Winter Storm

By Justin Carter

It was that February all of Texas turned to ice. I spent three days in my apartment, the power flickering on and off every few hours, just me, the cat, a bottle of vodka I was nursing. By the time it was gone and I needed something else to sustain my drunkenness, the bar down the street had opened back up. The owner was this short, angry woman who was just a few weeks out of jail for beating her boyfriend. Let’s say her name was Ruby. I spent a lot of evenings in that little dive, knocking back Lone Stars, staying until she turned the lights up and told everyone left to get out. I’d keep doing that until she went to jail again, until the bank foreclosed on the place. It’s a payday loan spot now. I still go there.
There were these two older men in the corner. I recognized most people who went there, but not these guys. They drank whiskey on the rocks. Ruby came over and sat a beer in front of me. She didn’t have to ask. Wilson was there too. We were the best of friends when we were on those stools but had never even talked outside that door. He did something with crypto. I’d listen to him talk about it because what else was there to do.
“This cold mess with your computers?,” I asked. “Making your coins or whatever.” He’d explained it all many times, but it was in one ear, out the other.
“I’ve got backup power.”
“Bet that cost a pretty penny.”
“I’ll get your next one.”
Wilson was probably a millionaire. This one time I caught him moving about $40,000 on his phone from one account to another, just casually transferring amounts that would have changed my life. Sometimes I’d mention I was broke and he’d buy me a beer, which meant I could buy myself an extra one at the end of the night.
“Goddamn cold,” I said.
“People died,” he said.
“Shit,” I said. “I ain’t really looked at the news.”
“Lots.”
“Shit.”
He flagged down Ruby and got a couple shots of SoCo. I could barely handle the stuff. This one time when I was nineteen, we had a party where we only drank SoCo Amaretto Limes because of that one Brand New song. I ended up breaking a picnic table. I knew the wood was all rotted but I sat on top of it anyway and the whole thing collapsed under me. This girl I was seeing ran over to check on me. Said she was going to call 911 because my arm was gashed open. I said no, it’s fine, just a little blood. There’s still a scar.
We sat and talked about nothing for a long while. I never knew what half the things he said were, but he was confident about them. I nodded along, something about decentralization. Eventually, he settled his tab. Had to get back to his girlfriend, which was always what he said at the end of the night. I never saw her, so who knows if she was real. If anything was real.
The two older guys were still there. There’d been a few comers and goers, but at that point it was them, me, Ruby. It was snowing again. They could have rolled another blackout at any time. I grabbed a fresh beer and slid over toward the men.
“Gentlemen,” I said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
They didn’t, or at least they said they didn’t. One of the guys was probably late 60s, veins poking through his skin, overalls with a John Deere hat. The other was maybe ten years his junior, that age where you can’t hide you’re going bald but you feel too young to just let it all go. He had this big Tom Selleck mustache and a pair of sunglasses on top of his head. What a surprise that he used to be on the force. They asked me about the weather, if I was surviving it, how many times I’d lost power. The cop, he said he grew up in Michigan and even though he was used to this sort of thing, this was the worst he could remember. I made a joke about the power grid and Republicans and they shot me a look, so I played it off—haha, it’s all politicians, both sides, and the other man, a grass farmer, laughed and clinked his glass against mine. We kept drinking. It was all there was for us. Eventually, the ex-cop started talking about his son. He was gay, the son, and the guy had kicked him out at eighteen. Fifteen years ago. First ten of those, he had no idea where he was, but then he showed up at the father’s door one day. He said it was the second time he’d ever cried. He didn’t tell me what the first was. I guess the third time was that night, because he started weeping. The son was living with him now. He’d left the blue line and was just trying to mend things that couldn’t really be mended.
“I just want to be a good father,” he said. He was sobbing like I’d never seen a man do. He put his arms around me. I didn’t know what to say so I just told him he was a good father, the best father. It seemed easiest. His friend said come on buddy, let’s get you out of here, and then the two of them were gone. Ruby handed me another beer, on the house, she said. It was all I could do to finish half of it.

Justin Carter is the author of Brazos (Belle Point Press, 2024). Originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, he currently lives in Iowa and works as a sportswriter and editor.