Weathering the Storm

I stood before my window, shivering in a flimsy T-shirt, heart disintegrating. I swear I could feel my pupils pinpricking against the searing brightness of 2005’s first snowfall. That bright white had awakened me, blasted through the seasonal central Illinois greys.  I always slept with my blinds open back then, last townhouse on a dead-end road, top of the hill, privacy by default. First snowfall of the season, not generally a big whoopty-do in central Illinois. It’s not like Michigan or even Chicago. Here, snow comes in on cat feet, and usually leaves a harmless white dust. Snow dandruff. On less cold days, it hits the ground running and instantly sludges. 

This was not that. I’d awakened amidst Mother Nature’s pillow fight with herself. Whiteout—snowfall so heavy I couldn’t see more than a few feet out the frosty panes of glass. 

The heat kicked on with a shudder and that dusty burning smell of a furnace putting in its first shift of the season. I dug through my dresser for sweatpants, socks, and assorted seasonal gear. I piled it on and headed downstairs. I hoped by the time I reached the living room, the blizzard would subside. It didn’t. I flopped down on the sofa and flipped on a TiVo episode of The Sopranos.

I’d been warned, but I was 29 that year. Old enough to know better, young and cocky enough to think I knew best. 

I’d flown in from a job in Albuquerque less than 12 hours earlier. The roads had been bone dry. I rolled my eyes at the “sky is falling” forecast on local radio. I’d heard the words “accumulation” and “drifting,” but my brain didn’t register. “Stock up,” the announcer warned. No thank you, I smirked. I’d fallen for that trick too many times, rushed out for fruit, water, and sensible non-perishables. I’d end up stuck in long checkout lines behind a population of grouchy gusses with all the bread and milk they could cart. Why did everyone buy bread and milk for a storm anyway? Then, insult to injury, the storm would stay north, or just sprinkle a few flakes. I wasn’t falling for that false alarm again.  

I opted for a quick stop at a convenience store. I’d been gone off and on all month. I knew I had little to no food in the house. They carried assorted sundries. I could’ve easily stocked up, but I breezed in and out. I grabbed a two-pack of Parliaments, a 12-pack of Diet Dew, and three-for-a-dollar homemade caramels and headed home.

That’ll hold me for now, I thought. 

It’ll turn, I thought. 

A calendar flipped back in my mind—to just a couple of months earlier. Vegas. It was the annual convention for the bar and nightclub industry.  Four blurry days. We bar folks could binge drink Keith Richards under a table, and the whole thing was tax-deductible so do that math. Through my vodka haze, I caught sight of the weather channel on a casino’s big screen. I looked around. About a third of the casino's big screens were tuned to weather. Usually they were stuck on sports. The map showed a multi-colored blob heading towards the Gulf.  I poked my buddy Remy, who owned a chain of sports bars in Louisiana and lived along the outskirts of the Big Easy. I pointed to the multi-colored radar mass. 

“That’s a big ass water tornado,” I slurred. Maybe you should go home, nail up windows or something.” I wasn’t sure what exactly people did for hurricanes. I traveled a lot back then, freelancing as a club consultant. I’d managed a number of nightclubs over the years and had earned a reputation as a sort of fixer. I made my own schedule. I avoided the north in winter and the deep south in hurricane season. 

“It’ll turn,” Remy said, and threw back another shot. “Always does— year after year.”

We’d poured him into an airport bound taxi after his wife called demanding his return.

It was two weeks before we heard from him again. Two of his bars flooded, and his home was completely obliterated, but he was one of the fortunate, his family safe in a FEMA trailer for the foreseeable future. 

Storms don’t always turn, especially when you say stupid shit like storms always turn.

He’d learned his lesson, but I apparently hadn’t. This was nowhere near that level of storm, but the point, my brain explained to me like a frustrated school teacher—is to plan ahead in case of emergency.

I had not, and had awakened that morning hungry and snowed in. 

I smoked my breakfast, proud of myself for at least stocking up on cigarettes. I’d made a rule to only smoke outside, but I lived alone and amended it often. The snow did seem to be slowing, but I didn’t fancy standing outside in it. 

Half a pack later and caught up on all my TiVo’d shows, I scrounged around for something lunchable. 

My fridge held only assorted condiments—Nonfat Miracle Whip, horseradish, three types of Mustard, and half a jar of my mom’s legendary homemade zucchini relish. All the fixings for tuna salad, but no tuna. My cupboards were as bare as that old nursery rhyme.  

I slid open my freezer and found one inexplicably dented box of Lean Cuisine Macaroni and Cheese. I ripped it open. Through the cloudy cellophane wrapper, I could see it was still the proper shade of not-quite-nuclear yellow but had clumpy frosty growths—ice tumors. 

My stomach growled and turned simultaneously. That’s when I noticed it, from across the room. Blue sky out my window. The blizzard had fully subsided. This might be my only chance. 

I slid the freezer drawer closed and grabbed my coat and keys—ready to weather the storm and seek sustenance, just like my ancestors, the Long Hunters of Kentucky— had done. Except I had an SUV, a wad of cash, and my pick of five Walmart SuperCenters in the greater Peoria metro area.

I hopped in my car, and cranked up the heat and a Green Day CD. 

Let’s do this! my empty tummy exclaimed.

I clicked the garage door opener. Nothing. Clicked again. The door shuddered and shivered, accordioned open on slo-mo. I noticed it then, a wall of snow, maybe a foot high, still standing firm where it had drifted up against the door. I stepped out to further asses my situation. 

The drift kicked in easily, nothing to worry about. The street at the base of my driveway had miraculously been plowed. I say miraculously because the Peoria metro area had six snowplows total. That’s one more plow than Walmart. That math didn’t usually add up in my quiet little corner of the world. We were usually last on the list, but not today.

The black asphalt glistened in the morning sun. Down the line of cookie-cutter townhomes, I could see my neighbors snowplowing and shoveling and thought, How very Norman Rockwell, and also, Not gonna do that. 

I climbed back in my car and called my bestie in Florida. She wasn’t just visiting Florida—she’d always lived there— she’d grown up in Miami during the Cocaine Cowboys era. She was a legit expert on drug cartels, but why I thought she’d have midwestern blizzard solutions was beyond me.

“Hmmm, your car is all-wheel drive right?” Dani asked.

“Think so.” I had no idea what those words meant. Color was the most important feature to me when car shopping. “It’s Azure Ascension,” I offered, “like the prettiest shade of metallic blue.” I lit a smoke, and cracked the sunroof. 

“Yeah, ok, cool. Isn’t your house up a hill? Oooh—I got it! It’s a slanty driveway right? Just back up through the drift, then pop it in neutral. You’ll coast down your driveway.”

“What? How ya figure?”

  “Momentum,” she answered. “The momentum will push you through.”

Yes! Momentum! That’s all I need! 

I should have known better. I had grown up there, but I’d erased all winter memories from my brain. If you’d have asked me if had I experienced any traumatic childhood events, I’d have told you outside recess in February. 

My stomach growled more angrily. I thought it might just reach up slap my face, so I popped the car in reverse, backed up until I got stuck, then popped in in neutral. Nothing. Forward then back again.

Next thing I knew, I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere. My car was buried in snow on top of ice, on top of more snow and ice—a quarter of the way down my driveway.  I hate this stupid town. I put the car in neutral. Nothing. Threw my weight against the seat in an attempt to magically propel the car backwards. Nada. Switched to drive. Gas. Reverse. Gas. Spin. Spin and more spin. My stomach snarled angrily like the bratty Eighties teen I’d never fully outgrown, “You suck and I’m starving!”

All I wanted was something to eat. And yet there I sat. And spun.

Then a knock. A tip-tapping on my window.

A vaguely familiar-looking man in heavy coveralls and what I assumed was snow gear—hats, gloves and the like. He looked just like the neighbor I always waved to but never spoke to.  

“Whatcha got going on there?”A northern accent, Minnesota maybe? Snow people! Thank the baby Jesus. He’d get me to some food.

I explained my lack of basic food supplies and newfound theory of momentum.

He smiled politely. Definitely Minnesotan—so much nicer than we Illinoisans. 

“Ok dear, supposin’ that worked and you got down the driveway, what about that wall of ice where the driveway meets the road?” 

I looked. In clearing our street, the plow had left a pile of icy snow in front of each driveway, which had further hardened into a wall—an impenetrable snow fence.  Trapped.

“Here’s what we’ll do, see, I’ll dig out yer tires and push yer pretty little truck back in your garage. Then you just stay inside today. There’s nowhere to go.” 

And then this next part he said, came out real slow, a record played on the wrong speed, his voice deeper, slower —

“Walmart. Is. Closed.”

Walmart was closed! 

“Which one?” I asked, thick-skulled.

“All of ‘em,” came the chilling answer. 

Walmart only closed in natural disasters. I waited for the four horsemen of the apocalypse to ride by, likely atop Budweiser Clydesdales, the equine equivalent of snow tires. 

Sooooo hungry. 

“Can I order pizza?” I heard my voice squeak—on the verge of a hunger faint or tears, or both, forgetting basic logic that if Walmart was closed, everything was closed. 

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Oh, I grew up here,” I said, then to clarify, which only made it worse, “well like 40 miles south of here, on a farm.” 

He made no reply, just tilted his head like the RCA Victor Dog, and motioned for his sons to bring shovels. It took but a millisecond to dig around my tires then run around to the rear, give my polished buggy a little booty-tap as I soft-toed the accelerator. Window still down I yelled thanks, clicked the garage door closed behind me. I stewed in my shame a moment, then went inside.

No answer at Dominos. Or Pizza Hut. Or any of the dozens of food delivery numbers I called, one by one, from my “Welcome to the Neighborhood Yellow Pages.”

I nuked my Lean Cuisine.

I gnawed away like an angry squirrel—it was undelightably crun-chewy, cursed myself, Mother Nature, the entire Midwest.

Then came I sound I’d never heard in that townhouse. The doorbell. I froze, clicked off the television, padded quietly to the door and peered through the peephole. It was my neighbor. 

He’s probably going to rob you, inner me said, but since my inner voice had been doing me no favors lately, I opened the door.

“I had a couple in the freezer,” he said, and handed me a frozen pizza— one of those boxed, fancy deep-dish ones. He looked younger than he had just minutes before. I’d not noticed how blue his eyes were. Azure Ascension blue. I stood there dumbfounded in the open doorway. 

Finally I spoke, “Oh you didn’t have to—”

“Couldn’t let a neighbor starve,” he said. “I packed up a few odds and ends for you too. Some non-perishables in case the power goes out. Stocked up yesterday.” 

He passed me the grocery bag. I made a mental note that his ring finger was bare. 

It wasn’t bare a year later. Nor was mine.

We’ve been weathering storms together ever since.