The Snowball Fight

`Brendan loved the snow. 

Having grown up just outside of San Diego he never saw it as a kid, never played in it, so when he moved into a small two-bedroom rental in the Boston suburbs after graduating from Northeastern University he purchased his very first snow shovel. That morning he had used it for the first time to clear his driveway and free his car from the foot and a half of snow that had fallen overnight in a surprise pre-Thanksgiving snowstorm that had closed schools and snarled traffic all over New England. Now, on his way to work at his office in Quincy, he found himself taking the local roads in lieu of the highway, less for the sake of expediency and more to just enjoy the wonderful scenery of the white-blanketed world all around him.

The snowstorm had transformed the familiar sights of his daily commute into an entirely new experience, converting even the most squalid and run-down areas of Suffolk County into pristine landscapes, almost indistinguishable in their beauty from the wealthiest enclaves of Dover or Carlyle, if only for a short time. This fresh layer of snow was an unparalleled aesthetic equalizer and Brendan reveled in the natural beauty of it all. 

Sipping from his travel mug full of piping hot coffee, he turned up the radio looking for a traffic report on I-93. What he heard first though was the list of school closures for that day, which was extensive. He knew he would be arriving at work at least a half-hour late but wasn’t at all concerned. His boss commuted all the way from Lexington and she would be lucky to reach the office before 10:30 that morning, so Brendan took his time and enjoyed the ride.

Crossing over from West Roxbury into Roslindale he got a little lost and in an effort to circle back towards the highway he turned down a freshly plowed side street in a residential neighborhood and immediately spotted a group of kids further down the block, joyously starting their day off from school with a jubilant celebration of youth that can only be captured in a furious, all-out snowball fight from opposite sides of the street. There were at least eight to ten kids huddling behind the shelter of some snowbound parked cars on one side of the road and a roughly equivalent number of combatants doing the same just across from them, and for a long moment Brendan found himself envying all of them unconditionally. Sure, he had grown up spending sunny weekends surfing the break at Black’s Beach and Lower Trestles, but he and his friends had never done this back when they were in grade school and he suddenly felt some small sense of loss at this thought.

As he drew closer to the furious skirmish taking place near the middle of the block he suddenly heard, and felt, the first of the onslaught of snowballs hitting the passenger side door of his car. A moment later no less than a dozen such projectiles assaulted both sides of his vehicle and Brendan suddenly found himself grinning like the village idiot on Faire Day. He braced the steering wheel and leered out at his young attackers with a projection of manufactured faux anger. He slowed down a bit as a second sortie of snowballs came flying at him again from both sides, leading him to briefly consider parking his car and joining in the fun, provided of course that the kids would have him. He had never thrown a snowball at a moving car in his entire life and the thought of it suddenly filled him with a delightful sense of childish glee. But he was already running late to work and showing up at the office with snow in his air and soaking wet clothes seemed like something he would soon regret so Brendan shook off this thought and kept on driving through the gauntlet of snowball-wielding kids..

There was a brief pause in the action as his assailants reloaded for a third sortie and Brendan decided to inject a little added thrill for these kids by amping up his false anger a bit further. He honked his horn. He shook his fist. He glared through the windshield at the kids on either side of the street. To his left, one of the biggest kids - a tall and thickset boy wearing a New England Patriots wool cap above his freckled brow - stood up and mugged back at him, shaking a fist in return before firing another snowball that smashed into the driver’s side window right before Brendan's face with surprising force. He instinctively recoiled and the kid who had thrown the snowball pointed at him and laughed.

And just then, it happened.

Without warning, a smallish kid came bounding out from between two parked cars on the opposite side of the street and with a sudden paralyzing sense of terror Brendan simultaneously heard and felt the boy’s tiny body slam violently off of his front fender just before dropping below his field of vision on the passenger side of the car.

Had the boy gone under his front tire? 

Brendan’s eyes went wide and he felt his stomach turn into water as he brought his car to a stop. For just a second he was sure that he was going to be sick in his own lap, but he fought that instinct down and exited his vehicle, desperately hoping that the boy was all right while rapidly developing a deep sense of dread that he surely was not, the dire looks on the downcast faces of the young boys standing on that side of his car rapidly confirming the worst of his fears.

"Mister, why did you hit my brother?,” a thin boy with curly ginger hair frosted in snow asked in a small but angry voice as Brendan rounded the front of the car. He was too shocked to respond and quickly made his way to the tiny body lying prone on the snowy ground by his passenger side front tire.

"Yeah man, why the hell did you hit Kenny?,” the large boy with the Patriots cap asked.

“I think he’s fucking dead. I think Kenny is dead,” the thin red-haired boy said, sending Brendan’s heart racing like a rabbit on the run. He knelt down beside the body on the ground, the crowd of kids closing in all around him. Brendan reached out to feel for a pulse on the boy’s neck.

“Hey, don’t fucking touch him!” The downed boy’s brother stepped forward and slapped Brendan across the side of his head, harder than he would have thought possible for a kid of that size. He was stunned and just stared up at the boy, speechless. Then the big kid with the Patriots cap stepped up from behind and kicked him stiffly between the shoulder blades. Brendan had been down on his haunches and the force of the kick knocked him off balance, toppling him face down beside the motionless body of the boy on the ground. He rolled onto his back as the crowd of angry young faces pulled in tighter around him and one kid leaned in to spit on him. Suddenly, Brendan was feeling an entirely different sort of fear. He noticed now that one of the boys was holding a hockey stick and another was staring at him through a pair of cold blue baleful eyes as he slowly reached into his coat for something.

“Hey guys, take it easy. This boy needs help. I have to call 911,” Brendan said in an unsteady tone, planting his right palm on the cold ground in order to push himself back up onto his feet. As he began to rise the big kid in the Patriots cap stepped forward and kicked that hand out from under him, sending him sprawling onto his back again. Then one of the other kids stepped up and quickly kicked him hard in the ribs and Brendan suddenly grew very worried that they would all start in on him then. He could surely overpower a few of them, but not this whole group at once. There were just too many.

Then, amazingly, the boy who had been lying unconscious by the front tire of the car suddenly opened his eyes and rose to his feet. Hope and joy swelled up from within Brendan like an orchestra reaching its crescendo and for a moment he forgot all else. Ode to Joy! The boy was okay! The boy was alive!

Brendan pushed himself up onto one elbow as the boy rose up over him. The kid smiled at the others in the crowd, a small trickle of blood running from one nostril, then he suddenly turned towards Brendan and kicked him stiffly in the testicles, leaving him curled up in a fetal position instinctively clutching his groin. A moment later Brendan felt the cold, hard tip of the kid’s rubber boot smash into his upper lip, loosening one tooth and slinging some of the icy slush from the street right into his mouth. A moment later he tasted warm blood running over his tongue and he spit it out on the ground beside him.

The big kid in the Patriots cap took the hockey stick away from his friend and used it to clear a few boys aside, creating the space required for what he intended to do next. The boy tightened his grip on the stick and cocked it back, getting ready to swing. Just as Brendan realized the kid’s intentions and began raising his arms to a defensive position, a disembodied voice - a woman’s voice - called out from one of the houses on the other side of the street.

“Kenny? Michael? What are you boys doing out there?. Come in here and get some hot cocoa. I’m leaving for work soon and I need to talk to you two if you’re going to be home all day.”

Suddenly, the ginger-haired kid with freckles and the boy who had been struck by the car looked at each other. One shrugged at the other and they both ran off towards the sound of the voice. After a moment, the big kid holding the hockey stick handed it back to the boy he had taken it from and ran after the two kids who had just departed. The rest of the boys began walking away in various directions. One kid who had been holding a snowball the whole time suddenly seemed to realize that it was there in his gloved hand, and with a sour little frown he just mushed it on top of Brendan’s head and walked off quietly with the others. In the distance Brendan could hear the woman’s voice again, not so loud now.

“You kids take off those boots before you come in and leave them by the door. I just washed these floors last night. Oh no, Kenneth why is your nose bleeding? You boys need to be more careful with your crazy...” The voice cut off as the door closed.

Brendan spit some more blood out onto the ground and then rose to his feet, feeling some of the slush from the mushed snowball trickle down the back of his neck and below the collar of his shirt and all the way down his back. He got up, returned to the driver seat of the car and briefly examined himself in the rear view mirror. He would not be going to work today. He looked terrible and had no desire to speak with anyone for a while. After a moment, Brendan put the car in gear and began his drive back home.

That April Brendan took a job with a large west coast tech firm specializing in the manufacture of chipsets for cellular telephones and moved back to San Diego, not far from the place where he grew up, and rediscovered his love of surfing.

He left his snow shovel behind.

Brendan hated the snow.

THE END