The first two times Janie had said that he was probably right. That he had a point. She had brushed his comments aside that quickly because she loved him, because he was a good man. The possibility of raising a family was even closer with a man like him. The payments on the house, baby toys, family trips, everything her parents had not been able to give her was within a two-foot reach.
Those were the first two times.
The third time was on the last day in November. The wind had shown up throughout the day and deposited three feet of snow across the state. It smothered the entire area and drove everyone indoors to crank up thermostats and boil water. Schools had closed for three straight days and children flocked to the hills with sleds and trashcan lids. The news saw no end in sight for the blizzard. Parents were getting desperate. Cars were buried and snow shovels were working harder than they ever had. And still the snow fell, a great white beach of ice across the land.
It was around 10:00 at night when he pulled into the driveway. She was getting ready to have a cup of coffee, waiting for the percolator to ping and leaning back into memories. The radials of the Honda crunched over the freshly packed salt he had spread over the ice before he left in the morning. The sound was always so deliciously outdoors.
The sound of her grandpa’s Bronco crackling over the dirt and gravel path leading to the flats had always roused her from sleep. She knew they had arrived by that sound so severely associated with the woods. Their grandfather had taken her and her brother Jerry to the flats every summer. It was a campground up in the Sierras, in the middle of what had once been the densest area of forest in the entire mountain range. It had been carved out and Lake May given an inlet to allow a stream to slice its way down into the flatlands. The stream gutted the ground and left in its wake enough reason for the town to slice the trees and toss a few barbecue grills throughout the acres to make a place where folks could pitch tents. Cinderblock bathrooms had been last to arrive.
“Jesus, but would you pop an eye at that stream. Absolutely goddamned gorgeous. I tell you this place never loses its luster, year after year.” He would always say this while leaning back with his hands on his hips, stretching after the three hour drive. Then he would bend down and squat on his knees before finishing with the same prophetic remark he made every trip.
“And it never will,” we would say along with him.
“Hey if you two want to make fun, you can go on your own next year. Besides,” he said pointing at Jerry, “you’re already ten years old and she’s nearly seven. It’s about time you drove yourselves.”
“We can’t drive Grandpa Jack! Mom’d kill us!” Jerry would cry.
“Yeah, and I’m not tall enough to drive yet! Especially your big truck,” I’d say, hoping he would play along.
“Fine, fine. I guess I’ll just have to keep taking both of you myself. My rotten grandchildren.”
They would all laugh, unloading the equipment. The orange tackle box—smelling like garlic and cheese, slimy to the touch and filthy with the years of a fisherman’s relaxing retreats, the kerosene lantern, the tent with various patches of denim sewn across it, sleeping bags, clothes, charcoal, lighter fluid, cookware, dry goods, and finally the ice chest packed with cheese, condiments, fruit, coffee for the percolator, and ground beef just in case the fish weren’t bite. Once everything was out it was just a matter of going down to the small office, writing your name in the log book, and dropping two dollars into the small wooden deposit box.
The office was really just a one-room shack with an electric hookup for a telephone and coffee maker. There was always a desk and an ancient man with silver hair rooted behind it. The old man was Byron. Byron loved to read gun magazines and kept some on the desk in case some of the campers wanted some material on their way to the cinderblock restrooms. She had only followed her grandpa into the shack once, on their first outing when she was five, and had stared at pictures of Winchesters and Colts while her grandpa poured himself a cup of coffee. Byron’s head had been hidden behind an issue that had a picture of a man in hunting clothes holding the head of a buck deer by the antler, in the other hand was a large black rifle. The animal had uncaring eyes, glistening black, which seemed to say its death was of no importance—except to the hunter. She had stared at that picture a good long time before she noticed that it was Byron on the cover, his white hair sprouting from underneath the tan hunting cap. Then she had looked at the wall behind him and saw the rifle from the picture mounted above his head. When she once again lowered her head to the magazine cover, Byron’s very smiling, very real face had replaced it. “Got me a black-tail last month. Biggest ever caught in these parts,” he had said. She had run out screaming, nearly tripping over the stack of firewood sold outside for two dollars a bundle.
Grandpa Jack had lived for those trips. Every July 1st would mark the donning of a brown flannel shirt, pale blue jeans, and a green John Deere baseball cap, stained with the sweat of a thousand days holding a fishing rod. Back then she hadn’t known how to describe the demeanor of her grandfather once he had stepped out from the Bronco’s cab. His face always seemed to melt away once they were about an hour from the campground, replaced by something softer. The closest thing she could have compared it to was the picture of Saint Francis that hung in her father’s den: standing over a flock of followers with their sandals and dirty feet standing out more than anything else, holding a benevolent hand over their heads, Saint Francis had a look of total serenity, almost emptiness, a look that told everyone that he was relishing his time with the followers and knew he would have to leave them, but that it made no difference to him at all.
Nowadays she would have compared his face to that of a retiree, having seen so many of them in Dr. Murovsky’s office the past few months. Someone who knows the great days weren’t going to float on forever across a vast sea. The days were always numbered and the enjoyment had to be brought to them. The greatest comfort was that you’re time at work was over. You were free to fulfill the plans that had eluded you for so long. Even Saint Francis had to work his whole life.
——
The percolator began to bubble on the stove, the water singing over the heat of the burners. Paul never understood why she refused to buy a coffee maker. They were so much easier, he said. Less muss less fuss. Just put a filter in, add the grounds, fill it with water, and you’re done. He said the coffee tasted better out of a coffee maker.
“It tastes bitter?” she would say.
No better, he would reply. But she never saw things that way. Her percolator still worked beautifully after twelve years and the coffee always tasted better than out of the machine. Better was bitter. He could never understand.
She grabbed the white “Hard Rock Café-Honolulu” mug from the wire rack and turned off the burner. She poured the black coffee, added sugar and milk, and sat back down at the kitchen table, stirring absently. The car door outside slammed shut and she heard him trudging up the walkway, crunching with every step.
The milk formed a spiral galaxy through the coffee. It didn’t look like milk, though. Whenever she would put milk in her coffee it would just sink to the bottom. Stirring it would simply change the blackness to taupe.
Was the milk bad?
She stood and went to the refrigerator. Grabbing the carton she checked the expiration date: DEC 5. No problems there. She walked to the counter and inspected the small boat she poured the milk out of. The smell was fine; it was just room temperature rather than cold. Maybe the temperature change made it swirl instead of sink, she thought. They never kept cream in the house.
——
She was nearly seventeen when she and her brother Jerry had taken what would be their last trip to the flats with Grandpa Jack. By then it took him a little longer to stretch once he was out of the cab of the creaking Bronco; the truck was as old as she by then. The green John Deere cap had become faded and soiled with wear. The sweat had robbed it of its once-green glory.
His admiring words had ceased as well. The stream was left unnoticed and Byron’s little shack had been replaced by a fully realized hunting lodge, complete with antler chandelier and floor-to-ceiling fireplace. The campground had taken on, like most tucked-away portions of beautiful American landscape, the aura of “tourist.” But such was the way of the winds.
She and Jerry were constantly yapping on their cell phones while he unloaded the three separate tents, propane stove, and plastic-wrapped packages of salmon, steak, and chicken breasts. The entire trip had become a way of transporting the twentieth century comforts of a carpeted two-story home to the sticks for three days. By the second day she could see the fading in her grandpa’s eyes. Jerry was forever gabbing with his new girlfriend and stayed holed up in his tent. On the last day she sat in a folding chair next to their picnic table. Grandpa Jack was standing in the middle of the stream wearing his rubber boots, never batting an eye, a cup of steaming percolated coffee in one hand, the other holding the fishing pole like it was some dying dream taking its last gasp and telling him to look after its family once it was gone.
On the last night they were all forced closer to the fire as a chill swept into the air. The stream had begun to ripple like linen on a clothesline just before dusk and most of the other campers had left that afternoon. It felt like they were the only three left on the flats. She had just crawled into her sleeping bag when she heard a strange noise coming from the fire pit. At first she thought it was a change in her brother’s normal snore pattern, but the sound began to repeat at a faster rate. She could still see the flames through the nylon mesh of the tent but there was something strange about them. They were flickering too much. She unzipped the flap and gasped.
The fire pit was flickering and sputtering, trying in vain to find air through the onslaught of snow being heaped upon it, like a small child fighting the breaking waves and swift undertow of an ocean swell. Eventually the flames gave up.
She watched the July dirt go skeleton white as the ice fell. She could see the ice chest and portable stove, now just white mounds, and the percolator, resting atop the tackle box, a snow-capped peak above a rectangular mountain. Her brother and grandfather saw nothing as they lay deep within the folds of slumber.
And still the snow fell and fell and fell and fell. The only cold blanket there can be.
They had spent the ride home in silence that time. Grandpa Jack had slept while Jerry drove. No one had mentioned the thick ice covering the ground that morning. Janie had wanted to bring up the amazing weather, but decided not to as she watched her grandfather drift off.
——
She could hear his keys in the deadbolt as she took her first sip. The coffee was just right. Whatever had happened with the milk had made no difference. The deadbolt slid home and the front door opened with a wide yawn. The rest was scripted: slam, keys in the ceramic dish shaped like a poodle, bag dropped by the couch, wallet and change dropped in the other ceramic dish shaped like a coy fish, cough to clear the throat.
She was stirring the coffee again as he walked into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he said before kissing her on the cheek.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Good. Not too many there, though. Maybe half.”
“That’s enough, I guess.”
“Yeah, the reading went good and they had some good free writes. At least with the snow so bad, only the best ones show up.”
“Well, I’m glad it went well.”
“It’s funny, they can close all the public schools but these poor college kids still have to trudge their way across campus just to read some Ellison. They should be forcing the young ones. That’s when it really counts. I mean it’s not like they have to drive themselves and hike around. Their parents do all that.”
“Yeah,” she said staring into her mug.
“I guess sometimes you just have to show how much you really want something.”
“Yeah.”
He walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the milk. Then he took a glass from the cupboard above the coffee maker and filled it.
“How was your day?” he asked putting the glass to his lips.
“Alright. I—“
“Uggghh!”
“What!? What is it?”
He spit the milk back into the glass. “This milk’s bad! It tastes awful!”
They stared at each other. She looked into her coffee cup and saw that small pieces were mulling around on the surface of the coffee. When she looked up at him again he was grinning.
“Have you been drinking that coffee for awhile?”
“Not too long I suppose,” she replied and they both started laughing. He poured the milk out into the sink and drank a glass of water.
“So you were saying..?”
“What?”
“About you’re day. How it was.”
“Oh, it was alright. Nothing interesting. I read a little and that was it.”
He was looking at her, waiting for something more.
“I’m tired,” she said standing up. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Aren’t you going to finish your coffee?”
“The more I drink the less I’ll sleep tonight.”
He picked up the percolator and studied it. “I still don’t understand why you insist on using this old thing instead of the coffee maker. I mean it’s so much more of a pain.”
“I just like to,” she sighed. The same comment every time.
“Well I heard it’s not good to drink water after it’s boiled, you know. It does something to you.” She was walking out of the room as he continued. “Don’t people usually use these for camping anyway? That’s why they still sell them, I think.” He put it down on the stove. “Pretty useless if you ask me.”
She stomped back to the kitchen doorway. “Oh no one asked you for Christ’s sake! Just leave it alone! I don’t understand why I can’t drink coffee out of a percolator!”
“It would taste a lot better out of the coffee maker,” he replied in a calm voice.
“Not everyone wants to use your goddamned coffee maker!!”
He looked at her and went to empty his glass into the sink. He ran the water for a moment and watched it slide down the metal drain in a lazy spiral. He wondered vaguely when the pipes would freeze with all of the snow falling.
They stood side by side brushing their teeth, worrying each other with their eyes. Both were determined to leave plenty unsaid. They would have it out later or burn off the anger through the night. Paul had a head start as he turned off the lamp on his side and immediately passed out. She lingered under the bedspread.
Would things be alright?
Were they always going to return to this?
She pondered what kind of a change would come. She wondered if it would come when the weather decided to change and the snow finally drew to its end. No matter, she thought all of a sudden. Things would happen no matter how hard she tried to stop them.
The moment her head felt the pillow she was out. The lamp on her side remained on through the night. The flats floated back to the front of her memory and her eyes danced along with the ripples of the stream as the snow fell and fell and fell and fell.
The Snow Inside
The first two times Janie had said that he was probably right. That he had a point. She had brushed his comments aside that quickly because she loved him, because he was a good man. The possibility of raising a family was even closer with a man like him. The payments on the house, baby toys, family trips, everything her parents had not been able to give her was within a two-foot reach.
Those were the first two times.
The third time was on the last day in November. The wind had shown up throughout the day and deposited three feet of snow across the state. It smothered the entire area and drove everyone indoors to crank up thermostats and boil water. Schools had closed for three straight days and children flocked to the hills with sleds and trashcan lids. The news saw no end in sight for the blizzard. Parents were getting desperate. Cars were buried and snow shovels were working harder than they ever had. And still the snow fell, a great white beach of ice across the land.
It was around 10:00 at night when he pulled into the driveway. She was getting ready to have a cup of coffee, waiting for the percolator to ping and leaning back into memories. The radials of the Honda crunched over the freshly packed salt he had spread over the ice before he left in the morning. The sound was always so deliciously outdoors.
The sound of her grandpa’s Bronco crackling over the dirt and gravel path leading to the flats had always roused her from sleep. She knew they had arrived by that sound so severely associated with the woods. Their grandfather had taken her and her brother Jerry to the flats every summer. It was a campground up in the Sierras, in the middle of what had once been the densest area of forest in the entire mountain range. It had been carved out and Lake May given an inlet to allow a stream to slice its way down into the flatlands. The stream gutted the ground and left in its wake enough reason for the town to slice the trees and toss a few barbecue grills throughout the acres to make a place where folks could pitch tents. Cinderblock bathrooms had been last to arrive.
“Jesus, but would you pop an eye at that stream. Absolutely goddamned gorgeous. I tell you this place never loses its luster, year after year.” He would always say this while leaning back with his hands on his hips, stretching after the three hour drive. Then he would bend down and squat on his knees before finishing with the same prophetic remark he made every trip.
“And it never will,” we would say along with him.
“Hey if you two want to make fun, you can go on your own next year. Besides,” he said pointing at Jerry, “you’re already ten years old and she’s nearly seven. It’s about time you drove yourselves.”
“We can’t drive Grandpa Jack! Mom’d kill us!” Jerry would cry.
“Yeah, and I’m not tall enough to drive yet! Especially your big truck,” I’d say, hoping he would play along.
“Fine, fine. I guess I’ll just have to keep taking both of you myself. My rotten grandchildren.”
They would all laugh, unloading the equipment. The orange tackle box—smelling like garlic and cheese, slimy to the touch and filthy with the years of a fisherman’s relaxing retreats, the kerosene lantern, the tent with various patches of denim sewn across it, sleeping bags, clothes, charcoal, lighter fluid, cookware, dry goods, and finally the ice chest packed with cheese, condiments, fruit, coffee for the percolator, and ground beef just in case the fish weren’t bite. Once everything was out it was just a matter of going down to the small office, writing your name in the log book, and dropping two dollars into the small wooden deposit box.
The office was really just a one-room shack with an electric hookup for a telephone and coffee maker. There was always a desk and an ancient man with silver hair rooted behind it. The old man was Byron. Byron loved to read gun magazines and kept some on the desk in case some of the campers wanted some material on their way to the cinderblock restrooms. She had only followed her grandpa into the shack once, on their first outing when she was five, and had stared at pictures of Winchesters and Colts while her grandpa poured himself a cup of coffee. Byron’s head had been hidden behind an issue that had a picture of a man in hunting clothes holding the head of a buck deer by the antler, in the other hand was a large black rifle. The animal had uncaring eyes, glistening black, which seemed to say its death was of no importance—except to the hunter. She had stared at that picture a good long time before she noticed that it was Byron on the cover, his white hair sprouting from underneath the tan hunting cap. Then she had looked at the wall behind him and saw the rifle from the picture mounted above his head. When she once again lowered her head to the magazine cover, Byron’s very smiling, very real face had replaced it. “Got me a black-tail last month. Biggest ever caught in these parts,” he had said. She had run out screaming, nearly tripping over the stack of firewood sold outside for two dollars a bundle.
Grandpa Jack had lived for those trips. Every July 1st would mark the donning of a brown flannel shirt, pale blue jeans, and a green John Deere baseball cap, stained with the sweat of a thousand days holding a fishing rod. Back then she hadn’t known how to describe the demeanor of her grandfather once he had stepped out from the Bronco’s cab. His face always seemed to melt away once they were about an hour from the campground, replaced by something softer. The closest thing she could have compared it to was the picture of Saint Francis that hung in her father’s den: standing over a flock of followers with their sandals and dirty feet standing out more than anything else, holding a benevolent hand over their heads, Saint Francis had a look of total serenity, almost emptiness, a look that told everyone that he was relishing his time with the followers and knew he would have to leave them, but that it made no difference to him at all.
Nowadays she would have compared his face to that of a retiree, having seen so many of them in Dr. Murovsky’s office the past few months. Someone who knows the great days weren’t going to float on forever across a vast sea. The days were always numbered and the enjoyment had to be brought to them. The greatest comfort was that you’re time at work was over. You were free to fulfill the plans that had eluded you for so long. Even Saint Francis had to work his whole life.
——
The percolator began to bubble on the stove, the water singing over the heat of the burners. Paul never understood why she refused to buy a coffee maker. They were so much easier, he said. Less muss less fuss. Just put a filter in, add the grounds, fill it with water, and you’re done. He said the coffee tasted better out of a coffee maker.
“It tastes bitter?” she would say.
No better, he would reply. But she never saw things that way. Her percolator still worked beautifully after twelve years and the coffee always tasted better than out of the machine. Better was bitter. He could never understand.
She grabbed the white “Hard Rock Café-Honolulu” mug from the wire rack and turned off the burner. She poured the black coffee, added sugar and milk, and sat back down at the kitchen table, stirring absently. The car door outside slammed shut and she heard him trudging up the walkway, crunching with every step.
The milk formed a spiral galaxy through the coffee. It didn’t look like milk, though. Whenever she would put milk in her coffee it would just sink to the bottom. Stirring it would simply change the blackness to taupe.
Was the milk bad?
She stood and went to the refrigerator. Grabbing the carton she checked the expiration date: DEC 5. No problems there. She walked to the counter and inspected the small boat she poured the milk out of. The smell was fine; it was just room temperature rather than cold. Maybe the temperature change made it swirl instead of sink, she thought. They never kept cream in the house.
——
She was nearly seventeen when she and her brother Jerry had taken what would be their last trip to the flats with Grandpa Jack. By then it took him a little longer to stretch once he was out of the cab of the creaking Bronco; the truck was as old as she by then. The green John Deere cap had become faded and soiled with wear. The sweat had robbed it of its once-green glory.
His admiring words had ceased as well. The stream was left unnoticed and Byron’s little shack had been replaced by a fully realized hunting lodge, complete with antler chandelier and floor-to-ceiling fireplace. The campground had taken on, like most tucked-away portions of beautiful American landscape, the aura of “tourist.” But such was the way of the winds.
She and Jerry were constantly yapping on their cell phones while he unloaded the three separate tents, propane stove, and plastic-wrapped packages of salmon, steak, and chicken breasts. The entire trip had become a way of transporting the twentieth century comforts of a carpeted two-story home to the sticks for three days. By the second day she could see the fading in her grandpa’s eyes. Jerry was forever gabbing with his new girlfriend and stayed holed up in his tent. On the last day she sat in a folding chair next to their picnic table. Grandpa Jack was standing in the middle of the stream wearing his rubber boots, never batting an eye, a cup of steaming percolated coffee in one hand, the other holding the fishing pole like it was some dying dream taking its last gasp and telling him to look after its family once it was gone.
On the last night they were all forced closer to the fire as a chill swept into the air. The stream had begun to ripple like linen on a clothesline just before dusk and most of the other campers had left that afternoon. It felt like they were the only three left on the flats. She had just crawled into her sleeping bag when she heard a strange noise coming from the fire pit. At first she thought it was a change in her brother’s normal snore pattern, but the sound began to repeat at a faster rate. She could still see the flames through the nylon mesh of the tent but there was something strange about them. They were flickering too much. She unzipped the flap and gasped.
The fire pit was flickering and sputtering, trying in vain to find air through the onslaught of snow being heaped upon it, like a small child fighting the breaking waves and swift undertow of an ocean swell. Eventually the flames gave up.
She watched the July dirt go skeleton white as the ice fell. She could see the ice chest and portable stove, now just white mounds, and the percolator, resting atop the tackle box, a snow-capped peak above a rectangular mountain. Her brother and grandfather saw nothing as they lay deep within the folds of slumber.
And still the snow fell and fell and fell and fell. The only cold blanket there can be.
They had spent the ride home in silence that time. Grandpa Jack had slept while Jerry drove. No one had mentioned the thick ice covering the ground that morning. Janie had wanted to bring up the amazing weather, but decided not to as she watched her grandfather drift off.
——
She could hear his keys in the deadbolt as she took her first sip. The coffee was just right. Whatever had happened with the milk had made no difference. The deadbolt slid home and the front door opened with a wide yawn. The rest was scripted: slam, keys in the ceramic dish shaped like a poodle, bag dropped by the couch, wallet and change dropped in the other ceramic dish shaped like a coy fish, cough to clear the throat.
She was stirring the coffee again as he walked into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he said before kissing her on the cheek.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Good. Not too many there, though. Maybe half.”
“That’s enough, I guess.”
“Yeah, the reading went good and they had some good free writes. At least with the snow so bad, only the best ones show up.”
“Well, I’m glad it went well.”
“It’s funny, they can close all the public schools but these poor college kids still have to trudge their way across campus just to read some Ellison. They should be forcing the young ones. That’s when it really counts. I mean it’s not like they have to drive themselves and hike around. Their parents do all that.”
“Yeah,” she said staring into her mug.
“I guess sometimes you just have to show how much you really want something.”
“Yeah.”
He walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the milk. Then he took a glass from the cupboard above the coffee maker and filled it.
“How was your day?” he asked putting the glass to his lips.
“Alright. I—“
“Uggghh!”
“What!? What is it?”
He spit the milk back into the glass. “This milk’s bad! It tastes awful!”
They stared at each other. She looked into her coffee cup and saw that small pieces were mulling around on the surface of the coffee. When she looked up at him again he was grinning.
“Have you been drinking that coffee for awhile?”
“Not too long I suppose,” she replied and they both started laughing. He poured the milk out into the sink and drank a glass of water.
“So you were saying..?”
“What?”
“About you’re day. How it was.”
“Oh, it was alright. Nothing interesting. I read a little and that was it.”
He was looking at her, waiting for something more.
“I’m tired,” she said standing up. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Aren’t you going to finish your coffee?”
“The more I drink the less I’ll sleep tonight.”
He picked up the percolator and studied it. “I still don’t understand why you insist on using this old thing instead of the coffee maker. I mean it’s so much more of a pain.”
“I just like to,” she sighed. The same comment every time.
“Well I heard it’s not good to drink water after it’s boiled, you know. It does something to you.” She was walking out of the room as he continued. “Don’t people usually use these for camping anyway? That’s why they still sell them, I think.” He put it down on the stove. “Pretty useless if you ask me.”
She stomped back to the kitchen doorway. “Oh no one asked you for Christ’s sake! Just leave it alone! I don’t understand why I can’t drink coffee out of a percolator!”
“It would taste a lot better out of the coffee maker,” he replied in a calm voice.
“Not everyone wants to use your goddamned coffee maker!!”
He looked at her and went to empty his glass into the sink. He ran the water for a moment and watched it slide down the metal drain in a lazy spiral. He wondered vaguely when the pipes would freeze with all of the snow falling.
They stood side by side brushing their teeth, worrying each other with their eyes. Both were determined to leave plenty unsaid. They would have it out later or burn off the anger through the night. Paul had a head start as he turned off the lamp on his side and immediately passed out. She lingered under the bedspread.
Would things be alright?
Were they always going to return to this?
She pondered what kind of a change would come. She wondered if it would come when the weather decided to change and the snow finally drew to its end. No matter, she thought all of a sudden. Things would happen no matter how hard she tried to stop them.
The moment her head felt the pillow she was out. The lamp on her side remained on through the night. The flats floated back to the front of her memory and her eyes danced along with the ripples of the stream as the snow fell and fell and fell and fell.