Crazy for the Storm (14 page)

T
HE TERRAIN BELOW
the big tree seemed like the easiest way down. It was less slick than the funnel on the far side of the chute where my dad was. I crouched below Sandra and told her to do the same.

Get the stick into the snow, I said. Chop it in every time you slip.

I kept the heel of my palm under her leather sole and with my other hand I checked down the first few inches of the chute with the stick. She remained clinging to the slope face like a salamander.

Okay. Inch down to me, I said.

She let go and barreled into my outstretched hand. My stick ripped out of the snow and we both starting sliding. I dug with my toes and raked both hands into the snow. I was slowing down and I used my shoulder and the side of my head to cradle Sandra’s boots. Luckily the snow was soft enough for me to maneu
ver us to a standstill. The stick was in my hand when I looked, unable to be sure just by touch.

You have to use the stick to ease down! I said. Don’t lift it all the way up. Okay?

It’s hard. I feel funny, Norman, she said. Is there something wrong with my head?

No. Just hang in there. We’re almost down.

How many times had my dad used the same exact line on me? I thought.

I stole a glimpse of the chute below. It fell and fell—fifty feet, a thousand feet, I did not know. My lie would be revealed soon, and I wondered what I would say next to encourage Sandra.

Then I realized that we had traversed across the chute toward the dreaded funnel. The whole chute slanted that way, as if tilted. So I arranged Sandra on my right shoulder to balance against the leftward pull into the funnel.

Okay, I said.

We crept down and I used my foot like a rudder, pushing against the slant of the chute, trying to keep us on the softer, bumpier terrain. As we descended I peered downward to get a bearing and felt Sandra lose contact with me. When I looked up she was creeping toward the funnel. Her stick turned outward so that it only grazed the crust.

Get the stick down! I yelled. Turn your hand down!

First it went up and then down and she continued to gain speed. She was about to really take off across the chute, I knew, so I scuttled as fast as I could sideways and downward. Ten feet away loomed the funnel—a threshold we could not cross. Her body jolted as if kicking into another gear, so I took a chance and pushed off, falling sideways like a spaceman until I was beneath her.

She butted against my shoulder and head—the only way to
absorb her weight and still get my fingers into the ice. I propped onto my toes and kicked in. For no logical reason the snow was pulpier here and gradually I found traction. We stopped just before the terrain curled into the funnel. We had no more chances left.

You have to slide
straight
down, Sandra. Understand?

My arm is getting tired, Norman.

She sounded weak and that humbled me.

Just a little more, I said. You can do it.

How much further?

Not much. Ready?

We shouldn’t have left, she said.

We’re almost down. Ready?

God please save us, she said.

I hadn’t thought about God. If we get down then I’ll believe in God, I told myself.

I realized that my fingers and feet were completely numb now and that I would not be able to handle Sandra’s weight much longer.

I drew the stick to my hip, plunking it into the crust. I bent my knees, detaching from Sandra’s feet.

Stay with me, I said.

My free hand reached low and sunk to my wrist. My fingers rummaged for a stake in the ice. One leg stretched and the toe kneaded the top layer, kicking in, testing the hold. Then the other foot performed the same ritual. We moved down methodically and I felt like I was getting my technique wired.

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
.

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
.

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 shit. Sandra’s arm, shoulder then hip slipped into the funnel.

B
EFORE 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.

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
, 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
.

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 conversa
tions. 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 Saturday-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 fishing 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
. 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
. 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
and I was always proud to share the load.

I finished my homework just in time to watch
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 embarrassing indiscretion when you got older.

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

Look at
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.

Goddamn 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 shivered. 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 butt off that day.

S
ANDRA’ 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.

I lifted the stick and my feet, pushing 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 God’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 God, 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 washing 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.