Going Soft
Tomorrow you'll hear all about it. You should have been there.
By CAMERON WALKER

This morning while digging out the car, cursing as you slip and get snow inside the lip of your boots (which you know you didn't tie well but you were too excited by the three-feet-and-still-dumping), you see the kids next door putting up a tent. They came in late last night, the monster SUV in the garage, their parents still in bed. Regular people don't go out in this kind of the storm, only kids and people like you.

Just build an igloo you want to yell as you pull the car out, but it's too cold to force the window open. You turn the corner and snow slides down your windshield.

Now you're stopped on the road up to the resort, which is covered with six inches even though they plowed an hour ago. Wind shakes your windows like dice, and the heavy flakes falling make red taillights flicker in front of you.

You know Trevor is ahead of you. He's probably already on the mountain. All your friends are. You reach back and pat your skis. Cars ahead of you are turning around. Losers, you think.

You see the orange vest flapping around a bulky uniform—an unlucky county sheriff who got a bad draw this morning. He walks toward your car, but you keep your eyes forward. No one's going to tell you to turn around.

The tap on the window is hollow. It won't roll down, so you open the door. The wind crackles in and suddenly every part of you feels wet and cold. You shake your head and close it.

He highsteps around and opens the passenger door, breathes out as he sits and slams the door in one motion. "It's a mess out there," he says.

You shrug.

"They'll finish bombing the road in about ten minutes," he continues, "then you can drive up." The snow on his hat and shoulders melts onto the passenger seat. His voice is full of doubt. "Only things open are bunny slopes, wind hold on the rest."

I'm going anyway, you say.

He looks at you as if to protest, but instead says "Thanks for the break," and hops back out into the snow.

They'll hike the ridge, your friends. They're probably gone already. Tomorrow you'll hear all about it. You should have been there.

The car shudders and the mug of coffee you propped on the dashboard gets the smoke blown out of it. Without much thought you yank the wheel hard to the left. On the way down other cars pull out behind you, the lineup a falling house of cards.

At home the kids are still there, now spread-eagled in the powder, lobbing loose clumps at each other.

"Hey," you say. All at once the snow pounds down and you suck in air, surprised at how fast it's coming, how much it hurts.

"Get in, get in!" they screech. They pour into the tent, then you see a mitten waving at you. "Come on!"

You duck in and are squatting, looking at their red faces. The tent steams up from your breath. "Didn't know it could snow that hard," one kid says. You know it can. Snow is everything hard, and sometimes you have to fight to stay on your feet, for every single turn.

A moment later it quiets. They pour out of the tent, flop down breathlessly as if they've been running hard. You take off your gloves and reach down and touch it. It's like cotton candy, it's so light. They laugh.

"Haven't you seen snow before?" one says to you. You toss it gently at his right shoulder.

A few hours after the snowball fight, you're inside on the couch and you still hear them whooping. You know you'll lie tomorrow. You couldn't see my tracks, it was snowing so hard. And then you'll say it was soft, the softest snow you've felt in a long time.

It's good to have something true in every story you tell.


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