Script Tease

The family had decided that they would all chip in so that instead of taking two or three hours out of their day to plow the driveway, a stranger in a truck would come and do it instead, but that didn't last long. Because of his naroticism, dad decided to get started because he was worried about whether or not the plow was coming. He managed to plow the entire front of the driveway with his 1980's snow blower until it finally gave up and died. With a curse and a kick he made his way back to the house. After getting cleaned up and heading into the living room where the rest of us sat, he looked out the window.
"Hey, he's doing John's driveway."
I looked out and watched as a red ford F150 came with its equipment and quickly plowed our neighbor's driveway.
"Leigh, go get your brother and tell him that we need to get the cars out of the driveway so that he can plow it."
I walked over to the base of the stairs, opened the door and shouted up to my brother, "Dan! We've gotta move the cars! The plow is here, quickly!"
It was a couple of moments before I heard the thuds of footsteps along the cieling above me, a faster pace as he made it down the stairs, and with a grumble Dan began to put on his boots.

We walked outside and prepared to step into our cars, but the plow backed out of John's driveway and didn't stop at our house, but continued to drive down the street instead.
Dad threw his arms into the air as his face contorted into something ugly. "Oh, come on! What the hell is this shit!"
"Beats me, maybe he'll be back later," I said.
"Well, sorry for calling you boys down, just stay on your toes, he could be back later."

Dinner rolled around and it must have been snowing for a good eight hours. I went downstairs to the first floor apartment to get dinner which was prepared by my grandmother. Good ol Gram, still taking care of us in her old age. We made our way into the kitchen when my aunt asked us about the plow.
"Did you guys manage to get the driveway cleared off?"
My father was immediately irritated by the comment, maybe because the plow hadn't been here through out the entire storm, or maybe because it was my aunt. "No, it didn't come," he said shortly. "Just push the snow out of the way with your car if you need to get out."
"Are you kidding me? It's eight feet of snow out there...you wouldn't do that with your truck."
"You wanna bet? I could easily do that with my truck. Why don't you just get off your ass and try it?" I smiled inside of my head, because I knew it wasn't true. His truck was his baby, and baby's aren't tossed into puddles of water or thrown into snow banks.
At this point he lost control. He began to lecture her, which is a euphemistic way of putting it. "The fucking truck didn't come this afternoon, I don't know what's taking it so long, but how can you expect me to do all of this shit by myself? I took care of most of the driveway already, why don't you..." I began to poke him affectionatly. Usually when my father loses himself to the absurdity of his own mind, this sort of physical carnival usually gets him to laugh and calm down a bit, boy was I wrong.

Anger quickly consumed his thoughts and balled his hand into a fist. "Would you freakin stop it!?" He attempted to smash the prodding finger several times against the wind, pulled his arm back behind his head, held it for a second and relaxed the tension is his arm until it fell to his side through force. He walked away, leaving the dinner we were supposed to pick up.

I was upstairs working when my brother called, "Leigh! Dinner!" I sat for a few minutes, got up, and made my way downstairs. Everyone was up serving themselves the stuffed peppers that my grandmother had made, a family favorite. We sat down at the table and began to eat. An uncomfortable silence lingered at the table, but my mom managed to try and stir up some conversation.

"This is pretty good," she said, looking to each of us for some sort of answer. We nodded our heads. After more silence she spoke again, "I can't believe we missed that deal for the new treadmill. It was a bargain too, we shouldn't have waited to look at others, that one was on sale for a huge amount." She said it almost as if she was reprimanding a child for doing something wrong. I tried to cheer her up about it and said, "well, no worries, now we'll be able to find out what we really want and if that deal was good, another will probably come our way."

"No, we should have bought the treadmill. It was only 1500 dollars, originally 5000."
"From my experience, it's usually better to shop around and research any big expenses," my brother said in a supportive manner.
"If I don't walk, I'll die." She said it in a concrete tone, but you could still hear the fear. "If I don't walk at least every other day, I'm going to die. Your father is constantly on trips and its winter...i'm not going to walk without him. I need the machine now. If I don't get a treadmill I'm not going to be able to walk and control my weight and then i'm going to die because of diabetes. You tell me what I should do."
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have said it, but I just wanted a cure for the disease. "They'll be clearing the snow soon, then you can go walking with the dogs." She sat and stared at the placemat in front of her, but the placemat wasn't what she saw, "that won't work."

After more silence and a few more bites of stuffed pepper, my father put in his two cents. "When the hell is the plow going to get here?"
"Well, they said they would be here to do our driveway."
"They haven't been here all day. How are we supposed to get out of the damn driveway," he said in frustration.
"Well, maybe if someone hadn't shoveled most of it and made the plow think we didn't need the service, he would have already been here."
"Why wouldn't he have come! It was a freakin blizzard!"
"You didn't sign the damn contract. What the hell do you expect?" Dad said a few things under his breath that would have made mary cry and he stomped out of the room. After a minute or two he came back, "Well we need to get the snow out of the front of the garage and your aunt's car."
My mom turned her eyes from dad and to us, "well, which one of you boys are going to help your father clear out some of the snow?" We kept our eyes down and didn't say anything. I kept my eyes focused on my food, as if it was one of the most complicated things on this planet. Studying it. Analyzing it. Anything to keep me out of it.

"So did I hear two people volunteer?" I got up, picked up a pair of pants and began to put them on. They were wet from an attempt to clear off the cars earlier. I looked at my shoes, "Hey dad, can you toss those into the dryer?"
"No, you're going to break it!" he shouted. "The hell are you thinking? If you put it into the dryer it's going to cause it to.."
"I don't want the physics of the dryer. If it's going to break the dryer, I won't do it."
He quickly responded, "Of course. It'll break the damn dryer and cost me a fortune to pay for repairs and you can bet it won't be me paying for it. Putting the shoes in the dryer would damage the interior by developing..."
My brother intervened loudly with irritability stirring in his tone of voice, "Dad, he said he didn't want to hear it. He said he'd take your word for it. Just stop it. Damn it!"

My brother and I walked out into the darkness and began to shovel. Not a word was said. Eventually my father made his way outside. Still no words. After the job was done, I made my way upstairs and tried to slip off my shoes. I tried to calmly get them off, but I became quickly frustrated and kicked my foot around madly, "get the fuck off of me, what the hell, freaking shit." I resigned to untieing them, slid my pants off and walked over to the table to sit down. My brother made his way to the top of the stairs.

"Hey Leigh...thanks."
"No problem."

Eventually it was time to go back. After much heated debate, my father decided to take his truck because of the poor weather and my mother's demands. He wanted to keep his car clean. She wanted me to be taken to school in a vehicle with four wheel drive.

We pulled out of the driveway and took a left towards the highway. He started off saying each word like a normal person, but it quickly turned into something faster and angrier. "Why do I need to take my car? Huh? Why couldn't we take your car or the rental car? This is bullshit, why do I always..."
"Wow. Fascinating story, but if you could save it for another time I'd really appreciate it." My patience was wearing thin.
We took the on ramp and he jokingly said with a chuckle, "see!, snow isn't the problem, it's once you get on the highway that problems start coming up. It gets more wet and slushy and that's how the car gets dirty." There was a period of silence. I kept starting into something beyond the road. I couldn't make it out, but it was dark with a streak of light here and there. And then again.

"I don't understand it!" He said it with a hand thrown in the air, the other struggling to stay on the wheel instead of joining its twin in coordination. "Why the hell do you and your mother have to be so stubborn! What difference does it fucking make if we take another car or my car?" My face smiled and I rested my head on my arm and continued to stare at the darkness. "I'm not being stubborn." I said it, the smile spread physically across my face, my head shaking left to right mechanically. It was a routine. "It's just bullshit, you guys don't get it. All I want is to keep my car clean, but who the fuck cares! I'll just let it stay dirty for the week and clean it when I get back. Fuck it. Was it necesary?"

I was staring into the darkness, thinking about nothing in particular until that streak came across my eyes. The light played across that field of black, constantly interrupting my attempt to get lost. After a few more interruptions I looked around and finally up. The windshield laid between myself and the perfectly spherical moon. A wall was between us, but I could still see its light and thought, "Oh, that must be it." I was breathing in silence for the rest of the ride.