Crazy Blood

by T. Jefferson Parker

  April ran with a swaying bucket toward the MPP until the heat stopped her. She stepped back, braced, and heaved. By then, neighbors were spilling toward the MPP, some with buckets, some with extinguishers, one man dragging a garden hose in one hand and clutching a goblet of wine in the other. The hose stretched only partway, so the man stopped, arched the stream high, turned his head away from the fire, and drank some wine. Wylie saw the breeze-blown water droplets angling down ineffectually into the inferno.

  An older woman shoved a small red fire extinguisher at him and he took it, wading in as close as he could get, then pulling the pin and blasting a load of retardant against the glass of a porthole. But he saw that the porthole glass was broken and the fire was raging inside the MPP. In the brief moment of chaos before the flames jumped back at him, Wylie saw the beautiful interior birch walls curling in the heat, the maple cabinets and table engulfed. Lying on a bench and still folded was the blanket that Jolene had given him, now ash black at its center, with its edges limned in orange-red, like a huge marshmallow left too long in the campfire. Wylie dropped the canister and backed away into the stink of his own burned hair, pawing at the pain on his neck. A wave of cold water crashed against the back of his head, and Wylie turned, to find April holding an empty white bucket.

  “Outta the fire, Wylie!”

  “Sky did this.”

  “Out!”

  “It was Sky.”

  “I believe it. I believe it.”

  April pulled him away from the trailer, the fire now burning with a proud, percussive roar. Wylie wrenched free of her and stripped off his sweatshirt, running back into the conflagration, flapping at it uselessly as the fire unfurled at him and the flames licked his skin. Hands pulled at him and forced him back. He lost his footing and was borne away from the heat and into the wails of sirens and the rhythmic flashing of lights.

  Soon the paramedics were there, but Wylie stood them down, wouldn’t get into the van, batted away their well-intentioned blue-gloved hands. Shivering, he struggled back into the hoodie and zipped it clear to his chin. “Christ, guys, I’m okay. Let me be.”

  He watched the firemen swarm in with backpack extinguishers, waving clouds of retardant at the fire. As the flames shrank and sputtered, the MPP seemed to deflate, so that when the fire was out, it just sat there, nothing more than a small black shell from which rose random heat waves and thin coils of smoke.

  “Excuse me just a moment,” Wylie said to no one in particular. He squeezed April’s hand. “Should move my truck out of the way, don’t you think?”

  He trot-skated across the lot, shivering and lifting the hood over his head. He could feel the burn on the back of his neck and hands, but the rest of him was soaked in icy sweat and water. His knuckles jumped with pain as he dug out his truck keys. He started it up and guided it cautiously over the slick asphalt, saluting April through the window. When he came to the road, he turned left and goosed the gas a little, bound for Sky Carson’s condo.

  * * *

  Nobody answered Wylie’s knocks, so he stepped back, gathered his will, and crashed through the door. Inside, he hit the lights, barreled into an empty bedroom, threw the covers back to make sure Sky wasn’t buried down in them. The idea came that he could burn the place down, tit for tat, but there were neighbors and it would be much worse than foolish.

  He barged into Slocum’s and checked the bar and the back dining room, where Sky liked to hunker, but there was no Sky. Sliding on the snow and ice, Wylie sped over to Cynthia’s place, but Sky’s Outback was nowhere in sight. Cynthia’s pale face appeared in a window, backlit and ghostlike. Wylie stood on her porch, teeth chattering but dripping sweat, patches of his skin brightly hot, hair stinking, feeling as if his brains might scramble permanently.

  “Sky burned my trailer to the ground.”

  “A simple apology is all he asked for.”

  “You Carsons can all go to hell.”

  “In due time.”

  “It’s not going to work like this anymore.”

  “He’s trying to be true to his word.”

  “You’re all fucking crazy.”

  “So don’t push our buttons.”

  Wylie slid his truck out of the lot, just about lost it when he hit Minaret, but mustered the self-control to downshift and plow his way safely up to Mountain High. A first-big-snow party was in progress, the street crowded with cars, the circular drive full. Wylie parked behind another truck and Croft met him at the door.

  “Wylie. You look, like, burnt up.”

  “Sky here?”

  “No. And neither are your sisters.”

  “I’m going to come in and look.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Don’t press me on this one, Croft.”

  “Don’t you make me look bad.”

  The great room was packed with people and smoke. Music and voices wrestled. Wylie shouldered his way through the crowd to the kitchen, then to the downstairs theater, where Chasing Mavericks was playing. He was given a wide berth. On floor two, he went from room to room where the stoners were clustered, saw the bongs and little canisters of coke going around, the glazed eyes and idiot smiles, two people giggling under a bedspread with a flashlight, and a couple making out in a bathroom whose door was only half-closed.

  Wylie hustled up the stairs, to find Helixon himself waiting atop the third-floor landing. The window on his glasses reflected the light in a compound, insectile way as he looked at Wylie. “Sorry. This is the forbidden floor.”

  “Give me Sky or I’ll throw you down the stairs.”

  “He’s not here. Don’t know why not. But I swear to God he’s not here.”

  Looking past Helixon, Wylie saw a long hallway and closed doors. “What do you do up here?”

  “Pursue happiness. If Sky was here, I’d give him up. Go.”

  * * *

  At April’s, Wylie showered and washed his burns lightly with soap and water. The backs of his hands and fingers were the most painful—the skin pink and the hair burned mostly off—but no blisters. He finished with a cold-water rinse that sent shivers to his bones. After the shower, he and April sat in front of the fire, Wylie facing the flames, stripped down to his jeans so April could swab his burns with aloe vera. She brought him a large iced bourbon. She cut back his scorched hair so it was off his neck, then brushed more aloe gel onto his nape, blowing gently to help it dry. The gel went on cool and cut the pain. Wylie felt ambushed and fooled and primed for violence. He felt her cheek on his bare back and her hands on each shoulder. Her voice was soft and light. “Sergeant Bulla said you can come in tomorrow and answer some questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “He asked if I had any idea who did it. I said no.”

  “Good. Right.”

  “Are you going to tell them Sky called and what he said?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She rubbed his unburned shoulders for a good long while, hands small and strong. The fire lilted and popped. Her fingers brushed his chest and flanks, and the edges of his abs and the waistband of his jeans. He closed his eyes. “Should I just forgive him, you think, April?”

  “It’s all you can do. He’s troubled. There but for the grace of God, and all that.”

  “I’ve forgiven him before. A thousand times. But finally, you are what you do. You are what you do. And you are responsible for it.”

  “We’re not given equal things.”

  “Isn’t that a bottomless excuse?”

  “To be met with bottomless forgiveness. You can afford it, Wylie. You’re more fortunate than he is.”

  “But it’s my trailer that my got burned to nothing.”

  “You’ll get another one.”

  “There was only one MPP,” he said, taken aback by his own pouting lameness. Wylie felt her fingers tracing S’s down his back, one fingertip on his left side and two fingertips in close parallel down his right, miming their run down Solitary, that second run they’d
made, when they knew the mountain enough to relax and move together, then apart, then together again, as the run demanded. “I had this out-of-nowhere idea that you were the one who bid the twelve grand on eBay. For the MPP.”

  “Oh, really?”

  A beat of silence while her fingers rode down his back again. He felt his goose bumps rising, tiny moguls on the course. The fire was hot on his face and chest and the aloe was still cool.

  “It was going to be your Christmas present, Wyles.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Why not? Tell me why I can’t help your family have a roof and give you back something you loved?”

  “It seems wrong. I know I’m being a stupid prick, but I can’t help it.” Wylie had never in his life felt this divided but pigheaded at the same time.

  “I have something to say.” She spread her hands across his thighs and dug in her thumbs, kneading the muscle. He felt her face and breath warm on his back. “We can stay in this house through the Mammoth Cup. We’ll train all day, then lock the doors and draw the blinds and be together. We’ll eat good food and get lots of rest. We’ll read and watch movies and you can write as good as Rexroth. After the cup, I’m off to Aspen, then Europe for the FIS circuit. You will podium here in Mammoth and do well at the X Games, and make the World Cup tour, too. Adam so wants to sponsor you, to make it real for you. Now listen, it gets better. We can see each other on the FIS circuits, Wylie. There’s some overlap at the venues. And a little time between contests. And when we’re competing, we’ll kick butt from one end of the tour to the other. We might fall sometimes, but we’ll help each other even if we’re apart, and we’ll get up again and win medals and fight our way into the Olympics. We can do this. We can have each other and the world, Wylie. I believe it. I can taste it.”

  It was abruptly illuminating for Wylie to hear his Olympic goal analyzed in this clear, direct, can-do way. To have it sound possible. To consider a future tied to hers. To this April Holly. And it was wonderful to be nudged through the forest of his own doubtful pessimism, as if her hand were on his elbow. “Well. It…”

  “Well it what?”

  “Sounds impossibly good.”

  “Impossible? Banish that word from your vocabulary! It is your enemy. You win from within, correct? So we must live from within, too. I’ve seen you ski. I know what you’re up against and what you can do. You have the tools. You have a gift. So you’re right about this plan being good. Our success will give Beatrice and Belle a chance at something bigger. And when we’re done with the competition, we’ll open a ski and boarding school right here in Mammoth. I know Adam will help. He adores you. With our Olympic medals, we’ll draw students from all over the world. They will flock to Mammoth Lakes. They’ll buy their coffee and pastries at Let It Bean. I’ll teach the boarders and you the skiers and we’ll have babies and teach them, too. And we will gradually become plump and wrinkled by the mountain sun and we’ll start repeating ourselves in conversation, but we’ll be happy and together and nobody will ever, ever, ever be able to take it away.”

  A long moment passed. “I’m speechless, April.”

  “Step up to it, Wylie!”

  “I think we … could do it.”

  “What does your heart say?”

  “It says we can.”

  “I know we can. You have to believe in it. Everything follows from belief. Nothing exists without belief being there first.”

  “I…”

  He felt her warm cheek on his back, her fingers walking his waist around to the front. His belt tightened, then went slack. He heard the dull pop of pant studs and felt cool air coming in. Brain and body on scramble.

  April sighed. “Oh—just FYI and by the way, I made an offer on this place this morning. Cash, short escrow, low end of asking. Realtor says it’ll probably go. I love it here. It will be our home on this mountain.”

  “You scare me.”

  “I scare me, too. Such a wonderful thing to do. I’d never dreamed of scaring myself until I met you, Wylie. It’s like you got sent here by God. To undo my straitjacket.”

  “I make you crazy?”

  “You just let me bean.”

  “Hmmm…”

  “But serious, too. We’re good for each other in different ways. You let me be free and I help you believe. You keep everything in and I let everything out. We’re a good, good fit.”

  “I think I like it.”

  “He thinks he likes it. Thinks. Well, at least you’re cute, Wyles.”

  “Never been accused of that.”

  “Want to, like, celebrate? Maybe on that fake bearskin rug?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Snow stood twelve feet deep on Mammoth Mountain for the Gargantua Mammoth Cup men’s ski-cross finals on Saturday, January 16. The temperature was thirty-one degrees, with a light breeze, and the sky was a hard pewter gray.

  Wylie juiced his skis in the waxing area set up near the X Course starting house. His Sabers lay on the sawhorses and he waited for his secret concoction of waxes to reach the right temperature. He wore a respirator against the noxious fluorinated vapors. Some of the wax technicians stood by, drinking coffee in colorful steel mugs, waiting their turn. The techs were there for the Mammoth freeski team members only, but even when Wylie was part of team, he’d always done his own waxing—part science and part meditation. His wax recipe was on the grippy side, because his racing style was for speed. He ironed it on in long, even strokes, the hot fumes wafting witchingly into the cold air. He was inwardly focused and borderline oblivious to things around him.

  Later behind his starting gate, Wylie stretched, yawned as always before a race, felt that temporary standoff between fear and adrenaline. He glanced at the several TV cameras that would broadcast the start of the race to the big screens down at the finish. Thoughts careened through his mind as if on casters, suddenly changing directions, some linked and others rogue and random. Claude’s CR Fives the best. Invincible on them. Breathe deep. Patrol in Kandahar and racing down a mountain. Lose a leg, break a neck. Will and luck. The fall line is your bro. Boxes locked and shelved and you fuckers will not open until I tell you to. Good poachers for breakfast, pepper and butter on top. Start me up. Watch me go. Robert, Robert. April down there at the finish. April Holly. Ten thousand prize money. Ten thousand! Remember let mind go. Let mind wander. Worst loss was ‘cause I thought too much, concentrated too hard, and made the body wait. Body knows best. Big picture only, eyes ahead, don’t fight yourself, man. Miss the MPP, get another someday. Lucky on the burns and April’s aloe vera. Love to kick Sky’s ass. Going to kick Sky’s ass, you just watch. Hope that wax was right, been a while.…

  Yesterday, Wylie’s qualification and semifinal races had been good enough but imprecise, leaving him the fourth gate pick for this final race. For the cup, Mike Cook had outfitted the X Course with drop-in start gates to space the racers safely, and these gates were positioned fairly and evenly. Wylie was secretly pleased to get the least-wanted gate, number 1, on the far left. It would leave him the longest line into the first X Course feature—a right bank—but he would be making that turn on the strength of his dominant left foot, on which his best speed and balance had always been built.

  Sky Carson looked at him from behind gate 4. Sky had smoked the qualies and semis to earn the first gate pick, and gate 4 would give him the shortest line into the first bank. Sky had already taken and held that line in both his qualification races and his semifinal run the day before. He was yet to lose a race, or even his lead. Wylie had watched, impressed. He did think Sky was taking some unreasonable risks, as if he were racing on the Imagery Beast instead of on a real course, but he was putting down the runs like he owned them. Bridger Burr and Josh Coates, teammates out of Crested Butte, Colorado, took gates 2 and 3, respectively. Wylie knew they could be expected to help each other if necessary. In ski cross, a racer might sacrifice his own run—and take out an opponent or even two—so that his teammate could win. Few spec
tators here on Mammoth Mountain today expected such teamwork from Wylie or Sky.

  Wylie looked over at him. There had been no words between them since the MPP incident. Sky waved. His beard and mustache were blue, his helmet white, and his goggles red, with black lenses. Wylie smiled to himself. Then Sky held out both hands toward him, palms up, as if in question, ski poles dangling by their straps. He grabbed the poles and sidled around the start gate, backing up the slope toward Wylie. Wylie back stepped and they met behind the house.

  Sky lifted his red goggles and fixed Wylie with the Cynthia stare—lake ice over unquestioned determination. “Good luck, Wylie. But I won’t have any kind of mercy on you.”

  “None expected, Sky. If you make that first hole shot again, prepare for some genuine pressure.”

  “Keep your skis off mine, pal.”

  “Ditto your poles and my legs.”

  “The officials have been ordered to call a tight one.”

  “When you hear my skis in your draft, remember that I have twenty pounds on you and I’m going to pass.”

  “You remember that I’ll punish you severely for unsportsmanlike conduct. Such as running me off the course.”

  “Good luck to you, too, then, Sky.”

  “My words mean nothing to you.”

  “Approximately.”

  “I can do no more for you. This is for Robert.”

  “For Robert.”

  They banged gloved fists and glided away from each other, Sky loosening up at the waist, Wylie yawning again.

  The starter called them into their gates. Wylie slid forward until his ski tips touched the blue dye. He lifted his goggles again, then firmed them against his face, snugged the helmet and pushed the strap under itself and against his throat. Again he checked all his zippers and buttons, loops and hooks, cuffs and pocket flaps, and every small thing that could retard his speed. His bib was tight and he liked the big odd number: 77.