To everyone’s surprise, the snow crews had hit the foundry’s lot. But it must have been hours ago as there remained about six inches of snow. Vehicles spun and churned like slot cars trying to lock in a rut which would guide them out. Barry slowed to a shuffle and took some long, powerful strokes to mimic a speed skater, but he couldn’t get enough glide in his gait to do it right. He switched again to a careful walk, after almost falling, then tilted his head and stuck out his tongue.
The flakes that struck his face were hefty, cottony straggler types. One landed electric on his tongue and sent a shiver to his pelvis. The ones that touched his face cleaned a little of the carbon from his skin. Barry stopped at the lot’s main road to put on his gloves and pea cap. He heard a compressed air burst from far off. It sounded like a rocket had ignited. He was always captivated at night by the view of smokestacks all around shooting orange pollutant fire into the skies, strangely beautiful, as he imagined combat might be. The air burst dissipated with a hiss. Barry could hear what sounded like the approach of geese.
They came on quick, out of nothing. A line stretched across his entire field of view. Three great V formations approached, squawking and honking as they made adjustments in the echelon. Barry watched them approach. The geese grew silent falling into final ranks. A few honks and replies as they passed overhead, but mostly just the silence of birds in flight. They disappeared quick into the night.
An air horn blast startled Barry. A freight truck slid, its tires locked above the snow. Barry put his arm out instinctively to brace for the blow. The truck groaned to a stop with its grill touching Barry’s outstretched hand. It was mildly warm from diesel heat, wet and gritty to the touch. He could feel the truck nudging slightly forward against his palm. The stack pipe exhaust caps tapped in a syncopated rhythm. Barry stepped backwards and apologetically raised his hand. Barry had lost track of how many times a day he felt like this, a complete and utter dunce.
The driver gave him a pistol point, forefinger and thumb. He moved his thumb a couple of times to indicate shots Barry had just dodged. The back tires of the rig spun and dug for traction. The trailer moaned a long sigh of metal fatigue as the rig caught and dragged it — cold and overloaded with axle castings — out toward the main road.
Barry reached his car and heard a solitary squawking from the sky. A straggler from the flight was trying to catch up. A small, fleeting fear washed over Barry, like he’d forgotten something on his desk. The goose flew intently south into the empty sky. It made no sound as another compressed air burst began. The goose disappeared into a low canopy of cloud cover which was illuminated in orange from the various pipe flames and the piss-poor Rouge lighting. Barry was filled with a great desire to be home. It felt acidic here in the parking lot, a grand doom settling over the foundry, the district, the city, the world.
The Lincoln fired up on first crank. An anomaly. Barry let it warm while he cleared its layer of covering snow. The car normally didn’t start and go straight to its high idle, usually it fluttered and knocked at start-up like the weak heart of an old man being resuscitated. But the car seemed brand new as Barry cleaned it with a whisk broom and scraper. He could remember his father bringing this car home in ’73, tickled pink that he finally owned a Lincoln.
There were no cars where Barry was parked. He got in and gassed the Mk V a few times, then he dropped it in drive and kicked it. The snow tires shot a long rooster tail into the rearview. The lot was slick, icy underneath, but utterly desolate except for a skeleton third shift. The only other vehicle in the outskirts was Vernon Reed’s Buick Regal, broken and cin-derblocked since summer when he transferred to midnights. Barry got crazy: reckless donuts, power slides, spins induced by oversteer. He considered this a fine end to the shift.
He took the main road out from the foundry, and caught himself smiling in the rearview as he went. The year’s first blizzard put a slowness over the city, like a hex had been cast on Detroit. There was an utter lack of urgency in anyone not driving a salt truck. The few other people that had to be out were mostly other shift workers headed home, trudging along purposefully, sliding to stops, spinning at starts.
Perfect, this fraction of time. To Barry it placed him in a free zone, a brief space, a world outside the one of responsibility that seemed born with his daughter like her twin. He wondered if he was just making a big deal out of all of this. He wondered if things were okay with the phone being busy and all. He wondered if he should even be entertaining the thought of stopping by the Shamrock for a beer. Did it make him a bad person? A rotten husband? A drunk? But without much more thought, Barry announced to his father’s plastic hula girl — always a freakish sight, but especially against a snowy backdrop — that he was stopping for a quick beer and a shot. He would call home from there.
Just like he promised, Barry order a beer and a Beam back. He showed Hal, the owner and a regular acquaintance, obligatory baby pictures. Barry accepted a second, congratulatory shot from Hal. It was the good stuff — single batch bourbon — stuff he didn’t share with the patrons. Barry got a dollar’s worth of quarters for the juke box which sat sad and quiet in the corner, like it was serving out a punishment. But as a plow truck scraped by the bar’s front window, Barry got a guilty feeling. After a moment, he pocketed the coins and checked his watch. Almost 12:00; too late to ring the phone. He cashed out, said good night, left a nice tip, then cursed himself for stopping on an evening such as this. He felt sure Sera would be freaked as he angled the Lincoln back to the drag.
He thought back to a time right before the two of them got married. They were dating and had stopped at Micky D’s after pricing air compressors from Sears.
“You want kids?” she asked as she popped a chicken nugget into her mouth.
“Yeah. Absolutely — kids. But not, like, until I’m finished with school and have a good job. I mean, anything but the foundry, really. But yeah, definitely, kids. Definitely with you.” They craned across the bench seat of his truck for a kiss that tasted of hot mustard and fryer oil while driving up the Lodge. Only five years back, but Barry reckoned the past in dog years. It seemed like he’d uttered those words more than thirty years ago.
The salt trucks and plows had hit the main thoroughfares, but the Lincoln was rear wheel and open differential. It made even slightly slippery a chore. Barry now drove carefully on the remnant ice. He cursed himself for losing track of time, for stopping at the bar. It was just after midnight. Why didn’t he just call from there? He could see the low, full moon through patchy clouds and breaks in the sky. He turned off the radio and tried to concentrate on the road, but not the moon. It was bigger than him, and it sat just above his hood like a deluxe option his father had ordered for the vehicle when it rolled off the line. Barry sat back in the bucket seat as he got a good, clear view. He was iffy, and prepared to ask the moon for answers, but stopped short as the dead rock looked back stupid, offering nothing but luminescence.
He pulled onto Avalon from Van Born and noticed the streetlamps were out. The block was dark, then the next, and the next. No house lights, just the beams from the Lincoln cutting a path Barry could drive in his sleep. He moved through the old streets and turned into the cleaned and salted drive. Mr. Burns had indeed come by and ran the snowblower over everything. That old man and his snowblower. Sera must have shoveled the steps and porch.