Boomtown

by Nowen N. Particular

  “Oh,” Rocky dropped his voice. “So where did he get it?”

  Jonny shrugged. “Don’t know. Probably the same place he got all the other stuff. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say.”

  The boys continued to set up the rope puller. Back at home, Janice and I were putting on our boots and coats and getting ready for the snow. We wrapped Holly in warm blankets and a stocking cap and trudged our way out to Slippery Slope. Several other parents were already there to join in the fun. There was a large bonfire blazing near the end of the ice ramp. Someone had brought along boxes of sticky buns for the kids and folks were passing around coffee and steaming hot cocoa with marshmallows. The sky was blue; the evergreen trees were laced with snow; there was a brisk snap in the air. It was a perfect day.

  We stayed at the hill for an hour or so enjoying conversation with fellow town members and watching the kids. Jonny and the gang had built an “ice schooner” out of a sheet of plywood and grain sacks that had been filled with water and frozen solid. These were tied to the underside of the plywood with ropes. There were also ropes on top of the board for handholds. It was big enough for five boys to ride down the hill in one go, which they did over and over again whooping and hollering. Once the rig reached the bottom, they hooked the schooner to a rope puller and dragged it back to the top of the hill.

  Quite ingenious, I thought. I wonder who came up with that?

  On the other side of town at Fred Cotton’s place, another group of kids and their parents gathered for the Snow Wars. As with any popular activity in Boomtown, sooner or later it involved explosives, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find Sarah right in the thick of it.

  “Let’s build our fort right here,” she said to her friends. “There’s lots of snow and it’s on a little hill. That’ll be good.”

  “We’ll dig the trenches,” Katrina said.

  “And we’ll build the walls,” Sarah offered. “After that, we can all build our army.”

  That’s how it worked. One team built walls and battlements and snow trenches at one end of the field. Behind that they lined up an entire army of snowmen, each about two feet tall, thirty snow soldiers in all. Fred Cotton supervised the opposing team at the opposite end of the field. They were busy making ice balls, about eight inches in diameter, each containing a Hen Grenade. Old bicycle tires were stretched between two trees with a leather pouch in the middle. Ice grenades were loaded into the catapult; the team pulled the tires back as far as they could and took aim; the frozen egg missiles were launched across the field. The game was to see how long it took to blow up the other team’s snowman army. Then the teams would switch. There really weren’t any winners. Like all boys—and most girls—they just liked to blow things up.

  This was the entire premise behind the Snow Castle the kids built every year. Captain Trudeau, a retired captain from the navy, hosted the castle on his property and was in charge of overseeing safety. The children spent months building the castle and its surrounding walls and moat. It took thousands of ice blocks; these were made from snow packed into wooden frames and left overnight to freeze. The bricks of ice were stacked and bonded together with wet snow to create walls, doorways, bridges, towers, stairways, and battlements.

  After more than thirty years of this annual tradition, you can only imagine the size and beauty of the castle once it neared completion. Framed against a pink winter sunset or lit by cold beams of sunlight, it was a sight to behold. Still, that was nothing compared to the official beginning of the Spring Fever Festival, when everyone in town gathered in the field to watch the mayor push down the plunger and set off the dynamite and fireworks embedded in the ice. The sky would be filled with glittering fragments of ice and sparkling rocket bursts and shooting flares and booms and blasts and cheers from the crowd.

  As much fun as it is to play in the snow, everyone finally reaches a limit—even children. That’s why the residents of Boomtown celebrate the annual Spring Fever Festival with such enthusiasm. They gather anxiously at their windows and check the thermostat every day waiting for the temperature to climb above thirty-two degrees. On the day the ice on Lake Caona cracks—the day the creeks and streams begin to run again, the day the steady drip, drip of melting icicles can be heard all over town—the Snow Castle goes up in flames, and the festival begins.

  The gazebo in Farmers’ Park features performances from local singing groups and musical ensembles such as the children’s orchestral group we saw at the Boomtown Museum.

  Booths are set up where you can buy roasted chestnuts, hot cider, homemade cookies and pies, hot dogs on a stick, and sparklers and firecrackers. Folks gather in knots to catch up on news. The kids have snowball fights in the streets. Music and bands play. Everyone is in a festive mood.

  The Slush Olympics are held on the first Sunday after-noon of Festival Week. They feature a variety of events with white, blue, and silver medals given out to the winners (silver being the best). The hardest event is the Slush Swim;

  the outdoor public pool in Chang Park is filled to the brim with slush, and competitors swim laps in the freezing slushy water. The swimmer who lasts the longest is the winner.

  Another big event is the Slush Pull. Competitors build whatever makeshift sledge they can dream up and strap it to the back of a horse. A few use something as simple as a sheet of plywood with rope handles. Others get quite elaborate, like the team who took the hood from a 1936 Buick Century and welded runners and wheels underneath. Another team took an aluminum fishing boat, pounded out the bottom until it was flat, and polished it with wax. They were the winners that year.

  Starting in the park at the end of Bang Street, each team of two racers looped around the statue of Chang in Town Square and headed west on Boom Boulevard past the hard-ware store and the Nuthouse Restaurant. Right on Blasting Cap Avenue, right on Dynamite Drive, and right at the pow-der factory. The racers finished with a quick dash along the river and back to the park. People lined the streets cheering on their favorite team. They shot off firecrackers and Roman candles at the finish line and bragged about the winners.

  Then there were the inner-tube races over at Slippery Slope. The hay bales were moved to the side, and the goal was to slide as fast and as far as your inner tube would take you. There was the Slush Eating Contest, where contestants attempted to eat as many bowls of lime-flavored slush as they could without getting up from the table to use the outhouse. Then the Slush Bucket Relay, where teams of four people scooped up buckets of slush and took turns running back and forth from the starting line until they filled up the bed of a pickup truck. Then the Slushbarrow Race—fill a wheel-barrow with slush, a musher pushing in the back, a slusher riding on top, dashing through a slushy obstacle course. And Slush Hockey—teams of six players with straw brooms trying to score goals by swatting a block of ice past the goalie.

  The most important event was the wildly popular Cross-Country Slushathon. It required the use of a modified bi­cycle that had a studded tire in the rear and a wooden ski in the front. The event called for the participation of the mayor, the sheriff, the fire chief, all the male teachers from the school, and all the pastors in town. As always, I was the last to know. I didn’t realize what was going on until Jonny came running over pushing a bicycle. Then he handed me a helmet.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “It’s your Slushcycle. And helmet. For the race.”

  “What race?”

  “The Cross-Country Slushathon. This is your number . . . 13. Not very lucky.”

  “I’m not riding in the race!” I protested.

  “But you have to! All the pastors are doing it, Dad. The Reverend Tinker. Even fat old Reverend Platz. The mayor’s gonna race. So’s Burton Ernie.”

  “Maybe they are, but I’m not. I’m a pastor, not an athlete.

  I’ll sit this one out.”

  Jonny’s face fell. “You’re always saying that, Dad. Why don’t you ever have any fun? The other guys, all their dads do stuff. Yo
u just sit and watch. You won’t even try. ”

  Reverend Platz was standing nearby watching the exchange between Jonny and me. He patted Jonny on the shoulder and then took my elbow and pulled me aside.

  “Listen, Arthur, don’t be nervous. I do this every year. I never finish, but I always start. My people expect it. They look forward to it. Right now they’re taking a pool. You’re not doing too badly. If you survive, they expect you to come in third or fourth place.”

  “If I survive? Look, I don’t know how to ride one of these contraptions. I can’t do this. I won’t.

  ”

  “Then you’ll be the first pastor from Boomtown Church who hasn’t ridden in the race for the past twenty-two years. At every festival, if the pastor is alive at the time, he rides in the race and his whole congregation cheers him on.”

  “But why? What’s the point?”

  “One of your predecessors, Reverend Andersen—I think he was the one who died in a landslide—was concerned about how the church members were treating him. They didn’t regard him as one of them. That’s a common problem for ministers and public figures; you know what I’m talking about. People think we’re somehow different—better, more perfect. So he got together with the other pastors in town, and they talked to the mayor and the other community leaders and found out they were having the same problem.

  “That’s when they came up with an event that was just for them. It was a way for the people of the town to get a different look at us. This race makes them feel like they can trust us because we’re just like them—because we go and make fools out of ourselves and laugh about it. Do you see what I mean?”

  He was right. People tended to put leaders, especially ministers, up on a pedestal. On the one hand, I secretly enjoyed the attention; on the other hand, I was always afraid of making mistakes. I put a lot of pressure on my family and myself; we had to be careful all the time about what we said and what we did. We weren’t any smarter or better than anybody else, but I never knew what to do about it. I suppose if this race had a way of changing the way people thought about us, who was I to stand in the way?

  “Okay,” I relented. “Give me my number.”

  “Excellent, wonderful, marvelous—you won’t regret it. Why not try out your bicycle for a few minutes and then come and join us on the starting line?”

  I tried the best I could. As soon as I started to pedal, the front ski slipped to the right or skidded to the left. The back tire spun on the ice. I got my pants leg caught in the chain. My foot slipped off the pedal and I banged my shin. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

  The warning gun sounded, and somehow I managed to slip and slide and slosh through the slush and get myself and the bicycle death machine over to my assigned spot next to the other racers. Burton Ernie gave me a smile and a salute. Reverend Platz gratefully patted me on my back. I could see Jonny, eyes aglow, bragging to Busy and Frank and Lonnie. Everyone else was cheering wildly until Captain Trudeau waved his arms and signaled for silence.

  He shouted through a megaphone, “Attention, racers! The three-mile course is marked by red flags along the route. Any deviation from the course will result in automatic disqualification. Observers must refrain from assisting or hindering the racers in any way. Riders may dismount and push their bicycles whenever necessary. The first man to cross the finish line here in Town Square is the winner. Any questions?”

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Reverend Button, you have a question?”

  “Has anyone ever died doing this?”

  The captain laughed, and so did everyone else. “Not so far, Reverend! Don’t worry. We’ll keep an eye on you. A thousand eyes. Just stick to the course.”

  Then the captain raised the green flag, “On your mark . . . get set . . . MUSH!”

  The crowd let out a raucous cheer and threw their hats in the air. Horns blew. Firecrackers went off. People shouted.

  “Go, Dad, go!” I heard Jonny shouting from the side-line. “What are you waiting for? You’ve got to catch up.”

  With the wave of the flag I’d been left behind in a spray of ice-cold water, standing ankle deep in a puddle of icy slush, unsure of what to do. I was the only one in the race who’d never done this before. I couldn’t figure out how to steer or pedal the ridiculous contraption—but I tried. Jonny needed me to try. I started to pedal, wobbling and sliding at first. After about a hundred feet, I started to get the hang of it and straightened myself out.

  “Good job, dear!” I heard Janice calling as I disappeared down the street. “See you at the finish line!”

  The cheering of the crowd quickly drowned her out. I saw several of my church members lining the road and shouting words of encouragement. I heard one say, “That’s our new pastor! Look at him go!”

  That’s when I began to see what this race was all about. My people, out in the slush, cheering me on, for the pride of our church—and for the fun of it. I was being such a wet sock. But I didn’t have to be. I was going to win this race, and even if I didn’t, I was going to do the best I possibly could.

  In a few minutes, I passed Reverend Platz on the side of the road, his face as red as a ripe tomato. For the first time since I met him he was unable to speak, but he gave me a broad smile of encouragement and a jaunty wave. Next, I caught up to the mayor, who was struggling to keep his Slushcycle upright. Then I passed the math teacher and the school principal and even the fire chief. There was no way, with my late start, that I was ever going to catch up to Burton Ernie, who was in excellent shape—or the Reverend Tinker, whose extra long legs and long, thin body made him especially wind resistant. But I made up my mind; I would ride as hard as I could for my congregation and for Jonny.

  The course wound through downtown, out onto Blasting Cap Avenue, and west toward the fireworks factory. All along the way were spectators taking pictures and waving flags. There was a comfort station about every half mile where a rider could stop, exchange his wet socks for some dry ones, get a hot or cold drink, dry his face with a towel, and keep going. By the halfway mark riders were strung out all over the course, but according to one of the station attendants, I was currently in tenth place and not too far behind the rider in front of me. Not too bad, I was thinking.

  Soon the course climbed to its highest point, out behind Lazy Gunderson’s property, and up along slushy, muddy TNT Trail. It climbed the hill and passed through a tangle of trees and bushes at the top. I could see the tire and ski marks from the riders who had passed by ahead of me, and I struggled to avoid the bumps and puddles and rocks on the trail. With my attention focused and head down, I didn’t see the strange figure on the trail who was blocking my path. Suddenly, I noticed him. On no! Where did he come from? If I didn’t turn, I would tear him to pieces with the studded tires of the Slushcycle. Too late to stop, I veered to the right, crashed through a dense thicket, and found myself looking straight down the solid ice surface of Slippery Slope.

  “Oh, Lord in heaven!” I cried as I jumped the crest of the hill and started down. Slow at first then faster and faster, unable to stop because the brakes no longer seemed to be working. The front ski slithered side to side as I careened down the hill.

  “Oh, no!” I wailed. Down below the hay bales had been moved for the inner tube races a few days earlier. With nothing to stop my headlong plummet down the hill, I picked up speed, flew past the bottom of the hill, then up and over an icy snowdrift. It was just like a ski jump. I was launched thirty feet into the air—head first and hind end toward death and heaven beyond.

  A funeral flashed before my eyes. I saw a young widow and four fatherless children. I heard Vera DeFazio leading hymns. I saw Ingrid hanging my photo in the hallway. I saw the search committee meeting to replace their most recently deceased pastor.

  “How did he die?” visitors would ask, seeing my picture on the wall.

  “Oh, him? He died at the bottom of Slippery Slope with a Slushcycle ski buried in his forehead.”

  “Yo
u don’t say?”

  “Yep. Too bad. Nice man. Tough way to go.”

  But miracle of miracles! At the very moment I started my downward plunge, Lazy Gunderson drove underneath me in his pickup truck on his way to dump the slush from the Slush Bucket Relay. Plop! I landed smack-dab in the back of his truck without a bruise or a scratch. The Slushcycle, however, disappeared under Lazy’s truck with a screeching crunch of twisting metal. It nearly gave him a heart attack. I lay safe and sound in the back of the truck thinking how the mangled Slushcycle could have been me.

  “Yow! What the hay was that?” Lazy exclaimed, slamming his brakes and jumping out of the cab. “Reverend Button! What’re you doin’ back there? Where’d you come from? You fell out of the sky like a busted kite! You all right?”

  I couldn’t answer him. I was frightened and freezing and frustrated. All I could do was climb out of the slush pond and stand on my own two frozen feet.

  With teeth chattering, I managed to say, “Lazy, I don’t suppose you’ve got a blanket in your truck? And a ride back to town?”

  “Sure thing, Preacher. You just hold on.”

  He hustled around and gave me a blanket to warm myself. He had a thermos of coffee in the cab and poured me a cup. He bundled me into the passenger seat and then backed up slowly to dislodge the mangled Slushcycle from his rear axle. By the time he dumped his load and drove back to Town Square, the race was over. Burton Ernie was the winner for the third year in a row. I was just happy to be in one piece.

  The Spring Fever Festival ended without further incident. The spring thaw continued; the streets cleared up, and the snow finished melting. The farmers swung open the doors of their barns and went out for their first spring plowing.

  That’s when the mysterious mounds were first sighted. Around the whole south and west end of town, in field after field, there were piles of fresh dirt all over the place. Now that the snow had melted they lay in plain sight, like an army of huge gophers had dug up the entire landscape and left their hills behind.