An Almost Perfect Moment by Binnie Kirshenbaum Page A

it female troubles. On his first Saturday in Plattsburgh, very early in the morning, so early that really it was still night, his cousin Thomas woke him up and asked, “You want to come skiing with me and my father?”
    John Wosileski knew nothing of skiing, but that his cousin Thomas, John’s idol, had extended the invitation was reason enough to say yes.
    “Dress warm,” Thomas said, “in layers. We’ll meet you downstairs.”
    In the kitchen, Aunt Marie insisted they have a hot breakfast. Farina, which John had never had before and didn’t much like either. Nonetheless, he ate it all because Aunt Marie had said, “No one’s going nowhere until those bowls are empty.”
    The drive was short, and when they arrived, John’s feet were fit into boots that were bound onto skis. Uncle Joe gave him a few pointers. “Knees bent, like this. Poles here. Yeah, like that. You’re a natural,” Uncle Joe said. “Ready?” he asked, and John was set free. He let go. Let go and down the slope and whoosh, he let go of all that was bleak and dour and sad. Let go of his unhappy parents and their dreary apartment with the yellow ruffled curtain at the kitchen window that faced an air shaft, the only attempt at gaiety, yellow which was fading to a dingy off-white the same color as his underpants. Let go of the stink of kielbasa and cabbage and beer that permeated the walls and the ceiling and even his pillow smelled from it. Let go of the tension between his mother and father, tension as thick as his father’s neck. Who knew there could be such absolution? Who knew there could be snow crisp and clean, free of black soot, free of yellow dog piss; white snow as it was meant to be, and fir trees, evergreens, and whoosh down a mountain trail and his cheeks were red like candy apples and his nose ran and even falling was like being sprung from a trap, the way he could get up and go whoosh again in an instant.
    John skied as if the trail and towrope were perpetual, with no beginning and no end. Refusing to stop even for lunch, and on the drive home, his uncle behind the wheel and Thomas in the passenger seat and John alone in the back staring out the window, heprayed to God for his mother to die. If his mother died in the hospital, then maybe he could stay here in Plattsburgh, live in the house with Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie and his cousins, especially Thomas, and he could go skiing every day. Please, please, please, God. Let her die. Please. Then, realizing what he was asking, the horribleness of it, worse than a mortal sin, a one-way ticket to hell for sure, John took it back and instead asked if God could keep his mother in the hospital until the spring thaw.
    Two weeks later, John Wosileski was back in Brooklyn and whatever female troubles his mother had appeared to be over. Everything was exactly the same as it had been before except maybe now his mother looked even more pinched, more haggard, and also now John had a dream for himself. His dream was to someday, somehow, find a way to live in Plattsburgh, New York.
    When it was time to go to college—something his mother had wanted for her son but his father considered a waste of four years when the boy could be out earning a decent wage—John went to the State University of New York at—ta-da!—Plattsburgh—Ski Whiteface! Instead of living in a dormitory with other students, he stayed with Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie, his three cousins now grown and living away from home. A student loan covered the tuition, and his part-time job as a clerk at a convenience store at night afforded him a pair of secondhand skis and lift tickets. During the winter he got to ski on weekends. During the winter, on weekends, he could be happy and it was wondrous until the end of his junior year, when Aunt Marie and Uncle Joe told him that they were selling the house and moving to Arizona because they were getting too old for the harsh Plattsburgh winters.
    John returned to Brooklyn, finished his last