Deep Winter (2 page)

D
anny awoke before the sun rose, like he always did. He wished that he would sleep longer, but he never could. Right before the sun started to climb over the top of the rolling peaks of the Endless Mountains to the north of town, his eyes would open. Try as hard as he might, he could never drift back to sleep. He liked being in his dreams a whole lot better than where he was now. The dreams were always safe and happy, and folks in them treated him like everybody else. He couldn't always remember them so well, but last night's was still real clear and fresh in his head. He was little, maybe around five or six, both of his front teeth missing, and had on a red paper birthday hat with white polka dots. He puffed up his cheeks and got ready to blow out the candles on a big chocolate cake. Chocolate was his favorite. The candles dripped hot wax all over the icing, the wicks burning bright with tiny orange flames. His parents were there, watching him with wide, toothy smiles. A dozen kids he
didn't recognize sat around the kitchen table, clapping and laughing and eyeing the triple-layer chocolate cake. Presents were piled up on the long table, wrapped in pretty paper with colorful bows. They were all for him. All from friends he didn't even know. After he blew out all the candles, Danny had woken up.

He'd been lying awake on his thin mattress for a few minutes, his feet hanging over the edge of the cot, wishing he were back in his dream so that he could rip open all those presents and see what kind of toys were inside. Instead he opened his eyes to the dark morning light and watched shadows from the trees outside dance and sway along the ceiling like puppets.

Danny figured he might as well get up out of bed. Today was a big day. He stood and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Stretched arms and legs, then peeked out of his second-story window. He watched the Susquehanna River churn along outside—dark, slow-moving water rippled over large, moss-covered rocks and lapped along the shoreline. He liked living so close to the river and listening to the sounds it made, but he never went into the water. No, never in the water.

Dawn was almost there. Danny smiled at the pretty pink sky that reflected and glistened off the rolling river water. He'd always had trouble pronouncing “Susquehanna.” His papa told him it was an Indian name because Native Americans used to live here before all the Pilgrims took over. His papa said that Wyalusing used to be called M'chwihilusing, which he thought sure sounded funny. His mama and papa used to teach him a lot of stuff, because they were teachers and were real smart. They used to read big books all the time.

Danny felt his way across the room and flicked on the switch. Soft light bathed the small space containing a cot and a secondhand dresser and not much else. The walls were bare and most of the
paint missing in fist-size chunks or peeling off in long strips. Danny's head nearly grazed the low-hanging ceiling. Whenever the lightbulb burned out, he didn't need to step on a chair or anything to reach up and change it.

As he pulled on the same pair of green work pants he always wore and a green flannel shirt that fit tight over his belly, he caught his image reflected in the mirror above the dresser. He was thick-necked and bigger than most folks around town, but he didn't have any muscles. He was soft and fat, and most of the kids called him “Michelin Man.” His big belly hung over his belt, always making it a chore to lace up his well-worn work boots. At his last visit to Doc Pete's, the nurse told him that he weighed two hundred and sixty pounds. She said that was too much and that he needed to eat more fruit and vegetables and should exercise every day.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away,
she had instructed him. He had nodded and told her he would, but he liked what he ate and didn't like to exercise. He knew that lying was wrong but thought it was less wrong than hurting the nurse's feelings.

After he managed to tie up his boots with double knots, Danny looked at his collection of hand-carved wooden animal figures that were proudly displayed on the dresser. Mainly different kinds of birds—blue jays, woodpeckers, horned owls, sparrows—but there were also two squirrels, two snails, three rabbits, and one green turtle. The turtle was Danny's favorite. Its head poked halfway out of its shell like it was checking for any signs of danger. Danny had painted a small smile on the turtle's face, even though he knew turtles didn't smile. The turtle's name was Rudy. All his figurines had names. Besides Mindy, they were his only friends in the world, and he would talk to them and pretend that they would talk right back like friends were supposed to do.

Danny stepped over to the small sink, yellowed and rusty around the drain, and splashed cold water on his face. His strawberry-red hair was cut short. Always had been. Mr. Colgrove would give him a crew cut every few months for three dollars and put in a little Vitalis hair tonic. Danny didn't like the way it smelled, but Mr. Colgrove said that it was good for his hair and made him smell manly. Danny didn't take showers or baths, because he didn't have a bathtub. But that was okay. Being in bathtubs made him feel anxious. He would use a hot washrag every night and give his hair a good washing once a week if he remembered to.

And like he did every morning, Danny lathered shaving soap onto his face with a boar-bristle brush. The boar-bristle brush and straight razor used to be his papa's, and before that his granddaddy's. His granddaddy went up to heaven when Danny was still in diapers. Danny didn't have any photographs of his family, and he couldn't remember what his granddaddy looked like. He did remember what his papa looked like and used to watch him shave in the bathroom early in the morning, painting his face with the bristle brush, tilting his head to the left and right, gliding the straight razor across his skin until it was as soft as a baby's bottom. The boar-bristle brush and straight razor were the only things he had of his papa's. Uncle Brett threw everything else in the trash. Danny put the shaving soap on nice and thick and pretended that he was Santa Claus shaving his beard after Christmas. He picked up the straight razor and guided the blade along his skin, just like how his papa used to do it. He was real careful about shaving his whiskers—didn't like having them at all. They made his face tickle and itch.

He sat back down on the unmade cot and pulled a shoe box out from under it. Opened the lid and took out wood-carving supplies. Two carving knives, different sizes of chisels, and a few well-worn
pieces of sandpaper he got down at Farley's hardware store. He laid them out beside him, then took out a block of pine that was in the rough shape of a bird. The head and beak were well formed, but the body and wings needed some more work.

Danny's fingers—nails gnawed and chewed down below the tip of each thick finger—ran over the pine block, skillfully carving and shaving away small slivers of wood. He would blow off the shavings, carefully feeling the texture of its wings. Notched and shaved some more, slowly creating the design of feathers. The small, delicate shape of the bird appeared dwarfed and vulnerable in Danny's giant hands, like he rescued it after it had fallen from its nest.

He always lost track of time when he did his whittling. Would lose himself and forget about who and what he was while crafting his wooden animal friends. The tiny critters didn't make fun of him or laugh at the way he talked. They never called him fat or dumb. They thought he was nice enough and would never say a mean word about him.

The bird he created now would be named Mindy. Mindy the Robin. Danny was making Mindy the person a robin figurine for her birthday because robins were supposed to be smart and a little bossy. Just like Mindy.

His stomach grumbled, but breakfast would have to wait. Danny had other work to do. He put the unfinished wood carving back in the shoe box, stuffed it under his bed, and shuffled out of his small room.

•   •   •

D
anny tromped down the narrow steps and flipped on the lights to the Wash 'N Dry Laundromat. The fluorescents overhead flickered on and off a few times before they finally kicked on and
shimmered against the linoleum floor. A dozen lime green washers and dryers lined the walls, as well as a soda machine and a boxed-soap dispenser that stood next to the laundromat's small restroom.

Danny grabbed a bucket from the washroom, filled it with steaming-hot water, then poured in a little Spic and Span so that the room would smell real clean and fresh. He mopped down the laundromat floor carefully and slowly just like Mr. Bennett had shown him. Mr. Bennett had to show Danny how to open and close the Wash 'N Dry a few times before Danny had finally gotten the hang of it. After mopping the floors, Danny checked the washers and dryers to make sure no one had left any clothes behind. He had checked the machines the night before, but Danny liked to make double sure he did it right. He wiped all the dust and lint off of the machines, checked to make sure that the soda machine didn't have any “sold-out” lights for any selections, and then inspected the detergent dispenser. Mr. Bennett got awfully sore if Danny let them go and get empty, because he said that was how he made lots of money. Mr. Bennett was the one who filled the machines when they needed filling and took out the coins.

Takin' out the money is a big responsibility, Danny. Best if I do that. Don't want you to lose it or have some youngster stealin' it from you. You just keep her clean for me and lock her up at night. Eleven o'clock sharp. Don't forget, now.

Danny figured Mr. Bennett was right—he was right about almost everything. Mr. Bennett was old and wrinkled like a grandfather and always said,
With age comes wisdom.
Sometimes Danny wondered when he got old and wrinkled if he might get smarter, too. He didn't think that would probably happen but hoped that he wouldn't get any dumber than he already was.

In exchange for keeping the Wash 'N Dry clean and opening and
closing it each day, Danny got fifty dollars a week and the room upstairs. Mr. Bennett promised that as long as he did a good job and folks needed someplace to wash their laundry, Danny would have a room to stay in, and a few extra dollars in his pocket for “walking-around money,” as Mr. Bennett called it. Danny worked real hard and tried his best to do nothing wrong. Mrs. Bennett would stop by the Wash 'N Dry from time to time to drop off an extra blanket or wool socks when the Pennsylvania winters were especially cold. One time she made him a blue-and-yellow scarf, but Danny had lost it. He lost a bunch of things. Every Monday, when Mr. Bennett collected his coins, he would give Danny a tin of homemade cookies or fudge that the missus had whipped up. They tasted real good, and as hard as Danny tried not to, he would eat them all in one sitting.

The Wash 'N Dry had been Danny's home ever since Uncle Brett passed on. Danny was still a teenager—sixteen, maybe seventeen—when Uncle Brett went up to heaven after being sick for so long. Uncle Brett wasn't an old man when he died like most folks who stopped living—he was about Danny's age now. He had gotten real skinny, vomited most of his meals, and ended up lying in a bed that smelled of pee and number two and talking or crying to himself the last few months. Danny would take him canned tomato soup and saltine crackers and feed him in bed. Sometimes Uncle Brett didn't know who Danny was and would holler at him to get the hell out of his trailer. He'd knock everything off the nightstand and spit chewed up food in Danny's hair. One time he picked up his bowl of soup and threw it all over Danny, scalding Danny's hands and arms real bad. Other times he would accidentally think that Danny was Danny's father. He would call him Hank and cry about not wanting to die. He'd hug Danny with skinny, flour-white arms that used to be strong and tanned. Uncle Brett never hugged Danny before he was
sick. The sound of Uncle Brett's cough got worse and worse, the sharp rattle in his chest filling the trailer walls. It was a sound that Danny went to sleep to and woke to in the mornings. Then one morning Uncle Brett stopped coughing.

Mr. Bennett said that Uncle Brett smoked and drank too much and that was why he went away. Danny didn't know why folks would smoke and drink. Cigarettes smelled bad and cost lots of money, and alcohol made folks act real strange. When Uncle Brett got into the drink, he became even meaner than he usually was. Some folks got all happy and silly when they were having beer and whiskey, but not Uncle Brett. If he wasn't yelling or hitting Danny, Uncle Brett would just drink all quiet like and watch hunting and fishing shows on the television set.

Danny took one more pass through the laundromat to make sure everything was in its place and ready for the day. It all looked pretty good, so he unlocked the front doors and headed out to breakfast.

•   •   •

A
dusting of fresh snow covered Wyalusing's Main Street, quiet at the early hour. Down the town's quarter-mile main drag, dirty snow was plowed to the curb, caked with cinders, black slush, and cigarette butts. Dark clouds overhead threatened more snow.

Not too many people lived on Main Street itself. Most houses were built back on Front and Church Streets. Big two-story Queen Anne homes with porches that wrapped around the fronts of the houses and had high-pitched roofs with fish-scale shingles. Every lawn had a red maple or a black birch growing on it. Some with a swing hanging from a lower limb. Maybe these houses stood proud at one time, but years of neglect and brutal winters had taken their
toll. Roofs and porches sagged, lawns chewed up by trucks parked out front.

There were two churches in town—Methodist and Presbyterian—both of them on Church Street. An old library built back in 1902 stood on Church Street as well. The grade school, high school, and post office were a couple blocks from there.

No red lights in town, only stop signs at busy intersections. More than a few stop signs were peppered and dimpled with shotgun holes. Most folks didn't pay them any attention anyway.

A dozen or so stores and shops lined Main Street itself, most of them in need of a new coat of paint. Donna's Neat Threads, Colgrove's Barbershop, a Shell station, Red's Tavern, First National Bank, Flick's Videos, and a few other stores that weren't in business anymore. Iris's Gifts and More had been gutted by a fire last year and was still boarded up. Plywood had been nailed over the blackened window frames, and some kids had painted graffiti of female private parts onto the wood. Danny knew that the crude artwork was there but tried not to look at the women's private parts, because that was dirty and not very nice.