Free Snow Day: a Novella by Dan Maurer Page B

out in all of them. Most Blackwater shopkeepers never bothered to open in weather like this; those who did were closed now, too. Most of the shop owners were sitting down to dinner in their apartments on the second floor above their shops, or down the street where they lived in the garden apartments.
    Columbia is usually a busy street, but not on that night, not in that weather. As I approached the corner of Columbia and Summit Avenues, just one short block from home, I heard a car pulling up beside me, slowing to stop at the traffic light, its muffler coughing.
    It was the black Plymouth.
    I panicked. Without thinking and without looking, I bolted straight down Columbia, across Summit Avenue and –
    Beeeeeeeeeeeee
    The driver of the Ford pick-up that I never saw leaned hard on his horn and even harder on his brakes.
    eeeeeeeeeeeee
    He was heading north on Summit and about to cross Columbia when I ran into his path. When he punched his brakes, they locked up and the pick-up started to slide in the filthy slurry of snow and ice that covered the intersection. I was able to stop in the middle of the street without losing my feet and quickly jump back as the pick-up hydroplaned past, missing me by inches.
    eeeeeeeeeeeeep!
    I hurried across Summit Avenue to the opposite corner, but where to go from there? Turn right and the Plymouth follows me home; he’ll know where I live. He’ll get me.
    Keep running straight down Columbia Avenue and I wouldn’t get far before ol’ George pulled over, jumped out, and grabbed me. I needed to lose him fast. On the opposite corner stood the Columbia Bar and Packaged Goods Store. It seemed like my only option.
    Now remember, I was just ten. The only bar I’d ever been inside by that point in my life was attached to an American Legion hall in Jersey City, where my family held its annual Christmas party. It was a concession my mother made when I argued that attending the Christmas party to see my Uncle Kenny, unsteady with drink, dress up as Santa Claus and pass out gifts to the kids, would mean missing half the NFL Divisional Playoffs. My brother was no help in making this argument. Frank had a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. His well-crafted lie about needing to attend basketball practice, was flawless. It meant he, Jimmy, and Carl could drink beer, smoke Luckies and watch the game in living color on the TV in our basement, while I was stuck with Uncle Kenny and my mother.
    But eventually, after hours of my pleading and whining, even my mother could see how such a sacrifice was unthinkable. The solution my mother devised was to set me up in front of the TV in the adjoining bar with a bowl of pretzels and a Seven-Up. She found this compromise acceptable because there was a doorway that joined the bar with the hall where the family would be gathering. That meant, in theory, she could peer through the open door to look in on me from time to time. That meant I’d be safe. At least, that’s what she told herself while sipping her Mai Tais and enjoying a laugh with her sister and the rest of the family. So while my cousins, aunts and uncles sang Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town to Uncle Kenny’s staggering entrance over in the American Legion hall, I was in the bar. It was just me, the guy pulling the tap, and a half dozen old farts who did their best to ignore the kid watching the Vikings play the Rams in Minnesota’s frosty Metropolitan Stadium on a raised 18-inch black and white TV. That was the extent of my bar-trolling experience at the ripe old age of ten.
    Somehow, I believed that fresh memory of flat Seven-Up, stale cigar smoke, and pretzels gave me admittance into the I-can-hang-out-in-bars club. So when the Columbia came into sight, I decided it was my best option. I hurried across the street, half running, half sliding on the ice, and pushed through the front door.
    Looking around the bar, I quickly thought of downtown Pottersville. I was a gape-mouthed Jimmy Stewart. This was not the local