Michael D. Davis

It was around two in the morning. I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV. My father suddenly appeared. He had on slippers and a pair of underwear that should have been put out of their misery in the mid-nineties. He walked past me, out the front door, out the porch, and into the winter night. A moment later, he walked back by grumbling to himself. It was snowing out.

Growing up, every winter, my dad would turn into Batman, If Batman was incredibly annoying. Ya see, my dad worked for the city of Toledo for decades. And every winter, he would drive a snow plow.

It always started with the rumor. Someone somewhere at some point tells someone else that they heard it’s gonna snow. When this rumor reached my dad, he’d swear, fuss and gripe. This led to the research. He’d watch the weather. Read the weather. And ask anyone he saw, “Did ya see the weather? What they say?”

But the old man wouldn’t just take a meteorologist’s forecast of the weather, no. Every window he’d pass, the old man would look outside to see what it was doing. He would go outside every hour just to “check” what it was doing. I once saw him looking out the kitchen window with binoculars, I guess to see if it had snowed the next block over.

It was during these times that you had to be extra quiet because he had to get his sleep, a nap here, a nap there, resting up. If you weren’t quiet, all hell would break loose. The old man would get angry and usually pull out his standard threat of throwing either you or the TV out, whichever one was making more noise. All of this leads up to the call. The bat phone would ring, and it would be Dad’s boss. They’d talk a minute, dad’d hang up, swear or groan, and say, “We’re goin’ out at two AM.”

One consequence of having the old man as one of the local snow plow drivers is he would be the one going by the house. My ma would get up, bundle up, grab a shovel, and start scooping the driveway. Then my sister would get up and join her. I would help, but only in spurts due to the cold air and my asthma not mixing. We would shovel and shovel to get the driveway clear. My father would then drive by in the snow plow and fill it up again. I think the old man took a wee bit of pleasure in this sadistic action. I actually think I saw him laughing once as he went by.

This being a small town and all where everybody knows everybody’s cousin, we’d be out and about and have people complain about him. They’d say to my ma, “Hey, could you tell your husband not to fill in my driveway every time he goes by?” My ma would reply by saying, “No, cause the %@$+@#! does it to us too.”

One time, my ma, sister, and I were all out shovelin’ the snow. Suddenly, my ma slipped and fell into a snow drift. She didn’t get up. She didn’t get up. Finally, we asked if she was alright. A voice from the snow drift said, “Yeah, I’m just layin’ here.”

My father is retired from the city now, so he does most of the shovelin’. Today, he went out before seven AM to start on it, for which there was no reason. It was my Ma’s day off. Work cancelled for my sister, so she was home. The old man is retired so he has nowhere urgent to go. And I’m always home.

I probably shouldn’t say this. But since it’s just you and me here, I’ll go ahead and say it. My dad has been retired for a couple of years. And, he’s been taking the lead on shovelin’ the drive for a couple of years. And every single time I see him out there, just finishing up clearing the driveway. Almost done, but not yet. I wish upon a star that one of the guys drivin’ the snow plow now would come speedin’ by and fill the end of the driveway back in. Just frost it like a cake.

I know…I’m a lil’ devil, ain’t I?