Simon and T-Man shrug and follow behind uneasily. Split takes a bag of pickling salt from the cave of his coat pocket and sets it on top of the car. He reaches into the folds of his coat and withdraws the iron bar, a tie-rod ground down to a chisel point on one end.

“Here,” he says, holding out the bag of salt away from his body without looking.

Simon takes the salt and holds it as the wind curls back the edges of brown paper.

“Sprinkle a circle around the car, maybe a foot away. Keep the line thick.”

Simon and T-Man circle the car slowly, pouring the bag out in a line. The ice booms near the channel and they hear a car horn bleat across the water on the West Bank below the Law School. They move in tandem: one walking backward while the other pours. The wind is light and they shake the bag, rationing the salt into a line around the car. Split has the tie-rod in his hands and he raises it above his head and begins to sink the point into the ice, working it into flakes that spill out onto the frozen plane like crystallized sawdust. He starts near the front end of the Fairmont, shuffling back in straight lines, almost tipping over sometimes, but catching himself, and driving the metal into the ice again and again. The wind blows above the river, above the dented current and the chunky flow of water. The air is warming.

Simon and T-Man finish pouring the salt and Simon shoves the empty bag into his coat pocket, closing his ungloved hand over the rough paper. They lean up against the car as Split teeters and jams the tie-rod again and again into the ice. They scrape away the snow with their feet. The ice is dull black. The punctures made by the steel bar bleed slushy water onto the skin of river ice. Split has perforated the shelf in two long lines, from the rear doors out at angles away from the tail of the Fairmont. He turns and works his way back to the car.

He is breathing heavily as he coughs and spits. He puts the makeshift chisel down and rubs his numb hands together before he withdraws a cigarette. He hands them the pack and they each take one. Split turns into the wind and tears a match from the book, sticks it between his index and middle fingers on the palm side, strikes it and cups his hands so the pale fire crawls up the match and jumps to the cigarette. He whips it out into the snow, takes a drag, and passes the lit cigarette over to T-Man.

“Jump start,” he says, giggling. “Better in the wind.”

Simon and T-Man nod as they roll the cherry onto their cigarettes, inhale and pass it back to Split.

“You’re a funny guy,” says T-Man. “But looks aren’t everything.”