On Thin Ice

by Michael Northrop

  It seems a little scarier out here tonight. No people, not much moon, and then there’s what I’m planning to do … Just thinking about it, my heart begins to hammer in my chest, in my ears. My mouth goes dry. Fear is starting to take over. It’s squeezing me like a giant hand, but I can’t let it stop me. I check my watch. It’s 8:52 p.m. I force myself to breathe: in one, two, out one, two.

  And then I go. If I wait any longer, I won’t do it.

  I start walking toward the edge of the pond. I move my feet mechanically: right-left, right-left. My boots crunch through what’s left of the thin, crusty snow. Just ahead of me I see the point where the land ends and the ice begins. The ice glows faintly in the moonlight.

  I hold my breath and cautiously step out onto it with my right boot. The ice holds. I step with the left. I am standing on the ice, just a few inches from shore. I look out across it toward the tower. I swear to God it looks one million miles away. It is going to take so many of these short steps to get there, and after killing all that time now I’m afraid I won’t have enough left. The time slots for the tickets are every fifteen minutes during prime ice-melting time, but you can’t go over. After nine, someone else wins. Stupid.

  I slide my right foot forward, breathe, and then slide my left foot out to join it. That’s when I hear it. In the stillness between two gusts of wind, I hear a crackling pop so small it could have come from a cereal bowl. It came from the ice. I stop cold.

  I look down at my boots: black slabs against the frosty white. They already look like holes in the ice. It feels like a sign, like a premonition of death.

  What am I doing? The thought slaps me across the stupid face. I planned to tip the tower a little before nine and win my bet, win the money. It was a cheater’s plan, a gambler’s plan, but I was desperate.

  I knew it was dangerous, but it’s one thing to come up with a last-chance idea standing there in the kitchen. It’s another on the ice. I could die out here—and for what? Some rent money. Is that what my life is worth?

  I remember looking at that betting slip and thinking: How could he bet so much?

  But now I am betting so much more. I’m betting everything.

  And I hate betting!

  I’m not willing to lose it all.

  I turn and in two quick, get-me-out-of-here steps I’m back on shore. I’m bent over and breathing hard.

  Another number floats by as I catch my breath: nine p.m.

  I guess that’s it, then. I straighten up and begin walking home. But I don’t make it more than two steps this time either.

  I hear something behind me and turn back again. At first, it’s just a shadow in the moonlight, a shape. Then I realize what I’m looking at. Someone is sliding out onto the ice from the other side. They’re wearing sneakers, and I can’t tell if it’s a kid or an adult, and that’s when I realize: It’s Landrover.

  I don’t have to wonder what he’s doing. I look down at my old watch. The big jerk must have the ticket after mine!

  Seeing him out there—out there where I planned to go—gives me the distance to see just how reckless this is. The ice is glowing ghostly in the moonlight. It wasn’t that many days ago that we were all expecting it to break up on its own. Yeah, it’s been cold this week, but it was warm before that and it’s still mid-March. It’s a suicide mission.

  I am obviously not Landrover’s biggest fan, but I was just out there. I know what it’s like to be out on that ice with your heart hammering and the wind whipping. I feel this weird connection to him. “No no no,” I say, but my voice is soft and low and a gust of wind carries it away.

  I force myself to take a deep breath and then shout: “Landrover! Get off the ice!”

  I see him flinch, his whole body tensing. He freezes mid-step. I know he heard me, but he doesn’t look over. A second later, he pushes his foot the rest of the way forward. Then he slides the other one past it. He isn’t stopping.

  “Dude!” I call again. “What are you doing?”

  He freezes again. Finally, he looks over at me. I see his face, his eyes wide and his expression serious. He raises one hand to his lips, index finger up.

  “SHHHHHH!” he hisses as loud as he can.

  I look from him to the tower, from the tower to the rope, and from the rope to the clock back on land. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s trying to sink the tower. Forget that. If he won’t make noise, I will. “It’s not worth it!” I shout.

  He looks at me for one more long moment. “You don’t know,” he says.

  I do. But watching someone else do this, it seems so clear. He is going to die out there. Even if the ice doesn’t give out under him on its own, he is literally going out there to break it. It’s not something you can do halfway—at least not at his size. I have to try again. “Come back,” I say. “I have a better idea.”

  I don’t. It’s a bluff, and he ignores it. He keeps sliding along the ice. I look over at the clock again: 9:10. His ticket has got to be for 9:15. He’s got five minutes, but he’s almost to the tower now. He takes a bundle out from inside his coat and unwraps what looks like an old-fashioned hand drill. I’ve got a jumbo-sized serrated kitchen knife wrapped up in my pack, but I have to admit, that’s better.

  “Don’t!” I hiss, but he does. He kneels down next to the nearest wooden leg of the tower. I see him place the drill point against the ice. All his weight is pressed into the ice right next to the tower’s weight—and that’s where he’s punching through.

  My feet are carrying me back toward the edge of the pond now. “Don’t! Dude!”

  He begins to crank away with the drill anyway. It’s 9:13. We’re both getting desperate.

  “You don’t need the money!” I call.

  “What do you know?” he says. I’m shouting but he still won’t go any louder than you would talk in homeroom.

  “You’ve got a four-wheeler!” I say. In my mind, that shiny blue machine has become a symbol of how much better his life is.

  “You dummy!” he says, finally raising his voice. “That’s not mine. Someone brought it into the shop for Dad to fix. I just borrowed it, but the engine was worse than they said. I totally fried it chasing after you. It’s toast. Dad’s gonna kill me!”

  So much for symbols, I think, because his life is starting to sound awfully familiar.

  As soon as he stops talking, I hear a thin, brittle noise. I almost wonder if it’s the vibrations from that deep voice of his that make the difference. There’s a pop as the drill punches through the ice, then a louder snap, like someone stepping on a twig. The brittle noise becomes a slow crackling.

  Landrover’s eyes are wide open with fear or surprise or both, the whites glowing in the moonlight as he drops the metal drill, stands, and turns back toward shore. He’s finally coming back. I hope it’s not too late. He slides his right foot forward urgently, then slides his left foot past it. “That’s it,” I say. “Keep going. Nice and easy.”

  The crackle grows, deepens.

  He pushes his right foot forward again. Behind him, the leg of the tower finally punches through the ice with a sudden loud pop. The tower tips a few degrees to the side, and the hand drill slides into the hole and silently sinks. Landrover shoots a quick look back over his shoulder.

  He disappears through the ice.

  It happens so suddenly that I almost doubt my eyes. He’s just gone. I stare at the spot where he was and see the small, dark hole that took him down. I look down and see the ice stretching out in front of me. Adrenaline is flooding my system.

  Landrover pops to the surface, sputtering water and gasping. He flails at the edge of the ice like he’s swimming the crawl. His wet hands smack down, but he can’t get a grip. His hands claw and slide, slide and claw. He’s scared, desperate.

  There’s no one out here, no one else in the park on a cold night. The only sounds are the crackling of the ice and the splashing and slapping of the boy about to slip under again.

  I take a deep breath and push
my right foot forward—back out onto the ice. My boot slides easily across the slick surface. My left foot slides just as easily out to join the right. It’s like the ice still wants me here, like it missed me.

  I look out toward Landrover, his lips pressed firmly together just above the icy water. Hypothermia will set in soon. I know that from my dad’s Alaska shows. I’m wearing heavy boots and a parka. If the ice breaks under me, I won’t be able to swim.

  I try not to think about it. I concentrate on sliding smoothly. I’m not even halfway there, and I can already feel the thin ice beginning to crackle under my feet.

  A larger movement draws my eyes back to the center of the pond. Behind Landrover, the heavy tower is sliding sideways and down. It’s following that first leg slowly into the water. I hear a sudden twang, like a guitar string breaking, and see the rope snap free from the clock.

  Even now my eyes dart over to the big clock: 9:16.

  He didn’t win either.

  Landrover’s face is slick with water and contorted with fear. His numb hands are pawing uselessly at the edge of the ice, breaking it into chunks.

  I take one more breath and head out to join him.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this for Landrover, but at this moment, he could be anyone. His terrified eyes, his slipping hands. He could be me. Desperate. He could be Dad.

  I slide my right foot forward and then my left. The ice splinters slowly. All around my feet, spiderweb cracks radiate outward.

  But the ice doesn’t break.

  Not yet.

  MY DAD HAS A FEW seasons of a TV show called Ice Road Truckers on DVD. It’s a show about truck drivers in super-cold, remote parts of Canada. The only way to get stuff from place to place in the winter is to drive big trucks over frozen roads. The most dramatic parts are always when they have to drive over frozen lakes. The trucks go really slow and the ice is really thick, so everything usually looks fine up top. But then they put a camera under the ice.

  The ice is always cracking. You can see it and hear it. But all that cracking is just the ice flexing to take the weight. It’s the only way the ice can bend. The trucks always seem to make it.

  So that’s what I’m telling myself now: The ice below me isn’t breaking; it’s bending. I’m getting close to Landrover, and his eyes are locked on me. His hands are on the edge of the ice, but they’re not doing anything but shaking. He’s not going to last much longer.

  His lips are clamped shut right at the water line but they pop open for a quick gulp of air, like a goldfish’s. The ice under me groans. Bending, I pray. I freeze up. I know I shouldn’t be staying still for this long, but the ice around him is riddled with deeper cracks.

  “Hold on, dude,” I say, my voice shaking with what I pretend is cold.

  His eyes are still laser-locked on mine, and I think I see him nod. Very slowly, I begin lowering myself down onto one knee. I don’t feel the scrapes or bruises on my leg or side at all now. My backpack shifts on my shoulders, the cans and bottles clinking. I forgot I even had it on, but I have no time to deal with it now. I just leave it.

  I’m going to have to lie down, to spread out my weight and reach for him. A little layer of pond water has sloshed up through the broken ice. As soon as my knee touches down, the water soaks through my jeans. It’s so cold that I gasp. The shock is almost electric.

  Electric … like the clock on the shore. And the clock on the shore makes me think of—

  “The rope!” I say.

  Landrover’s eyes get even wider, which I didn’t think was possible. Now he is definitely nodding. He’s still got some strength left. That’s good. I cast my eyes around the gleaming ice until I spot the rope. It looks like a snake, lying in a long lazy S-shape alongside the tower.

  “Hold on,” I say. I begin to stand up, but I move too fast. I put too much weight on too small a spot. There’s a quick pop as my right boot punches through the ice.

  My whole body follows, and I plunge straight through into the icy water.

  The shock of the cold is overwhelming. I close my eyes, clench my lips, and hold my breath as my head disappears below the surface. The water is dark and so cold it burns. I can feel my parka filling up and my boots dragging me down. I wonder how far I’ll sink—maybe all the way to the bottom. But almost immediately, I feel myself pulled back up toward the surface.

  Landrover? I think, but it’s not him.

  It’s my backpack. I realize there’s air trapped inside the cans and bottles I collected, and it’s lifting me up. I know I don’t have much time. With the strap of my backpack tugged tight under my right arm, I reach down and claw at the laces of my boots. I sink down lower, dragging the backpack down with me. My fingers are too numb for me to know for sure, but I think I’ve torn the loops open. I kick wildly. The boots come off and suddenly I’m lighter.

  Now I reach over with my left arm and pull the backpack around in front of me. I thrust my left arm through the other strap and suddenly I am wearing my backpack in front. It begins to lift me up. I need air. I turn my head toward the gap in the ice above me and kick.

  I break the surface. I blow water out my nose and suck in a breath. I look around, cold water running down my face and into my eyes. The wounded ice has given out. The tower has collapsed onto its side behind Landrover and is bobbing lazily in the water. There is no longer solid ice between us, just jagged floating chunks. I begin to swim in his direction in an awkward doggy paddle. The backpack is almost like a boogie board underneath me.

  I have to push through the jagged ice with my chin. I’m probably cutting myself but I’m too frozen and numb to feel a thing.

  Water must be getting in through the nylon of my pack by now, in through the zipper. Soon it will begin to fill the cans and bottles.

  I reach Landrover but don’t stop. I need to get to the rope. If I can reach the edge of the ice behind him, I think I can grab it. I try to swim past him, but he isn’t having it. As soon as I’m in range, he lurches out and grabs at me with his frozen claw hands.

  “Ow!” I sputter as one of his hands slaps down on my head and tugs hard on my hair. His other hand is up high on my arm now and he’s dragging me closer. His hand slips down to the strap of my backpack and I begin to panic.

  At first, I try to fight him off. It’s impossible. He’s huge and strong and all clawing hands and desperation. He’s going to kill us both. I can’t get enough breath to explain that I’m going for the rope.

  I get a better idea.

  “Come on,” I gasp, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning.

  Soon, we’re both on our sides, heads barely above water and the backpack sandwiched between us. I begin to kick and, without either of us saying a word about it, he does too.

  We swim for the edge. Slowly. So slowly.

  We sink as we go, the backpack and bottles filling. I’m not sure we’re going to make it. I’m dog tired and chilled to the bone. But I keep going. I want to live. I want to save Landrover—even if it’s just to see the look on his face when he realizes he owes me.

  So I kick once more, twice, and the top of my head hits the edge of the ice. I twist around, and there it is: the rope. I throw my right hand over my head, and it smacks down on the ice. I flop it around but I have to watch to see when it reaches the rope because I have no feeling in my fingers.

  My hand falls on the rope. But my hand won’t work. I can’t make it grab hold. Desperate, I turn my arm from the shoulder. My half-closed hand slides underneath the rope. My system shutting down, the last of my adrenaline burning away, I start twirling my arm. The rope wraps around it like spaghetti around a fork.

  I tug hard, bending my arm at the elbow. I do it again. My vision bounces as my face slides over the edge of the ice. I throw my other arm at the rope. My fingers frozen stiff, I hook in. I pull hard. My shoulder slides up and over the edge of the ice. And not just mine. Landrover is latched on, his arms hooked under my armpits, frozen there.

  I pull again. And aga
in. I go until I have no strength left.

  The two of us are lying on our sides, facing each other in a puddle of icy water. Behind us, the ice is a fractured mess. In front of us, it’s a solid sheet heading toward shore.

  My teeth are chattering hard, but I manage to say a few words. “We’re gonna have to slide.”

  I don’t think Landrover hears me, but when I start inchworming along, he starts inchworming too. We bring our knees up until they’re touching, then we straighten our legs out as we push forward.

  We make it to shore that way. We’re out of the water but still wet. I am way past exhausted. I want to just lie here and rest, maybe even sleep, but I know I’ll die if I do.

  “We have to get up.” At first I think the words are in my head, but then Landrover says it again, louder: “Eakins, we have to get up!”

  And then, amazingly, he does. I’d always heard that this guy was an amazing athlete, tough as nails, pure muscle—all those things people say about middle school superstars. But it’s something else to see it for myself. Landrover makes this face—just pure effort and pain. His stiff arms push down, his rigid legs begin to bend. “AAAAAAAH!” he yells, and just like that, he’s standing.

  I have no idea how he did it, where he found the strength. But the next thing he does is just as surprising. He reaches one frozen hand down for me.

  “GET THAT JACKET OFF!” barks Landrover.

  “What?”

  “It’s soaking. Get it off.”

  I know he’s right, but I can barely even stand. I’m swaying on my feet, dripping icy water onto the frozen ground. I see him standing there doing the same. He’s visibly shivering and pawing at the front of his jacket with his frozen hands, unable to grasp the zipper. He turns, gets right in my face, and yells: “Now!”

  Even shaking like a cell phone set on vibrate, he’s a big scary dude, so I try. I shrug my backpack off my front and it hits the ground with a wet thud. I stick my frozen hand into the neck of my jacket and push the zipper all the way down.