Snow Day: a Novella Read Online Free

roaches escaping from the light, we scattered. Over fences, through hedges, we ran as if the devil himself were biting at our heels. No one wanted to be standing next to a wailing Tommy Schneider, especially when his mother emerged from her kitchen onto her back porch, a vantage point which overlooked my own backyard where the battle had been fought and, where Tommy was concerned, lost.
    Rudy and Freddy ran inside our garage to hide. Carl disappeared into the neighboring Carlson backyard, while Frank and Jimmy jumped the fence on the far side of the yard and ran south down Persimmons Avenue. Lucy slipped away cat-like, squeezing through a small space between the garage and the back fence. Too big to follow her, Bobby and I went in another direction, running down the narrow pathway between my house and the neighboring Schneider house. We ran past the line of trash cans and stayed low and close to a row of tall hedges that separated the two properties, so no one who might be looking out the Schneiders’ side windows would see us pass. There were no first floor windows on that side of my house, so I knew my mother wouldn’t spot us.
    After we cleared the hedges, Bobby and I cut right and hurried down East Glendale Avenue until we reached the far corner of our block where East Glendale met Route 5, a busy two-lane road frequented by commuters and delivery trucks making their way to Route 46, the George Washington Bridge and the five boroughs. We eased from a hell-bent run to a winded trot, and finally stopped for a breather as we turned the corner and were well concealed by some shrubs.
    After a few seconds bent over, hands on thighs and sucking wind, we looked at each other. And then we laughed. We laughed until we were nearly ready to piss our Wranglers.
    Just the thought of Delilah Schneider, Tommy’s five-foot six, 250 pound mother, busting out of the back door on to her porch like a raging rhino, was too much. We’d seen it before and we could picture it now like a Hollywood Technicolor movie, as clear as Shelley Winters on screen in The Poseidon Adventure at the Park Lane Theater over in Palisades Park. She would be wearing a faded one-piece house dress, worn and dirty slippers, a Virginia Slim dangling from the corner of her mouth, her breath fogging in the cold air, and Tommy’s baby sister, Claire, would be tucked into the crook of one arm. Delilah would be angry, yell at Tommy, and chase him into the house.
    She was always angry, even more now since her husband closed up his barbershop down the street one day and just disappeared, leaving her with a young son, another child on the way, and no means to pay the bills.
    “Tommieeeeee!”
    The voice came from the Schneiders’ kitchen window. It sounded like a farmer calling pigs. From our hiding place behind some shrubs three houses away, her voice was distant, but still clear, and it made us laugh even harder. Bobby rolled on the snowy ground, holding his belly in pain, his face red from the gales of laughter that shook him. I laughed, too, and accidentally snorted like a pig, which made Bobby laugh even harder.
    “Tommieeeeee!”
    We knew that voice, of course. It was Delilah, and we laughed even more when she continued to bellow loud enough for her voice to carry across the entire neighborhood and several blocks beyond. But the laughter didn’t last for long.
    The Schneiders’ back door swung open with a CRASH!
    “Get your God damned ass in this house, now!” Delilah screamed. The baby in her arms started to wail as loud as Tommy.
    “How many times have I told you to stay away from those God damned kids?”
    That’s when the beating began. Bobby and I peered through some shrubs to get a partial view. The Schneiders’ back porch was three houses away and obscured a bit by hedges and shrubs, but we could still see and hear the blows as she slapped her open hand against his shoulders and the side of his head. Each slap punctuated a word.
    How! Many! Times!