Hat B*****d: Assassins in the Snow

Their is a saying.  Well, their are many sayings but one in particular I am trying to recall.  It has to do with new experiences providing opportunities to learn something about one's self.  I can't quite assemble the exact saying in my mind.  The phrasing is eluding me.  I believe that is because it isn't true.  I have found that my mind is exceedingly good at filtering out bullshit.  Things like eating cookies at bedtime will give you nightmares or Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction are obvious examples.  I'm thinking of these things because until recently I had never been snow skiing.  And because all I learned from the experience are things like it hurts to fall down and I like Captain Morgan were hardly new information, this phrase I can't recall seems to fall comfortably in the area of WMD's in Iraq.  It must be complete nonsense.  I am 27 years old, in reasonable physical shape and I have never felt pain like this before.  It seems obvious to me that this means people should not do it.  If for no other reason than because it is dangerous, and painful, and life threatening.

I am from the South.  As a result of this winter sports have never really been a part of my life.  It does not occur to me often that hurtling down a mountain would be fun.  The closest experiences I have to this are of the one afternoon a year as a child when I would slide down a hill in someone's yard on a cookie sheet.  Even as a youth I realized that the best parts of this were not the hill or the sliding but warmer more peripheral parts of the situation.  The most obvious of these being that this usually took place on a day that would have otherwise been spent at school.  Another being the fire and hot chocolate that we got to enjoy in order to round out the illusion of winter we have in Atlanta.  My knowledge of what should happen in the snow came mostly from my father's family in Ohio.  These were hard working blue collar Midwesterners.  How could you go ski when the sidewalks needed to be shoveled? Who has time to play when wood needs to be cut? How can you go sliding down a mountain when ice fishermen are waiting in Sandusky Bay just to be made fun of?  Skiing is too much like play and play has no place in the snow.  My brother in law, Dina, on the other hand, is very active, gifted athletically, and mentally ill.  He attended school at Rabun Gap where he learned to ski and snowboard and he has developed a sick desire to push this perverse “fun” on everyone else.  My sister Mackenzie, the poor thing, has bought into it completely.  Because of (or in spite of) this I allowed them to talk me into "skiing" as they call it or "plummeting to my death" as I call it.  Plans were made and the rest of the family was excited so suddenly Mackenzie, Dina, my parents, myself and the dog Java were going skiing for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Once their, my parents never left the cabin so I can only assume they were in on the plot to off me right from the start.  I came equipped with boots and skis which I had borrowed from my cousin (another co-conspirator as proven by the statement "it'll be fun").  So I arrived with the rest of my family at Sugar Mountain, North Carolina.  It's a pretty name isn't it?  Don't believe it.  It's a dirty, dirty lie.  The town is nice enough but the mountain is evil.  It even looks angry.  It protrudes higher than all the surrounding peaks looking quite vicious and scheming. 

The plan to put me at ease began right away.  We started the trip off with a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit.  This is the kind of activity that I'm used to.  We play Trivial Pursuit with the kind of fervor that the Kennedy's play football in old films.  We do not (at least never before) push each other off of mountains.  The next evening I would learn that all of this had been part of a plan to lull me to sleep before the fun of killing me began.  I still can't believe I fell for it.

The next day it was decided that we would go to the night session which began at six p.m.  The day was spent in preparation and I must admit that I fell for all of it.  I listened dutifully to all of the instruction.  I even thought they were showing concern when they helped me determine that the boots I had borrowed didn't fit properly and the skis were long enough that they would be too "fast" for a beginner such as me.  They were patient as I rented all the equipment I needed.  They loaned me clothes that would be more water proof than what I had brought.  Then put the [lan into motion.

I walked a little way up the hill with Dina prepared to begin the practical instruction part of the evening.  I did exactly as I was told.  EXACTLY as I was told.  I should have realized immediately when in the course of this direction I fell twice before getting the skis on properly.  But oblivious, I listened dutifully when they told me this too was normal.  I was taught all about how to stop and control my speed and turn etc. etc.  It was decided that the time had come for me to take the lift up the smallest hill.  It took both of them to drag me to the lift line because it was flat and I could not move unless aided by gravity.  This too, should have been a sign.  I was pulled up to the position where one waits for the next available chair on the lift.  When it came time to move I promptly fell and was hurled bodily onto the lift by the attendants just as it struck me in the a*s. 

"That's the hardest part," said Mackenzie as I tried to untangle skis, poles, arms and legs.  "Well except for when we get off."

"What?" I said finally untangled.

"Just go when your skis touch the ground."  The word ground caused me to look down which caused me in turn to immediately forget that what she had offered was in no way direction or even helpful.  It was merely inevitable.  I would go when my skis touched the ground whether I wished to or not.  At the moment though I was preoccupied.  If it weren't a conveyance up a mountain fraught with death and pain, the lift itself would be terrifying.  You float suspended in a chair with no restraint at an altitude of between fifteen hundred and thirty thousand feet.  As an airliner diverted around us the point at which we would disembark suddenly arrived.  "Get ready, GO!" said Mackenzie.

In retrospect it would have been better if I'd simply fallen.  The push from the chair had been enough to establish an uncontrollable momentum so before I fell, I skied (flawlessly) face first into a wooden wall that had been constructed to keep skiers from beginning their trip down the mountain earlier than planned.  Only after hitting that did I flail and bounce and roll down the embankment.  Their had been some good in it though.  In my flailing I had managed to strike Mackenzie repeatedly with the poles so at least she had fallen as well.  After righting myself again it was necessary to move up an embankment to the ski slope itself.  I covered this eight or ten foot distance many times.  I slid down backwards, forwards, backwards while abruptly spinning to forwards and sideways.  Finally I sat down and maneuvered myself hands feet and a*s onto the slope.  I wondered then if one should be allowed to ski if they had approached the slope like a multiple amputee.  But I was determined to persevere because I had been assured of how much fun it was.  As I watched Dina fly past from higher up the mountain on a snow board (They could all have been Dina. Snowboarders look the same.) It did look like fun and damn it I wanted to have fun.  So I got up and fell down.  Got up and fell down.  After many tries I got up, moved some distance, and then fell down.  A while later I got up, moved, turned and then fell down.  It hurt but it was a breakthrough.  I could turn now.  So I got up and turned a few times and thought about how well I was doing just as I realized that I was moving at a truly unprecedented speed at which point I fell, rolled, bounced once or twice slid for a few feet and stopped.  This really was fun.  I went down the mountain several more times in much the same fashion and then the night was over.  I resolved to come back the next night and learn how to slow down and stop.  I'm sure that Mackenzie and Dina resolved that I would not live through another night.  I had a few bruises and scrapes and one large scratch right in the middle of my back that had no explanation.  But chicks dig scars right?  Battle wounds are tough looking.  Then things, as they say, took a turn.

I awoke the next morning to find that while my legs were in excruciating pain they also didn't seem to be there.  It seemed unfair to have pain in limbs that didn't exist.  My arms also appeared to have liquefied while I'd been sleeping.  But alas I was still oblivious to the plot against me and determined to succeed.  So with an enormous triumph of will I made it to the hot tub and began to feel a little better.  Apparently what I needed was to "ski more to loosen up the muscles."  Dina appeared to still believe what he was saying. Misguided and quite dense really I suited up and off we went.  This time I didn’t fall getting into the skis.  I got on the lift without any help and the fall upon getting off was far less spectacular.  I was getting this.  I was learning how and as soon as I made my way up that f*****g hill onto that damn slope I was going to go skiing.  Eventually I started down the hill and I was turning and slowing down / falling, but I was getting better.  About halfway down I had made a turn and was attempting to slow down when I lost my balance and fell.  This was different though.  I was going astonishingly fast and it was icy here.  I was sliding directly at a young boy of about seven or eight.  I plowed into his legs and sent him flipping and cart wheeling into the air.  The impact had slowed me and as I came to a stop I turned to see what I was sure would be a dead child coming towards me with my skis (twice as tall as him). 

"You o.k. dude?  That was a bad one."

I thought for sure I had murdered this child and he was asking if I was alright.  "I'm o.k. are you?"

"Sure,” he said and smiled because in his head he was thinking it's you that can't ski a*****e.  I watched as he skied off effortlessly.

I had been traumatized and it showed.  I made my way slowly the rest of the way down and threw myself to the ground whenever someone got within a few yards of me out of fear that I would kill them.  At the bottom I related this story to my sister who seemed to think it wasn't that big a deal and "kind of funny."

So blindly oblivious to what was happening I rode the lift up with Mac again and got off, determined just to ski.  So that’s what I did for a few moments.  While attempting to slow down I'd been sent end over end a couple of times before coming to a stop.  As I caught my breath and retrieved my skis I heard a strange sound.  As if someone were dragging a body across pavement.  I located the sound just as I realized it was emanating from this thing in a ridiculous red white and blue hat.  It had no mode of transportation anywhere near its feet.  No skis or poles or snowboard, nothing.  I'm sure it had been dropped from a plane as a last ditch effort because I just wasn’t dead yet.  It / he impacted my legs and sent me flying into the air some seventy or eighty feet before I landed flat on my back.  As I gasped for breath and tried to keep from losing consciousness I realized that the mystery scratch on my back was now bleeding through my shirt.  The sight of blood and the convenient disappearance of Hat B*****d convinced me that this was in fact the last straw.  I gingerly inched my way along the edge to the bottom where I collapsed in a heap for a while.  My sister saw me lying down and approached.  I'm sure I heard disappointment in her voice as she asked if I was okay.  I replied with the only thing that made sense at the time.  "I'll be at the bar when you guys are done."

I returned my rented torture instruments and made my way one step at a time to the bar.  A friendly bald Australian man walked over and asked what I wanted.  "Captain Morgan with a lime please."

"No problem."

"Excuse me,” I said having remembered something.  He turned to me and I said, "Big," and made the corresponding gesture with my hands.  He smiled and brought me the drink.  The room was dim but I swear the glass had a halo over it.  Now this part I was good at.  The drinking after the thing.  The talking with the bartender.  It was pretty slow so we chatted for a while.  My girlfriend is from Melbourne so we talked about how all of the wonderful things I've heard about the city were true.  "No slopes there though."  He said it as though it was a bad thing but it seemed perfect to me.  A beautiful city, filled with people as friendly as this bartender and no possibility of skiing.  It's possible that I was a little drunk by then but I swore that if their was Captain Morgan I would move.  He assured me and by the time Mac and Dina arrived he was telling me what neighborhoods to look for apartments in and I was taking notes on a bar napkin. 

I would blame it on the booze but the Captain has never let me down before so it must have been concussion.  Head injury is the only possible explanation for what I said.  They asked if I'd like to come back, and my concussion replied, "Hell yes!  This is great fun!"  So I'll being returning next winter to give them one more shot at me.  This time I'm going to snow board though because it's easier.  I base this on nothing other than that it looks easier.  But in the mean time I'm left wondering why?  Why do all the people I love want me dead so badly?  The only comfort I have is my new bond with the dog, Java.  He feels betrayed too.  For weeks leading up to the holiday Mom and Dad told him he was going to do something fun only to make him spend the week at a place that is not his house.  This apparently is not fun.  I feel it a little deeper than him though, no matter what he says.  They didn't throw him off of a mountain.