began to talk. After a few hours filled with spilling of emotions, much needed life advice, and the most delicious plate of wings I’ve ever tasted, we parted ways.”
 
“Well, it’s good to know you two have a history, Kevin,” Gerst replied. “We’ve never seen Phil like this. The town is franticly trying to find out what’s going on and rumors are starting to spread. We need you to set things straight.”
 
“Alright, Gerst, I’ll see what I can do. Let’s get going.”
 
                                                         __________
 
After a quick drive down Route 119 we arrived at the Punxsutawney Police Department to the sight of numerous protesters. There seemed to be mixed feelings in the crowd, with some posters demanding that Phil be freed, while others supported his incarceration. Still more posters fervently quoted the Book of Leviticus, pointing out that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man, apparently unaware that the book also prohibits the trimming of beards. I think they were lost. They also didn’t have beards.
 
As I parted ways with Mr. Gerst and entered the station, the mood changed. While the feeling outside was one marked by strong opinions and emotions, the one inside felt much more like business as usual. I was greeted at the door by a young officer who led me inside to the cell where Phil was being held. The dimly lit cell wasn’t big by any means, but in comparison to its prisoner it was relatively spacious. 
 
It took me a second to locate him when I walked up to the bars. The young officer handed me a folding chair and I took a seat, staring into the far corner where a small dark lump called attention to itself in comparison to the flat surrounding surfaces. As the legs of the old chair scraped the floor as I placed my full weight on it, the lump in the corner moved, revealing the twinkles of a pair of inquisitive eyes reflecting incoming light.
 
“How you been, Greg?” I asked in a familiar tone. He quickly sat upright upon hearing my question, probably half from the sound breaking the silence and half from hearing his given name. After his initial shock passed, he slowly approached me, reaching the middle of the cell until a passing truck outside caused a shadow to slide across the cold cement. At the sight of the dark shape, Greg jumped and retreated frantically to his corner. After getting his skittish tendency under control, he continued his trip towards me, and stopped and sat upright as he reached the bars.
 
“I finally snapped, Kev,” he said in his pleasing baritone that always seemed an octave too low for a personified animal of his stature. “I couldn’t take the bullshit anymore. Everything. Everything at once just got to me and I finally snapped.”
 
“I heard you put a few guys from the Inner Circle in the hospital.”
 
“Hell yeah I did,” he replied with an odd mix of pride and disgust. “Those assholes have made me and my family the laughing stock of Gobbler’s Knob for over a century. And that’s pretty impressive when you live in a place called Gobbler’s-friggin’-Knob.”
 
“I know, I know. You definitely haven’t been born into the best of situations. You want to tell me why you called me here?”
 
“You’re the only one who understands me, man. I used to be able to hitch a ride to Clearfield every once in a while and hang with Denny, but he finally kicked it six months ago from a heart attack. Everyone around here is so blind to ridiculous, illogical, nature of these traditions that they won’t take me seriously. I mean, come on. Every year I come out of my hole and if I see my shadow, winter magically continues. That doesn’t have any effect on the weather. It just means it was fucking sunny! And how do you think the Southern Hemisphere feels. Oh sorry, mates, I saw my shadow so your summer is over. Crikey. You know how often I’m right with my “predictions”? 39% of the time. Some weather place actually calculated it. When a weather institution calls out for being wrong about predictions you know you’ve hit rock bottom.”
 
“Yeah, I hear ya. That doesn’t exactly explain why three men in top hats and tuxes are in the hospital though.”
 
“No, no it doesn’t,” Greg said as a flash of aggression flashed across his face. I had never thought Greg to be a violent guy. But then again, everyone has his limits. In the few hours I spent talking to him at the pub, I pegged him as an individual with aspirations, but also with vulnerabilities that held him back. His fear of dark shadows attested to his fight-or-flight-induced cowardice. They also, however, were a testament to the deep-seeded racism that he has never been able to shake. Above all else, Greg was someone that was pushed to rock bottom, and for someone who has nowhere to go but up there is no ceiling for potential.
 
“You know,” he began, “after I talked with you at Denny’s pub I changed a few things. I decided if I was going to be stuck in this life I was at least going to be accurate. I started taking night classes studying meteorology and atmospheric science over at Penn State. You know what my shadow has to do with seasonal weather patterns? Jack shit. You know those pricks actually tell people that they feed me a special Groundhog Punch every year that makes me live seven years longer? Yeah. Apparently roofies’ side effects include, in addition to date rape of course, meteorological expertise and eternal life.”
 
“They failed to mention that in my health class in high school,” I mused, as another truck passed, sending a frantic Greg in the wall so quickly he knocked himself unconscious. As he lay there, seemingly lifeless from the blow he just inflicted upon himself; I considered my options of how to tell the world who the real Punxsutawney Phil was and expose this holiday as the bullshit that it is.
 
                                                    ____________
 
I bid Greg’s unconscious body good day and left the station. On the way out, I posted Greg’s bail so that when he awoke he’d be free to go about his business. I traveled over to the hospital, hoping to pay a visit to the members of the Inner Circle that Greg had put in the hospital, which I eventually learned was due to severe biting an scratching, which is pretty much the only thing that a groundhog could do to inflict bodily damage. What Greg had on his side, however, was deadly accuracy with every rabid nibble of his teeth and swipe of his dainty, yet sharp claws, and he used that skill to his advantage.
 
Upon reaching the hospital and giving a hopefully untraceable alias when signing in at the nurse’s station, I made my way to the room housing the three men. I entered the room quietly and peered at the three unconscious bodies, top hats sitting patiently at their bedsides. With the syringe I had somehow managed to swipe while poorly sweet-talking one of the nurses, I filled each of their IV bags with a healthy dose of roofies in hopes that it would provide them with the meteorological abilities to predict the seasons themselves and the eternal life to do so forever, keeping Punxsutawney relevant for decades to come. And no, I didn’t date rape them, you perverts.
 
                                                     ____________
 
Before departing Punxsutawney I went back to meet Greg to get a few more quotes for the story. As we sat and talked, he discussed his plans for the future. Unsurprisingly, he wanted to leave Punxsutawney as soon as he could. Where would he go? He wasn’t sure yet. Regardless, there were some things he was striving to change about his life.
 
“First and foremost,” he said “I want to conquer this fear of shadows that has defined my past so heavily. I don’t want to be seen as a coward, and I don’t want to be known as that groundhog that predicted the weather based on a localized blockage of light that he himself controls by moving. I’m a new man, and I look forward to my first chance to show that.
 
As I took a good hard look at the small woodland creature that I first met drinking himself stupid in a rural town in central Pennsylvania, I started to see him in a different light, and it suited him well. The spotlight was no longer shining on him, and he no longer he had the attention he so often despised. He had a darker, possibly even edgier look to him, and for once, he didn’t shy away from that lack of light. What we all soon realized, however, standing there watching the groundhog formerly known as Punxsutawney Phil, was that maybe he should have shied away from that new shadow in which he stood, because that shadow, caused by the fading, low-hanging western sun, was from a large pickup barreling towards Greg. 
 
With a screeching of tires, a pair of thumps, and a cloud of fur, it was over. As the truck skidded to a halt and the driver-side door was pushed ajar, I glimpsed the silhouette of a top hat before I turned and walked away. My reasons for being there were no more, and it was time to go share the story of that famous groundhog and the holiday that frustrated me for years.
 
                                                     __________
 
In the last few minutes I was speaking with Greg, I asked him if there is anything he would like to say to the Punxsutawney Phil Groundhog Inner Circle that controlled his life and appearance for so long.
 
“Fuck you,” he shouted angrily.
 
That’s Groundhogese for “you’re killin’ me, Smalls.”