Crazy for the Storm

by Norman Ollestad

  Done good Boy, he said.

  I got the chills when they called my name to the podium. I stood to Lance’s right and they hung the silver medallion over my neck. Afterward strangers shook my hand and my dad spoke to one of the coaches from Incline Village, a tall Swede wearing clogs.

  He wants you on their team, Ollestad.

  Really?

  Yeah man. And guess who he’s friends with.

  I shrugged.

  Ingmar Stenmark.

  We were in the corner and I looked across the room and saw the Swede’s head poking out from the crowd. Ingmar Stenmark was the greatest skier ever and my whole body inflated.

  Tomorrow you’re going to train with them, said my dad.

  I was speechless.

  Way to go, Ollestad.

  Then the Heavenly Valley coach interrupted us.

  Congratulations on taking second place, he said to me.

  I nodded and my dad nodded.

  You got pretty close. Lance had to take it up a notch on the second run, said the coach.

  Yep, said my dad.

  The coach waited as if expecting more from my dad.

  I looked at my dad, come on, say it: Why didn’t they slide the ruts for Norman?

  We’ll see you next month, was all my dad said.

  The coach patted him on the shoulder and walked away. My dad never did mention their shenanigans and the following day I trained gates with the Incline ski team. Coach Yan gave me lots of attention, working with me on the hip-thrust weight change that made Ingmar so dominant. The other kids treated me with a respect I had never experienced and I was careful to be humble and not act like I was something special.

  Sunday afternoon my dad and I left Tahoe and I had a new ski suit, padded sweater and all. When we passed the Heavenly Valley turnoff my dad said,

  They’ve heard of Waterman now, Ollestad.

  CHAPTER 23

  SANDRA’ S WEIGHT PUSHED down on my shoulders as I cleated the thread of snow along the base of the rock wall. My whole body quivered with exhaustion. A tree limb appeared from the rock wall and I reached up and grabbed it. Sandra settled onto my other hand, nearly too small for her boot. Not clinging by fingernail, chin, pelvis and toe-tip was a huge relief. We did not speak, just resting.

  It was time to move on. I told her we were almost there even though the chute did not seem to end, ever. The thread of snow would thin every few feet, making every inch without slipping a triumph. Having to hone my concentration blocked out the fact that we were moving too slowly and that night was only a couple hours away—that we were still, after all this time and effort, near the top of the mountain, thousands of feet above the meadow.

  Locked into a pace, disciplining myself to be grateful for the progress, time passed, until I realized Sandra’s boot was no longer touching my numb shoulder. I tilted my head to find her ankle. Not there. I looked up.

  I was three or four feet below her. Both her arms reached high as if she were stretching out to sleep, even stranger because she was in a nearly vertical position.

  Sandra. Get the stick down, I ordered. Push to your left.

  She drew her knees under her stomach as if trying to stand up.

  No, I yelled. Stay down.

  From her knees she toppled over and plunged into the funnel, her limbs clambering as if trying to run uphill.

  With my left hand I jabbed the withered stick into the snow. I reached for Sandra with my right hand. As I reached, her trajectory into the funnel shifted, routing her straight down. Her fingers struck my bicep and then her body plowed over me. I saw my hand grope her fancy boots—too far below me suddenly. She rocketed headfirst into the center of the funnel.

  Norman! she screamed.

  I was sliding too and I reached with my other arm and blindly grabbed a tree poking from the rocks.

  My eyes never wavered from Sandra’s boots, spewing thin vapors of ice. The fog swallowed her head, torso, and finally sucked away her feet. I heard her call my name one more time. It echoed and I heard it bouncing around in the fog.

  You overreached. How could you do that? I snapped at myself in a harsh Nick-like tone. You failed to grab her and she was on top of you. Why were you lunging so far out?

  One hand gripping the tree limb, I shrank under the judgments pounding inside my head. Bewildered, I gazed at my other arm dangling toward the funnel—a weak sapling, a worthless twig. I hung there, dwarfed by failure.

  I have to make up for my mistake. Get to her quickly. I tried to move and slipped right away, grabbing the tree just in time. There was no rushing, no coercing the ice. I slowed down.

  I followed her trail of blood smearing the center of the funnel. The thread of snow along the rock wall finally dissolved and I was forced into the funnel. On the left side where the ice was a millionth of a degree more supple, I moved fairly quickly, compared to before.

  It’s so much easier without the anchor. Now I have a chance to beat the night.

  No, I scolded myself, smothering the image of Sandra weighted on my shoulders as I braced her perpetual fall.

  Before the image had a chance to stir again I buried the terrible thought.

  The ice curtain in the funnel demanded my every resource. I steered my whole mind onto the split-second decisions at the tip of my nose, drowning out my monumental mistake and the shameful relieved feeling that followed it. At one point the fog got so thick I ended up in the very center of the funnel where that millionth degree of harder ice tapped deeper into my single-minded concentration. It’s too risky to try to get out of the center, I decided. More dangerous than just going with its flow.

  I followed the trail of blood for a long time. I had determined that without an ice axe, or at least gloves, I would at some point lose traction—no tree or rock to save me this time. My hope was that I wouldn’t go off a cliff or hit a tree on the way down, or collide with one of the trees at the bottom of the chute. But I was now hundreds of feet below the crash site and still alive, still conscious. It’s just ice-juice, I told myself.

  Slowly the funnel became shallower, less scooped out, and I made my way out of it onto the hard crust. I was back on the side of the chute we had started from, before getting sucked into the funnel. Thirsty, I rested for a few minutes and ate some snow. I noticed that both hands were raw to the bone across my first knuckles. There was no pain. It was too cold for pain. I ate snow until my thirst was quenched. Then I started down again.

  I stayed close to the funnel, tracking the blood smear, which finally ended at a tree trunk—the first big tree since our descent began. There was no blood below it. I looked around for Sandra. I called out for her. No response. Only a rush of adrenaline urging me to find her, to make up for my mistake. It sickened me and I peered under wafts of fog, shuffling around, trying to shuck off the noxious shame.

  Then I was inching downward again, trying to worry about the ice, not my mistake. I expected the pitch to ease—instead it seemed to dive away forever. I worried about that instead.

  Just then streaks of red appeared in the snow. Sandra had hit that tree above me and kept falling. The shame registered again, but it lost out to the demands of the chute.

  A splinter of malleable snow led me horizontally across the chute, away from the funnel, toward the other rocky border. Such firm ground for my hands and feet was impossible to resist. I followed it higher to a cluster of trees growing out of the rocky spine. I climbed up an embankment of snow onto a flat rock. I wrapped my arms around a trunk and worked myself onto my feet, numb to the bone. The trees reflected light and it was good to be out of the gray foam, and to feel a living thing—to hold it and sturdy myself with it.

  The rocky spine bowed away into the fog and I stood on my tiptoes. Looking between two layers of gray—over the crest of fog and under the blanket of clouds—I caught a glimpse of the roof. It was closer, but I was still way above it. And now that I was farther down the chute the massive ridgeline was clearly too big to climb over. I wou
ld have to find a way through the gulch. What if there is no way through? My legs withered and I choked trying to get air into my lungs.

  I imagined being trapped in the dark gulch, scratching at the rock walls trying to escape.

  I glanced up, as if hoping to see the helicopter again. If they couldn’t spot me when they were right over my head and the fog was thin, I thought, there was no chance under this lead ceiling. The peaks and valleys rambled for miles around here, gullies and dense forests. I was just a speck lost in it all.

  Swinging astride the trunk I dropped my body over the spine of rock, hanging into the chute. I knew the snow was pulpy just below me so I let go of the tree and scaled down the embankment into the chute.

  Move faster. It’s getting late, I urged. Don’t want to be up here in the dark. Then my foot hit a hard patch of crust and whoosh—I was flat on my belly and my sweater lifted to my chest and my belly rasped against the ice. I flopped onto my back, dug my heels, rebuffed by the impenetrable ice. Roaring now I flopped to my belly again and scratched at the ice.

  Got to find soft snow!

  I rolled to find it, snagged my knee on a crown of snow, and the abrupt halt pitched me into the air and I landed with my head leading the way. I thought of Sandra hitting that tree, and I heaved myself to one side, desperate for softer snow.

  Several rotations. I was dizzy and slipping in and out of consciousness. The ice under my body felt as if it was thawing. Instinctively I dug in the heel of my palms, flattened my belly, and my hips and legs began to drag against the snow. It was a long, drawn-out deceleration. A blown tire limping to a stop. I lay there whipped and ragged.

  CHAPTER 24

  ON FRIDAY WE DROVE to Big Al’s house. He was my dad’s law partner and good friend. He was supposed to be all ready to go to Tahoe where I had a downhill race. My dad said that if I placed in the top three it would help my chances toward qualifying for the Southern Cal Championship race, only a month and a half away. My dad didn’t knock and we found Al doing yoga in his living room wearing nothing but jockey underwear. He was tall like a basketball player and his feet were gigantic. His hair was reddish blond and his beard and eyebrows were the same color and bushy. My dad teased Al about being in a yogi trance and pretended to fight off a glare of light.

  Your aura is blinding, said my dad.

  Al ignored him, keeping his eyes closed, breathing through his nose methodically.

  My dad grabbed some organic celery sticks with dirt still on them from the fridge. He dunked the celery into a jar of peanut butter and made me eat two whole sticks.

  No time to stop for dinner, Ollestad.

  Just after six the next morning we pulled into Uncle Joe’s orange high-rise hotel. We quickly stowed our bags, changed into our ski gear and hit the road again.

  Clear to the town of Truckee, Al did yoga breathing exercises. Gradually his exhalations became more forceful and louder. My dad told him to take it easy or he was going to be worn out before the first run.

  We turned onto Highway 40 and Big Al pointed out the Donner Pass sign.

  I was hungry but I just lost my appetite, said Al and my dad laughed.

  What’s so funny? I said.

  Well, said Al. It’s not really funny. Right around here is where the Donner Party got stuck in an early-season storm and half of them died.

  What were they doing? I said.

  Looking for a new frontier I guess. Problem was, they were ordinary people, not mountain people, and they got stuck in a big storm, said Al. The long and short of it is that some of them ended up having to eat their dead just to stay alive.

  Gross, I said.

  We climbed the winding highway and we all stared out the window at the mountains where those people had tried to survive.

  I rode up with Coach Yan and we met the rest of the team at the top of the downhill course. We slipped it and spent a lot of time examining the S-turn. It dove over a pitch that fell away so that you couldn’t see the slope beyond. There were nets to catch us if we lost control and flew toward the rocky ravines on each side.

  The snow in the S-turn was especially hard, nearly ice, and I knew that this was where I could win the race. All those days skiing the wind-buffeted fifteen-foot lip of the Cornice in Mammoth, and having to carve the icy face of Mount Waterman, had prepared me well. Yan emphasized that we needed to come in high on the first part of the turn in order to go directly at the next two gates, setting up a straight shot into the final pitch and run-out.

  Because of your light weight, Norman, you have to beat them here in the steeps, said Yan.

  Yan was right, of course. Many times I had had the lead coming out of the steeps, only to lose the race to heavier kids who had the advantage on the flats.

  My dad and Al hooted when they announced my number. Yan massaged my thighs and told me to keep the skis down and running after the S-turn. Don’t lose any time in the flats, he reiterated. I felt loose and, most importantly, well attended to.

  I attacked the upper course, taking an assertive line directly at the gates. I swooped in high on the S-turn and caught air over the fall-away pitch. I cursed myself for that but was thrilled by how much speed I had. I hit the long run-out and absorbed the humps and the ruffle sections where the skis tried to stammer. I plastered those fuckers to the snow.

  I zipped over the dye and chattered to a stop. I was in third place, with Lance yet to race. I swore at the run-out and people turned their heads. I didn’t care. How could I have gone so fast and not be the fastest? I couldn’t go any better than that.

  Yan arrived and told me I had the best time by three seconds coming out of the S-turn. I had lost over three seconds on the flats.

  Why don’t they make a fucking steep downhill course, I said.

  Yan was taken aback by my foul mouth and my dad ushered me out of the finish area.

  We rode up the chairlift and my dad was silent and he stared down at the snow passing like a highway beneath us. I felt bad about my outburst. I didn’t say another word until after my second run.

  Lance placed third and I placed fourth. In both runs I had been well ahead of the winner until I hit the flats. Yan said I was the best skier in the bunch and that success would come. We watched the awards ceremony and then it started to snow. Al had a hand-sized radio in his backpack and he tuned in the local weather. It was forecast to snow for two days and dump up to three feet. My dad called the office and he and Al conferred and by five that evening it was decided that we’d stay in Tahoe for a few extra days to ski some powder.

  We skied good powder and the snow kept coming. My dad and Al decided to extend the trip further, pointing to the fact that I had a race in Yosemite the weekend upcoming and that there was no sense in Dad driving nine hours to Los Angeles, then back up here to northern California five days later.

  For some reason my concentration was not at its best in Yosemite and I nearly hooked a couple gates on the first run. Once again I finished second (I think by one or two tenths). However the blow to my ego was mitigated when I realized that I had finally beaten Lance.

  The next day he beat me in the giant slalom and I took second again. I was frustrated and thought I might not ever win. I was tortured by the idea that I was just not quite good enough. Was there something about me, a character flaw, that was holding me back?

  Don’t worry about winning, said my dad. It will come.

  Why am I so small? I said.

  You play the hand you’re dealt, he said. Don’t worry about trivial things like size and weight. Just put your head down and go for it.

  I skulked past Al, who was watching us, quietly.

  Shake it off, Ollestad, said Dad. All you can do now is focus on the next race.

  We sought out one of Al’s secret hot springs on the way home and my dad did backflips off a rock into the natural pool. I preferred cannonballs and Al was fine just soaking up the minerals that smelled like rotten eggs. We reminisced about skiing St. Anton when I was five and
they spoke in code but I understood they were reliving their adventures with women.

  Almost every weekend thereafter my dad and I drove out of town to the ski races. The San Bernardino Mountains were only two hours east of Los Angeles, but Mammoth was six hours north and Lake Tahoe was nine hours north. We’d roll back into town late Sunday night and the next morning my dad would drop me off at school, brushing his teeth in the car in front of all the other parents, which embarrassed me. I’d stay with my mom during the week and play with the neighborhood boys as much as possible. I finally acquiesced to my status as a semi-outsider—permanently orbiting on the fringe of their banter yet too athletic to be completely written off.

  One day after school Nick drove me in his station wagon to the University of Southern California campus. On our way to the football field to watch the Trojans practice he pointed out the halls where, he said, kids not much older than I studied as hard as they could so that they could get the good jobs and make lots of money and live the way they wanted. He added that there were fun parties and beautiful dames too.

  He was a diehard USC fan and I asked him if he had gone there.

  No. But all my friends did, he said. I hung around here so much everybody thought I did.

  Learning that Nick did not go to college gave his message a special resonance. He wasn’t trying to make me be like him. Sort of the opposite, in fact. I wondered why Nick drove me all the way down here to show me this. He was actually kinda cool when he didn’t drink, I thought.

  Education was the theme that week. After my hockey game on Friday night my dad told me that if I stuck with hockey I might be able to earn a scholarship to Harvard or Yale. I asked him why he didn’t go there.

  Well I couldn’t afford it, he said. And I didn’t play hockey or ski race. Plus UCLA was right here and a pretty good school.