ANTICHRIS_

By Chris Garvey

Of all the terrible fates that befall millions of people everyday, having a snow blower stolen isn’t that bad. But when you’re twelve, and when it’s your dad who took it, along with your artificial Christmas tree and half of everything else in your house, it sort of is.

Shovels work; they have for thousands of years. But forced regression is never easy or natural. Doesn’t matter if you have to repeat kindergarten or trade in your Cadillac for a Kia. Growing up, we, like most of our neighbors, had a snow blower. That was before we didn’t. Prior to its theft, I remember the comfort I’d feel hearing it rev up, knowing my old man was out there clearing the way for us. Comfort’s not a constant, though, and that sound and feeling was replaced with the clanging of aluminum on frozen pavement; and the realization that my mom was out there tackling a 100-foot driveway by herself. 

It would have been less an unkind gesture had my father been moving to a home with his own driveway, one that would benefit from or require a snow blower. But he wasn’t. Like most apartment complexes, his monthly maintenance fees included snow removal, so his reason for taking it, along with the tree, VCR, stereo, living room furniture, tools, computer and half of our bath towels was selfishness, or spite, I guess.

In our snow blower days, snow was a friend. It got you out of school, gave you hills to sled on and made things seem peaceful. In our non-snow blower days, snow was work, getting up early, sore shoulders, resentment, feeling bad for my mom, yelling at my brother, hating my father. On Tuesday nights, he’d pick up my brother and sister and take them to his apartment for a frozen food dinner. If my mom had been able to pull out of the driveway that morning, or if in the afternoon we got a few more inches, I’d be out shoveling when he’d pull in. He didn’t pull in, though; he’d back in or park on the street and wait for them to come out to him. I’d light a cigarette, lean on my shovel and fantasize about splitting his skull open with it.    

For about eleven years, I think our neighbors lent us a hand twice. The rest of the time, they’d come out while we were mid-shovel, avert their eyes, snow blow their driveway, wheel it back into the garage, go inside, get cleaned up and go to work. We’d still be outside shoveling. My brother and I would scowl as they drove by. But in their defense, dirty looks don’t inspire people to help you.

I read somewhere that Bill Cosby had radiant heat panels installed under the slate sidewalks of his Upper West Side brownstone. He did this to lessen the chances of someone slipping, falling and suing him. Makes sense, especially if you have something to lose. We didn’t, but we had sidewalks. Sidewalks are town property, but their upkeep is the responsibility of the homeowner who lives behind them. That became clear one nor’easter afternoon, when a manly and not very polite policewoman came by to inform us that if we didn’t clear ours by nightfall, she’d write us a ticket. It was a whiteout. No one was walking because no one could see, and with the snowdrifts and plow-pack (snow heaved from snow plows) it was impossible to spot our non-shoveled sidewalks from her squad car. I assume one of our neighbors had called to report us. It took me another hour and a half to do those two 60-foot strips. Cosby’s sidewalk heat panels would’ve come in handy.

On my last day of junior high school, my father finally moved out. In the two years leading up to that day, he lived in our old TV room. He’d eat and smoke in there, and with a travel lock, would lock himself in every night before bed. We never knew why he did that, still don’t, but I know how it made us feel. It was war. Maybe he thought we’d steal from him or kill him in his sleep, and although it made us want to, we never did. I did smash an acoustic guitar on his back once. He was drunk, though, not asleep. 

I wasn’t there on the day of his exodus. Instead, I was drinking beer, inhaling butane and practicing smoking Marlboros. But my little brother and sister were, seeing it all through their seven and two-year old eyes. Trying to process it with their little minds. I imagine for them, seeing their Christmas tree taken away hurt more than the snow blower being wheeled into the U-Haul.

“He’s taking our Christmas tree, mommy,” my brother said.

“I know, honey. We’ll get our own—a real one,” she replied.

And we always did, but Saturday I’ll see my father’s fake tree again, with its plastic branches straining from an excess of gaudy ornaments. My brother, sister and I will be at his apartment, and I’ll wonder why I’m there. But grudges and silent treatments drain more from you than the person against whom you’re directing them. Plus his Chinese wife—she’s an innocent—doesn’t know the things her second husband has done. She misses her own daughter back home in Guangzhou and likes to see us for a couple hours. So really, I go more for her than him. I’d like to share with her some of my stories, but she wouldn’t understand, and I don’t speak Cantonese. But even if I could, it wouldn’t make a difference. They’re retiring to China in a couple months, and I may never see them again. Unless I’m running from the law or overwhelming failure and need somewhere cheap to hide out for a while.

So, I’ll leave his place this Saturday after ‘our last Christmas’ and a few beers, as removed from him as when I walked in. I will, however, have an eight-pack of double-A batteries and some replacement parts for a Crest electric toothbrush that I don’t own anymore. I’ll walk through the courtyard of his apartment complex, Christmas trees glowing from behind sliding glass doors. There may even be some dudes out there snow blowing, and I may wonder how my associations with snow blowers would have been different—our relationship with our neighbors and my sense of community—had he just left us with the snow blower. Then I’ll get to my moms where our tree will be real and our connection genuine. I’ll find comfort knowing that now she has her own crew of dudes snow blowing her little parking lot, and that all she has to do on a cold winter morning is warm up her Mazda, scrape the ice from the windows and go to work.