Deep Winter

by Samuel W. Gailey

  The muscles in Danny’s shoulder burned hot, and he could feel them stretched to their limit. A wave of dizziness wrapped around his head like a plastic Halloween mask, causing a feeble moan to escape his lips. The pain was finally too much, and he opened his palm, and the nickels bounced to the linoleum floor. He tried not to, but he started to cry.

  Sokowski gave Danny’s face a final shove into the panel of glass before letting him go. “Aww, listen to the little pussy cry.” Sokowski chuckled.

  Carl snorted like a laughing pig and snatched up the coins.

  “Leave him alone, assholes,” a girl’s voice demanded.

  The boys looked behind them. Mindy Knolls, pigtails tight on the sides of her head, glared right back at them. She was smaller than the two boys, but that didn’t matter to her at all. Her skinny chest swam under a shirt that looked like a hand-me-down, and she crossed her bony arms over her stomach, waiting to see what Sokowski and Carl would do next.

  “Why don’t you go play with your little peckers somewhere?” Mindy said.

  The boys knew that they weren’t supposed to beat up girls. Besides, Mindy sported two sets of knuckles nicked up from her fair share of fighting and standing toe-to-toe with two older brothers. She clenched both fists down at the sides of her small hips, ready to use them.

  “The retard your boyfriend or somethin’?” Carl sneered.

  “Shut up, Carl. You want me to tell my daddy that you’re picking on Danny? He’ll whup your fat ass.”

  Carl shut up. They got their nickels. That was enough for him.

  But Sokowski wasn’t done yet. He pointed to Mindy’s chest, snickered a yellow-toothed grin. “Looks like you got two mosquito bites under your shirt. Sure ain’t boobs.”

  If that rattled Mindy, she didn’t let it show. “Sure beats your mosquito pecker.”

  Sokowski’s grin slipped right away, and his face brightened red. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Bet Carl here already knows.”

  Sokowski’s face burned brighter. He turned his venom back on Danny. “We’ll be seeing you around, retard. And next time you won’t have any stupid girl to hide behind.” Sokowski cocked his fist, made Danny flinch, then left the arcade room and headed toward the soda machine. Carl snorted again and followed right after him like a little duckling.

  Danny’s breath still hitched in his chest.

  “Don’t let ’em get to you, Danny. They’re just a couple of stupid pudwhackers.”

  Danny wiped away the tears and snot from his face.

  “You know, you’re as big as they are, Danny. Why don’t you just punch them in the face? That’ll shut them up good.”

  Danny shook his head and rolled his shoulders. “Naw. Couldn’t do that.”

  “You could. Just won’t,” Mindy said.

  Danny glanced back at the Spot Bowler pinball game and watched the lights flash for a second.

  “Wanna go outside?” Mindy asked him.

  Danny looked over her shoulder to where Uncle Brett was high-fiving a fellow bowler. “Can’t. Not allowed to go outside.”

  Mindy followed his gaze. “He’s drunk. He ain’t gonna notice anything.”

  Danny didn’t resist as Mindy took his hand and led him through all the cigarette smoke, past the clatter of bowling pins, in between a group of men drinking bottles of beer by the bar, and out of the bowling alley.

  The moon shone nearly full and the sky was as clear as a tall glass of springwater. Moonlight illuminated the seemingly endless rows of dried cornstalks that surrounded the bowling alley and disappeared into black. A wind gently blew, sweeping through the field, filling the cold night air with the sound of swaying stalks. Dried leaves rustled and brushed against one another, creating a soothing whisper song.

  Mindy led Danny through the maze of corn, the dull echo of bowling balls colliding with pins a faint rumble behind them. She stopped in the middle of the field and met Danny’s gaze. When she smiled, moonlight displayed the wide gap between her two front teeth, big enough to stick a straw through. “I like coming out here at night. I like listening to the corn. Kinda feels like it’s talking to me.”

  Danny listened, but he didn’t hear any voices.

  Mindy moved a little closer to Danny. He could smell the soft, flowery scent of her shampoo. She smelled real nice. Pretty and clean. Uncle Brett didn’t make Danny take many baths. That kind of stuff was up to Danny to do. Washing his own clothes, brushing his teeth, cleaning his ears, and the like. Danny felt dirty all of a sudden. Aware of the grime that covered him and the bad taste in his mouth. His hand went self-consciously to his own hair. If felt greasy and flat and unclean.

  “You ain’t scared of me, are you, Danny?”

  “Naw.”

  “Good.” She picked up a rock and chucked it into the corn. “My daddy says that the accident is what made you slow.”

  “Guess so.” Danny looked around him. He wasn’t sure which direction was the way back to the bowling alley.

  “You remember the accident and everything?”

  “Not really. Some of it, I guess.”

  She picked up another rock and gave it a toss. “You miss your folks, Danny?”

  He nodded and hoped he wouldn’t cry in front of Mindy again.

  “My grandpa died last year. Grandma says he’s up in heaven and it’s a better place, but I don’t wanna die and be buried in the ground.” Mindy shrugged. “Grandma says that’s where we all go if we’re good, and then we get to be with our families again.”

  Danny didn’t know nothing about heaven. He just knew that his mama and papa were put in the ground and covered up with dirt and he wouldn’t see them in Wyalusing anymore.

  “How’s people supposed to get up to the sky if they’re in the ground?” he asked.

  Mindy shrugged again. “Guess their body stays down here and another part of them goes up to heaven.”

  “What part?”

  “Beats me.” She pulled a dried ear of corn off its stalk and chucked it up into the sky. Danny watched it get swallowed up into the night and land with a thud somewhere in the field.

  “Ever seen a girl’s boobs, Danny?”

  Danny felt his face redden and hoped Mindy couldn’t see him blush.

  “My mama’s got real big ones. Says that mine will get big like hers one day.”

  Danny looked down at the frozen dirt under his feet and toed a rock. He wished he had just stayed in the bowling alley.

  “I’ll show you my boobs if you show me your thing.”

  “Naw. Better not.”

  “Why?” Mindy smirked at him and didn’t wait for an answer. She pulled up her shirt, exposing a flat chest. Danny looked up for a second. Saw her breasts, then looked down again quickly.

  “It’s okay to look.” She pushed her denim pants and underwear down to her ankles.

  Danny shook his head.

  “Come on. It’s cold. I won’t tell no one.”

  He took another quick peek, then tore off running. He ran blindly through the cornstalks. Long, dead leaves smacked against his face. He threw up his hands to deflect the stinging husks of corn from his eyes and searched the rows for the way out. He turned down another endless row, the sound of corn husks whistling past his ears, but it all looked the same.

  “Danny!” Mindy yelled from somewhere behind him, but Danny kept on running. His heart thudded in his chest, and he was breathing hard—he didn’t run around much like other kids did. Uncle Brett called him a “fat-ass.”

  The moon slipped behind some clouds, and the ground beneath him darkened. He kept running. Fast as he could. His sneakers smacked against frozen patches of water on the dirt.

  He searched desperately for the lights from the bowling alley but found only darkness and more and more rows of corn. His foot caught on a rock, and he toppled fo
rward. Danny tried to catch his fall, but he landed hard on the ground and rolled across frozen dirt and sharp stones.

  He jerked upright and clutched at his knee. His pants were torn open, exposing a bloody gash on his leg. The knee began to throb and sting, but he was more worried about his ripped pants—they were his only pair, and Uncle Brett was sure to get good and sore. When he touched the rip in his jeans, his fingers came back dark red. Danny stared at his fingertips and he felt something warm and thick drip into the corner of his eye. He blinked through the pain and wiped away the stickiness. More blood poured from an ugly cut on his forehead.

  “Danny?!” Mindy called again from out in the darkness.

  Danny stumbled to his feet, unsteady at first—then began to run again. Ice crunching under his shoes. The crackling sound of the breaking ice filled the night air. He tried running away from the sound, but it just got louder and louder until that was all he could hear. Breaking ice.

  “Danny!” But this time it wasn’t Mindy calling his name. It was his mama’s voice. “Don’t go so far out on the ice!” Danny laughed at her. It was all a game to him. The blades of his skates cut across the ice. He glided faster and faster, craving more speed. The cold wind stung at his face, but it was exhilarating. For a moment everything seemed perfect. Blades sliding like butter on a skillet. Blue skies overhead. Birds swooping and chirping. The pond just going on and on. Then Danny’s laughter cut short by a thunderous cracking sound. Everything shook, and the world below him gave way, and he was sucked into a cold, wet blackness that shocked the breath from his chest. His arms flailed in the water that wrapped around his body like a heavy blanket. Danny opened his mouth, tried to scream, but water sucked down and into his lungs instead and he sank deeper into the black abyss.

  The sound of footsteps poked through the darkness.

  “Get your ass up, retard!” a boy’s voice barked.

  Danny couldn’t feel anything. His arms and legs seemed disconnected from the rest of his body. It was like he was still floating in the water.

  “I said get up.” Something kicked him in the ribs. Pain shot through him, and his eyes flickered open. The nearly full moon and a thousand stars hung above him.

  Then he noticed Sokowski and Carl standing over him. They didn’t say anything else. They started to kick him hard in the face and stomach with dirty Converse sneakers. Again and again. He remembered hearing Mindy screaming at them to stop before the moon swept down and took him away.

  • • •

  Mrs. Bennett said that people were mean sometimes because they didn’t like folks that were different from them. She told Danny that he was special and different and that was okay. Danny sure liked Mrs. Bennett a lot—she was kinda the grandma he didn’t have—and carved her a bluebird figurine once. She said that bluebirds were independent and didn’t take nothing from nobody. Danny wished he was a bluebird sometimes.

  The sound of heavy tires chomping and chewing their way through the snow-topped road interrupted the countryside’s perfect quiet. Danny wanted to rest for a minute, so he decided to take a break from all the walking and moved off to the side of the road, glancing over his shoulder at an approaching pickup truck on oversize tires. The sides of the truck were eaten up with rust from years of traveling on top of salt- and cinder-covered roads, and the front fender was popped in and dented in a few places.

  The truck slowed, and a teenager unrolled the passenger window. Danny recognized the boy from town but forgot his name.

  “Duh-duh-duh-duh-Danny the retard does a little dance every time he does the Hershey squirts in his pants!” The driver of the pickup howled with laughter like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Egged on by his buddy’s cackling, the boy in the passenger seat shoved his middle finger up his nose. “Duh-duh-duh-duh-Danny!” More laughter as the truck crested the hill and slipped away.

  Danny wanted to turn and go back home, but he had come this far. Besides, he always came out here on his birthday to be with his mama and papa.

  • • •

  McGee Pond proved to be a popular spot in the wintertime. About the size of a football field, it was frozen solid with a thick layer of ice that had a few logs stuck in place until the spring thaw. On the far opposite side of the pond, a dozen teenagers glided on skates across its smooth surface, pushing and shoving each other and carrying on. Boys taunting girls and the girls giggling and screaming as if they didn’t like it. Closer to the shore near Danny, three children were learning to skate with their parents. The two boys were older—eight and ten, maybe—and appeared more adventurous than their sister. The little girl wore a pink jacket and wobbled along the ice with her hands out, ready for a fall. After two near misses, her luck was up—arms spun like mini-windmills and legs went out from under her, and she landed hard on her bottom. Tears promptly followed.

  As her parents tended to their daughter with soft, soothing voices that encouraged her improvement, the two boys continued their roughhousing unwatched. They raced each other, teasing with name-calling and hard shoving.

  Danny sat on the bank of the pond watching the boys play. He was careful not to sit too close to the ice. His heart raced even though he had been sitting in the same spot for quite a while now. He wouldn’t venture out onto the ice anymore. Was too scared.

  The two boys skated faster and faster, narrowly avoiding sharp chunks of wood that poked out through the ice, and coasted toward the center of the pond. Puffs of shaved ice kicked out from their skate blades in white little clouds. They threw some elbows at each other, trying to knock the other down. Danny watched them closely, rubbing at his furrowed brow and feeling funny in his belly. He liked it better when the pond was empty so that he could be by himself—watching kids out on the ice just made him too nervous. The two boys raced toward a large round spot in the center of the ice that glistened with a thin layer of water.

  Danny pressed his eyes closed—wanting to shut everything out—hoping that when he opened them again, the boys would be skating back toward shore. He could hear them laughing and whooping, not a care in the world. He didn’t want to open his eyes yet, but did anyway. And just as he feared, the young boys weren’t skating back toward their parents, but instead heading right for the shimmering spot on the ice.

  “No.” Danny stood, eyes staring toward the soft ice. “It’s not safe out there . . .” His hands rolled into fists at his sides, and he looked over to the parents, who held their daughter’s hands between them and skated slowly alongside her.

  “Tell them to stop.” Danny’s voice was urgent but not loud enough to get their attention. He gazed back toward the boys, and they got closer and closer to the center of the ice.

  The two boys abruptly slowed in their tracks as their blades sank and bogged down in the slushy ice. One of them fell forward and slid face-first into the mush.

  “TELL THEM BOYS TO COME BACK!” Danny suddenly shrieked, his voice shrill and full of panic. He waved his arms and screamed again. He sounded like a big, scared, squawking bird that was trying to protect its nest from a circling hawk. The parents finally looked over at him, and he pointed frantically toward the center of the ice. The parents stared at him for a second, taken aback by the large mountain of a man, wearing a red knit hat, screaming and flapping his arms.

  “GET YOUR BOYS! GET THEM NOW!”

  The father glanced in the direction Danny pointed and saw his two sons. The older one was trying to pick up his younger brother, but he lost his balance and slammed down onto the ice as well.

  “Tyler! Jason! Not so far out!” he shouted. But the boys couldn’t hear their father. They were too busy grabbing and clawing at each other.

  From the shore Danny watched as the older boy struggled to his feet, then abruptly sank up to his waist in the water once the ice gave way. He flailed wildly, desperately grabbing at the edge of the broken ice, but the ice kept breaking off in chunks. Wate
r flung from his mittens in high arcs while the ice continued to crumble and break away as fast as he could grip it in his hands.

  Danny saw the panic take hold of the mother’s face, and a chilling scream ripped from her mouth. Even the teenagers at the other end of the pond stopped what they were doing and gawked at the scene unfolding. The mother pushed her husband forward, and they both raced toward their boys, slipping and sliding on their skates, leaving the little girl behind them unattended. The little girl reached her hands out toward her mother and father and started to cry, but her sobs went unheard.

  The younger boy grasped at his brother, tugged on his arms, but couldn’t get his feet planted, then quickly got sucked into the icy water as well. Both boys screamed now. Panicky yells that carried over the ice and filled the countryside.

  The little girl began to inch her way toward her parents. Jerky and unbalanced. “Mama!” But her small voice was lost.

  Danny watched the girl skate and wobble farther out on the ice—farther from shore and closer to danger. “Little girl, please. Stay where you are,” Danny called out to her but her goal was clear—to go after her mama and papa.

  Danny moved to step onto the ice but stopped his boot from leaving the safety of shore. He tried, but he couldn’t move any farther. The fear grabbed ahold of him like two large fists wrapping around his chest and holding him tight. The screams of the boys seemed to grow louder in Danny’s ears. He thought he could hear the sound of cracking ice and the sucking noise of water flowing into their lungs. Even the clatter of their parents’ skates cutting into the ice and the little girl’s sobs filled Danny’s head. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to be back in his room. He wanted to finish painting the robin for Mindy’s birthday.

  You need to get the little girl, Danny.

  The voice spoke to him urgently.

  “I’m afraid.”

  No time for that. Get the little girl.

  Danny nodded that he would listen and do what he was told. He pressed his eyes closed and inched forward onto the ice. All he could see was darkness, but he could feel his boot step onto the smooth, hard surface. He felt the rubber soles of his boots glide across the ice, inch by inch, foot by foot. The boys kept screaming from out on the center of the pond, and he stopped and stood for a moment, then opened his eyes. Both feet were planted on the ice, and he was okay. The ice didn’t crack or break under him. It was solid. Strong enough to hold him. He saw the little girl gaining momentum toward her parents—getting closer to the soft spot. Danny blocked out all the noise and voices and began to walk-glide across the ice.