Snowstorm

Fiction by Jeff Harrell

It’s thirty degrees out, and my hands are sweating on the steering wheel. I want a cigarette, but I don’t want to get there smelling like smoke. I bite the inside of my cheek instead, bite it until I taste blood.

Then I switch to the other side.

I still remember the way. I should have forgotten it by now. It’s been so long. But my hands and feet know what to do. I could drive this route blindfolded. Which, with the snow coming down like it is, I practically am.

A red smear on the windshield is brake lights. I slow down. My wheels slide a little, and I don’t care. Then they find their grip. The car stops. I’m relieved and disappointed.

If I tilt my head just right, I can see it sitting back there. A cardboard box, about a foot square. Somebody’s written on the side in magic marker. More than once. Labels scrawled and then crossed out and written again. Bathroom. No, books. No, bathroom. Evidence of half a dozen moves over half a dozen years.

This is its last trip.

It’s late. Traffic’s light. Everybody’s at home. The forecast called for light snow followed by heavy snow. Everybody’s assuming the city’s going to shut down tomorrow. Schools closed, offices closed, airport closed, roads closed. Life closed.

That’s why I’ve got to do this now.

Or maybe it’s just an excuse. An artificial sense of urgency I created for myself. I’m good at that. I never do anything until the last minute. I wrote my school essays the night before. I’m always in line at the post office at midnight on April 15. My Christmas shopping happens when everybody else is home with their families.

I put things off. I’ve been putting this off.

I guess I could put it off forever. I mean, I don’t have to do this. But it’s snowing. They’re salting the roads, but it’s not going to do any good. They’re getting bad. They’re going to stay bad, too, for days and days. Maybe a week, even. They say this is going to be a bad one. A hundred-year storm, they’re calling it. The kind of blizzard we only see once a century.

And I just don’t want to be locked up inside with this thing any more.

I never thought it was possible to hate something inanimate. It’s just a box, for chrissakes. Just a box with … with some stuff in it. Her stuff. Our stuff.

Shit. I’m not paying attention. I’m going too fast. The light’s yellow, now red. I stomp the brake, slide right through the intersection. It doesn’t matter. There aren’t any other cars. Nobody’s driving. Everybody’s home.

She’ll be home.

I thought about doing it when I knew she wouldn’t be home. Just leaving the box on the doorstep and walking away. But somebody could steal it, and she’d think I never dropped it off. I don’t want that. I want her to know. I want to see the look in her eyes.

There’s also the matter of what I’m carrying in my pocket.

Left at the light, wheels threatening to slide out from under me. Roll through the stop sign, because it just doesn’t matter. Is somebody out there going to plow into me at forty miles an hour, t-bone me and send me spinning into a tree? I wish somebody would. Pin me in the wreck with the steering wheel in my crotch, leave me there to bleed to death from my liver or my spleen or what is it what is it my kidney or something. Cover the car with snow and have them find me there a week later, all blue and covered in frost, with this in my pocket and that fucking cardboard box in the back seat.

There it is, up on the left. I’m not stopping. I don’t know why. I drive on to the next intersection, stop, take a slow breath. Make a careful U-turn, missing a hydrant by inches. Great. Now anybody who looks out the window will think I’m casing the joint, like some incompetent thief trying to score enough stereos and VCRs to pawn for money for my next fix.

I don’t care. I never cared. This isn’t about getting away unseen. This is about doing it. Doing it and having it done and being free.

There’s her house. No lights on. She’s probably in the back. Or maybe she’s out, out despite the weather and the snow coming down even harder now. Maybe she’s not coming home. Maybe she’s staying with someone else.

Maybe she doesn’t even live here any more. Like I don’t live here any more.

There’s a space on the street two doors down. I slide into it, grinding my sidewalls on the curb, half expecting them to blow out because that’s just what kind of night it is. They don’t. I’m not getting out of this that easily.

I get out. The door makes too much noise when it closes. I don’t want anyone seeing me. I look up and down the street. No lights. No faces peeking out from behind curtain.

The snow crunches under my feet as I wade around to the other side of the car. The box feels lighter in my hands than it should. It should be hard to lift. It’s only half full, but there are years of memories in it. Years of things I wish I could forget.

It’ll be over soon.

I close the door quietly, not bothering to lock the car. This won’t take long.

I tuck the box under one arm like a football, stick my hand in the right pocket of my coat. It’s there. I can feel it, cold, like it’s just come out of a refrigerator. Sharp edges poke my palm.

Now or never.

Down the sidewalk. Two houses. Little ones, bungalows or duplexes or whatever they’re called. Peeling paint and rusted porch railings. Then up the walk. It’s a long way, longer than I remembered. My heel lands wrong on an uneven paving stone and my ankle twists. I feel something pop deep inside. I know it’s going to swell. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’ll hurt like hell tomorrow, but tomorrow doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, nothing but the next five minutes.

Up the steps, three of them, slick with wet snow. Do you remember that night, that first night? When we sat out here on these steps? You didn’t want to invite me in but I didn’t want to leave either. We talked. We talked for hours. I wanted to kiss you, but I didn’t. Would things have been different if I had? Or would we have just ended up in the same place only three days sooner?

I should have just walked away. I should have just said good-bye and walked away.

The porch has been swept. Recently, maybe as recently as ten minutes ago. There’s hardly any snow on it. The boards creak.

I ring the bell. It feels like somebody else is doing it.

The box feels a lot heavier now.

Nothing happens for a long time.

My heart’s pounding in my chest. I want to drop the box and run, run as fast as I can. But I can’t. I can’t because I have to do this. And because of what’s in my pocket.

My hand’s shaking when I ring the bell again. It’s cold, way colder than thirty degrees now. My fingertips are numb. The pressure of my finger on the bell leaves a white mark that doesn’t go away.

She’s not home.

I can’t believe I’m going to have to do this again.

Back down the steps again. Those same steps. This is where I stood that first morning. You didn’t want me to leave. It was warm and safe in your bed. I had to go home, shower, shave. I couldn’t be late for work. Someone might suspect something. The last thing we needed were rumors around the office. I had to go home. You didn’t want me to leave. You kept saying so.

I stood here on the front steps, just staring at the door.

It’s the same door now. A little older. But things don’t change like people do. Things stay the same. People … people become different.

I’m three steps down the walk when I hear the door open. Warm yellow light spills out.

She’s standing there wrapped in a blanket, pulled around her shoulders and held close with one hand between her breasts. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have an expression on her face. It’s like she doesn’t even see me, like she’s looking right through me.

I feel warm air around my legs. Cold air must be rushing in to fill it. Two masses fighting to reach an equilibrium. An equilibrium they’ll never find.

“It’s late,” she says. I barely hear the words, but I can read her lips.

I can’t speak. I just take the box, hold it in both hands. Back up the steps again. These fucking steps. I’m never going to be able to get away from these fucking steps.

I hold the box out to her. She tries to take it one-handed, but she can’t get a grip on it without standing too close. She lets go of the blanket. It drops in a ring around her feet. She’s wearing a sweater. It’s one I don’t recognize.

The top of the box is open. She lifts the flap, peeks inside. Nothing there surprises her. She closes it again. Lets out a breath.

“Okay,” she says.

My hands are in my pockets now. They ache from the cold. The thing in my right pocket gets in the way. I can’t stuff my hand all the way to the bottom with it in there. There’s a draft. Cold air rushes up my sleeve and down my back.

She kicks the blanket out of the way and takes a step back.

“Okay,” she says again, moving to close the door.

“Wait,” I say. It’s the first thing I’ve said in a long time. My voice is deeper than usual. It doesn’t sound like my voice.

She makes a face, shakes her head.

“No, I mean … wait,” I say. “There’s something else.”

I take my right hand out of my pocket. I hold it out to her.

She just stares at it for a moment.

Then she takes it from me. We’re careful not to let our fingers touch. Just being this close to her is too close.

It’s done. I want to run away now. But my feet won’t move.

She rubs the wad of cash with her thumb, fanning the bills out.

“It’s all there,” I say. “Every dollar.”

“I wasn’t counting it,” she says.

“You can if you want to.”

“I don’t.”

She makes a fist. The money crumples.

“You didn’t have to,” she says.

“Yes, I did,” I say.

I don’t know what she’s going to do. Is she going to throw it at me? Drop it on the ground for me to pick up? She doesn’t do either of those things. She just stands there and holds it.

“It’s late,” I say. But I don’t leave.

She doesn’t say anything. Or do anything. Or look at me. Her face is blank. I’ve never seen her like this before. She looks like a stranger. Which, now, I guess she is.

“It’s late,” I say again, and this time I turn and traverse those fucking steps for the last time.

She says something. I can’t make it out.

“I said are the roads safe?” she calls.

I shrug.

“Probably not,” I say.

And then I turn and walk away.

I’m halfway to my car when the door closes and the warm, yellow light goes out forever.

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