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The Blizzard of ‘67
During spring break, Danny returns to the Stoplight to get some time in with the Vandals. He’s supposed to be working on his honors thesis, which involves breaking one image into three, allowing them to be both discrete and part of a greater whole. He could’ve used his Vandals project as his thesis but he didn’t think his advisor would understand it, and anyway, something about it feels too intimate and strange to be handed over for inspection.
It’s a busy night. Clacking of pool balls. Raucous laughter and CCR playing low on the jukebox. Johnny’s in his usual place, the back corner, watching the proceedings like a king over his country. He’s holding his fingers as if to smoke a cigarette but nothing is there, clearly several bourbon shots drunker than Danny usually sees him. Danny snaps a quick picture without Johnny noticing and takes a seat across from him.
“Hey,” Danny says, “how ya been?”
Johnny blinks a couple times as if surprised to see him even though he watched Danny sit down. “Where you been at?”
“School.”
“Huh,” Johnny says with a dismissive little wave, as if to say, Well la dee dah.
They sit in silence, both watching the fray, while Danny sets up his recorder. It’ll be a nightmare with all this sound but that’s okay, he just needs to be able to transcribe the words. He fiddles with the buttons as he tries to think up a few questions. Johnny’s hard to interview—he’s prone to speaking about a subject, distantly, and never his personal relationship to it. When Brucie died, Danny wanted to get Johnny to talk about how they met, how long they’d known each other, but instead Johnny only talked broadly about funeral rites, like he’d watched a documentary on it.
“Mind if I ask some questions?” Danny asks.
Another dismissive gesture, this one saying, Go ahead. How Johnny can communicate so much with minute hand movements, Danny has no idea.
“Where’s Benny tonight?” Danny asks. Even though the place is crowded he knows Benny isn’t here. When he's around, Johnny is always watching him.
“With the wife, I’m guessin’.”
“You mean Kathy?”
“Kathy,” he says, feigning neutrality.
“You sound resentful.”
Johnny gives him a side-eye. “Ain’t resentful. Just think a man oughta balance his time, know what I’m saying?”
“So Benny hasn’t been around lately?”
“Not since the blizzard.”
Danny can’t believe Johnny wandered onto a good interview question all by himself. The blizzard was a nightmare. Danny had to sleep on a cot in a gymnasium because the electricity and heat went out in his dorm building. And he still had to go to classes.
“What happened during the blizzard?” Danny asks.
Johnny, his movements slow, finally slips out a cigarette and lights it. “Kathy’s idea.” He sets down the lighter, takes a drag. “Double date. Benny and me, we thought that was stupid. Bein’ all formal for one night only. What’s the point? So Betty cooks up some deviled eggs, a casserole. Then she gets called into work. It’s snowing, but it ain't so bad yet. So now it’s just me and these deviled eggs and a casserole showin’ up to Kathy’s place. I wanted to cancel but I knew Kathy went to all this trouble to cook up a nice meal for us, and Betty’d be pissed if I didn’t show. So I get there and Benny’s all dressed up like a kid on picture day, you know, a button-up and his hair combed all nice, but with his colors still on. Never takes off his colors. Bet he sleeps in ‘em. He’s loyal like that. But Kathy, she splits his attention. A man ain’t supposed to have divided loyalties.”
“What about your wife? Does she ever split your loyalties?”
“Never.” He taps the ash off his cigarette into a glass ashtray with the bar logo etched into the bottom. “Well, didn’t used to.”
“What happened?”
“Complicated.”
When Johnny says “complicated,” he means, If you continue on this line of questioning, I’ll punch you in the mouth.
“Back to the blizzard,” Danny says, returning to hopefully neutral territory. “You show up without Betty, it’s snowing. Is Kathy dressed nice too?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Ain’t seen her all dolled up since the wedding. Makeup, this little number that shows off her figure. Beautiful woman. The pair of ‘em. Beautiful.”
Johnny stares into the middle distance like he’s not seeing anything, just Benny and Kathy in his mind’s eye.
“Anyway,” Johnny continues, “Benny offers me a drink right away. I ask him, does he got his bike stored up somewhere? Cal’s got it, he says, you know, mournfully, not knowing when the snow’s gonna stop. Meanwhile Kathy’s doin’ the work of ten people, figuring Betty was gonna be there to help. So I step in and Benny gives me this look like he didn’t know helping out was an option. I swear, that’s what you get when you marry a nineteen-year-old kid. Don’t print this but sometimes I think Kathy’s more mother than wife.”
“Do you think she knew that when she married him?”
“Don’t see how she couldn’t. Smart woman like her, I think she likes that.” He takes a long drag from his cigarette. “And I get that. Takin’ care of someone. Betty’s always been independent. Nice to be needed though, you know?”
Danny nods, even though he goes home on the weekends for his mom to do his laundry.
“So we sit down to eat and it’s really comin’ down out there. I ain’t worried. I’m a trucker, you know, I can back up an eighteen-wheeler through the eye of a needle. And I showed up in my Impala. That girl can make it through just about anything.” Another long, thoughtful drag of his cigarette. “It’s the first time I really seen the two of ‘em together, know what I mean?”
Danny shakes his head. All the shots he has of Kathy and Benny, they’re always tangled up together like they’re not even two people anymore.
“Kathy don’t drink much when we’re out, you know, ‘cause Benny does and she don’t like him drivin’ once he’s had a few beers. Well, that’s what she says, but really I think it’s ‘cause she gets jealous.”
“Jealous of what?”
“No, no, jealous ain’t the right word,” Johnny says, like it’s Danny who used it. He seems to search his mind for a better one. “Insecure. Like if Benny stops looking at her he’s gonna forget she exists. But that night she starts chuggin’ wine like it’s water. Benny too. I guess I thought they was only attracted to each other, but it’s the first time I seen ‘em, you know—” He makes another hand gesture which Danny can only take to mean in love.
“What were they like?”
“Touchy. Giggly. Betty and me, we never been like that. And I’m gettin’ sick about it so I tell ‘em I better be gettin’ home—”
“Wait,” Danny says, “why were you sick about it?”
That’s the wrong question to ask. Johnny, who had been in a kind of storytelling stupor, suddenly looks at Danny with clarity. “Forget I said that.” He points with both cigarette-holding fingers to the recorder. “Don’t, don’t print that.”
Danny wants to press, but he senses he’s at two strikes and he doesn’t want to reach three. “Did you leave?”
“I try. But then the electric goes out. I look outside and the Impala’s buried. I says I better go home anyway, you know, make sure the pipes doesn’t freeze. But Kathy, she puts her hand on my arm and looks up at me with these big eyes and says, ‘Stay, Johnny.’ And I don’t know what’s wrong with me, always had trouble not following orders, ‘specially from women—don’t print that—so I goes outside to start choppin’ some wood.”
“I thought you and Kathy didn’t get along that well.”
“I thought that too. But I guess when she’s got some wine in her she ain’t as keen to bite my head off. And Benny, you know, he ain’t too expressive but I can tell when he’s excited about somethin’.”
“What was he excited about?”
“Whatever kids get excited about when the lights go out. Something different. Unexpected. So I’m choppin’ wood and he’s takin’ it in, and when I come back inside, I can’t feel my hands, my face, I’m covered in snow, and Kathy, she’s in her nightie makin’ hot chocolate on the stove. For me.”
“You sound surprised about that.”
“‘Course I’m surprised. How often you think I get hot chocolate?”
Danny wants to open up that statement and inspect it. He’s met Betty a number of times, taken her picture, but she’s always seemed to him like a cold, quiet woman. In many ways, Kathy and Betty are opposites.
Johnny snubs out his cigarette and doesn’t go to light another, just leans back in his chair, arms across his wide chest. “And Benny, he’s got his long johns on, no kidding. Kathy gets me some of her old man’s clothes—ex-old man, I guess—and before I know it, we’re all around the fire, you know, shootin’ the shit like we’s all three of us friends or somethin’.”
“And then what happened?”
Johnny shrugs. “And then nothin’. I pass out on the couch, Kathy in her chair, Benny on the floor. Next morning, I head out before they wake up.”
“So did anything change after that? Between the three of you?”
“Can’t say,” Johnny says. Danny can’t tell if he should take that literally, as in, he doesn’t have the words for it; or figuratively, as in, he doesn’t know. “I like to think—never mind.”
Danny stops the recording and sets down the mic. “You can tell me.”
“I’m not into all this free love shit, but it felt like the three of us was somethin’. You know?”
4-F
Danny trails behind Kathy at the grocery store, recorder over his shoulder, mic held out to her while she stops periodically to look at a label. As usual, he doesn’t have to do much prompting, especially when her mind’s on something else like laundry or cleaning. Kathy’s the best interviewee of the bunch. Aside from Cal, that is, who’s the embodiment of an anecdote. She’s talking about what a shame it is that milk is over a dollar a gallon nowadays when Danny blurts out, “I heard a lot of things changed after the blizzard.”
She looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Who told you that? Cal? Because, listen, just ‘cause Johnny and Betty’s on the rocks now and again don’t mean he got a thing for me.”
Danny makes a mental note to ask Cal what he knows, or thinks he knows, about the blizzard.
Kathy pushes her cart toward the eggs and continues like Danny asked a follow up question. “What Johnny and me got is a hundred times more complicated than what Benny and me got. And that’s sayin’ something, ‘cause what Benny and me got is the ugliest love you ever seen. But Johnny Davis is—don't print this part but I feel safer with Johnny than anyone else. Benny’ll back me up, sure, but he’ll also fly off the handle. Guy puts his hands on me, Benny’ll chop ‘em off. At first that was romantic but now it just means court fees. Bail. With Johnny, you know with most things he’ll try to settle it with words. Even drunk as a skunk he still keeps his head. Except when it comes to Benny. When it comes to Benny, Johnny’s an animal.”
“You said before that Johnny loves Benny because Benny doesn’t care about anything. Do you think that’s still true?”
“Johnny loves him now more than ever. But I think I was wrong. I think it goes deeper than that.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“As long as that love keeps comin’ with danger? Pissed.”
“Is there anything you like about Johnny?”
“There’s plenty I like about Johnny. Like I said, he keeps his head. And he’s loyal. I seen women throw themselves all over him but he’s only got eyes for Benny.”
“Betty.”
“Betty. That’s what I said.”
(Later, Danny plays back the recording and confirms she did in fact say Benny.)
“But you said they’re on the rocks,” Danny points out.
“Their girls are growing up. I think sometimes people get together to make a family and then grow apart. I’m just saying, if they divorce it’ll be Betty’s doing. Johnny’ll never leave her.”
They pass a newspaper rack. On the front page is something about the Tet Offensive.
“Hey, Kathy,” Danny says, “how come Benny didn’t get drafted?”
“Now that’s a story.” Kathy puts some Ovaltine in her cart and moves on. “When we was still dating, Benny and me, I asked him, I says, ‘How’d you get out of service?’ and he gives me this look like he’s got no clue what I’m talking about. I says, ‘The draft.’ And I swear he looks at me like I told him Santa isn’t real. Can you believe that? Keepin’ your head so far down in the sand you don’t know there’s a war going on?”
“He didn’t know about the war? Really?”
“Benny, god bless him, he’s only got room in his head for three things.” She counts off on her fingers. “Me, Johnny, and his bike. Like he’s got these invisible horse blinders. I says to him, ‘You’re not in school, you don’t got kids. You’re nineteen for godsake.’ And he just shrugs and says he’ll deal with it when the time comes. But me, I can’t stop thinking about it. I get sick opening the mailbox. And I know Benny’s a fighter but that won’t help him out there, it’ll just get him killed. I get these nightmares about him coming home missing his legs or an arm or maybe not coming home at all. Getting a telegram from the government saying sorry, your husband got blown up by a grenade. Couldn’t even find enough of him to bring home. And for what? What’re we even doing out there?”
“So did he ever get his notice?”
Kathy turns a corner, excuses herself as she narrowly avoids running into another woman’s cart. Once they’re in the relative peace of the next aisle, she says, “He sure did. I’ll never forget it. Never seen anyone so scared in all my life. I thought for sure I’d wake up the next morning and boom, he’s gone. But no. He started watchin’ the news. Every night on the edge of the couch, hands wringing watching the pictures of all the guys bein’ hunted down by the FBI. You know, for running. So finally he asks Johnny, ‘How do I get out of this?’”
“What took him so long to ask?”
“He thought Johnny’d be mad at him. Call him a coward. But Johnny’s whole thing is bein’ a rebel, ‘course he’s not gonna want Benny to—what’s it Kennedy said? ‘Ask what you can do for your country.’ So Johnny and Cal and them put together this plan for Benny’s physical. Later they told everyone that Benny pulled the lunatic card, but that’s not how it went.” Conspiratorially, with her hand over the mic, she says, “Benny goes to the shrink and says to him, he says, ‘I’m a homosexual.’” She pulls away. “And that’s it. Comes home with a big red 4-F.”
“And he was just okay with that?” That doesn’t sound like the Benny that Danny knows, not that Danny knows him that well.
“Sure,” Kathy says, shrugging. “Bikeriders and queers, they’re like this.” She crosses her fingers. “A rebel’s a rebel, know what I mean? Hang out with Corky and Wahoo long enough and they’ll be all over each other. Necking like teenagers.”
This is news to Danny. He makes a mental note to spend more time with Corky and Wahoo.
“Do you think Benny’s actually like that?” Danny asks, expecting Kathy to shut him down or maybe laugh.
“Benny’s something, let me tell you. I never seen him look at another woman. Or a man, for that matter. In that way, I mean. It’s me and Johnny and that’s it.”
“And Johnny?” Danny asks incredulously.
“I already told you.” She cups her hands around her eyes. “Horse blinders.”
The one time Benny let Danny interview him
Years later, Johnny Davis is dead, and Danny goes to visit Kathy and Benny at their place in Florida. Benny works with his cousin fixing up cars. Kathy works at a shoe store. Danny was fully expecting to find them mourning and miserable, but they’re not. They seem happier than they ever were in Chicago. So happy, in fact, that Benny has finally agreed to be interviewed.
They’re just outside the garage, sitting in lawn chairs. It’s dusk and the air smells like saltwater. Benny, wearing oil-stained coveralls, sips a beer and looks uncomfortable. While Danny is still setting up the recording equipment, Benny says, “Just so you know, I don’t explain myself to nobody.”
“I’m not asking you to explain yourself.”
Benny shifts uncomfortably. His knees are spread apart and he’s slouched in his chair, looking at anything but Danny. “Then what’re we doing here?”
“Finishing up my book.” Danny presses play but pretends he’s still setting up, the mic surreptitiously pointed toward Benny. “How’re you and Kathy doing?”
Benny shrugs. Sniffs. Crosses his foot over his knee. “Fine. Good.”
“Care to elaborate?”
A long silence as Benny appears to ponder the question. Just as Danny is about to move on, Benny says, “I didn’t think I’d ever—yeah.”
“Didn’t think you’d ever what?”
“Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Okay,” Danny says. “We’ll move on—”
“I just. I didn’t think it’d work out. I mean, I did and then I didn’t.”
Danny decides his best course of action is silence and stillness, like waiting for a startled animal to wander over to you.
“At first it was this, you know, instinct. I don’t know. I saw her and I knew. But I didn’t expect it to work out. Because things like that don’t work out.”
“Things like what?”
“That fairy tale shit. She probably thought I was some loser kid after her alimony. But I liked her before I even knew she got those.”
“You married her pretty quickly.”
“‘Course I did,” Benny says, like Danny is stupid. “You seen her? She’s perfect.”
“So when did you start thinking it wouldn’t work out?”
“After the wedding. It hit me all of a sudden. I was a husband to somebody. I’d made a commitment. And that’s not a good thing to think during your honeymoon.”
“But it did work out. You’re still married.”
“Yeah, well, things were rough for a while there. Lot of little things all building up. So I ran away.”
“Where did you go?”
“My ma’s house.”
Benny shifts, fidgets, won’t look at Danny.
“Johnny and Betty had some problems,” Benny says, “and I don’t know the details but I know they were unhappy. Kathy was worried about me but instead of coming to me about it, she blamed Johnny instead. Like Johnny made all my choices for me. And I was just a dumb kid who was grateful anybody loved me at all, let alone two of ‘em. But I was angry. Neither of them could see me for who I was. Johnny wanted me to run the club, thinking I’m some kinda leader. Thinking that’s why I stuck around this long. I didn’t give a shit about the club. I just wanted Johnny.”
Danny waits. Benny doesn’t elaborate.
“What about Johnny and Kathy?” Danny ventures. “What were they like together?”
“Didn’t get along for the longest time.”
“And then?”
“Then they did.”
“What changed?”
Benny takes another long pull from his beer, and for the first time appears to deliberate earnestly. “That blizzard back in ‘67. I think they figured out they had no reason to compete. That I got room for both of ‘em.”
Danny has no idea what that means, but he fears he’s on thin ice. Before he can ask another question, he hears the rumble of an engine and sees a blue Impala pull up. The driver parks, keys off the ignition. And out comes Johnny Davis. Gray trucker uniform. Hair a little shaggier than it used to be. He pockets his keys, grabs a beer from the cooler and ruffles Benny’s hair.
Benny swats at him but he looks happy about it. It’s the first time Danny’s ever seen him smile like that.
“Danny, right?” Johnny asks, gesturing with his beer bottle. “How ya been?”
The weight that once bore down on Johnny’s shoulders has completely lifted. He seems even younger than when Danny last saw him.
“I thought you were dead,” Danny says.
Johnny shrugs. “Shouldn’t put too much stock in rumors.”
Kathy opens the kitchen window and calls out, “Are you gonna help me with dinner or what?”
“I just got home,” Johnny says.
“You know I don’t like chopping onions.”
Johnny sighs—even that seems jovial—and puts the beer back in the cooler before he’s even had a chance to open it. “You stayin’ for supper?” he asks Danny.
“Yeah,” Danny says. “Sure.”
He watches Johnny head inside, where muffled bickering immediately commences. Benny’s sitting perfectly still, with this warm smile on his face that he’s struggling to hide.
Danny stops the recording. He has all he needs.