VADAVIAN

GLARE ICE

“Genius,” Merle thought. He sat alone at a little table in a dimly lit kitchen eating his corn flakes with milk and just a little sugar. Well, more than just a little sugar. Couple of spoonfuls, maybe actually a few spoonfuls. He never counted. But he told Doc, and that girl at the dentist, if they asked, that it was just a couple every morning and no more sugar during the day. Which was also a little far from the truth, but Merle didn’t consider it a lie. A lie was something like that son of a bitch Nixon had done. About Vietnam. Where a couple of Merle’s good buddies had died. Blown apart by people they’d never seen. Couldn’t get to be president without lying, that’s how Merle looked at it. Pure and simple.

It was still dark outside and the streetlight outside Merle’s modest kitchen window shined down on a fresh blanket of snow. Merle liked snow. It was his job to remove it. For the city. Had been for, what was it now, 22 years. Or 32. He wasn’t sure. Long as there was snow at this time of year, which there usually was, Merle was happy. Well, content, actually, but Merle didn’t really see much need to distinguish. If anyone asked if he was happy, he’d say “Sure, fair to middlin’,” and leave it at that. Not that anyone ever thought to ask. But just in case, that’s what he’d say. And truth was, he did feel pretty good. Long as there was snow. Summers were different, of course, every idiot knew that. There wasn’t any snow in summer but there was plenty of brush to clear out along those lonely county roads. That’s when Merle’s job shifted from city work to county work. Spring and summer. Well, fall, too, actually. State had a calendar mandating the seasonal shifts and that suited Merle just fine. In fact, he had one of those state calendars hanging on the wall in his garage. Not hanging, exactly, more like stapled up. But what difference did it make what he called it. Fact was, he had a state calendar and knew precisely when the seasons changed according to the labor laws and when he would get laid off by the city or the county and hired by the other. Clearing snow or brush. Didn’t matter much to him. Long as he had something to clear and his back didn’t bother him too much. Just like most of the guys. His buddies, as he called them.

“Pure genius,” he thought again, scooping more corn flakes into his mouth, savoring the crunchy texture and relishing the thought of getting to the point in his breakfast routine when the corn flakes were eaten and all that was left was the sweet milk and some undissolved sugar at the bottom of the bowl. That he loved to scoop up and slurp down, feel the milk-softened sugar crystals on his tongue. And then raise the bowl to his lips and tilt it to get the last of it. Nothing like sugar-sweetened milk, that’s how Merle looked at it.

By genius he was referring to the way the flakes stayed mostly crunchy even after having been in the milk for a while. How was that possible, he wondered. Just like that guy in that movie he liked so much, what was his name, Ford Chase or something like that, the guy who was a dad and had a nice, pretty wife, and worked for that company making chemical additives like the ones that kept cereal crispy in milk. 

“That guy was a real genius too,” thought Merle. “Keeping cereal crunchy in milk like that. Nice,” he said out loud and then looked briefly around the kitchen and out the window for no reason in particular. It pleased Merle this morning to think about genius and geniuses. 

In his head the word “genius” sounded like “genies”. And that made Merle think about another thing he liked. That old show they ran on that one channel every weeknight about that Airforce guy or astronaut or whatever he was who had a genie. Merle really liked that show, the one about the genie. The guys in that show, those two astronauts or naval officers or whatever they were, something prestigious and smart like that, those two guys, they were crisp, as Merle’s thoughts put it. Clean. Dressed well and clean shaven, with nice haircuts. Crisp, kind of like the way the corn flakes stayed in the milk. And that genie, boy was she something. Merle wondered how they showed you the inside of that jug or bottle or cask or whatever it was she lived in whenever that little genie went back inside to be alone or just rest or whatever she did in there. It all changed. The scene or setting, whatever they called it. From the guy’s apartment, that nice sailor or marine, his sofas and chairs and whatnot, to the inside of the genie’s tank. And you could see it was round on the inside and all the blankets or pillows or other genie cushions were all pink and soft and comfortable. Merle thought he would really like to lie around in there with that genie. Nothing weird, of course. Just enjoy the comfort of it. But he’d never tell his snowplowing buddies or brush clearing buddies anything like that. No-sir-ee. Just stick to fishing and football.

“Lots of geniuses in the world when you think of it,” Merle said, aloud now, no longer really caring if he was talking to himself, rising from his table with the bowl and spoon in one hand. He paused briefly to glance out the window, see if it had gotten any lighter out since he had sat down to his breakfast. It hadn’t. He didn’t want to be late to the plow hangar. Never late, that was ol’ Merle. Everyone knew that. And never a sick day off. Merle didn’t get sick. Well, not really, anyhow. His heart, that was just something everyone talked about. Old Doc, even the girl down at the dentist, would ask about it once in a while. You know, the usual. Kinda like a joke or small talk, nothing serious. “How’s the old ticker, Merle?” That sort of thing. And it was fine, wasn’t it? Just a little squirrely now and then. Nothing serious.

“Geniuses everywhere,” Merle said, again out loud, as he headed toward the little kitchen sink to set his bowl and spoon into it. He’d get it later. Before his beer when he got home tonight. Put the old feet up, crack one open, lean back in his good old chair, switch on the boob tube. Merle liked that expression, boob tube. He never said “tv” or “television”, like some of the ladies down at the diner called it. Nope, boob tube it was. When you really think about it, Merle thought, that guy who invented the boob tube must’ve been a genius too. Imagine. Pictures through the air from the sender to the boob tube. Merle wondered briefly if whatever it was the pictures changed into, after they left the sender and before they arrived at the boob tube, weighed anything. But then he felt confused, just for a second, and his brow furrowed and he decided it wasn’t worth thinking about. 

“And whoever it was designed the internal combustion engine, boy that guy was a true genius,” Merle declared, moving now from the sink into the odd little space between the kitchen and the sitting room, as Merle referred to it. Not “living room”. Sitting room was what he called it. To himself, of course. Because there were never any visitors or guests, just the way Merle liked it. Well, one or two visitors once in a while wouldn’t hurt, but you couldn’t go around focusing on things like that. Nothing you could do about it anyway, not having any visitors that is. People were busy, and besides, Merle saw plenty of people out and about when he was in his snowplow or clearing brush, depending on what season the state said they were in labor-wise. 

“Yep, the old gas burning engine. Genius,” he said, stopping in that odd little in-between space, where his coat hung from a peg and his boots always sat side by side, lined up facing the wall and ready to be slipped into. Merle loved driving. All day, either in his old pickup truck to work, in his snowplow, or in his brush trimmer. Driving felt good to Merle. Especially when he got to sit up high where he could see everything. He didn’t need one of those damned little cars or any low-slung Buick. Once, the city had hired Merle to drive a nice tall flatbed truck in the Fourth Of July parade. One that the kids from the high school had built a float on. Merle drove nice and slow and steady all through the parade, and even got so comfortable he began to wave at people along the route. Well, not wave, exactly, just raise his hand and hold it nice and steady out the window every once in a while. And people had waved back. That felt good. Or maybe he imagined people had waved back. He wasn’t sure. Later, that night as he lay in bed trying to fall asleep, he wondered briefly if he had been mistaken and they were really waving to the kids on the float. Yeah, that was probably it. Waving to the kids. Well, he felt good for having put his hand up like that out the window anyway. Felt like something you should do when you were driving in a parade.

Merle had his boots on now and was slipping into his coat. An old shearling-lined canvas coat his dad had given him. Well, he hadn’t exactly given it to Merle. His dad, that is. What had happened was, and Merle didn’t really see the need to explain it this way if anyone ever asked about his coat, his trusty winter coat, was that his old man had died and Merle just decided the coat was his own now. Fit him just right. Maybe a little loose in the shoulders but what did that matter. Sure, the old man had been a little bigger than Merle but a coat was a coat and it felt good to wear it, even if his dad had been a little bit of a son of a bitch to Merle when he was younger. Nothing like that bastard Nixon, though. Not like that. Didn’t lie or cheat or kill anyone. But he could be strict, which Merle thought was just fine. He’d been yelled at a lot as a kid, maybe smacked a few times, but look how he turned out. Good job, little home of his own, no wife or kids of course, but nothing he could do about that. Merle knew one thing for sure. Had he been a dad he would’ve been a damned good one. Never yell, and, God forbid, never, ever raise a hand to his own kid. He knew that for sure. Old Merle, what a dad he could’ve been. Yep, might’ve been nice to be called “Pa”, get a good night hug, that sort of thing. But all in all everything had worked out just fine. That’s how Merle looked at it.

With his coat and boots on, Merle reached down and picked up his lunch pail. Good sandwich, little bag of chips, a thermos of coffee. All prepared the night before and ready to go. All set. Sure, the coffee’d be a little cool after sitting out all night, but what did that matter. Still got that caff-feen in it, right Merle? That’s how he thought about it. No need to rush in the morning if you got it all laid out the night before. 

He pulled open the door and the cold hit him straight in the face. Merle hadn’t expected that. Didn’t look that cold out the kitchen window. No frost on the glass, a telltale sign of deep cold. Merle gasped a little at the bracing blow of the cold. Involuntarily, of course. Merle liked to brag to his plow buddies about his cold tolerance. But this felt different. He wasn’t sure, but it felt like there might’ve been a slight, what was the word, twitch, in his chest when that cold hit him. Merle hesitated a second, adjusted his grip on his lunch pail, then stepped out into the snow, pulled the door closed behind him.

With one step, Merle’s feet disappeared out from under him. He watched as his perspective on the world changed in an instant as everything unfolded with a strange slowness. His lunch pail sailed and rotated peacefully up over his head and into the darkness. The front of his pickup truck careened and disappeared from view as his eyes, along with his head and the rest of his body, he assumed, flew madly off kilter. 

“Ice,” Merle thought, “glare ice. Under the snow.” It was like part of Merle’s mind separated from the other part, the part that was falling in slow motion. His other mind watched it all and thought about it all as everything happened impossibly fast. “Can’t see glare ice,” that mind thought, knowing that it was black and invisible in the dark. And then Merle’s head cracked down onto the concrete walkway. The walkway that Merle himself had lain, measured out so carefully and had poured and smoothed out nice and level. Crack! Merle had never heard anything so loud, like it came from inside his head. And then he felt calm. Looking up into the pre-dawn sky and wondering, absently, if he was about to be late for work for the first time in his life. And then another thought came to mind. It was of a cat, his cat. An old tabby Merle had found one day at the end of his shift out by the plow hangar. Ragged and stray and hungry and thin. Merle had taken it home, fed it, kept it inside nice and warm and safe. “He was a visitor,” some part of Merle’s mind said to itself. “I did have a visitor once, didn’t I.” 

And then he was gone.