The House on Maple Street

by Brian S. Wheeler

  Chapter 5 - A Drop of Ink in the Snow...

  The windshield wipers strained to clear the thick and heavy snow from the windshield as Gerald pushed his car through the winter storm to reach Maxine. Voices on his radio hissed and popped warnings of ice, and Gerald anticipated he would not be able to make the drive back home until the next morning. He hoped the warehouse would show him mercy for missing his shift, but Gerald knew his employer would feel little obligation to give such kindness to an employee as old as Gerald.

  Yet Gerald did not resent the snow. The snow summoned memories of that afternoon he first saw Maxine so many decades gone.

  He had just turned seventeen, an age most believed marked the beginning of a man. The football season and the fall had ended, and so Gerald lingered in the woodshop following the school day's last bell, where a man as young and as green as himself might overhear tips on finishing a table, of fixing a carburetor, perhaps on even slipping a hand casually up woman's shirt. But on a gray afternoon so many decades ago, Mr. Harold chased all of the young loiterers out of his wood shop, warning that the falling, thick snow was but a precursor to the storm that would strand any lingering student away from home.

  Much snow had fallen in that hour since the younger children had skipped and laughed after being dismissed early into the snowstorm's first flakes, and Gerald began his walk across town to his home upon streets the snow made lonely and clean. Snow gripped at Gerald's boots and taxed his steps. His ungloved fingers quickly numbed whenever Gerald pulled his hands from his pockets. Not one vehicle rumbled into his sight. None of the townsfolk watched him from a front porch. Gerald felt happy, for the white world seemed prepared for his whim, a clean slate upon which he might write whatever he chose to fancy.

  A sound other than the wind floated into Gerald's cold ears as he stepped upon the public library's open front block of snow. Gerald froze in his steps. He had come to believe that the snow had swept away everyone but himself from that town of small, white homes and concrete sidewalks. He held his breath and listened through the wind to a sobbing that carried across the chill.

  Gerald wondered how he had overlooked the girl who sat upon the library's first step. An oversized, black coat draped over her thin, sobbing shoulders. Strands of black hair fell out of a dark cap pulled low onto the girl's ears. Hands covered in red mittens rose to rub at eyes that did not gaze upward from the snow. Gerald thought that all those layers of clothing in which the girl huddled against the cold looked both too large for her thin frame, casting the impression upon him that someone had stolen a field scarecrow and dumped that mannequin upon the library step.

  "The storm's only going to get worse. They're saying the snow's going to turn to ice before nightfall. You need to get home."

  The girl's face snapped up at Gerald. "Is it really going to ice?"

  The girl's dark eyes struck Gerald the moment he looked upon them. Gerald looked into those eyes and thought of a pile of raven feathers, of ink dropped upon the snow.

  "All this white snow is just supposed to be the calm before the storm. That's why they've already closed school."

  The girl's shoulders fell as she again sobbed.

  "But it's only snow right now," Gerald felt an urge to reach out to her, but she seemed too delicate to touch or to comfort with cold, ungloved hands.

  "I don't know where to go," the girl didn’t look up from the step. "I didn't think the storm would close the library like it has the school. I just needed a warm place for a little while."

  Gerald brushed a spot on the library step next to that girl clean of snow. "Do you have very far to walk home? I've got to go all the way across town, and maybe a little company on the way home would help a little against the cold."

  The girl's dark eyes squinted into the cold wind as she shook her head.

  "Are you scared to go home?" Gerald asked. "Is there something wrong?"

  The girl sighed, and her breath frosted in the falling snow. "I don't know where home is."

  Gerald raised an eyebrow. "You must live somewhere. Have you forgotten how to get home? Are you new to town?"

  "You don't understand," the girl replied.

  "Well, where did you come from this morning?"

  The girl's mittens rubbed at her eyes. "I know where that house is. But that house is empty now. No one’s there. It's not my home anymore."

  "But where are your parents?"

  "My mother's gone," and the girl slowed her sobs and caught a new breath, "and I'm hoping my father will remember that I like the library and come here to tell me where home will be for tonight. But he won't come looking for me until after dark, and the ice is coming. I just don't know where to go."

  Gerald didn’t understand how a girl could sound so lost in a town so small. But he knew that cold could make even strong men very weak, and that crow of a girl sitting on the library's front step was very young.

  "Show me the house you came from this morning."

  The girl didn’t accept Gerald's naked and numb hand into one of her red mittens when he offered it, but she rose from the step and stomped across the thickening snow covering the library's wide, front lawn. Gerald trailed and watched the girl's boots trip as they pulled through the snow. He often pulled his cold hands from his pockets to catch the girl as she stumbled upon a growing spot of ice on the sidewalk. But the girl always caught her balance at the last moment as she pushed her way through the white storm.

  She stopped in front of a tar-paper home several blocks from the library, in a section of town usually loud with the barking and yelping of dogs. In that afternoon's snow, even the dogs turned quiet.

  "This was my home this morning," sighed the girl, "but it's empty and locked now."

  "Maybe we just need to knock. Maybe your father was out earlier."

  The girl shook her head and turned her eyes away from the house to look a new direction into the snow.

  Gerald climbed the home's creaking steps onto a crooked, front porch. He rapped loudly upon the front door, and his cold knuckles throbbed for the effort. The home remained dark and silent. Peeking through a front window, Gerald saw within empty chambers of dusty floors and peeling wallpaper. No one answered his knocking, and Gerald returned to the girl waiting in the street.

  "Are you sure this is your house?"

  The girl frowned. "It told you it's not my house anymore. It was only my house this morning."

  "But it doesn't look like anyone's lived in that house for years. It's completely empty."

  "We don't have any furniture, and we only stayed there a couple of weeks."

  "Could you have forgotten where you live?"

  The girl's eyes blazed. "I'm not a fool. I haven't forgotten anything."

  "But there has to be a home waiting for you somewhere."

  "Does there?" Suddenly, the girl's dark eyes sparkled. "I haven't forgotten where I live, but maybe my father has. Maybe he's just waiting for me at one of our earlier houses."

  The girl didn’t object as Gerald followed her through the snow. She moved with a new energy, and Gerald's boots pumped to keep up with the lighter girl's pace. His breath frosted and he felt the chill of the sweat collecting beneath his layers of clothing by the time they stood next to four separate mailboxes erected in front of a tall and narrow three-story home. Gerald followed the girl through the front door and up a tight set of stairs leading to an upper story landing. The girl knocked upon a green door. From within came the sound of jostling pots, and Gerald smelled garlic.

  "He's not here," and the girl turned and hurried back down the stairs before a matron of gray hair and plump cheeks popped her head out of the door.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  Gerald apologized for the disruption and hurried back outside to catch up again with the scarecrow girl pushing through so much white. She knocked on many doors during the next hour as the snow shifted into ice and placed a slippery layer of glass upon the ground. Their steps crunched as it turned dark. The girl
failed to find her father anywhere. He was not waiting for her in the apartment above the billiards hall, nor in the shack of corrugated metal near the ice plant. The girl stared upon a blue home as her spirits fell, and she didn't even make an effort to knock upon that last door.

  "None of these places are home any longer," she sighed. "He's not waiting for me in any of them."

  Gerald feared the girl might slump into the snow. "Do you have any idea where he might be?"

  The girl hissed. "He's drunk somewhere. He's forgotten all about me in the drink."

  Gerald then knew what to do. "Follow me."

  It was not easy to satisfy one's thirst for beer, wine, whiskey or gin in town. Though it was again legal to enjoy a good, stiff drink, none of the town's merchants sold the bottle from the clean and colorful storefronts lining downtown. Town law granted no liquor license to any tavern, pub or bar. A person had to know what names to whisper to acquire booze. Gerald's oldest brother Lyle always had a thirst for the drink, and Gerald had overhead him asking the phone dispatcher to connect his line with a certain name so often that the name came instantly to Gerald when that girl said that a bottle gripped her father. Gerald knew where one might visit to track a man with a thirst. He had followed Lyle so many afternoons as he wondered what temptation kept his brother from completing the chores father assigned to him. Having no where else to go in all that snow, the girl followed.

  The door upon which Gerald knocked belonged to the front facade of the livery store and grain elevator built along the rail line bisecting through the town. A wrinkled and weathered face peeked promptly from the doorway.

  "Shop's closed on account of the storm, son. Best you get on home."

  "I'm not here on account of usual business, Mr. Gunther."

  Gerald's reply moved the man to swing his door fully open in order to appraise the shivering young man and the ink-drop girl standing on his stoop as snow swirled into his livery store.

  "I believe I know you, son," Mr. Gunther squinted upon Gerald. "You're one of the Hollenkamp boys. Sorry business what happened to your brother Lyle. Tell me, how's his eye?"

  "He lost the eye, Mr. Gunther."

  Mr. Gunther exhaled a raspy sigh at the news. Gerald smelled the strong booze the breath carried into the cold.

  "And you come knocking on my door all the same," Mr. Gunther shook his head at Gerald. "What is it? Are you foolish? Are you brave? Are you thirsty like your brother, boy?"

  "I’m not looking for anything to drink," Gerald answered. "I'm only trying to find somebody."

  Mr. Gunther rolled his eyes. "Well, I suppose I better invite you both in from the cold before I ask who you're meaning to locate. I'll warn you that I'm not in any habit of casually handing out names, and I recall giving out names was the very thing that got your brother into all that trouble that cost him an eye in the end."

  A wooden stove crowded the livery store with warmth as Mr. Gunther cleared a bench for his guests. Ice pelted the metal roof as Gerald warmed his hands and dripped in front of the fire. The girl dressed in her oversized coat continued to shake in the warmth, and her face appeared pale in the light cast by the burning stove.

  "Say, son," Mr. Gunther started slowly, "you haven't gotten that girl into any kind of trouble have you? Because if you have, this isn't the door you should be knocking upon."

  Gerald stared at Mr. Gunther, unable to understand what the shop's proprietor implied.

  "He's too ugly to be my type," the girl growled. "The only thing that's touched me is all this snow. I'm only trying to find my father."

  "And what makes you think I can help you with that, child?"

  Gerald answered before the girl could speak. "Because he's taken by the bottle. She has to find where the drink’s taken him so she can know where to go to get out of all the snow and ice."

  Mr. Gunther's eyes narrowed and regarded the girl who dripped upon his floor. "Now I know who you belong to, girl. No need to say anything more. Just let yourself warm a bit more while I find out where you father's staggered off to.”

  Mr. Gunther strode behind the livery store's counter and raised a telephone receiver to his ear. Gerald did his best to focus his attention onto the items crowding the shop as Mr. Gunther requested the dispatcher to connect him with a string of names. Gerald did not share his brother Lyle's desire to become acquainted with such knowledge, had no interest to tempt danger as had his brother. So instead, Gerald counted the calendars nailed to the walls. He wondered if Mr. Gunther preferred whiskey or gin. And most often, his eyes drifted towards that girl dripping in the oversized, black coat, who did not sob in the warmth of the livery store, who did not turn away as Gerald's eyes considered her.

  Behind the counter, Mr. Gunther grumbled into the phone. "You tell that son-of-a-bitch that he isn't going to touch another bottle in this town if he doesn't tell you where he plans on sleeping tonight, Irene." Mr. Gunther turned towards Gerald and the girl and winked. "No, afraid that's not what I hoped to hear, Irene. The man has a daughter who needs shelter. You tell him, Irene, that he's going to start working for me tomorrow. Let him know he's going to have to start calling me boss if he hopes to keep finding something to drink in this county. You tell him now, and you tell him again when he's sober. Yeah, you're cutting him off right now, I don't care if he promises gold for it. I want that son-of-a-bitch real thirsty tomorrow when I tell him how he's going to start working that drink off."

  Mr. Gunther grunted and set the receiver back upon its hook before rummaging through shelves lining the wall behind the store's counter. He tossed empty coffee tins to the floor with a jangle. He scattered scrawled notes and typed invoices into the room's corners.

  "This one should do just fine." Mr. Gunther held a key close to the stove's warm illumination. "The house isn't furnished yet, girl, but at least it’ll be warm and dry. I'm going to send you back out with some dry clothes in a bag, along with some blankets. Someone will have a bed out there for you by tomorrow night. And I've got some beans bubbling in a pot, along with some coffee, if the two of you would like to fill your stomachs before going back into the ice."

  The girl's lips trembled to find words as her dark eyes filled with tears.

  Mr. Gunther grinned. "No need to say anything. Certainly no need to feel ashamed. You just go to that address there on the tag tied to this key. You won't be left to the ice tonight." Mr. Gunther walked out from behind the counter and set a hand on Gerald's shoulder. "Son, I know you don't owe me anything, not after what happened to your brother's eye. But do me this one favor all the same and walk with her to that key's address. See that she has a little company in that walk back through the cold. Help the snow treat her a little less cruelly."

  Gerald promised, and, after warming their stomachs with coffee and beans and their bones with new coats Mr. Gunther kindly gave them both, he accompanied the girl back into the snow and ice. The streetlights offered little illumination as they retraced their way along the town's streets. They found the door that went to that key before either of them felt too numb from the cold. The door belonged to a row house across the street from the shoe factory. Gerald stood in the ice and watched as the girl opened the front door. He had turned to begin his own long walk home through the cold and the dark when the girl raised a hand and shouted.

  "My name is Maxine! And I can't believe you didn't even ask for it!"

  Gerald grinned. "But I won't forget it!"

  And then, the girl fluttered into the home, and for the rest of that night the cold did not return to Gerald's fingers or toes.

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