Lake Effect

Home, It is the place where once we lived and laughed, where we grew up with the assumption that all would be well, where we met our first love, where life stretched endlessly ahead - Jack McDevitt


Prompt: A story involving your hometown. Make us believe we’ve been there. 
Genre: Open Word Count: 2000 words
Deadline: Thursday, August 11, 2011, 6:30 EST

  Though I wouldn't know the term for another ten or twelve years. It was called lake effect snow. The ice cold, moisture laden wind coming in off the southern shore of Lake Erie to dump snow, sometime for days at a time, on my hometown of Avon Lake, Ohio. Temperatures down in the teens and twenties or lower meant a person out walking was bundled in layers down to long johns and a couple of pairs of socks over feet stuffed into black rubber galoshes. Snow, mounded several feet high along the roadsides where the plows had been piling it since November, made walking a daunting task. But for kids on Christmas vacation it was usually the only way of getting around. No bus system in the small town, Fathers drove the family car into work in Cleveland. Most families didn't have a second car in those days. If they did often it was an unreliable junker, another victim of the unrelenting snow and the salted roads.

  My friend Tommy Anderson preferred the winter to the summer. If you didn't know him Tommy seemed sort of a weakling, small and thin for his age with glasses and in summer a constant sniffle. In the years before central air was common, along with the summer heat came hay fever; an allergic reaction to the ragweed and goldenrod pollen found in staggering amounts around the Great Lakes. Hay Fever would often keep Tommy stuck in the house out of the sunshine with his sinus' completely congested; often with his eyes stuck closed in the mornings until he could get some cold water splashed onto his face. Summer was miserable for Tommy. He couldn't wait for that first freeze of the season usually early in October. By the end of November, the town was blanketed in snow and the temperatures were steadily below freezing. For Tommy that meant the ice rink was ready. 

   Avon Lake in the mid 60's was a pleasant, orderly place to live.  There was a shopping district that consisted of two grocery stores and a Ben Franklin's five and dime, a hotel, a bowling alley, a movie theater and a gas station. That was all on the west side of town between Lake Road and Electric Blvd close to the power plant. Tommy lived closer to the center of town.  Here was where the town had put the municipal buildings, the police and fire stations, the municipal pool, tennis courts, the Little League park, and the ice rink.

   During Christmas vacation Tommy was down at the rink early every morning, often he would be the first person there. Then he could skate as fast as he wanted and he always wanted to go faster, and faster. He could care less about figure skating. That was for girls, hockey was for boys.  Skate fast, use the stick well and stop and turn without falling. That was all the skill you needed. Of course it's hockey, you couldn't be afraid to hit somebody.  Hit them hard, knock'em on their butt. Pads? Those kids growing up in the 60's in Avon Lake. They didn't need no stinkin' pads! Or helmets or any of that other “wuss” stuff. Hockey skates, A stick and an attitude. Tommy had that in spades and it didn't really matter the sport. Baseball; expect the hard slide when Tommy came barreling into home plate. Football, Same as hockey; just hit somebody. 


    Tommy and I had been going to school together since second grade. We liked a lot of the same things, comics, sports and science fiction.  We had many friends on the streets between our houses; and one nemesis-Tad Burey, the neighborhood bully, Older, bigger and mean tempered. Tad ruled the neighborhood with a lizard-like presence. If there two or more kids out. Burey was nowhere to be seen but if you were out alone, Burey would come slinking out of nowhere to knock you down or push your face into the snow or mud. Yeah, like that, a tough guy when no one else was around. Tommy and I had both been his victims since second grade. I just avoided him when I could and took it when I couldn't avoid him. Tommy tried to stand up to him and he was determined to pay him back.

    Christmas, I think it was 1965, Tommy got new skates, his old ones just weren't big enough anymore. Though his new skates were someone else's old skates it wasn't important to Tommy. He was just as proud of them as would have been of a pair right out of the Montgomery Ward catalog. The day after Christmas I was going to be visiting my cousins. It looked as if it was going to be a good day. It had started out fine for Tom. He got to the ice rink about 8:30. The new skates worked great. I don't know if Tommy was actually faster on them but when he told me this he sure was excited about how fast he was. For two hours he skated his heart out. Back and forth up the ice against imaginary defense men, flipping the puck back and forth, the stick moving from hand to hand like it was a part of him. Tommy seemed to be born for this.

   Then the snow began to fall again. Like everyone else Tommy wandered inside for hot chocolate, to take off the skates and put his galoshes on for the two block walk to the library. Once there he placed his skates and galoshes out of the way in the lobby coat room, he found a book of short SF stories,  his usual comfortable chair unoccupied and soon the words of Sturgeon and Simak carried his imagination into realms few had visited, realms abound with aliens civilizations, robots and spaceships.

   Tommy finally noticed it was getting dark. Close to 3PM, in a northern Ohio winter sunset wasn't that far off. As he stepped outside, a cold blast of air, filled with wind whipped snow forced it's way down the back of Tommy's neck as if the cap and scarf weren't even there. The temperature had dropped by fifteen or twenty degrees he guessed. Below zero anyway. With that harsh wind coming off the lake and the snow falling heavier than it had earlier in the winter Tommy began the long march home. Past the High School he was sheltered for a bit but his wet socks were starting to freeze as were his ears. He carried a stack of books in his left hand and his skates tied together and safely over his right shoulder banged him on the right hip at every step.

   Now past the Congregational Church across from the municipal center where he had started from he was able to take a short cut through the woods. That path would lead right to his house. It was a frequently used highway for most of the kids in the neighborhood. Halfway home Tommy felt frozen solid, His feet and face were numb, all he could think of was putting one foot in front of the other. The snow was coming hard now. Visibility was practically nothing, Tommy plodded on. Then wham!  A snowball to the back of the head followed by a push that knocked him to the ground. he looked up, standing over him with that insolent lizard like grin was Tad Burey. What he was doing out in that weather was anyone's guess but he had picked the wrong time.
   Maybe it was the cold wind and snow off the lake or maybe Tommy, just being Tommy, was fed up with Burey. I wish I had been there to see.  

“What you got there Anderson” Tommy Climbed to his feet picking up his books as he did so.

“Books from the Library”

“Lemme see 'em”

Tommy handed the books over.

“You read this stuff” What is it, Rocket ships and space junk”

“Yeah”. Tommy let the skates slip off his shoulder into his right hand where they gently dangled slowly picking up speed.

Burey paging through one then dropped them into a small snowbank. He finally noticed the skates 

“Nice Skates, give 'em here” 

“No”

“Did you say no, punk”!

“You can't have them”

“This is your last warning, Anderson! Give 'em here!

Tommy started spinning the heavy skates with the newly sharpened blades faster!

“You want' em Burey, you're going to have to take them”
Burey lunged for them but by now the skates were a blur. They caught him on the shoulder as he ducked backwards out of their deadly rotation. Protected by the layers of clothing he wasn't seriously hurt though it made him re-think his actions Tommy took the chance to retrieve his books, the skates never stopped moving.
  "Just leave me alone Tad. I will hit you if you get closer!"

Tommy walked past him still spinning the skates. Burey skittered out of the way. Re-energized after his encounter Tommy was home a few minutes later thawing in front of the radiator. Neither he nor I saw Burey again that winter. But we knew we weren't done with him...