Snow Day: a Novella (6 page)

We continued walking along the back of the block. Beyond the rhythm of our snow-crunching footsteps, I heard a sound behind me, distant but clear. It was heavy breathing and the fall of boots trudging hurriedly through the snow. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Tommy, far down the block, making his way in our direction. He bounded through the deep snow one giant step at a time, jumping from one of our deep foot prints to the next, hurrying along our path. He saw me and raised a hand to get my attention.

Oh shit, here comes trouble. I could just hear Tommy:
I’m your pal, Billy
, and
I just want to play, Billy
. And Frank and Bobby:
Hey, Billy, why do you keep hanging out with the retard?

No way. No, thanks.

I turned forward again, said nothing to Bobby and Lucy, and made like I didn’t see him. We were coming up to the corner where Route 5 intersected Woodlawn Avenue. The turn was blinded by a fence and some trees. If we reached the corner before Tommy caught up to us, we could sprint and ditch him, and he’d never know in which direction we ran.

Just as this thought flashed through my mind, I heard something else behind me. It was the crush of snow beneath tires as they pulled to the curb, and the throaty, ugly rumble of a car in need of a new muffler.

Don’t turn around, keep walking, get ready to run, ditch Tommy at the corner; that was the plan. And then...

CHUNK!

Somewhere behind me, a car door slammed. The sound was loud, the door was heavy, and it seemed to ring – in my mind, anyway – with a deep sense of finality.

The driver gunned the engine, the muffler complained harshly, and I finally stole a peek over my left shoulder just as the car passed me. It was an old black Plymouth Valiant. I didn’t see who was behind the wheel. I only glimpsed the back of the driver’s white-haired head as he turned away, and a long arm in a dark coat maneuvering the steering wheel as it turned from the curb.

But as the car drove away, I could clearly see a young boy in the back seat. It was Tommy. He was looking at me through the rear window, much like he had through the Barbershop window that one time, expressionless.

He was chewing on something. I think it was a piece of candy. And for a brief moment, I wondered if it was a cherry-flavored Sucret. There was an extra left in my pocket; I could have given him that one.

The Plymouth disappeared down the road. Oblivious, Bobby and Lucy continued walking and talking.

And I said nothing.

W
HEN WE FINALLY TURNED THE CORNER
on to Woodlawn Avenue, we saw Frank, Carl and Jimmy. Crazy Jimmy Barnes was always doing something insane. Even taking a spill off the garage roof and laughing about it was pretty tame in Jimmy’s book. He didn’t live on our block. Jimmy and his mother lived in the Garden Apartments down on Broad Avenue. We called him Crazy Jimmy, and he was cool with that, but a lot of people just knew him as the kid with half a finger. Jimmy had lost half of his right index finger in an unfortunate accident with some fireworks. According to Frank, Jimmy learned the hard way that if you’re going to light M-80s and drop them from a highway overpass onto the roof of trucks passing by on Route 46, you’d better make sure you have a long enough fuse.

The three older boys were standing on the corner of Woodlawn and Persimmons Avenues. They were laughing and one of them was leaning against the Stop sign. As we walked a short distance along Woodlawn toward my brother and his friends, a big green Chevy Impala turned off Route 5 behind us onto Woodlawn, passed us on our left, and slowly came to rest at the Stop sign where Woodlawn crossed Persimmons and the boys stood talking. Lucy stopped us.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Watch this. I think they’re going to try bumper skiing.”

Bobby and I were puzzled. We slowed our stride, idled down Woodlawn, and watched the big kids, not knowing what to expect. Then we saw it. As the four-door sedan slowed to a stop, the three boys started to cross the intersection. Frank and Carl crossed in front of the Impala, while Jimmy crossed behind it. The old man at the wheel casually watched as Frank and Carl passed the car’s grill. When they had crossed, and the road was clear, he put a foot on the gas pedal and the Impala began rolling down a snow and ice-covered Woodlawn Avenue. Little did the old man know that Crazy Jimmy was firmly attached to his rear bumper, looking like he belonged on
ABC’s Wide World of Sports
.

Preoccupied with watching pedestrians crossing in front of him and looking for oncoming traffic, the old man didn’t notice Jimmy duck into a crouch behind the trunk of the Impala. Feet planted flat on the packed snow and knees bent deeply, Jimmy grabbed firmly onto the underside of the Impala’s chrome bumper and did his best imitation of alpine skier Franz Klammer. When the old man stepped on the gas pedal it was easy and gentle. Slowly at first, then with gradually increasing speed, the Impala and the 14-year-old boy with nine-and-a-half fingers took off down Woodlawn Avenue together.

Jimmy rode the bumper of the old man’s car for about fifty feet before he finally let go. He stayed on his feet in a crouch for a few more seconds, then gently fell back on his tail and slid another twenty feet to a slow comfortable stop, pumping a victory fist in the air.

“Damn!” I heard someone exclaim.

“Cool!” Someone else added.

The adrenaline rush was just too irresistible. Soon we were all clamoring for a chance to kill ourselves.

For the next few hours, we took turns, each time getting a little better at disguising our intentions from the drivers. The corner of Woodlawn and Persimmons was the perfect place to “catch a ride,” as we started to call it. The drivers were all in a hurry and wanted to cut from Route 5 down Woodlawn and then over to Broad where they could be over in Palisades Park for dinner, a movie or shopping in about 15 minutes. It was the perfect ambush.

And yet, despite our success, I almost didn’t get my turn. Frank and his buddies were hogging most of the bumpers that came our way. Everyone else had gotten their turn but me. Now it was getting late. Even Jimmy had left half an hour earlier when the fun ran out for him. The gray late-afternoon sky was turning dark, and Frank wanted to call it quits. He’d had enough, but I insisted.

“Alright, but this is the last one,” Frank said. “After this, no more. We gotta go. It’s getting dark. Mom’s going to start ringing the bell soon.”

Despite her
don’t go off the block
rule, my mother still rarely knew where we were. So every day at dinner time, she used to step out our back door and ring an old metal dinner bell that my father had bolted on to the door frame.

Clang, clang... Clang, clang...

After a while, the leather strap on the clapper broke and my mother took to just banging on the outer lip of the bell with a soup ladle, or a screw driver, or whatever metal object was handy. She would stand on the door step, and then up on her toes – my father had mounted the bell too high for her to reach it otherwise – and go at it for all she was worth.

Clang, clang... Clang, clang...

So while our parents never knew where we were, without fail the entire neighborhood, and even strangers living several blocks away, always knew when my mother had dinner on the table. And woe was he who failed to answer the bell.

With daylight fading fast, we took up our position on the corner and waited for the next car to come. It was a brand new 1975 Pontiac Grandville, a big four-door sedan with a monster V8 engine. This promised to be one sweet ride.

The driver was a man of about 25. He brought the Grandville to a complete stop when he saw Frank and Carl crossing the street in front of his grill. Our M.O. had been the same all day and we weren’t about to change. But this time, things went horribly wrong.

At first, the driver seemed to almost ignore Frank and the others. He looked annoyed and fidgeted, tapping his fingers on the top of the steering wheel. He was like a guy with a hard-on who was late for a hot date with a loose woman. Whatever the case, I was sure he was too distracted to see me disappear behind the trunk of his car. While Bobby and Lucy kept walking past his tail lights, I dropped into a crouch like I’d seen the others do. With my boots flat on the packed snow and ice, I grabbed the underside of the Grandville’s chrome bumper and shifted my weight back just slightly. Then I waited.

After a few seconds, I saw Frank and the others cross to the far side of the street, but nothing happened. The driver just sat there, the Grandville’s engine idling, its exhaust pipe blowing a small plume of hot air and carbon monoxide into the cold. Nothing. I was getting nervous. Had the driver seen me get in position? Was he about to get out of the car and kick my ass?

Suddenly, the driver, who had been waiting for another car to cross Woodlawn Avenue, slammed his foot hard on the gas pedal. The V8 roared and the rear tires began to spin and whine on the snow and ice. Giant rooster tails of filthy slush jetted into the sky. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Is this supposed to happen?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Frank whip his head around in surprise at the whining cry of the Grandville’s tires. The fear in his eyes was clear. I was screwed. Just let go – that was the answer. Had I let go, the car would have pulled away without me. But I panicked, and in my panic I squeezed my fingers even tighter around the lip of the bumper and sealed my fate. It seemed like forever, but in only the span of a few heartbeats the Grandville’s tires traded slush for blacktop, and the three-ton sedan took off like a Saturn V with my ragged ass in tow. It became official; I had broken my mother’s cardinal rule.

I was off the block.

P
AIN RACED UP MY ARMS AND INTO MY SHOULDERS
, but still I didn’t let go. Soon, I was racing down the street attached to the Grandville’s bumper. The bottoms of my boots dragged across the surface of the icy road, behaving like downhill skis, bumping and jumping on the uneven, exhaust-stained snow. I was a bit wobbly at first and nearly pitched forward; that would have left me dragging painfully from the bumper on my belly and balls, but I managed to shift my weight back and hold my balance. The Grandville picked up even more speed as the road sloped downhill in the direction of Broad Street. My heart was a jackhammer, the icy wind stung my face, but damn it I was flying. I was a rocket. I was Johnny fuckin’ Rocket!

Eat your heart out, Franz Klammer!

But then something didn’t seem right. From somewhere there came another sound, soft at first, then more insistent and cutting through the wind that raced against my ears. It was the deep growl of a diesel engine.

Beeeeeeeep! Beeeep, Beeeep, Beeeeeeeeeeep!

A piercing horn wailed in my ears. I was startled. My shoulders jerked as if shocked by a cattle prod and I nearly lost my grip on the bumper. My head swiveled in ways and directions I didn’t think possible while looking for the source of the horn. Still holding onto the Grandville, still skiing down the road on my boot bottoms, I finally managed to look over my shoulder and saw it. A city bus trailed just behind the Grandville and it was bearing down on me.

My stomach churned and I nearly shit on the spot. God knows I was in the position for it. For a second, I could see through the bus windshield, it was that close. The bus driver was shouting. His words were silenced by the glass and steel cocoon he piloted, but there was no mistaking the motion of his lips as they screamed their silent scream:
What the fuck!

After the Grandville had peeled out from the Stop sign, the bus must have turned off of Persimmons and onto Woodlawn right behind it. The bus driver, who probably gave more attention to his side view mirrors to avoid clipping any parked cars as he turned the corner in his lumbering vehicle, must not have seen me at first. Not until both vehicles had picked up speed did he see a ten-year-old idiot dangling like a turd from the rear of the car in front of him. But by then it was too late; by then both vehicles were rushing downhill toward the Broad Street intersection and picking up speed on a road covered with inches of hard-packed snow and ice.