Bomb Cyclone and its Effects on Harvard - 11

A Novella

2

I went out to Harvard Sq, which is a triangle. If you come up Mass Ave – that’s short for Massachusetts Avenue - you see on your right side the august and immaculate Harvard Yard. Which is fenced in. as in “you slobs are not admitted,” even though you can enter through the hallowed Ivy pinnacles that enter in. But on the left side there are stores and above them brick and concrete flats for offices and apartments, it is all very cozy. It doesn’t feel like a city. Then you see Harvard Square, which as I said before is a triangle, and its center looks like a bunker. It too is of concrete and brick however it is the shape and mass of the thing with its low bunker-like scowl which has a stein of a place that is surrounded and is propping up weapons on the barricades. You can see beyond this to be graceful brick building which is the Harvard co-op, where students procure their textbooks and other people shop for Harvard regalia sweatshirts.

The reality of my really real life is that it is not any of these things. Instead it is the creeping in the backsides of lecture rooms and the long evenings awake in the library not wanting to leave. It is the looking at men’s faces and demeanor.

I was here to buy the parcels that would unwrap the lectures for me. Then I can align them up around my desk in a tower with slits to shoot out my replies. A grim moated mostle that I can hide behind.

Oh, a penny for your thoughts, unless it is Trumpurdu (if you were in the club, you would have grasped, with both hands, the immortal alacrity, which he demands from his dimwitotudes.). It had been two days back at prep school, and the bomb cyclone smacked - a howl of frozen precipitation piled.

In reality, it had a different name - when the polar vortex stayed in the frozen north.

But now came to live in far more southern climes, the mounds of snow were still to be plowed – that did not matter to me, because grounding was still in effect. The only whisper was to help shovel out the driveway and the long slate sidewalk. Then it was immediately time to be sent in, and spent the day looking at the plops coming down from the trees. Morceaux de neige, though I am not sure that is actually what they say in France. Dream of France does no good - still in America with President Trumpadoor. The name fills me with exquisite hate - all the tax money, which should have been spent on climate change, is instead... but do not bother, every place that calls itself “news” is hedging its bets. This is because those of us who have to live the longest are the most broke.

At night, suborn perjury in my mind – when beyond these walls came a torrent of disastrous wind from what was now called a bomb cyclone. Icicles formed on wire lines, and wooden posts - there were birds in abundance, hoping for some food - blunted with a wary sense of the predators waiting around every corner tree. Courier and Ives à la mixed with Tim Burton à la Edward Scissorhands.

The clouds covered everything, except the night itself with its wallows and grottos. And no one came, for company or anything else.

This was a winter that I had not passed through - clearing cascades of blizzard-on-the-half-shell. The younger said would wait joyously for toboggan down the hills - while adults decided whether it was better to pay someone to clear the driveway. I was indifferent because my parents would have me aid their backs in snow shoveling the large driveway. It was not 100 yards long, but it certainly felt like it.

When the daylight broke, there were mountains worth of precipitation - the day ordains: shoveling snow. From morning, noon, till night, my body was scraping - and then depositing - loads of plastic spades of ice. Because over the night, what came from the sky of snow congealed to glaze. Neither of my parents spoke to me, nor did they speak to each other except for occasional moments. It was clear that their feelings for each other had grown cold over the years. For dinner - we had beef stew, and again nothing was said except “pass the salt.” But then my parents never were much for spices.

In the next morning, I stood by the bus station, it was too frigid to go on foot. My mind was empty. Arriving at the high school, even my internal sense of anger was dimmed.

Friday, then, had been the 1st day of classes, and had not yet met Lily. But that was not the problem - because eventually, she would pop out at school, between classes, and we could speak. No real problem was how to get a hold of Sai. Walking back my brain worked on this particular problem, but nothing came into my head. It was - as the locals might say – wicked cold. This was a peculiar expression that only occurred in, and near, Boston and was never used in polite company. Once it came out of my mouth - and got the look that it was a low expression. Words words words - that is all most people think in terms of - and they get into trouble when they use, or reuse, the wrong word, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Crows were loopy their way from tree to tree - and this reminded me of the black month of January when a prisoner was my lot. The crows seem to know it, with their little dance. They flew off at sunset as if laughing at me.

On Monday, I went to class and went back again, not having seen anyone that I cared to see. It was not long before my house loomed in front of me, there was still white on the front lawn - but the snow had dropped from the trees. It was warming up a little bit, but not by much. Wrapped in my jacket, there was nothing to do but go inside - there was only one car which belonged to my mother - and my father had not arrived home yet. Inside the rear door, there was a coat closet on the right and a privy on the left - and then it opened up to a kitchen. My mother normally got home very early, especially now when she had the special duty of taking my phone - my father insisted upon it.

There she was back to me washing vegetables - with a crunching that seemed to assuage her anger - when she immediately turned around, and looked at me.

“Give me the phone.” These were the 1st words out of her mouth, and in the way of my father. Trundling my way over to her, barely lifting my shoes off the floor - with its smooth tiles in yellow and white almost emphasizing my reluctance to hand over what was asked for. Congress would have more difficulty appropriating revenue.

I reached down into my skirt, and plopped out the phone from my handbag - a small brown, rather worn, set that had served me well for the last 4 years. “There, are you happy now?”

“You did something wrong so you have to be punished. This is your punishment.” She wielded my iPhone in my face – her eyes were cold as steel. In that pose, we both stood for a moment.

“Can I go upstairs now?” - with a sullen look. There was nothing to attach to in this conversation. As there was nothing here – but the that is nimburb = Not in my backyard + urb.

“You decided to sneak out, it was not my doing.” Like getting 20 years for processing marijuana - just because it is written down, does not mean it is just.

“But a month of grounding is not fair.”

“When you live on your own, that will be your choice. However, you are still in our household.” Prattle prattle prattle, blablabla. It was harsh, and both of us knew it. In particular, she knew it. Moi-même, je pour moi part avec certitude.

I turned around to go up the back stairs - when she added:

“Think on what you did wrong, and maybe you will not have to go through this again.” In a few months, college will beckon, and that will be that. Since there is only one more semester that will be recorded, it should not be too hard to get out in one piece - but my face displayed none of these traits.

Upstairs in my room, everything was quiet, and for the moment away from my mother - and the lights had been turned off. This was the point where I reached for the folded packet of typewritten letters and opened them to see what they were about. They held a certain crispness from age. A certain delicacy was required. Not recognizing the script that typewriter used - IBM was the only kind that had any recognition, and this, was not that - the one thing that was clear was that it was a manual typewriter. Some of the letters conveyed force, but not all. Settling down, 1st page was odd - was it a memoir? The beginning of a short story? Reminisces of time pasted, or plastered? But, 1st came the reading, then and only then could other decisions be made.

Having read the 1st couple of pages, it seemed like a story. Not a polished one, mind you - but a story nonetheless. It seemed to be written by a man, both the cadence and tone conveyed a sense that it was from his point of view. It was brusque. It made me wonder what Nebraska felt like. Was this what the author of the story of? Why Nebraska anyway? And why Nebraska City? Note down to look up Nebraska City on Wikipedia. It had to be a small place, it would be swallowed in this part of the world. Here it would be a small suburb, there it might be a town of its own, with nothing but, as the expression goes, miles and miles of miles and miles. What do they do to make that vast empty roadway seem magical, mystical? Neither noun nor verb spills out any form.

But the last sentences had a ring to them which did not come from a man: none are so given with hope, as the mother is for her little girl. Never stand between a mother and her progeny - never get between a person and her dreams for those who are just barely delivered. No, not never, nowhere beneath the sun. With aplomb to the bard.