Crazy For The Storm Part 16

We're golden, I said, using one of my dad's favorite sayings. Keep it going.

I looked upslope-my words drawing me back to him. I saw the sapling tree cricked over from my earlier fall. We've only gone thirty feet, I realized. We'll never make it at this pace. Never. When I glimpsed my dad way above the tree, a sketched figure, I innately understood that I had to squash the doubt curdling inside me.

This never-ending ice curtain was all in the way you chose to see it, like water-juice water-juice.

We gotta hustle, I said to Sandra. We're in like Flynn though.

I inched lower and at first she stayed with me. My shoulder was numbing and I was so focused on my own movements that soon I was five feet below her.

Straight down to me, I coaxed her. No problemo No problemo.

Instead of moving downward Sandra's body tracked left. I couldn't climb upward to stop her. Her left hand eased over the funnel's threshold and just like that my plan went to s.h.i.+t. Sandra's arm, shoulder then hip slipped into the funnel.

CHAPTER 20.

BEFORE I KNEW it I had started the sixth grade. Grammar school was walking distance from my new house, a two-bedroom, two-bath 1940s Craftsman built on a bluff overlooking Santa Monica Bay. My dad got a great deal on it because a few years back during a big rainstorm the house next door had slid into the canyon. My dad believed our house was safe because it had been tested by the big storm and survived. it I had started the sixth grade. Grammar school was walking distance from my new house, a two-bedroom, two-bath 1940s Craftsman built on a bluff overlooking Santa Monica Bay. My dad got a great deal on it because a few years back during a big rainstorm the house next door had slid into the canyon. My dad believed our house was safe because it had been tested by the big storm and survived.

Right away I was taken off guard by my new suburban life. Most of my peers' references and quips involved video games, baseball cards and knowing the latest happenings of Starsky and Hutch Starsky and Hutch, all stuff I was unfamiliar with. So I made it my goal to learn how to play Pac-Man and watch more Starsky and Hutch Starsky and Hutch.

Within days it became painfully obvious that swearing was frowned upon and that my stories of Mexico or Topanga Beach were hardly endearing me to the neighborhood kids. They just looked at me like I was crazy, and kept me out of their conversations. And my cozy picture of walking to school with my friends was abruptly altered by the new desegregation busing law. I did get to walk along the sidewalk with my neighbors, as I had fantasized, but when we got to school we had to board a bus and drive forty minutes to South Central Los Angeles.

Some things stayed exactly the same. Nick sat in the same rocking chair watching the same news programs. My mom picked fights with him every once in a while and Sunny slept in my room. I spent my weekends on Topanga Beach surfing with the legends. Most of them had moved up the canyon or right across the highway into the Snake Pit. We all congregated around the lifeguard station (my former neighbor's house that had been converted into a lifeguard station), storing our boards in its shade, hiding our coveted bars of wax in its nooks and crannies. The beach was strange now, just a stretch of dirty sand and broken stairs leading to nothing.

That fall Nick filmed all my Sat.u.r.day-morning football games. Later in the week he would bring the Super 8 reels to the coach's house and sometimes the team would meet there and the coach would critique our plays. On game days Nick would lend me his heavy fis.h.i.+ng weights for me to stuff under my thigh pads and into my jockey cup during the weigh-in with the refs. I was the only kid in the whole league trying to weigh more than he actually did. Half of my team spent the morning in a sauna trying to lose a couple pounds so they could play. Nick was my biggest fan, cheering from the bleachers where he filmed. He told all his friends how I went head-to-head with the biggest kids and never backed down. It felt good to impress him and I wished we always got along so well. But I never knew when Nick was going to explode again, and a part of me was always braced for it, and that made it hard to trust those sweet moments.

My dad made all the games too, but never said much about them. He had damaged one of his knees playing football in high school and thought football was not worth jeopardizing hockey, skiing and surfing-sports that I had a real chance to excel in.

Winter came early and before Thanksgiving I was training with the Mount Waterman ski team-four members strong. At the end of one long day of racing gates my dad made me ski the sheer ice face back to the car. He made me ski it two more times so that I'd learn ice.

On Thanksgiving Day I skied the Cornice at Mammoth, dreaded for its ten- to fifteen-foot lip hanging over the run. It was treacherous dropping in, intermittently airborne while slicing across the wind-buffed overhang. According to my dad it was good for me so we skied it all day.

On the drive home my dad was suffering from the malaria he had contracted while working for Project India back in the '50s. It often made him feel drowsy and he told me he was going to rest one eye rest one eye. As I had done several times before, I took the wheel while his foot kept even pressure on the pedal. If a car appeared up ahead I was to wake him up even though he was supposedly just resting one eye resting one eye. It never struck me as dangerous. In fact it seemed like a good deal because when he woke from his catnap he always felt fantastic fantastic and I was always proud to share the load. and I was always proud to share the load.

I finished my homework just in time to watch All in the Family All in the Family. My mom cooked steak, serving it with brown rice and salad with walnuts and avocados. Nick came home and interrupted our show so he could watch some news special. He ate his steak with both hands and shoveled down the rice with the large serving spoon.

Near the end of the special he turned to me.

Stop chomping your food, he said.

I slowed my chewing and made sure to keep my mouth closed so no sounds would escape. During the first commercial Nick recited an article he had read about manners and how if they weren't learned young they became an embarra.s.sing indiscretion when you got older.

No more eating with your hands or chomping your food, he declared.

Look at you you, Nick, said my mom.

I'm talking about Norman. Don't make excuses for him.

Where do you think he gets his bad habits?

You're right, he said. But now it's time to get control of the situation.

I was struck by how it sounded like an emergency and I wondered how he would have reacted when I was upside down in that tree well or sliding down that icy face or drowning in ten-foot surf. Real emergencies.

My mom made me a cup of ice cream with chocolate sauce. I ate it while we watched a sit-com and Nick had his first vodka.

G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Norman, he said after a few minutes.

My hand stopped mid-spoon. My mouth was open. I had been slurping.

Sorry, I said.

Go in the den.

I won't do it again. I'm sorry. I just want to watch the end.

He grabbed my arm and the cup and walked me into the den. He slammed down the cup and jammed me into the chair.

If you can't control your slurping then you eat separately, he said. Until you learn.

I wasn't hungry anymore so I went downstairs to my room. My whole body s.h.i.+vered. I turned on the furnace and got into bed and buried myself head-to-toe under the blanket.

The very next day on the way to the bus one of the neighborhood gang pointed out another kid in our grade named Timothy. I recognized Timothy as the boy who always looked down at his feet, muttered, sat alone, read comic books at recess, and startled easily. He reminded me of a beaten dog-sort of how I felt last night. One of the gang called to him across the street.

Hey, Creepothy, he yelled and the other boys laughed.

Timothy did not look up. He turned away from us, stopping so that we'd get far ahead of him. I kept glancing back at him, fascinated. He was skittish like me, but he couldn't hide it. He probably has a mean dad or stepfather, I thought. I wanted to cross the street and walk with him. Then the idea repulsed me. I was the first one to walk ahead.

Later that week Nick punished me again for chomping and I sat in the den and ate alone. When I was finished he handed me a piece of paper.

A contract, he said.

I looked at it, unmoved.

Read it.

I hereby promise to get control of myself and take responsibility for my actions. I will not chomp, slurp or eat with my mouth open. If I do I will eat alone.

Do you understand it?

I nodded.

Sign it.

I signed it.

A few days later I saw Timothy at recess picking his nose. He sat on a bench in the corner of the yard. Somebody threw the kickball at him and he tried to duck it, tripping over his feet. It bounced off his face as he scurried to the other side of the yard. I wondered if they'd do the same to me if I stopped being good at kickball. I played my b.u.t.t off that day.

CHAPTER 21.

SANDRA' S BODY SPILLED into the funnel. The only way to save her was to let myself tack with the slanting chute into the funnel. It would be polished to a slick. I had no edges, no poles, no gloves, just fingers and sneakers. In a flash her slow motion fall would become a toboggan ride to the bottom, wherever that was. into the funnel. The only way to save her was to let myself tack with the slanting chute into the funnel. It would be polished to a slick. I had no edges, no poles, no gloves, just fingers and sneakers. In a flash her slow motion fall would become a toboggan ride to the bottom, wherever that was.

I lifted the stick and my feet, pus.h.i.+ng off my right hand into the funnel.

Sandra was above me, plummeting now. I craned outward and her heel rapped my forehead. Then I axed the stick down. My toes dug and my free hand clawed. Under the half-inch of crust it was solid ice. I knew ice. I could ski it as well as any kid around. But there was nothing I could do now. We sailed as if in a free fall.

The chute's overall slant also ran through the funnel. So our momentum ran us across the funnel instead of straight down its gut. Another lucky break. Just below the rocky border was an embankment of snow that was angled in such a way that the snow was softer here. As we careened up the embankment I saw crags of rock and intermittent trees mottling it.

I burrowed one sneaker into the snow and collided with something hard. I bounced off it and felt my trailing arm whack a rock. Fortunately it checked our plummet, slowing us down.

Sandra was directly above me. I grabbed her ankle and hacked at the snow with the stick and fished for another rock with my foot. The stick had broken and wasn't much use. I worked it down my palm to expose more tip. My foot tapped another rock and I rolled my weight onto that side. My toe caught the next crag of rocks, each catch a deceleration, until that foot planted against the blunt face of a larger rock. We came to a stop like a crushed beer can.

Sandra was crying, wailing out. I looked up and her ankle was in my hand yet I could not feel it there. The skin on my first set of knuckles was gone. A pink liquid oozed out.

I studied the larger rocks rising out from the crag of rock we were currently mashed against. How to climb up onto them, the chute's border, and get us out of the funnel? Once atop the spine of rock I visualized us making our way downslope. Each five-foot drop to the next little ledge will be slick with nothing to grip, I thought. Then I saw us tumbling and bouncing down the rocky cascade and that made me abandon that idea.

We have to stay against these rocks, Sandra. See how we can use them to slow down? See? See, the ice is a little softer here. Okay?

Sandra said something about G.o.d's wrath. Why is she suddenly so religious? I thought.

Here we go, I said.

Using the softer snow and crags of rock along the embankment, we moved down as a unit. With Sandra's boots crutched on my left shoulder, my head braced her to that side. And miraculously she still had the stick in her good hand.

Over the next few minutes we only slipped once. Right away, I leveraged my shoe tip against a rock, halting us.

Good job keeping your feet against me, I said.

Why are you doing this to us, Norman?

Ask G.o.d, I said.

I pulled down her boot soles tight to my left shoulder.

Here we go, I said.

We moved on our stomachs and it got darker from the ashen fog was.h.i.+ng over our backs. Fifteen feet lower the embankment grew steeper and we had to fight against sliding back into the funnel.

Then the embankment of snow dissolved into a vertical wall of rocks. I stopped and felt out a tuft-line of pliable snow maybe three inches wide, trailing along the foot of the wall. My numb hands cleaved to this supple thread. I begged the snow-thread to keep trailing downward or we'd be forced into the funnel. With the side of my head I braced Sandra's ankle and we started moving again.

Keep your upper body straight, I said.

Keep your upper body straight, she repeated. Then again as if reminding herself.

We scaled down at a snail's pace. I hoped for the chute to end soon, or for us to come upon a tree growing out of a crack in the rock wall, low enough for us to grab. I needed to rest. But the scenery never changed. The fog pinned us to the thread of snow, our lifeline. A few feet later still nothing had changed. No sign of that wooded section. Just the nasty funnel at our hip. Don't rush, I told myself. Inch at a time. Once you get going there's no stopping.

CHAPTER 22.

OUR LITTLE WHITE Porsche pa.s.sed the Mammoth turnoff and kept going north on 395. I sat behind my dad giving him a head ma.s.sage. Afterward I got in the pa.s.senger's seat and we played Muga Booga, speaking crazy languages to each other like cavemen or apes. Then we switched on my dad's new CB radio and talked to some truckers, getting weather reports and smokey sightings. After that we played License Plate and I found the one with the lowest number right before we hit Bridgeport and my dad turned onto a country road. Porsche pa.s.sed the Mammoth turnoff and kept going north on 395. I sat behind my dad giving him a head ma.s.sage. Afterward I got in the pa.s.senger's seat and we played Muga Booga, speaking crazy languages to each other like cavemen or apes. Then we switched on my dad's new CB radio and talked to some truckers, getting weather reports and smokey sightings. After that we played License Plate and I found the one with the lowest number right before we hit Bridgeport and my dad turned onto a country road.

Where're we going? I said.

It's a surprise.

A ghost town?

He nodded.

Cool.

The town of Bodie was scattered on a mild slope amongst sage, a pale lime in the dry cold of winter. We wandered the barren streets. A lone brick facade seemed to waver in the wind. The other structures were steepled shacks and my dad said up to 10,000 people once lived in this place. I asked all the same questions I always asked when we came to ghost towns.

The gold ran out, Ollestad. They moved on.

Why do we like ghost towns so much, Dad?

He shrugged.

No traffic, he said.