was on the committee that put on the North Port Annual Christmas Parade and he was on his way to see her as she organized the floats. Some of those floats were going to need to be pulled by teams of snowmobiles this year, the man thought to himself, as he eyed the drifts in the street before him. Light flakes that were still tumbling down caught and accumulated in his mustache. The man worked with the Transportation Department, not a simple job way up here along the Canadian border. He had gotten a few calls just past five AM from worried citizens that feared that the parade would be canceled because of the snow but Port North was a hardy little town and the show would go on with or without the snowplows. That was how the Mayor had finished the debate with him earlier that morning before angrily hanging up. He looked at the ice sculpture of the kneeling man and thought for a moment before deciding to put it in the back of his truck and take it with him. When he arrived at the starting point of the parade his girlfriend Brenda came up carrying mistletoe. She held it over his head and then kissed him, letting her lips linger on his face for a couple of extra seconds.
“Mmmm, your mustache tastes good.”
“I had a cup of cocoa for breakfast.”
She noticed the frozen figure of a man in the back of his truck. “What have you got there?”
“Well, he’s Ice Man, apparently,” said Gus, pointing to the name on his chest.
“Of course he is. What are you doing with him?”
“I thought he might look nice on top of one of the floats. Look. He’s kneeling. Fits with all of the religious themes that you like. You should put him on the float that has the angels.”
“It’s kind of creepy.”
“It’s not creepy. Do you have any idea what level of skill it takes to make an ice sculpture? I saw a guy in Minneapolis carve out a brontosaurus one time when I attended a winter seminar on hazardous road conditions. These artists do it with a chainsaw and a couple of chisels. It’s amazing.”
“Okay, fine. We’ll put it on the float with the angels.”
He kissed Brenda again, a puff of steam escaping from their lips. Soon Ice Man had his place on one of the floats kneeling between two angels that had enormous white wings extended in flight. When the float started moving it looked like the flying angels were carrying the praying figure. When the float with Ice Man passed through Main Street the kids from Suicide Hill spotted it and started chanting “Ice Man – Ice Man!” Crowd mentality quickly kicked in and soon everyone along the street was laughing and chanting “Ice Man! Ice Man!” as the float passed. At the conclusion of the parade the mayor had to name one of the North Port citizens Mr. or Mrs. Christmas Cheer. To his surprise the crowd thought it funny and chanted “Ice Man – Ice Man!” again. The mayor protested a bit but eventually had to give in to the folks that put him in office. And so it was, Ice Man was crowned Mr. Christmas Cheer. The mayor reluctantly posed for pictures with Ice Man. Beauty pageant winner of the Miss Port North contest, Irene Hinkle, also posed with Ice Man, kissing him on the cheek, which was the tradition, but needed to have her lips freed from his icy head with a cup of hot chocolate that Jenny Pepper fortunately had with her. Luckily, Jenny had actually been using the toasty beverage to help keep her hands warm rather than drink it. Jenny was dressed as an elf but with long underwear and multiple sweatpants underneath her costume. A boy from school that she had a crush on walked past and told her that she looked like a fat elf. The Port North beauty queen nearly suffered a panic attack when her lips swelled up. But Jenny quickly pointed out that her lips looked like those of starlets that inject their lips with collagen. The two of them scrutinized her face in the side mirror of someone’s pickup and she decided that she didn’t actually mind the look of her frostbitten lips. They looked sexy.
A hoodlum and member of the local snowmobile gang known as the Penguins, Robert Bootser, in a daring exhibition of bravado, right in front of the parade crowd, snatched frozen Conrad from the float and rode off with him bungee tied to the back of his snowmobile, laughing all the way.
Later that night Ice Man sat in the midst of the Penguin’s midnight bonfire on Lake Paul Bunyan, wrapped in a blanket and a Packers hat, a pair of sunglasses on his face reflecting the flames. Someone had poured water on his palm and then froze a can of beer into his hand. It looked very natural.
Tiny Miller, who had had a horrible fight with her abusive boyfriend Randy, after he had gotten drunk on eggnog that was more booze than nog, drunkenly slid under Ice Man’s blanket with a bottle of Moosehead. Her words were severely slurred as she tried to confide in her new beau. When Randy saw what was happening he blew up.
“Tiny, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I like him, okay! You don’t own me, Randy!”
“He’s not a real man!”
“You’re not a real man!”
“He doesn’t have a heart!”
“You don’t have a heart!”
“Stop repeating me right now, baby. I mean it.”
“You’ll never be the kind of man he is.”
A very drunk Karen Rucklebee stumbled up to Ice Man and pulled her choppers off with her teeth. Then took off her parka. Then struggled to undo the straps of her snow pants so that she could get to her sweater. Then she pulled up the sweater and one layer of clothing after the other as if searching for something. The folds of her t-shirts and sweaters occasionally worked back down which caused her to start over again with the outer sweater. She finally managed to reach under and tug out from beneath the whole mess one painful, crushed, steaming breast, exposing herself to frozen Conrad, an attempt to both shock and seduce.
“What are your think of them?” She belched. “For that? Some-ma-bit, hmmm, Ice…guy?” she said, swaying back and forth in front of him defiantly.
“Get on with ya, Karen! For gosh sakes, put your booby away and move on! This matter has nothing to do with you!” said Randy, angrily, his Finish accent extra heavy whenever he was upset. “Can’t ya see we’re havin a lover’s squabble?” Randy pointed at Conrad. “And he’s the source of it!”
Karen worked at returning her many layers of clothing as she stumbled off into the dark. Tiny cussed at her back.
“Don’t make me smash this guy, Tiny. You know how I can get!”
“He’ll smash you, Raaannndyyy,” she said, mockingly. Then she took a swig of her beer and attempted to spit it at him but it just dribbled down her jacket and froze.
When the other members of the snowmobile gang saw what was happening, the leader of the group, Garth, wearing a hat made out of a coyote, its teeth resting on his forehead, its paws hanging down alongside his ears as if the animal were hugging his head, stepped forward to handle the escalating situation. He took the cigarette he was smoking out of his mouth and placed it between the coyote’s sharp teeth, the toxic vapor twisting up into the dark blue toward the stars like a restless white worm. He raised a bottle of Red Vampire vodka that he was drinking to get everyone’s attention.
“Listen up, everybody. Randy and Ice Man both want Tiny. We can settle this. They will compete for her!” He said it with the drama of a man introducing a duel in Medieval Times. The other members of the snowmobile gang clapped with approval. “We’ll decide who gets her with the Ride to the Edge.”
“Ride to the edge! Ride to the edge!” the Penguins chanted.
The Ride to the Edge was a contest of courage in which two men road snowmobiles farther and farther out onto the lake toward the center where the ice was too thin to support them. Whoever stopped or turned back first lost. The Penguins fashioned a log soaked in kerosene to a chain and attached that to the back of each snowmobile and set them ablaze so that they could see both of the machines as they rode through the drifts of snow toward the center of the lake. They bungeed frozen Conrad to Robert Bootser’s machine and Randy lined up across from him on his machine. After several more eggnogs Randy was ready to duel.
“You see that?” He pointed to the crest on the shoulder of his parka with a penguin on it.
“That means pride. You’ve got no business with my girl, Ice Man. We’ll see what kind of man you are.”
Randy revved his engine before dropping it into gear and taking off. Garth had wrapped one of the bungee cords to the accelerator on frozen Conrad’s machine. He pulled it tight, secured it, and dropped the snowmobile into gear. It lurched into action and quickly caught up with Randy who cursed at him when he saw Ice Man pull up alongside him. Randy was forced to increase his speed in order to keep up with frozen Conrad. The two warriors running side by side went deeper and deeper into unblemished snow, Randy’s heart in his throat the entire time until it was too much for him and he backed off to watch Ice Man continue. The humiliation of losing in front of the other Penguins crushed Randy. He knelt in the white powder and pounded on the frozen lake, feeling beaten, dominated by the bigger dog in the pack, but to his dismay Ice Man didn’t stop. He kept going. Beaten and humiliated or not Randy knew that this man was a Penguin, a brother, and he couldn’t stand to see him take his own life. He cupped his hands around his mouth and desperately screamed after him.
“Stop, Ice Man, stop! You’ve already won! What are you trying to prove? You don’t have to do this! She’s yours! Tiny is yours! Stop!”
But Ice Man just kept going and going until he dropped