In This Story, The Role of Jess Will Be Played by a Drunk Hobo

Yesterday my father called me in the morning. He called from Florida. Specifically, a beach in Florida. I thought this was cruel and unnecessary, especially since I was sitting on the couch and staring out at the front yard, which was buried under another blanket of snow we'd gotten the night before, a blanket that had me rubbing the sleep from my eyes at 5:30 AM and saying No way am I driving to school in that. I'm going back to bed.

When my father called later he wanted to know about the weather and the snow. The news down there was making a big deal of the snow that we'd gotten the night before.

I told him it was enough to make travel sort of crappy but the amount didn't seem staggering. "I think we got a couple inches," I told him. "Maybe four. Something like that."

My father wanted to know if I was going to need to plow the driveway. He was concerned because I've only ever plowed the driveway once in my life, and that was while he stood outside and watched to make sure I didn't foul it up too bad. I told him I probably would but later, maybe in a day or two. It was no big deal I told him.

I must have been drunk. I must have been hallucinating. I must have been blinded by the fresh sunlight falling on all that new snow because what I'd identified as being maybe four inches turned out to be much more than that. Later that afternoon as I was squinting out the front window to see what kind of shoes (flats? boots?) I would need to go outside and get the mail, I realized the driveway looked funny. The snow wasn't as low as I had originally thought. I no longer needed to concern myself with what kind of shoes I'd need to get to the mailbox--now I needed to think about what kind of pants I'd need to get out there. When I went outside, the snow came up to my knee.

I misjudged that one. A lot.

Now it was clear that I was going to have to plow, and soon. It couldn't be avoided. So I did what every good country girl would do: I trooped out to the garage and slid into my father's Carhart coveralls. I wrapped my feet in a double layer of socks and stuck them into his boots. I wrapped a scarf around my neck, bundled my hands in two different pairs of gloves. I considered the blaze orange hunter's mask but decided against it. I would, after all, be sitting in the enclosed cab of a tractor.

I waded through the snow to our big garage, where my father's workshop is, where the cars and tractors are kept. I stood staring at the trusty old John Deere--the tractor my father has owned the entire time I've been alive--and tried to mentally prepare myself. Something was going to go wrong. That was a given. I saw the tractor exploding or it getting stuck in one of the snow drifts. I saw me running into the split-rail fence that was almost invisible under the new coating of snow. I saw me arcing a beautiful shoot of snow into one of the lights attached to the garage, the light shattering in a brilliant pop of glass shards.

But before I could get to any of those scenarios, I'd have to start the tractor. That was no small task. It's an old tractor, and it's been through many repairs over the years. My father has things rigged to work in ways they didn't work when they came off the line. The choke, for instance, used to work just fine--I could start the tractor with no problem, just by pulling out the choke, letting the engine gurgle to life, then pushing the choke back in. The choke lever, however, no longer works. Now you have to pop the hood open, find the choke cable, and pull it manually.

Even though I'd recently had a crash-course on which cord was the choke cord, when I opened the hood and peered down into the engine, every cord looked the same. They were all black. They all led to the engine. I sighed. I sighed and started pulling.

Miraculously, I identified the right cord and when I turned the key the engine flopped over. Exhaust coughed out the sides. I clapped my hands--proud of my accomplishment--and swung my leg over the tractor seat and tested out all the levers: this one was to raise the plow, this one was to lower the plow. There were levers to start the plow blades and levers to turn the plow chute so the spray of snow went where exactly where you wanted it.

That's where I ran into the first problem. The chute was frozen and wouldn't turn. If I eased out of the garage right then, the snow would spray behind me, back into the tractor's bay. I sighed. I sighed and swung my leg back over the tractor and walked around to the front. I kicked the chute. I kicked the chute again and again and again until it gave and moved when I told it to move.

I got back on the tractor and eased it out of the garage. I'd forgotten to lower the plow, so I had to back up and try again. Snow shot out of the chute. I clapped again and pushed the tractor forward even more. The snow was thick and high. The tractor groaned and the plow tried to chew the big drifts. The tires spun, trying to find traction. I started praying that I didn't get stuck in the middle of the driveway. If that happened, I'd have to call my uncle or my grandfather, and one of them would have to come over in their own Carharts to dig me out, all the while thinking what a silly, silly girl I was. I was determined to do it on my own.

I backed up and did another pass. Things went better this time, and I was even able to angle myself so I could take a large pass at the top of the driveway. Then I was able to take another and another and another. I plowed only the part of the driveway that was absolutely necessary. I didn't want to push it. I didn't want to get cocky. I just wanted to clear enough space for me to walk between one garage and the other, enough space for me to back my car out of its bay, enough space for me to sneak out of the driveway.

After I was done and had parked the tractor back in its bay, I went outside and surveyed my handiwork. The cleared sections weren't even. Some were cleared closer to the ground than others. There were even triangles of unplowed snow--places where I couldn't get the tractor to maneuver the way I wanted it to. It was messy. It was ugly. It was a real slipshod job. It looked like a drunk hobo had clambered up on the tractor and decided to pass some time by seeing how the contraption worked.

Still, I felt pretty damn good about myself. I hadn't gotten stuck. I hadn't broken anything. I hadn't had to place an awkward phone call to any of my relatives, asking them to dig me out. I went back inside and peeled myself out of the coveralls, the boots, the gloves, the scarves, the hats. I threw another couple logs on the woodstove, made myself a hot chocolate, and stretched out on the couch to watch reruns of Project Runway. I felt accomplished and badass. I didn't even care that if my grandfather or uncle happened to come by and survey the driveway they would think my father had gotten looped on a little too much Mogen David blackberry wine then decided to get up on the John Deere.

I didn't care at all. I had a way to get out, and in an hour I would drive to West Seneca for my Valentine's Day dinner with Becky, where we would eat wings, drink vodka, and then comb two different drug stores to find just the right half-price Valentine's Day candy for dessert.