"Breaking the Ice" - NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2022 - Round 1 entry
Hello, loves!
This is my entry for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2022 contest, round 1. I was confined to 1000 words and my prompts were: historical fiction / an icehouse / a broom.
_____
Synopsis: When a broomball league gets in the way of their ice-cutting operation, morally ambiguous working stiffs Clarence and Wilson scare them off, but the awkward meeting doesn’t end there. Can Clarence’s day get any worse?
“Applesauce,” Clarence muttered, raking off his newsboy cap. Half a dozen jalopies with chained-up tires sat in the clearing he and Silvestri had plowed on Tuesday.
The Clydesdales flicked their ears, fretting. The snow was banked up high on the shoulder. Turning the ice-wagon would be difficult. He prayed there’d be no need.
Youths in floggers had spread onto the frozen lake, clowning and throwing snow at their giggling shebas.
“They’re having a wingding here?” he complained nervously to Wilson, who dozed on the bench seat. “They didn’t read our signs?”
Wilson yawned.
One of the gatecrashers trotted over, a broom crammed under his arm. “How’s tricks, fellas?”
“Hinky,” Clarence admitted. “Your cars’re all over my jobsite. Party looks swell, but people gotta work.”
The youth sneered. “You’re workin’ here, pal? It’s Lake Michigan.”
Clarence jerked his thumb at the sign on the ice-wagon’s side.
The palooka sounded the words as he read. “’Elmo Silvestri’s Icehouse.’ Huh.” He turned to look at the icehouse itself, visible from the lake.
“Gotta cut ice, man,” Clarence said. “Can’t dewdrop all day.”
The kid blew raspberries. “Nerts. Shove off. We’re broomballing.”
Clarence scowled. “I don’t care if you’re having the Kentucky Derby, you eggs’ve gotta move so’s I can pull up.”
“It’s a free country,” the youth said, turning his back.
“Just move over there,” Clarence said. “We got blocks here already!”
The goon kept walking.
Wilson growled, “Listen, you wrong number, don’t wanna have to let the air outta you.”
“Yeah? Try us, pops. We got numbers.” The boy turned, glaring, swinging his broom.
“Yet we’ve still got the bulge,” Wilson said menacingly, moving his overcoat to show his gun.
“Judas Priest,” the kid muttered, scrambling off.
“Why’d you have to go and show him that peashooter?” Clarence complained.
Wilson chortled. “You fuckin’ daisy. They’re gonna vacate, ain’t they?”
“They’re gonna call the fuzz.”
“For what? Cutting ice?”
Clarence grumbled, “that sap’ll cause trouble,” but the kid was already cranking his jalopy, his arm around his squeeze. He roared the engine as they passed, scaring the horses.
Three more of the heaps presently followed, gunning their engines and soiling the snowpack with soot. The girls made rude gestures.
“Very ladylike,” Clarence snorted.
“Times are a-changing,” Wilson said dryly.
“That little bearcat in the flivver’s the dish.”
Wilson snorted.
“Well?” a broomballer hollered through megaphone hands. “Dance floor’s yours.”
“Some dance floor,” Clarence grumbled, parking the ice-wagon. “Thanks for nothing,” he called.
The kids jeered, moving their game out to the pristine ice midway between the clearings. They started broomballing again while Wilson and Clarence pulled out tools and surveyed the ice.
“Fuckin’ animals,” Clarence crabbed. The kids had wrecked the area. Mangled ice, dirty footprints, spilled coffee, cigarette ash, spittle, and blood – Christ, what kinda game was broomball anyway? Some of the cut blocks Wilson and Clarence had stacked up last trip had been urinated on. “No respect.”
“Maybe they’ll break a leg in the ice holes. Forget them.” Wilson hoisted a clean block.
Clarence snickered.
The broomball league played all day, it seemed. Even from the icehouse, Clarence could still see them, hearing their raucous catcalls while he and Wilson off-loaded.
They stacked the blocks in the ice well. Clarence built little igloos around a couple long, tarpaulin-wrapped bundles. He didn’t examine them. The bloody ice made him think of broomball.
Silvestri hovered near the doors, looking anxiously out at the game. “You had to wind up those mooks?”
“That’s what I told Wilson.”
“Screwy goon is gonna land us in the wrong kinda cooler, savvy?”
Clarence grimaced. “Hope not, Boss. Got any joe?”
“This is a juice joint, you ape,” Silvestri spat. “Hit a diner after hours.”
Two black sedans drove up into the salted gravel lot.
“What in blazes,” Wilson grated, blowing on his gloves to warm them.
“Wonderful. Snoopers.” Silvestri stomped into the icehouse. “Stall ‘em, for the love of Christ.”
Presently, Clarence could hear him cursing and heaving ice blocks off the dolly in the ice well. He licked parched lips.
A man got out of one of the sedans, approached the ice-wagon, wrenched open the back, and climbed in.
Alarmed, Clarence hustled over. “Hey! Leave that ice alone!”
Another newcomer waylaid him. “Hi-de-ho, gents. Whatcha doing?”
“Unloading ice,” Clarence said, glancing at Wilson.
The newcomer flashed his badge. It read “Howell.”
“…Officer,” Clarence added.
Howell laughed. “What’s your name?”
“Clarence Dooley.”
“That Silvestri?”
“That’s my co-worker, Eugene Wilson. Silvestri’s minding store.” The sounds of slamming ice from inside rattled Clarence’s nerves.
Howell grunted. “He the big cheese?”
Clarence shrugged. “I guess. The owner, anyway.”
Another cop climbed into the wagon.
Howell asked, “Y’all selling liquor in this speakeasy?”
Clarence protested. “Naw, no booze, we just sell ice.”
Wilson asked, “Is there some problem?”
Howell shrugged. “We had a complaint about a threat. Know anything about that?”
Clarence’s heart sank. “No, sir.”
“You strapped?”
“No, sir.”
“How about Wilson?”
Clarence tensed. “Think so, actually.”
“Yup,” Wilson said.
“Okay, then. Been waving it around?”
“No, sir.” It wasn’t technically bunkum; Wilson hadn’t waved it, exactly. “But one of ‘em may have seen it and spooked.”
Howell opened his notebook. “Hmm. You know Al Capone?”
Clarence snorted. “Sure. From the papers. Not personally, though.”
“How about the Henderson brothers? Couple of bootleggers? You know their whereabouts?”
“Never heard of ‘em.”
The men emerged from the wagon. One nodded. “Wagon’s clean!”
Howell patted Wilson’s shoulder. “No harm done, boys. Spoiled brats love giving us working stiffs a hassle. Still, mind your manners.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilson said, “yes, officer.” Clarence hoped Howell couldn’t perceive his friend’s scalding sarcasm.
Howell smiled and moved toward his car, but paused to inspect a tarpaulin on the railing, still smudged with blood and dirt; Clarence had put it between the filthy broomball ice and fresh blocks.
Howell turned to stare at Clarence. “Is this blood?”
The other cops – and Wilson – reached for their guns.
“Aw, applesauce,” Clarence groaned.
Distantly, he could hear the broomballers cheer.
Love your use of colloquial language in here--the swears used by the characters, especially. You did a really solid job of weaving together three prompts that I would have utterly no idea how to combine, and I like the specificity of many of your choices--not horses but Clydesdales, 'salted' gravel lot, etc. Strong and punchy end line. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you! One of the commenters on the contest site forum tells me that the colloquial language is too much and felt inauthentic, but overall it seems to be going over well. I wonder what the judges will think :)
Delete