Driftless (23 page)

SNOW

I
T BEGAN TO SNOW—NOT HEAVILY, BUT PERSISTENTLY. DRIVEN like powdered fog from the north, a dry, weightless snow arrived in Thistlewaite County with a nearly audible sigh, an empty, barren whisper that Upper Midwestern farmers recognized in the marrow of their bones and meteorologists detected through their digital instruments as the kind of snow that could get bad.

A stationary cold air mass perched above Wisconsin. It lingered there for several days, until, like the Owl of Minerva, it stepped off its frigid crag, opened its monstrous shadow wings, and came south, squeezing water out of the air. By nightfall, Thistlewaite County had accumulated three inches of new snow and temperatures across the state soon fell below zero.

Another several inches arrived the following day. The screen on the front porch of the Shotwell farmhouse presented almost no barrier at all, and the tiny flakes drove freely through the woven aluminum diamonds, accumulating in foot-deep drifts in the corners, the sloped ridges as perfectly formed as bell curves drawn by mathematical monks. Similar equations were plotted in the corners of windows—illustrations in crystalline grace and concave solitude.

The temperature continued down, while the land, layered with whipped-egg-white frosting, presented overwhelming evidence that Magnificence could be lavishly, wantonly squandered. Horizon after horizon of monolithic, wind-sculpted splendor rolled and unrolled, never to be witnessed by a single breathing soul, an extravaganza of extravagance.

On his way to the barn in the early morning, Grahm brushed the snow from the thermometer on the porch, the red liquid shrunk to the hairlines below minus fifteen.

Too cold to settle, compact, or fuse, the jagged flakes waited,
zillions of them, yearning to be called into duty by ever-changing patterns of wind. More snow fell and temperatures continued falling, until from one end of Wisconsin to the other people repeated, “It’s too cold to snow.”

During the next night, temperatures plunged to minus twenty and the air turned outer-space sterile, without a trace of color or smell.

But the denizens of Thistlewaite County were on the whole resilient to these periodic reminders of the Ice Age. The local culture in fact required a certain amount of snow and arctic temperature to freeze-dry bacteria and retain Wisconsin’s unique blend of vegetation, wildlife, and human temperament. Natives to the county had grown up with iced inconveniences. Others, lured into residence by summer vacations, marriage, college acceptance, work, or happenstance either adjusted or fled after their first encounter with blistering cold and the hypocrisy of neighbors who called out to each other “Cold enough for you?” and complained without ceasing but refused to sleep in. It was not a place for those hoping for an easy, tropical, unplanned existence.

Banks, stores, gas stations, and other enterprises remained open. Snowblower, chain saw, gasoline, battery, jumper cable, antifreeze, starting fluid, birdseed, snow pants, shovel, salt, soup, and popcorn sales boomed. Urban and suburban homeowners grumbled but removed snow from their walks twice a day. Ice-fishermen bore deeper to reach water. Homeowners with wood-burning stoves swelled with satisfaction as they wedged oak, maple, elm, and ash logs through firebox doors, content as squirrels with their long-sightedness and as happy as accountants with frugality. In taverns, all television sets were tuned to weather stations and bartenders commiserated with customers sitting in insulated vests on stools, numb to the insight that they could have stayed home. Farmers chipped away ice in drinking cups and water tanks, fought with frozen pipes and trough cleaners. They milked cows in barns heated by circulating blood. With dump buckets on the front of their tractors they cleared lanes for the milk trucks.

School superintendents, like Norse gods, stubbornly refused to
yield to students’ perpetual prayers for a snow day, unwilling to schedule unbudgeted days in the spring. Janitors squirted graphite into outside door locks. School bus drivers ran orange extension cords out of their houses to engine heaters. Humidifiers pumped water back into the desert air of the more modern homes, yet occupants still woke up in the middle of the night to the rifle shots of already-dried timbers shrinking further. Plumbers, furnace repair-men, and fuel delivery drivers had less sleep and made more money at this time of year than at any other. They prided themselves on their subzero resourcefulness, but it was nothing compared to that of the road crews—small armies chosen, trained, and outfitted for this one contest, who dug into hoarded mountains of salt and sand, eager to prove their indispensability.

But even these people knew when to surrender, and this storm provided them with an opportunity to exercise that yielding judgment. Night temperatures fell below minus twenty-five and the air assumed a lung-biting quality that tasted like isopropyl alcohol. Even habitual joggers stayed indoors, restlessly running in place. Snowdrifts grew so large in places that small villages could be hidden beneath them, and road crews began to admit they were falling behind. So many commuters with cell phones were stuck along the interstate that the plastic buttons on the Highway Patrol switchboard became permanent rows of lights. Weather bureaus broadcast state-wide travel warnings. On the borders of Wisconsin, airplanes balked and circled, waiting for clearance.

Churches, senior citizen and day-care centers, Lamaze classes, parks, and government buildings were the first to announce closings. Local radio stations devoted nearly all their ad time to public service announcements, as advertisers requested that their companies’ names not be associated with the obstruction of vital weather information.

Mid-morning, the first public school in Thistlewaite County announced it was sending students home early. After a moment’s hesitation—a token rebellion against the inevitable—other schools followed the domino theory of school closings until all the county schools announced early closings.

The Grange schools, like most, selected a noon closing time in
order to meet the minimum requirement for a statistical day. After lunch the students climbed noisily into the buses, and drivers with deep worry lines inched into the blowing snow.

It took Seth and Grace a full two hours to get home. Theirs was the next to the last stop, and they were so glad to get off the bus that the cold air actually felt good. In addition, a momentary lull in the storm created a still and magical interval between the mailbox and the house, and they kicked at the drifts with their boots and ran in circles to see their footprints in the virgin snow.

Inside the house, they ransacked the cabinets for treats, found a box of chocolate chip cookies and a half-eaten bag of potato chips. A soda completed the menu and they settled down at the table. Their father outside somewhere and their mother still waiting tables at the restaurant, they devoted themselves wholeheartedly to arguing over whether they should eat the entire box of cookies. Grace won, saved half of the second row, and put them back in the cupboard. Then she went to the bathroom. When she returned Seth had eaten the rest. After she yelled at him sufficiently they decided to test the sledding on the hill behind the barn. They dressed in their barn clothes, pulled stocking caps over their ears, and went outside.

The lull that had existed when they got off the bus still reigned, and the tracks they had made coming in were as fresh and crisp as when they had made them. They found the sleds and pulled them into the barn to look for their father.

They could not find him and abandoned the sleds to look for cats in the milk house. With the dipper they drew out a pint of cream and put in into the bowl. But the bigger cats wouldn’t let the kittens get any, so they found jar lids and fed them separately. Then they carried the kittens up into the haymow and built homes for them to live in, but they ran away. After that they recovered their sleds, carried them down between the rows of standing and lying-down cows, and went out the back door of the barn.

The snow was deeper here—way above their knees—but it was light snow, and walking through it was not too difficult. The sled runners sank in too far, however, and they decided they’d have better luck with plastic saucers. So they left the sleds inside the barn door
and went back to the shed. They could only find one saucer, and Seth pulled Grace behind him to the barn. Surprisingly easy to pull, the red saucer glided smoothly along the top of the snow. They went through the barn again and resumed their expedition back to the pasture hill. Grace walked behind Seth to avoid cutting her own path, but because her walking was easier Seth made her pull the saucer.

They stood beneath the lone burr oak at the top of the hill and looked down into a palatial wasteland of whiteness flowing to the creek and the woods beyond. In places, the drifts had giant rounded tops. Just to their right ran a valley of snow leading between two high snow mountains—a tunnel of purity yearning to be spoiled.

The ride down was faster and even more fun than they had hoped, and at the bottom they plunged into a drift that nearly buried them both. Laughing, they started up the hill and paid no attention when more snow began to fall and a northeastern wind stirred through the tops of the trees.

REMEMBERED LOVE

A
S THE SNOW CONTINUED TO FALL ON THE WORDS REPAIR SHOP, Jacob Helm became discouraged. His work room filled with heavy metal things of all sizes and shapes, impatiently waiting to be fixed. Anxious people bundled in heavy coats, hats, earmuffs, wool scarves, and insulated boots kept bringing in more. The whole world, it seemed, was breaking down—frozen cars, tractors, snow-blowers, chain saws, generators, snowmobiles, four-wheelers, space heaters, and every other petrol-powered modern invention intended to make life easier.

Several levels below full consciousness, a useless passion quarreled against Jacob’s well- being. He could feel it, relentlessly striving to pollute his thoughts. Machines could be fixed, returned to their functional state of health, but why? To what end? What purpose justified mechanical purpose? Why should things be repaired if the lives they were meant to enhance remained empty?

Last night, he’d heard the cougar again—its cry even more threatening in the thin November air. The bold, screaming challenge had pierced his sleep, and out of the gap ran a thread of unwelcome wakefulness. The beast’s mere existence crowded upon his own. Its tracks encircled his house. It demanded something from him, a response. But he had none to give.

He sent Clarice home and closed the shop in the early afternoon. His jeep was completely covered with snow. He swept it off with a broom and drove over drifted roads with round sides. At the entrance to his driveway, he lowered the plow on the front and carved another ribbon of snow from the long, narrow, winding, white trough leading to the house.

He put the jeep in the garage and waded through the deep snow toward the house.

Inside, the temperature had dropped to around fifty degrees, and he ate a bowl of vegetable stew. Then he retired to his living room with a bottle of bourbon. He collected the newspapers and magazines scattered on the upholstered chair and sofa, shoved them into the stove along with several logs, and set them on fire. Seated before the open door, he watched the flames spread and reached for his pipe and tobacco.

A booth of cured aroma seeped out of the pouch and surrounded him. He transferred clumps of bark-colored tobacco into the deep, curved bowl, poking and pressing each layer against the blackened interior sides. When he was finished, the moist, spongy column almost rose to the top.

Striking a match and holding it above the bowl, he sucked the yellow flame into the tobacco, where individual strands crinkled to red life, accompanied by a frying sound. When the entire top glowed, he tossed the match in the stove and leaned back in his chair to lubricate the top, bottom, and sides of his tongue with oily, narcotic smoke.

The stove’s heat lulled him further; he swallowed an inch of bourbon from the jam jar and opened the photograph album resting next to the chair. There, pictures of his wife stared back at him from six, seven, and eight years ago.

I shouldn’t think of her as “my wife,”
he thought. After all, she was no longer a person, no longer anything—her picture a signpost to nowhere. Yet she lived in his memory, continuing to persuade, exerting her undying influence over him while she herself—in all her insubstantiality—remained impervious, unchangeable, frozen in a relationship that only yielded in one direction.

The memory-worn pictures were not just images on glossy paper, but catalogs of personal memorabilia, cross- referenced in numbing detail. Looking into the resemblance of Angela’s former face released museums of intimate, elemental facts about him. She, or rather her image, had become a symbol for
him,
an earlier version, the Younger Jacob—a person for whom he now felt envy and even resentment over having been cut out of his inheritance.

By looking at her picture Jacob perceived the gulf between what it felt like to be alive now and what it had felt like to live six, seven,
and eight years ago. Through her picture he acknowledged that his present experiences were no longer as fully endowed. His goals no longer called to him as loudly, and the sequenced paths leading to them were not nearly as well lit. He once knew how to move through the forest of mornings, afternoons, and evenings, following the trail of his desires without hesitating or looking up, the field upon which his expectations unfurled as clear as an unbroken sky. Now, he shared no mystery with anyone and the adventure had become a job.

The outline of Angela’s ankle above a brown oxford reminded Jacob that time itself had passed differently six years ago. Each minute had contained the possibility that an invisible door would soon open and Unmediated Truth stare back at them. Fully exposed, the gates of perfect understanding would open and he and Angela would fold into each other with a surrendered whimper.