Moving Targets

The product of a late winter storm, a bountiful supply of fresh snow is welcomed with the open arms of three young boys standing on the corner of Davis Avenue and Park Boulevard. The afternoon sun is unusually warm, turning it rapidly into slush. Yet, it is still pliable; the ideal density for what a skier might call “squeaky powder,” and what the boys knew better as “packing snow,” the precise concentration for the perfect snowball.

The jackets are unzipped and the gloves, shaken off of hands, fall to the sidewalk. Scott fires the first round at a car heading south on Park Boulevard. His form resembles that of a baseball pitcher: pushing off with his back leg, weight out over his front foot after delivery and his throwing arm trailing through in a wide arc, just like Tom Seaver. The snowball finds its target with a thud and the car continues on, with a clump of snow sliding off of its rear end. I pick up my snowball and attempt to imitate his form in my own awkward manner. After a stutter step and late release my snowball rises in an imperfect hump and falls to earth with a splat, reminding me of those failed Atlas rocket launches from Cape Canaveral that we have seen on the evening news.

Rick, whose own athletic ability is closer to my own than to his brother’s, wisely decides to stay behind the front line to act as ordinance; forming flawlessly rounded snowballs that look like giant meatballs. The ammunition dump increases in volume and we ramp up our assault of the passing vehicles that sometimes honk in retaliation but never brake.

Scott launches a snowball. It streaks through the air like a missile, its fantail trailing droplets of snow behind as it rises and strikes its target, a box truck, well ahead of his intended point of impact. Instead, itpasses through an open window and strikes the driver square in the ear.

“KERPLOW!”

The flash of red brake lights is our signal to retreat. High-tailing it into the bar I stop and, as casually as I can, take a seat and ask for a soda, confident in the knowledge that my father, who is working, has my front, my flank, and all other sides. Scott and Rick streak through the dining room and find safe haven in the bomb shelter, which is in reality the walk-in box in the kitchen, where they know they will never be discovered until someone enters for the purpose of business.

A man enters the bar smacking the palm of his hand against his cherry-red ear and demands to know where the culprit who dared inflict such a mess upon his person might be. My father shrugs his shoulders in an unknowing manner and professes to know nothing about the incident of which he speaks. I stare innocently into my glass, suddenly engrossed in the texture of ice cubes while silently pleading with myself not to look up and meet him face to face. The man with the cherry red ear glances around the bar: the customers have taken to our defense, staring him down in a way that suggests that he, in his best interest, leave the matter alone. He backs out of the room and his on his way when I run to the bomb shelter, open the door, and announce to the two pairs of eyes glaring out at me from behind the lettuce cases that the angry driver has departed.

Upon our return to the front line, we scan the horizon to make perfectly sure that our opponent is in retreat. Behind us lies the pile of well-rounded snowballs. Cars and trucks move past us in a leisurely pace. Our eyes narrow, wicked grins creep across our faces. The coast is clear and Scott issues the command: “FIRE AT WILL!”