The Ice Storm

Dangerous pavements.

But I face the ice this year

With my father’s walking stick.

~ Seamus Heaney, Seeing Things, 1991

“Ice cleats? Don’t you live in South Carolina?”

“Sure do. It still gets cold here. The Appalachian Trail isn’t that far off.”

“Neither was Deliverance.”

Alfred McMasterson laughs like it’s the first time he’s heard that one.

“Nope! No it wasn’t! Did I tell you I actually live on the lake that inspired it?”

“No way.”

“Way. Jocassee is home base for me.”

“You don’t play a banjo, do you?”

“Nah, but I do play a lot of golf.”

“Well, you sure don’t work, do you?”

“Sure I do. Work so hard I’m hardly working right now.”

Now it’s Grimsley’s turn to laugh like it’s the first time he’s heard that joke.

“Geez, man. I was actually going to ask if you were free after New Year’s. I want to go golfing so badly. I thought it was just greens and links down there, and I thought we could write it off as a business trip. What else is petty cash for, right?”

“Shoot, you’re only off by about a week or two,” says McMaster’s uncertain if the relief could be seen on his face and thankful that this call at least is done by the phone. “It’s balmy here right up until Christmas. It’ll get cold at night but the sun comes out and it’ll be 60, 70 degrees all day.” Brows furrowed, he ponders his next move. He can roll the dice, hope that Grimsley knows the rules if he plays the same game. “Pen it in for calendar next year, or maybe even early Spring? It’ll be way warmer here than Lake Eerie, that’s for certain.”

“Ah, I can’t.” Yes! Grimsely continues, “Always got a family trip in the Spring, and the wife’s family is Catholic, Christmas is marathon for those people. I tell you, it’s brutal.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“Anyway, thanks again for the order. Just to go over that again, that’s 32 pallets, right?”

“33, they stick one in the nose of the trailer and then stack two-by-two all the way back.”

“Perfect. Awesome. Oh, all organic?”

“Apiary can’t guarantee that. Bees forage as far as two, three, four miles from the hive, and there are a couple of local farmers who spray a few properties down.”

“They’re organic on site though, right?”

“They are.”

“Certified?”

“Yep, looking at it on the wall right now.” McMasterson stares out the window.

“Perfect. Thanks. Oh, it’ll get here before the storm?”

“Well before then. Driver’s on the road now, he’ll beat the front coming in unless he hauls it on his hands and knees.”

“Awesome. Thanks. You have a good Christmas, Fred.”

“You too; good luck getting through the marathon.”

“The what?”

“Oh, the marathon, what you said about your wife’s family.”

“Oh yeah, thanks.”

Alfred’s working day ends with the call. He gathers his things: a laptop and mug. He stops in the office kitchenette on his way out, cleaning the mug and setting it in a dish rack to dry. He waves good-bye to the front secretary and security guard, saying customary things about how he hopes they’re prepared to settle in when the storm passes over them over the weekend.

Home is about an hour’s drive. He didn’t lie in his call to Grimsley - the novel and movie ‘Deliverance’ were set nearby, but he lives on Lake Hartwell properly. The way he’s heard it, James Dickey set the novel closer to Lake Jocassee and on the Georgia side of the border. Dickey may or may not have been inspired to write it when he was enrolled in Clemson University, however - which would put the geographical genesis of the novel squarely back near Hartwell. Like in the book, the lake used to be a valley with a town in it. The town was evacuated, the valley flooded, but the concrete and brick buildings of the town were still supposed to be standing under water.

All the lakes in South Carolina are artificial. Originally intended to power hydroelectric dams, they were supposed to be nothing more than man-made reservoirs, but wound up becoming home and hearth for people who wanted to live near the water, and playgrounds for anyone with a boat.

Alfred himself doesn’t have a boat, but he does keep a modest house tucked away, hidden within a wooded inlet and sufficiently far from the deep water to where he can avoid hearing the whir of any boat motors. He bought it when it was cheap. Decades ago, when the company operating the dam dumped an array of chemicals into the lake, any fish caught there were deemed unsafe for human consumption. Although swimming was allowed, property values sank like a rock. Fast forward to the present day, when the chemicals are gone and the fish safe by current ecological standards, the house has appreciated far more than market peers.

At night, when he is reflective, Alfred congratulates himself on this, having made himself a fine estate simply by waiting. He likes to keep things simple though - the only decadence he allowed himself was a slight remodeling, when he expanded the windows of the walls facing the lake, so that he has a wide expansive view of the water and the trees on the other shoreline. He was so proud of it that he forgot himself and boasted of it to his father, who chided him for ‘going California’ on him.

He liked his home, but he tried to spend very little else on it. He lived comfortably, and had plenty left over for his ex-wife and children, and live-in help for his parents and grandfather. It was, as he had said earlier, his home base. His commute to the office was really very unnecessary, but he did it to get some separation between home and work. He had a comfortable home office, from which he was prepared to work if the roads were too icy through the next week.

As he settled in for the night, he knew he needed to make a few calls before actually going to bed. The first was to Margaret, his ex. “Oh no, I don’t need anything,” he said. “Just wanted to ask if you did.”

“No, we’re fine here.”

“Great.”

“Bobby and Tessy okay?”

“Yeah, they’re good. You know, same old, same old.”

“Great.”

“Alfie?”

“What?”

“Nothing, never mind. Good-bye.”

He made something stronger to drink before the next call.

“Hi dad.”

“Alfred? What is it?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to check in on you before the storm.”

“A little late in the game to ask that, isn’t it? It comes in tonight.”

“It does. It does.”

“And you’re still out on Hartwell, aren't you?”

“Yep.”

“Not exactly gonna zip over here in a heartbeat, then?”

“No, but you can call me if you do need anything.”

“So you can, what exactly, call someone else who’s closer?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

The stronger drink really wasn’t necessary. These calls were never long enough to justify one to begin with. He emptied it and made tea, something hot, and went outside on the deck for the next call, the one to his grandfather, still living even after all of his years.

“Hi George!”

“Alf! How in the heck are ya?”

“I’m great on my side. You?”

“Ha! I’m moving along. Well, not really moving, I guess, but you know that.”

“Sure do. How’re they treating you over there?”

“Way, way better than I deserve!” He laughs. “I’ll tell you man, retirements great, long as you got someone else to foot the bill.

“Tell me though, how’s Margaret? How’re the kids doing?”

“Oh, they’re great.”

“What’re they into now?”

“Ah, Rob’s into soccer. He’s not really one to score - I think they call the position middle-fielder, a defender? I don’t really know the game, but I do know he loves running up and down the field and kicking the ball as hard as he can.

Tess is doing better than he is in school, but that’s not a big surprise, is it?”

“Nah, she got Marge’s brains, didn’t she?”

“Ha! She sure did. You know how most kids wind up working for their parents? I think I’ll wind up working for her.”

“Yeah you will! Speaking of, how’s Charlie doing? You heard from him lately?”

“No, I haven’t heard much from dad in a while, but I’ll make a note to give him a call. Can I pass him a message? Anything I can relay for you?”

“Just tell him to call around more. He doesn’t call, he doesn’t write, how am I supposed to know what’s going on with him, you know?”

“I do; I’ll tell him for you.”

The ice came in over night. As Alfred had thought, his driveway and the road from the house as far as he could see was covered by it. The roads were declared impassible. What he didn’t predict was how overcast the sky would stay, and how the lack of sun kept anything from changing for days.

He had plenty of food, and the pipes, electricity, and internet were uninterrupted. He was prepared to field calls and tickets for work remotely. But, the storm prevented any commercial traffic through a wide swathe of the eastern seaboard. There were no trucks being laden, no product to move, and even if there were, there was probably no one running to the grocery stores, either (presumably, there’d already been a run on them before the storm came in).

He tried being productive. He tried reaching out and calling clients, not for a sale but as a relationship call or just to check in. He abandoned that after less than an hour, having gotten either only voicemails or, if he did reach anyone, palpable confusion about why on earth he was calling right now.

Having accepted that the day was a wash, he decided to try and go outside. Ice cleats in tow, he managed to make it down to the lake shore. The water hadn’t frozen over. On a whim, he did try taking his glove off and feeling it with his bare hand. It was crisp and cold in a way he hadn’t felt before, and quickly drove him back indoors.

Later, he tried walking down the road with the cleats. It would be nice, he thought, to see the area around his home in a new perspective, to take it in and observe it more closely than he did on a daily basis. The exercise felt good, and it was a nice way to occupy a few hours. In terms of stimulation, though, it left a lot to be desired. There was very little activity by the lake, and the landscape seemed empty and quiet from horizon to horizon, with only the lake interrupting the ice fall.

Overnight, the fallen ice refroze again, and a fresh layer fell again. It would be alright to be house-bound for longer; he had been very prepared for that. Except for the walking, he sat and stared out his window over the lake.

On the third day the weather reporter said that the ice was behind them, and that a softer, finer snow would follow. That was when he’d gotten the call that his father Charles had died. It was nothing dramatic - he’d simply left during the night. Alfred told the home service thank you, and that he would be in touch about the funeral arrangements. He was fine, until he thought about George. Putting his head in his hands, he knew his grandfather would be crushed by the news, and that he would need to be the one to tell him.

He didn’t want to call now. The night was settling in as the snow kept falling. Overcast and cloudy, the fading sun’s downward path was still visible by how much darker it was getting. He made another cup of tea, and this time went outside beyond the window and without the support of any cleats to look at the lake. The snow fell on him generally, just as it did the lake and the trees and everything else around him. He held his tea cup in both hands, and looked down at the steam as it wafted upward.

The snow fell, gently swinging from side to side, ever downward, as the steam made its way upward into - nothing. It would keep rising for only a little way higher before disappearing into the broader air, only as long as the tea was hot, but that would only go on a little bit longer. Eventually, the cup would grow too cold, and the would disappear permanently, as if it had never been there at all. Already, it was growing colder and colder, nothing against the snow or the cold of the elements.

He thought about bees. For all of his years as a dealer, he’d actually no idea how they didn’t all freeze to death in winter, and how they kept coming back every year. Did they make it if only a few survived each frost? How did that work? It seemed impossible to him, in that moment, even though he knew that, somehow, it must be true that they keep on, year after year, frost after frost.

His cup now completely cold, and the snow covering his shoulders and hair, he relented and went back inside.