‘There are certain moments, acts of violence (intentional or otherwise) being the most common, when a game veers into something more serious. Imagine a water balloon fight when a cornered child picks up a rock. Imagine a paintball match when a player huddles near a ditch, hoping the enemy will trip. Imagine a new boxer exchanging form for fury- the adrenaline of the first angry strike, the surprised look on the face of the opponent. The tissue-paper guise of competitive recreation tears so easily that it’s a wonder we are able to look our barista in the eyes without preparing for the small chance she chooses to leap over the counter and strangle us as we claw our pockets for a debit card and wonder aloud about the weather.
The illusion wavered in a big way outside of Kenmare, North Dakota in 2014 where stands ‘The Black Ice Behemoth.’ Existing in one form or another since the early nineties, ‘The Black Ice Behemoth’ is a vaguely humanoid structure of ice, snow, and debris- a frozen slurry of the sort one might find hanging from the back of a pick-up truck in February. The day/night temperature rotation keeps ‘The Behemoth’ from retaining any fine details but grants it a smooth, glistening surface and a translucency that glows orange-brown with the sunset. Standing atop a hill, ‘The Black Ice Behemoth’ varied in size for just over a decade as participants regularly stopped to rub snow and ice onto it, based on some loose tradition of good luck.
As ‘The Behemoth’ grew in popularity so too did it grow in size. By 2005 its head rarely drooped below 15’ and its legless base expanded to encompass the trunks of nearby trees. Around this time, the tradition began to evolve- the survival of ‘The Behemoth’ into spring and early summer suggested healthy crops, safer work on the oil fields, lower taxes, or whatever else a hopeful mid-westerner might ask of a non-denominational snow idol. Hearing that ‘The Black Ice Behemoth’ was slouching in the sun or cracking along a side became a reason for the high school football team to drive out en-masse to repair it, hauling snow from miles away as necessary, laughing all the while lest anybody think they took the matter too seriously.
2007 is reportedly the first year ‘The Black Ice Behemoth’ survived the summer, if only as a mildly-phallic ice monolith. It survived in better form the years following, its shoulders widening and its arms stretching outward as though holding up an invisible cape. The local branches of fraternal organizations divvied up time to maintain ‘The Behemoth,’ usually fund-raising in the process. It began to show up on post cards and in murals. Tourists smiled in poses next to it, laughingly took a knee at its base in mock-worship.
In the warm spring of 2014 a group of college freshman, laughing as much as anybody, decided to starve ‘The Black Ice Behemoth.’ They camped in a ring around its base, breaking no laws in the process. They huddled around it when people attempted to approach with snow and were largely responsible for felling ‘The Behemoth’s’ right arm by shaking the dead husk of a tree that it had, in recent years, grasped for support.
The following night, April 8th, they were attacked by unidentified assailants described as “…a buncha’ rednecks in masks.” One student was killed onsite, her skull cracked on the ice. Another was admitted to the local hospital in a coma, also resulting from blunt force trauma to the head. He was removed from life-support in 2017, having never regained consciousness.
A small contingent criticized the response of local authorities to the case. Candid footage of the crime scene, taken on April 9th, depicts several officers rubbing snow against ‘The Behemoth,’ their hands red with blood that is likely still encased between layers of grime and ice to this day. The area around ‘The Black Ice Behemoth’ has been ineffectually cordoned off since the incident. Strangers to the area report stern warnings from local police with surprising regularity, given the relatively rural location and a parking area that can’t be viewed from the highway. Despite this seeming vigilance, ‘The Black Ice Behemoth’ lives on, growing taller each year.’
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
