I ran in slow motion, as if in a dream or a nightmare,
through the deep and dirty, uneven snow piles stacked up by the plows on the
side of the road the stormy night before.
My frozen, wet galoshes felt like concrete blocks and I could hardly
lift each foot off the ground as a mad man chased me down for pelting his car.
My two pre-teen, 1960’s compatriots, Michael Powers
and Kenny Boufart, scattered in opposite directions, abandoning each other
quicker than Judas Iscariot.
Mike was
quiet, funny, and loved BB-guns and the Beatles while Ken was older, stronger
and a lady’s man.
Partners in crime but
not in punishment, it was universally understood; each man for himself.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the irate motorist gaining
on me in his pinstripe suit with a wide red power tie and slick Italian
loafers, his car door flung open out on highway 31. He was yelling something about ‘getting you
god damn kids’. Kenny headed upstream against
traffic, recklessly on the muddy shoulder while Michael headed downstream quickly
with it. I chose the high road, up and
over the artic roadside mounds, heading towards the familiar backyards and open
lands I knew so well.
Seconds before we three amigos were engaged in a harmless
past time of throwing snowballs at the big panel trucks rolling by in the dirty
Levittown alpenglow of the suburban sunset.
The thick east coast snow packed down into hard and dense snowballs, too
hard to throw at people or cars but perfect for making a beautiful thud when
they hit the hollow trucks in the evening rush hour. A high, hard fastball got away from me and
hit a passing black Cadillac Coup-de Ville with red interior, a classic Mafia type
sedan in our young minds. The surprised Wise
Guy slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car before I even knew what had
happened. My friends and I exchanged
surprised glances at each other and instantly had the same thought. Run!!!
I made it around to the first corner house, Lenny Arkinore’s. He was a weird skinny kid with greasy hair,
dandruff and flakey skin, a mean mother with no husband and a barky dog called Tennessee
Jed. The low front fence was scalable
but when I tried to jump over it I missed heavy and low and it hit me at the
waist as I tumbled over it into the snow.
Jed was on me instantly and the irate Henchman was not far behind. I jumped up but the big Goodfella reached
over the fence and grabbed me by the collar, my scarf and the scruff of my
neck. I wiggled and shook wildly, spun
around and dropped to the ground, crazily freeing myself from the man’s grip of
everything but my scarf, which I abandoned with no remorse and headed across
the yard with Jed nipping at my heals. I
had obeyed he first rule of a street fight:
Go nuts early.
Another fence scaled, and I was in Bobby Bacarella’s back
yard slipping around the covered underground pool and behind the pool
house. Bobby was younger but was a good
athlete and a funny-cool kid with a ‘built-in’ pool so we hung out
occasionally, especially in the summer. No one was home so I went undetected as I stealthfully skirted the
property perimeter like the two-bit outlaw I thought I was. My last glimpse behind me revealed the mad
man standing there hopelessly holding my scarf and looking at Jed and all the backyard
fences. Michael and Kenny were nowhere
in sight, safe due to my distraction.
I slipped thru the last slatted fence and into the open field
behind the Mandra’s small farm stand. They
were the last rural holdout in this land of suburban sprawl. They had goats, chickens and an old barn
complete with a crazy old Aqualung type farmhand and a hoot-owl. With my hands on my knees I caught my breath
and contemplated my fate. With some
remorse I understood the man’s startled rage but never expected him to chase me
down or rag-doll me on the fence like some Dickens Trollop. I was just 11, a kid, having some fun. Couldn’t anyone take a joke anymore.
I shook it off but started to chill down a bit after running
and sweating in the damp twilight cold.
I
walked down the thin snow covered farm road rustling out a small white rabbit and
slipped into the grammar school field behind my house.
I scaled the last fence into my own back yard
where, through the dark play gym and monkey-bars, I saw my mother working at
the kitchen window.
She was making
dinner in our small and cozy, steamy-warm, middle class Irish home with a
cigarette between her lips and a drink at her side, in her pearls, grey pants
suit and rubber kitchen gloves.
I burst through the backdoor onto the plastic mat set up for
snowy boots and began pealing the wet layers, dropping hats, mittens and boots
to the floor. I jostled my kid sister in
her baby-jumper roller-chair as my Chinese Pug dog named Ling-Ding clawed, licked
and sniffed me like a long lost friend.
“How was your day”, my mom asked.
“Fine” I said.
“What did you do” she countered.
“Nothing” I admitted.
After another great powder day skiing in Utah’s Wasatch
mountains, I was soaking in my backyard hot tub enjoying the orange-pink alpenglow
hues on the surrounding hills. I had spent the day charging ahead of the
maddening crowd with good friends, outflanking the competition, seeking untracked
runs while searching and destroying pockets of pow. My soaking was a fitting respite from the dog-eat-dog,
survival of the fittest war that is the new age, powder day at our crowded,
corporate ski resorts. I was complacent after
enjoying some of my favorite old haunts and ski lines by thinking outside the
box and trying new and different strategies for survival and optimization. Zig when they zag. Evolve or lose. 
