Avalanche by Joseph Scapellato art by Benjamin S. Jones The boy’s father’s father would fall backwards into banks of snow and let the sled dogs pile on. He’d only rise after each one licked his face. From the front yard he’d tap the kitchen window until the boy came running and pressed his nose to the pane, heard the dogs barking, and saw the freezing streaks and patches in the old man’s beard. When a dog died it was the worst you’d ever seen him, and every time. The boy’s mother’s mother sculpted little men from blocks of ice. The boy would watch her hands, striped in burn-scars, and listen to her humming. He’d copy her humming when he found himself alone. Before she died she carved the boy a smiling dwarf. It had the look of someone who knew exactly what you meant. He hid the figure in the freezer, imagining he’d saved a life. Winter was when the boy’s mother laughed the cleanest. In the evening her eyes would blink at different rates. She was sweaty in the other seasons, always wearing many layers, sweaters, blankets, turtlenecks, and if you asked her how she was she sometimes said, "I wouldn’t know." Or, "Don’t you know?" In the winter when the boy’s father wasn’t out working they’d play "Avalanche," which meant the boy would count to ten while buried beneath shoveled mounds of snow. With the weight came sweats and stifled flailing and the dim, primal threat of a wet and heavy death, but when the boy hit ten in his head and burst through thrashing it was to relief, clean air, his father waving, both screaming "Avalanche!" and hoping for reburial, one more burial, "Avalanche!" they’d bellow, louder, until laughing so hard their heads carried off and they tumbled into churned-up cushions of snow, grinning and gasping, out of it together. At the end of his life the boy told his daughter, who was pregnant: "Even so I never knew them." His daughter was sharp. "Did you want to?" He sat thinking in his wheelchair, in her house, wrapped in white blankets. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2012 by its authors. Joseph Scapellato was born in the suburbs of Chicago and earned his MFA in Fiction at New Mexico State University. He teaches English/Creative Writing as an adjunct professor at Susquehanna University and Bucknell University. His fiction appears/is forthcoming in The Collagist, Unsaid, Gulf Coast, Prick of the Spindle, Willows Wept Review, and Fringe. Read the interview. Benjamin S. Jones is currently holed-up in his firehouse-bunker-studio in Brooklyn. The removal of the ancient and rickety fireman's pole and his phobia of stairs keep him pacing about his studio, thinking about open spaces. Luckily, there is still one restaurant that will venture past the draw-bridge and deliver sustenance to his lonesome fortress. Issue Twenty-Eight (July 25, 2010): Young Waitresses by Steve Almond «» Frank by Matt Baker «» The Life and Times of Dmitri Kulikov by Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf «» Scapegoat by Thomas Cooper «» What You Could Catch Me Bumping by Craig Davis «» Complicit by Gay Degani «» What You See When You Think of Home by John Mark DeMoss «» In the Attic by Murray Dunlap «» A Flower Thing by Jen Gann «» Seahorse Sex by Molly Giles «» Gertie by Kyle Hemmings «» Vertigo by Ann Hillesland «» Rock by Stephanie Johnson «» A Shot of Whatever by David LaBounty «» Palo Alto by Paul Lisicky «» The Lake House by Michelle McMahon «» Hell Is a Headline by Emily McPhillips «» How I Liked the Avocados by Wendy Oleson «» Regrets by Bridget Pelkie «» What Passes for Normal by Michelle Reale «» Avalanche by Joseph Scapellato «» Last Seen Leaving by Laura Ellen Scott «» Explicable by Sabrina Stoessinger «» A Fistful of Buttercups by Nancy Stebbins «» My Maggie by Eugenia F. Tsutsumi «» The Ghost by Russell Whitaker «» The Strain of Collusion by xTx «» Interviews: Steve Almond «» Matt Baker «» Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf «» Thomas Cooper «» Craig Davis «» Gay Degani «» John Mark DeMoss «» Murray Dunlap «» Jen Gann «» Molly Giles «» Kyle Hemmings «» Ann Hillesland «» Stephanie Johnson «» David LaBounty «» Michelle McMahon «» Emily McPhillips «» Wendy Oleson «» Bridget Pelkie «» Michelle Reale «» Joseph Scapellato «» Laura Ellen Scott «» Nancy Stebbins «» Sabrina Stoessinger «» Eugenia F. Tsutsumi «» xTx «» Cover Art "Wall Street Must Be Tripping" by Marty D. Ison «» Letter From the Editor Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). You'll receive updates detailing the release of new issues, new reading periods, contests, etc. We do not make our mail list available to anyone else.