Sheltering behind a ventilation shaft, they pause for another round from the bottle. The darkness is beginning to thin along the eastern horizon. Todd squats to undo Sam’s rigging and then unwrap it. He works with the concentration of an old-fashioned obstetrician gently bringing a breech baby to a more favorable presentation. The others keep an eye on the main road. They fall silent and then conversation breaks out again—the game, the season, the bus ride home, the party, how hammered they are and how bad their hangovers are going to be.
The last flap of canvas thumps against the roof and Todd releases a huge relieved sigh. The others gather round solemnly. It is, they agree owlishly, awesome, and entirely undamaged in its transit from hiding in the fishing shack on the lake to the school. A work of art. They compliment Todd, the executor of the design for this particular ice sculpture, from an inspiration by Sam Styles, in conspiracy with the rest of them the previous Saturday after practice. The five of them roll it to the front edge of the roof.
Below them are the double glass doors of the school’s main entrance. With much effort they raise the sculpture into position, jutting out from the flat roof. They adjust the angle to forty-five degrees and sweep up most of the snow on the roof to wedge it more securely. Then they pass the bottle again. It comes last to Sam. He empties it, then winds up and hurtles it toward the main road. It explodes on the centerline.
Lonnie Woods wakes up for the second time in the kitchen, standing at the counter with the coffee scoop in his hand. He remembers he was filling the basket of the coffee machine but has lost track of the number of scoops. Dumping the grounds back into the can, he starts again. He took Saturday night off to go to Portland to watch Rick play in the championship game and had to take a Sunday shift in exchange. At least it would be quiet. Filling the pot at the sink, he nearly drops it.
“Shit,” he mutters.
His wife is still sleeping and he doesn’t want to wake her. But as he opens a cupboard, looking for a mug, he hears the shuffle of her slippers in the hallway upstairs and then the bathroom door closing behind her.
Keyed up as they were from the big game, it’s a wonder either of them slept a minute. Worse is having Rick out all night. They had only agreed to the blowout at Cosgrove’s on Rick’s promise he wouldn’t get into an automobile to go anywhere for anything. If he wanted to come home, he was supposed to call for a ride. But he hasn’t called and they have spent hours staring at the ceiling, wondering if they did the right thing. Wishing he had a cigarette, Lonnie shaves in the downstairs bathroom. By the time he’s finished, the coffee is ready and Fern is sitting at the table, warming her hands around her cup. She raises a blank face for a kiss and exchanges a mumbled ‘morning with him. She has taken the chair that will give her a view of the back door. He reaches to squeeze her hand. As she glances over his shoulder, her eyes widen and she jumps up.
Rick is coming up the path with Sam Styles in tow. Looking very young and half-grown with their beard stubble and red eyes, both boys move as if their bodies were clothing bought several sizes too large.
Lonnie opens the door for them.
“What a sight for sore eyes,” Fern exclaims.
Rick sweeps his mother up and whirls her around the kitchen.
Laughing with undisguised relief, she scolds him. “You bad boy, you’re trying to jolly me.”
“Right,” Rick admits cheerfully.
“You boys had enough celebrating?” Lonnie asks Sam.
Hangdog and bleary, Sam blinks and shuffles his feet and nods shyly.
The phone rings. They all fall silent as Lonnie picks it up. Fern tenses with long experience of early-morning weekend calls, thinking of all those kids out partying last night. The two boys sneak glances at each other.
Lonnie hangs up and buttons his shirt collar. He reaches for his uniform tie, dangling from the back of his chair.
“Somebody,” he says, raising an eyebrow at the two boys, as he knots the tie, “pulled some numb stunt at the high school. Dispatcher thought the first call was a prank but now she’s gotten two more say the same thing.”
He checks himself in the mirror by the door—straightens his SGT WOODS nametag—and Fern hands him his jacket and hat.
“You two heroes, if this is for real, you’ll want to have a look at it. Come on.”
Sam and Rick look at each other. Rick shrugs.
“Come on,” Lonnie repeats a little impatiently. “You got all day to sleep it off.”
When the high school comes into sight, Lonnie breaks up. Like the figurehead on the prow of a ship, eight feet of tumescent penis sculpted in ice thrusts out from the building’s roof over the main entrance doors. Someone has troubled to detail it with meticulous accuracy. “Damn.” The cop grins. “Talk about morning stiffies.”
In the backseat of his cruiser, Rick and Sam struggle briefly to keep their composure and then lose it. They laugh until they are weeping and they clutch their aching stomachs and squirm like a couple of little kids.
Along the main road, passing traffic has slowed to look and some vehicles have pulled over and parked. A few people have gotten out to stand by the side of the road with their hands on their hips, the better to gawk. Phones are ringing all over a hundred-mile radius of Greenspark Academy.
Dawn has cleared the skies and the air is crystalline and
