The Skaters

The Skaters

            They stepped out from the warmth of their home and into the bitter cold of the street, he holding the canvas bag containing their ice skates and she locking their heavy oaken door.  The sun was already behind the trees and the other houses but its strength was in the undersides of the empty branches as the couple started down the slate plates of the walkway.  It wasn’t late enough yet, but soon the gas lights would illuminate the avenue when the sun was gone completely.  Clear wood smoke heat wavered above chimneys and dark coal smoke issued from others.  As they walked towards the river arm in arm, a motor car rattled down the cobblestones.

“Ghastly,” he said.  “Knowlton idles that beast continually in front of our home and poisons us with that exhaust.  I’m going to have a talk with him the next time he does it.”

“I don’t notice it, dear.  Our windows are sealed for winter.  Besides,” she kidded shaking his arm lightly, “you just don’t like it because it’s not electric.”

“They will be I can guarantee you that.  And these will be before you know it,” he said motioning to the streetlights.  “We’re already in major negotiations in the city…”

“I know, dear.  We saw them in Manhattan and you already told me and we’re not talking about work tonight.  You promised.”

“Are you sure you want to skate?  It’s terribly cold tonight and windy.”

“I just needed to get out of the house and move around a little.  Not for long.  It’ll be dark soon anyway.”

She stopped for a moment to adjust her fox boa snugly under her chin and gave her husband a smile.  He was so serious all the time, a naval man just like her father:  Serious, strong, successful and kind.  He already had a formation of ice in the top of his moustache below his nostrils but she said nothing about it because he would become distracted.  She took his dense woolen arm and they continued down to the river. 

At the base of the iron suspension span that crossed the river was a small shed provided by the river club.  In its shelter from the wind and glaring sun, they laced up their skates quickly with exposed and aching fingers, crisp puffs of exhalation quickly dissipating.  Fastidiously slipping on their gloves with excited yet forced laughter they patted their hands together to remove the chill saying, “Ooh,” ”Oh,” and “Wow!”

They navigated the boards of the small ramp down to the ice carefully and awkwardly and then slid out on to the ice quickly gaining their balance once moving.  It was a dry but cold winter and the ice was ideal for skating, smooth, clear, and eighteen inches thick at least. The sun was now in the trees that bordered the river but still glaringly strong and she loved sun like this before it disappeared in one last “Huzzah” as it were. The wind gusts were strong enough to wobble them, both competent and competitive with their skates, but they glided along gaining speed and holding hands and laughing when one cut to the left or right to surprise the other in a game they had played for years without tire.

There were other groups of skaters, black forms in the waning rays of the sun, single skaters and couples languidly arm in arm.  Two groups of boys at the base of the span were sliding a heavy rock as far as they could between them, yelling and gesticulating at a strong throw as they parted and then chased it down the ice, groaning and gesticulating when the return slide fell short of the other group.  Short but potent gusts of wind challenged all on the ice including the raucous and immense flock of crows downriver calling and flying between trees and ice, black dots peppering the blue and white.

They stopped skating and turned back upwind when they reached the railroad span about a quarter mile downriver by the ice cutter’s office with its distinct trail of wood smoke from the stove inside.  She remembered this spot the previous June afternoon when she expressed how she liked the yellow river lilies on the river’s edge, they were so tall and dense and wild and she would love to get some bulbs to plant in their yard.  She thought if she soaked them enough and put them in the sunny corner of their yard they might take.  Her husband took a trowel and a metal pail and scrambled down through the brambles trying not to grunt as she said, “It’s okay, dear.  I don’t need them…be careful.”  With the pail filled with an appropriate amount of river mud for the bulbs, he clambered back up the slope protecting the protruding stalks and flowers as best he could when he upset a nest of hornets.  He yelled at her to back away but they only had interest in him.  How swollen his face and hands became!  And he never grieved her for it, not once, no matter how she apologized and she really hoped the lilies would take to their yard, wild river lilies so stalwart and vibrant.

“How’re you feeling, dear?” he asked.

“I feel comfortable now we’re moving.  I did need time out of the house tonight.  No matter how I feel it has to be better than when we were here last June.  The lilies?”

“Look up there,” he said pointing up the ice past the metal span.  A small herd of deer were trotting deftly and briskly across the ice from the river’s edge to the island followed by the slouching gait of a coyote.  The sun had now set completely behind the trees and the sky was a brilliant purple and red, the kind of color nature produces only in the sky and in the organs of animals.  She watched the deer disappear into the bronchial trees of the island and then the coyote as well.  There was still considerable light left and some more time to skate as they reached the span and the skating shed when she thought about using a skating sail.  There were two for use in the shed and when she asked her husband he agreed a run or two may be nice.

As they approached the shed the groups of boys were breaking up, some heading to the north shore and some to the south exiting past the shed.  As they entered the ice with a sail one of the boys about eleven years old stopped and regarded them.  He had no skates but boots, black woolen trousers and a dark blue pea coat.  His hair was sweaty and frozen in chunks at the ends, his cheeks were bright red and he had an ample amount of mucus streaming from both his nostrils.  He stared at them with eyes of an almost caustic blue. 

“Hello, young man. Did you have enough of the cold today?”

“Yes, sir” replied the boy as he continued staring at the two.  “Are you taking that out, sir?”

“Why, yes we are.  Just for a breeze or two before dark.”

“Well sir, just be aware they’s thin ice on the far side down there,” he said pointing to the north end of the railroad span.  “Thems ice cutters been taking blocks out but you can’t see because of the thin ice over it.”

“Well thank you, young man.  We are very much aware and that’s why we’ve stayed on this side of the river.  But you can see they have it properly marked.”  He chuckled, “And here I wanted to warn you about the dangers of playing so close to the span because the ice here can be quite unsettled.  Thank you again.  And what is your name?”

“Alex J. Thompson, Jr., sir,”

“You be careful getting home, Alex Thompson.”

“What a fine young man,” he said to his wife when the boy walked up the boards of the ramp.

The river was fairly empty at this point since the boys were gone.  There was a pair skating on the north bank and one person for whom they wanted to wait in case the sail took them too quickly and they should disturb him or collide with him.  After a minute or two, the skater turned left towards the north bank and they had a wide open stretch of river to use the sail.  They positioned themselves and each took hold with one hand an end the sail and with the other the middle support bar.  “Are you ready?” she looked to her husband with a bright excited smile.  Before he responded they were in position and a strong gust took hold of them and they began to hurtle down the ice. 

She felt the power in her own legs and arms as she arched herself to gain speed, her husband doing the same as they glided over the ice faster and faster.  They worked perfectly as a pair controlling their direction as one, reading and adjusting to the other to keep straight much as they had always done in life.  They hadn’t the problems of others of which she heard so often in the gossip of her social groups.  Two weeks prior he did arrive home in the middle of the night senseless with alcohol but that was the only time in the seven years since they moved here that it ever happened.  He had to entertain some colleagues from New Jersey and told her he would be late, but he arrived home at 4 am and knocked over a table lamp in the foyer.  She had to help him into the bedroom and he was mumbling insensibly.  She remembered being glad they hadn’t any children yet.  He smelled fruitfully pungent with whiskey but she did not smell any women on him.  She knew all too well that many of his other colleagues at General Electric frequented the brothels by the lower canal and really believed he wouldn’t have accompanied them there.

When she got him comfortably into bed, she fell asleep beside him and then awoke with him on top of her.  He didn’t speak and she wasn’t afraid but she felt his strength but not his touch.  When he collapsed and began to snore next to her she lay for some time with the blankets off her to cool her skin.  When she woke in the morning he was already cleaned, shaved and dressed in his collar and coat.  He was sitting at a table in the kitchen drinking tea and reading some documents.  When she was in the doorway in her bed gown with her hair tumbled down her back and she stood watching him, he said without looking up, “I apologize terribly that I let the alcohol ruin my judgment and it will never happen again.  I promise.”

“Alright, you let go!” he shouted and she released her end of the sail and they continued to glide quickly, but slowed themselves into a U-turn by the ice cutter’s shack.

“That was exhilarating!” she proclaimed breathing heavily, her teeth bright white and her cheeks reddened.  “One more before we go.”

“Alright, dear.  But just one because it’ll be too dark soon.”

By the time they skated back up to the shed to begin their last run, the river was essentially empty.  The pair of skaters had merged with the single skater to become a trio heading home on the north bank far upriver.  There was still good visibility but soon gaslights would be burning amid the low tree branches above the quiet cobbled streets.  “Okay, one more,” he huffed as they turned the sail into the steady breeze.  They started off slowly and steadily and were trying to arch themselves to gain speed but the wind was not cooperating so when they hit a decent but uneventful speed they began their game of changing direction suddenly to offset the other.  They were about halfway down the river when an exhilaratingly powerful gust took them by surprise and hurtled them at a speed which soon became uncontrollable.  Before they could even communicate with each other they were speeding into the thin ice on the north bank where the ice cutters had been working.

One cold night a few weeks prior the couple was seated in their respective chairs watching the fire in their hearth and listening to the phonograph when her husband admitted to her that he did not believe in God.  She was honestly surprised because they were active at St. George’s, regular attendees and volunteers.  He never showed any indication that he felt this way and she asked him why hadn’t he said anything and also why did he attend so much if he didn’t believe?

“Simply, I don’t want to bother other people with my own thoughts.  I also like the church itself quite a bit.  So it’s really not an issue but that’s how I feel.  I simply see it as impossible, just stories made up by men, and to devote your life, your soul to it?  I don’t mind it, I just don’t believe it.”

“But why haven’t you told me?” she asked turning herself towards him.

“I don’t want to bother you with my thoughts either.  I see how you enjoy it, the comfort it brings you, the good it does for people.  All I’m saying is that I don’t think any of it is true.  Just stories made up by men.”

“Of course they’re stories made up by men but that doesn’t mean they’re not true.  They’re beautiful.  That’s what makes them real.  Or true for that matter,” she insisted.  “I mean it’s like what Keats said about truth and beauty being one in the same.”

“Oh, you and your poetry,” he chuckled.

“But it’s true.  When we are there in that gorgeous stone church you don’t get a feeling?  It’s where everyone is equal and when we sing, I believe it, in it.”

“But really that feeling is just communion and it doesn’t have to do with God’s existence.  Once again, I don’t want to upset anyone and I enjoy it there.  I just don’t believe in the stories made up by men.”

“Those stories are beautiful though and that’s what makes them true.  There may not have been a real Adam and Eve or a Moses but the stories are true.  Last week in our poetry club…”

“Poetry club,” he said

“Yes, poetry club,” she laughed.  “We discussed The Lady of Shallott and it is such a beautiful poem and it is so true.  There was no ‘lady’ and it doesn’t matter if there was.  For all I know there may not have even been a Tennyson because it doesn’t matter.  He wrote in a way the story has a life of its own, it’s remote.  Just like the bible, remote and beautiful and true.”  She gave him a sidelong glance and smiled, “And I didn’t study at Elmira for nothing…”

“Well, I certainly know you are true,” he said leaning back.

When they crashed through the ice she experienced a searing mix of panic and pain.  She was surprised at how low she was in the water, struggling to get her head above the surface amid frantic splashing.  Amid the turmoil she heard her husband exhale low and powerful grunts that rose in pitch.  She felt him push her up against the edge of ice and try to lift her up but it was impossible.  All sensation was burning and she felt her muscles recoil into cramps but she managed to get one arm up on the ice.  She felt him kicking and attempting to heave her up onto the ice but it was futile as all he was doing was crushing her breast and ribcage against the edge of ice.  “Get up!” he screamed as he jostled her desperately, but she was too waterlogged and cramped and no matter how she struggled she kept slipping down.  He kept pushing and trying to power her up on the ice, his breathing painful to hear and his eyes wild in panic and desperation in a way she knew was possible deep in her self, but wished she never had seen it in this life.  She realized he felt the same pain and panic but now he had exhausted himself and must be cramping up as much as she.  She could barely breathe.  She started to scream for help.  She screamed loudly and repeatedly through the pain and panic, through the burning.  And when she started screaming she saw her husband look at her as he slid beneath the water and felt his touch for the last time.

“I’m telling you they was planning to put in a street right here behind us down to the water.  They was planning on it and now they will soon’s there’s thaw,” the ice man was explaining to his son.  They were sitting in the shack with the burning wood stove.

“You hear that?” the son sat up alert.

The father sat up quickly and quietly and listened and they both distinctly heard a woman’s scream.  The son began to scrape the frost from the window to peer out at the river while the father slipped his feet into boots and broke open the door to the shack and stumbled into the frigid evening.  “Get the pikes,” the father yelled.  The two ran out onto the ice towards the figure clinging to its edge and realized they needed a boat to rescue this woman and ran back to the shore, got one and dragged it across the ice.  (The rescue would not be successful.)

Her screams for help became screams of “no” as his body disappeared below hers.  The wool of her sleeve and her fox boa had become frozen on top of the ice. She could barely move at all so she started to sink with him but was tethered by her neck and arm to the surface.  Then she felt pressure below her skates that raised her slightly to keep her from drowning.  “No, no,” she sobbed.  “Don’t.  No.” 

He had braced himself on the bottom and held her by her skates just enough to keep her head above water.  She felt his strength but not his touch.  The wind howled in her ears, her body flexed and cramped without her control and she thought how strange it is that life can simply end.  Like this. She heard shouting but couldn’t respond.  She felt his strength but all she wanted was to feel his touch again, to die with his touch and not his strength.  The railway span loomed above her as she was eye level with the water like some duck.  She looked below and saw the crescent of his forehead and his hair waving like sea grass in the dark water.  She heard yelling and saw figures moving but she couldn’t move herself, her arm frozen to the surface of the ice, she could barely think.  The wind blew strong again as the night grew darker and she began  murmuring, “They come for me with pikes and poles, my love, pikes and poles, they come for me, I feel your strength but not your touch, my love, pikes and poles for me, my love, poles and pikes.”

Draft  September 2016