The dead of winter. Bitter cold, back east, nightfall.

Mom was down south, easing a wealthy patrician woman to the other side of terminal cancer via a voyage on a sea of morphine. The high-paying gig was necessary to clear the pile of debt generated by my childhood of orthopedic surgery.

Dad, out of the picture for a while now, was in Maine, raising his new family in a charming island home. I could hypothesize that he was nestled in his den, the icy North Atlantic churning outside. A fireplace probably crackled as he sat in his leather chair with a good book and some hot tea.

My best bud, blood brother, partner-in-crime Rico was doing another stint in rehab. Once again, his parent's lawyers had gotten him into a cushy treatment facility in lieu of juvenile detention.

Earlier that day an argument with the monstrous Little Miss Trust Fund had bounced me out of the warm opulence of her family's guesthouse and back into the grim reality of the cold, endless street.

Way below zero, it was the kind of cold that will surely take your breath or, if fate lurks, snatch your very life. At sixteen years, I found myself alone in the wilderness.

Rows of trees passed as I piloted my ancient Volvo station wagon through the deep Pennsylvania dark. The gas gauge read less than a quarter tank, and my bankroll amounted to two dollars and twenty cents. I was kind of hungry, but the bite of winter dominated my perception.

It was later in the desperate evening when I motored up the long, winding driveway leading to my grandmother's estate. A familiar dreamscape, my father's childhood home. Legend has it that I was conceived in one of its back bedrooms.

Frozen snow crunched under my sneakers as I cut across a side yard where I once frolicked with cousins in childhood summertime reverie. I made my way to the front door of the stately residence.

I rang the bell. A couple of minutes passed with no response, so I rang again.

My grandmother appeared through a pane of glass, looking “rather cross,” as she would say.

"Hi, Gram," I smiled.

The large door opened just wide enough to reveal her round face. Classical music played faintly in the background.

Grandmother's manner and style of speech was calm and regal.

"William, it's late," she said disapprovingly.

"I apologize, Gram. It's just that I'm kinda stuck here in town tonight, and I don't have anyplace to stay."

"The house is in disarray. I'm sorry, but you cannot stay here."

"The thing is, I really don't have anywhere else to go."

"No, William. I'm leaving for Maine on Friday. I must pack."

"I can help you pack,” I appealed.

"No, no. I'm afraid you can't."

"Gram, please. I have nowhere to go."

"I'm sorry, William."

She slowly closed the door.

I clumped back to my car. The cold now felt even colder.

I drove for a while, looking for any warm place to curl up for the night. But Waverly, a wealthy little hamlet in northeastern Pennsylvania, had few businesses, and they were all closed at this late hour.

I felt in a daze as I rolled past one grand estate after the next. Places that I had attended pool parties and birthday soirees as a child. The imposing mansions seemed to sneer down at me, warding me off.

Their tall fences and wrought iron gates said, "Don't even try it, kid. Move along."

The floodgates of pain and self-pity opened, and I sobbed for a while. But as always, it passed. However, my gas tank was getting lower by the mile.

I pulled into the parking lot of a church.

I got out of my car and pounded on the front door.

"Hello! Anybody in there?

God wasn't home. If he was, he chose to remain silent, as usual.

The wind howled. It was cold in my parked car even with the heater on. I realized that the gas would probably only last for a couple of hours. I sparked my last joint, cracked open Kerouac's On the Road, and read by the dome light until I faded into an uneasy sleep.

The morning came and poured bright light over my face. I awoke abruptly. My vehicle's engine was dead. The gas must have run out hours ago. I could feel neither my hands nor feet. My whole body was semi-frozen. I let out a moan and started to rub my numb appendages to awaken some sensation. It seemed futile.

Still trying to shake off the freeze, I hobbled to the quiet road. Within a minute or two, an old Mercedes appeared in the cold distance and slowly motored toward me. I stuck out my thumb and was happily surprised that the Benz pulled right over. I ran up to the car, opened the passenger's side door, and beheld an old man I recognized as former Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton. "Bill" Scranton was the blue blood patriarch of the city which bears his family name. Waverly, about fifteen miles north of Scranton, was where the city's rich and powerful resided, away from and above the common mass.
Old man Scranton was very cool. Nixon once asked him to be Secretary of State. He declined. We chit chatted about things as he drove me to a gas station to fetch a can of fuel and then back to my car.

On the road once again, I tracked down a kid in Dalton and collected a hundred and twenty bucks that he owed me for some weed.

I got a room for the night at the Comfort Inn in Clarks Summit. Little did I know then that in about six months I would lose my virginity in that very motel. One of Rico's girls, a lovely, damaged, blond teen-goddess named Sophie, would seduce me with a pilfered bottle of Cutty Sark, then pop my cherry.

Saturday rolled around, and I found my money, weed, and gas again running low.

I knew Grandmother had left for Maine the previous day. She would stay for several months. Her large house would sit empty for the rest of the winter. But, because of the number of expensive antiques and paintings that adorned her home, it would remain heated to seventy-three degrees for the entire cold season. Her house, the oldest in Waverly, was built in the 1800s. It was part of the original Underground Railroad, designed to sneak runaway slaves north, full of secret passages. I knew the place like the back of my hand.

Right after nightfall, I tucked my car into a patch of pine trees near the rear access road of the estate. I then moved with stealth across the tundra to the back terrace of the main house. Using an identification card, I easily picked the lock of an ornate door. Once inside, I removed my coat and basked in the warm. It was an eerie old house. It spooked me a little, but it was less scary then the icy specter of winter that laid in wait outside. I walked across rare oriental rugs, past the large main staircase, and through the library filled with antique first editions. I opened a well-appointed liquor cabinet and poured myself a tall single malt scotch. My grandfather had died in this house about a year earlier. He had succumbed after a descent into dementia. On his way out, Grandmother finally got her chance to make him pay for the philandering ways of his middle age. As a hotshot engineer and the bigwig owner of a large construction company that built a good deal of the city of Scranton, he had kept several sexy young mistresses.

A hard matriarch, grandmother often treated him like a dog in his twilight years. I remember passing grandpa's room once and hearing snippets of his senile dreams.

"Please don't eat me up," he beseeched.

I wondered what nightmare entity he was pleading with. A jungle predator, my grandmother, a giant vagina? A porcelain lamp in the corner of the library popped on by itself, startling me. Then spooky classical music began to play, sending a shiver down my spine. My heart pounded until I realized that the lights and stereo were on timers to simulate occupancy. I let out a sigh of relief and gulped my scotch.

Later, I sparked a joint and lowered myself into an enormous cast iron bathtub filled with heavenly hot water. That night, I dreamt in the very bed upon which I began approximately seventeen years prior.