Break the Ice

I stand in front of my house with Mark. He wears a beige coat. Scarf with his name. Find him on page three—four?—of a Kohl’s mag. There I am to his right, a packed ball of snow firm in hand.

We can knock them down—Mark and me—the strings of ice that hang from my roof like dead limbs. We can do it. Mark could push the smoke from his lips and melt them all. I bet he could if he tried.

He looks old with a lit cig in his mouth. It burns down like a fuse. He breathes in one last time. Throws it in the snow. I step on it with my boot to make sure it’s out. He grins at me and of course I smile back at him.

I’m stripped of the wait: Mark picks up two chunks of snow. Packs them in a ball. Hurls it toward the shards of ice. A slab breaks and falls from the roof. Could have struck him in the head and he would have been dead. Would have called it death by ice. Bound for the morgue.

I say to Mark, “Move back. You scare me. You’re so close to the ice.” Ten more fall, but none close enough to strike his head and kill him. I smile at the sound of their crash, a gun shot shock in my brain. “Don’t be lame. Knock them down with me. It’s fun,” Mark says to me with that grin.

And then there’s no ice left to fall which means we are done. I hold the door for Mark and he steps in my house. We watch a show on my couch. Take off our shoes. Coats. Scarves. When Mark leaves, I hug him and he smells like smoke. His car looks bright red when he drives down the street.