The Ice Storm

Paul Giardino wasn’t sure that moving to Chenango County was working for him. It was supposed to be a whistle stop on the road to the governor’s mansion – establish residency, serve a term or two as state senator, then become governor. He thought it would be easy to secure the Republican nomination, which was as good as getting elected since the county was 70% Republican. He had made all the right moves – joining the party, schmoozing the key players, flying them down to Giants Stadium, even hosting them on his yacht for the Super Bowl forcrisake. Did they do the right thing? Fuck no. They teased him along like it was in the bag but twice, twice!, they had fucked him for the nomination, this time for a dentist (!) whose license was suspended (!!). What the fuck! They come out of their private conference and nobody’s making eye contact with him so he knows it’s bad. One by one they take him aside and apologize, telling him they tried to sway the committee. Bullshit! He had more than half of them on his side. No way he could have lost.

Paul stared into his drink, feeling sorry for himself, jiggling the melting ice cubes. It was 3am but he was in no mood to go to bed. He was accustomed to having his way. In the last two weeks he had suffered two serious setbacks. First he had lost out on a beautiful tract of land. 1500 acres right where he expected the intersection of I-88 and I-83 to be. Cornelia stole that one. Then tonight he gets stabbed in the back for the nomination for state senator.

He reached for the bottle of Chivas and topped off his drink, swiveled on his stool to offer a refill for his date, holding up the bottle and arching his eyebrows by way of invitation. But his date had given up on him and retired 2 or 3 drinks earlier. He stared at the girl’s fur, draped over the chair back and tried to remember what she looked like, some model or actress, pretty disappointing actually. He wished Pygmy was with him. Now that was a woman he could get excited about, even marry. He pondered whether a biracial marriage would work for or against his political aspirations.

Coincidentally, at the same moment that Paul was drunkenly thinking of Pygmy, Pygmy was drunkenly thinking of Paul, kneeling on the floor in her bathroom, about to call Ralph on the big white telephone. The $10,000 donation that Paul had given to the festival had bounced. Evidently he had put a stop payment on the check and not told Pygmy. That was just like him. Use people and then stiff them. Make promises and break them. And to think that she almost had feelings for him, before. Well, she did have feelings for him, but he was poison. She leaned over the edge of the commode and gave it up for Ralph.

Then the lights went out, at Paul’s secluded estate and at Pygmy’s house, indeed all over Chenango and several other counties the lights went out. The parties in Greektown were still going, lights or no lights. Maybe better without them. The theme for Wednesday, as usual, was karaoke. In the dark, without the recorded music or the video backdrop, the revelry cruised on its own momentum. Here and there a few relatively clear-headed attendees sought to restore the power, groped around basements in search of circuit breakers while most everyone just stayed put and groped the immediate vicinity.

Those who ventured outside discovered that three inches of soggy snow had fallen. A very tall young man stepped out on the porch of one of the frat houses and promptly slipped on the ice and fell. The pitch of the porch propelled him towards the front steps. He reached for the wrought iron handrail to keep from sliding down the steps, but the handrail itself was coated with ice and his efforts to hold a grip on it were futile. He watched his fingers slowly slide off the handrail and then he was a human sled, gracefully gliding down the walkway, across the lawn, into the driveway and down the driveway into the street. He hit the curb and spilled up onto the lawn across the street, hooked his arm around a maple sapling.

The young man raised his free hand in a signal of triumph to his compatriots, but absent the street lights no one in the frat house could see him.

“Brian, are you okay?” someone shouted from an upstairs window.

Brian laughed merrily, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted “fine,”, but the little tree buckled under his weight and he began to slide away down the street towards the river. Fortunately for him there was a fence between him and the water. He came to rest, finally, and was able to stand up, but it was useless to try to get back to the house; after a few steps the ice carried him back to the fence.

Then a couple of his friends ventured out on the porch to see what was happening. A few minutes later they were beside Brian at the fence, three very bright and creative minds boggled by black ice and gravity. Coatless, they might have contracted pneumonia from the frosty damp exposure. Their salvation came in the unlikely form of Skid, who had been out since midnight with the plow, dumping rock salt on top of the ice.

Skid knew it was already too late for the rock salt to do any good, but he got paid doubletime and could just drive around all night so he didn’t much care. He did all the village streets and was heading for campus when he saw the three men in the headlights. They crowded into the passenger seat and Skid drove them back up the driveway. It took 15 minutes to get them inside the house from the truck, using several bedsheets knotted together as an impromptu lifeline. One of the men offered Skid a 50 dollar bill, fully expecting Skid to at least balk once but Skid just tucked the bill in his pocket and said “Awesome.”

“Don’t go! Don’t go!” someone shouted at Skid. “Tell us what’s going on.”

Skid shrugged. “Fucked if I know. Looks like an ice storm. Power’s off all over town.”

“How long will it be out?”

“Probably hours. Maybe days.” Skid’s words quickly spread throughout Greektown, along with various accounts of Brian’s misadventure. Now that the mystery had a name, ice storm, and an expected duration, everyone settled down. By 4am Greektown was quiet, the earliest end for Karaoke Night that anyone could recall. Most people just went to bed, if they could find it, and otherwise went with whatever the next best thing was.

Not all the power was out in Susquehanna. Pygmy’s house was one of the few exceptions. Pygmy brushed her teeth, rinsed, and studied her reflection in the mirror. She was still a bit nauseous and her head was beginning to ache. If she lay down she would sleep at least to noon, probably longer, and she couldn’t afford that. Three more days! How would she make it? She brushed her teeth a second time, then made and drank several cups of Cuban coffee, sitting on a sheepskin by the fireplace. She’d gut it out until the evening and then crash. David could cover the evening for her; it was the least he could do for her. She put a Nick Drake cd on and wrapped an afghan around her shoulders, closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

She woke up for a nature call at 7am, flicked on the Bose to catch NPR, caught the news about the ice storm and all the power outages, went through an absurd moment of wondering whether she had a power outage. She had no hangover at all, felt pretty good and rested. Then again, she was laying in bed, and she knew from experience that standing up could make a world of difference.

She tempted fate by getting up and going to the window to look see what it looked like. The answer was “white and messy.” She had seen ice storms before but this one was the worst. The landscape was white again, salted with a riot of twigs and branches of all sizes. Quite a few trees were uprooted, fallen over onto the ground, or other trees, or whatever was unfortunate enough to be in the way. The radio said it was 30 degrees, and forecast a high of 45. Ironically the sky was clear and the Sun was bright, so Pygmy figured everything would be okay for the Festival. She felt okay, good enough to take care of business.

First order of business was to get through to Paul Giardino and address the stopped check for 10 large. She dialed his mobile and got him on the 5th ring.

“Paul” a tired voice intoned.

“Motherfucker!” Pygmy saluted.

“Pygmy, I’m sorry – let me explain.”

“No explanation necessary. Just make with the mon-nay. I’m trying to keep 2,000 freaked out people happy. I thought I had a solid budget and then when I go to the bank I have to suffer the embarrassment of Miss Thing smirking at me about the bad check that I deposited. I don’t care what your explanation is. Where the fuck is the money?” She slammed the phone into the cradle and went off to shower. Fuck Paul Giardino and his $10,000. Don’t really need it anyway, and certainly don’t need him. Then she turned her thoughts to the present: lip gloss? Etc.

Paul had an impulse to make amends, but it passed. Pygmy fascinated him, attracted him for sure, but somehow, he couldn’t put his finger on it, he and she didn’t click.

Paul had been fucking people over for so long he had long since forgotten that people have feelings, or principles, or stuff like that. It was just natural for him to stop payment on checks, if he even wrote one. Sometimes he just refused to pay on account that the work was late or not good enough. Occasionally he’d relent after several months and pay half, or a tenth. He liked people, thought of himself as a people person. He just had a problem letting go of money.

He somehow believed that Pygmy understood him. He sat down and wrote another check for $10,000. He most likely would stop that check too, so he tore it up and made a mental note to get a cashiers check. He needed to move on. It was past 7. He had to get out to his “sportsmen’s paradise” – a 400-acre farm that he had converted into a luxury shooting gallery, where hunting parties of himself and an entourage of pro athletes and politicians gunned down exotic critters, who were fenced in for easy killing.

A few times each year Paul threw a weekend hunting party. The first outing for 2001 was the week after the Festival. Two NFL hall of famers were among the guests. Paul had elk and buffalo as usual, and in honor of his special guests, yak, which he confused with an African antelope. Too bad he had to pay cash up front. How were they going to hunt yak? The things didn’t even move. He’d give them to the zoo, anonymously of course. Too late to get anything else so make do with what he had.

He was glad that he had the Hummer, as glad, maybe more, that he had a gas generator to supply the electric during the outage. The roads were dicey. The radio said it was a winter storm emergency which meant no travel except for emergency but he did have a Hummer and he had no problem getting to his hunting preserve. As he drove up the hill he had a good long view of the barn doors flapping in the breeze. There were no animals inside. They were all, it seemed, in a single herd heading into the woods, a human figure with a staff walking behind the herd. Paul called and the figure turned around. Paul saw that it was Jose, the Mexican who worked for the Sheriff’s sister Jane. The herd and Jose vanished into the woods.

Back on campus, gas powered generators were supplying electricity and all the attendees, and quite a few townies, sought refuge there. Everyone was thrilled to have light and heat, and a chance to recharge their cell phones.

The Festival proceeded on its normal schedule, quite a contrast to the chaotic remnants of the ice storm. The temperature was not quite 40 but it seemed warm in the bright sun. The ice and snow were beginning to melt but they still dominated the landscape. Every few seconds there was the popping sound of a tree limb snapping off under the weight on it. Every few minutes came the whoosh and crash of a just uprooted tree.
The ice storm became the center of attention. Attendees found it more interesting than the Festival. David Prendergast noted as much in his opening remarks, invited people to go out and enjoy the spectacle – not the damage but the abstract expressionist canvas of twig and branch on snow.

“David, Why are you so sober?” someone shouted from the audience.

“Who says I am?” answered David.

At 10am David slipped away in his Land Rover to meet up with Casper for breakfast at Jane’s. Pygmy wanted a ride, too. He drove through town to pick her up, antsy about being seen, maybe ticketed, by a deputy. He liked his chances. There were enough other vehicles out in violation of the winter storm emergency.

It wasn’t easy getting out to Jane’s, took nearly an hour. The place was packed, too. Like most farms Jane had a gas powered generator and was doing business as usual. Her brother was doing business as usual too – ticketing each arrival with a $200 citation for violating the winter storm emergency and tartly advising that they best not leave the premises by motor vehicle until said winter storm emergency was lifted.

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