Crazy for the Storm

I dug my poles in and they sunk all the way to the handles. I jerked them out and rocked back and forth until my ski tips broke through, then I began to track downward.

Up and down. Pump your legs, yelled my dad.

I tried to move up and down. The snow was thick and deep, shoveling up against my chest. I wrenched my body in an attempt to turn. Through the snow covering my goggles I saw the side of the gully curving up in front of me. I tried to pump my legs again. Suddenly I pitched forward, releasing from the heel of my bindings, and vaulted head first into the gully wall. Snow plugged my mouth and I couldn’t breathe. I strained to move my arms. They were swaddled to my sides. I coughed out the snow, yet every exhale produced an involuntarily inhale. The more I fought to breathe the more snow stuffed down my throat. My mouth would not close.

Boot-first my dad pulled me out. I regurgitated snow. I cried. I yelled every swear word that I had learned on Topanga Beach. He cleaned my goggles and told me he was right there. There was no way I was going to suffocate because he was right there.

When my mountain fit ran out of steam he strapped the goggles back around my helmet and fitted my boots into the bindings.

We should just hike back up, Dad, I said.

It’s too deep.

That’s why we shouldn’t have come here. It’s too deep.

It’s never too deep, Ollestad.

Yes it is. It’s too deep to even see or move.

You have to pump your legs right away before the skis submarine.

It’s impossible, I said. Why do you make me do this?

Because it’s beautiful when it all comes together.

I don’t think it’s ever beautiful.

One day.

Never.

We’ll see, he said. Vamanos.

I’m just going to crash again. And it’s going to be your fault.

Keep the legs pumping.

I can’t.

Then I pushed off and lifted my arms up and out like a bird opening its wings. I meant to prove that I was stuck but my skis rode to the surface.

That’s it, Ollestad. Pull the knees up.

Above the gluey snow it was easier to bank my skis. As I sank again I lifted my knees up into my stomach. The counter-weight elevated my tips like a ship heaving over a swell and I rocked up and over the next billow of snow. I kept it going, the up-and-down rhythm, wrenching free of the heavy snow before my tips buried. I heard my dad hoot and then a wave of snow splattered across my goggles and I was blind. I swiped at the goggles clearing the left side enough to see another wave hit me, and I swiped again and remembered I needed to pull my knees up. It was too late. I ejected out of my bindings, somersaulted and landed on my back.

I brushed the snow off my face and was able to breathe. I lay there until I heard my dad hooting and I sat up. A wedge of snow rippled toward me down the center of the gully as if an orca tunneled beneath pushing a white wave.

My dad’s head appeared for an instant, popping out the top of the white wave. Then he stopped just above me. His mustache was a frozen white sausage. His beige sheepskin jacket and black pants sprouted cotton balls of snow. I caught sight of one of his eyes, electric blue through the rose-tinted goggles, half-crazed like something wild that had just killed and eaten its prey.

Beautiful Ollestad, he said in smoke puffs.

Inside I was jumping for joy but I was careful not to let him see because that would only encourage him and then he’d ask for more.

Can we go home now? I said.

He groaned. You’re a real pulver hund, he said, and I knew that was German for powder hound.

Wait till you ski Alta, Utah, he said. The powder there’s like floating on a cloud.

I caught myself dreaming about superlight Alta powder for a second, then turned away to hide any glimmer from him. Sometimes I detested his charisma, the way it trampled everything and always won out. Yet even then I wanted to be like him.

It was a lot of work to make it to the road in the heavy snow. We hitched a ride from a Cal Trans truck back to the parking lot. I could tell that Dad wanted to ski another run. I even knew the logic of it: These days are rare and you gotta get ’em while you can. I wanted to share in his excitement for this golden moment. But I wanted to play with my friends more.

For some reason he didn’t push it further that day, and an hour and a half later we pulled up in front of Bobby’s house. I ran inside with my ski clothes still on and discovered that the kids had just finished the chocolate cake. I cried and wouldn’t talk to or look at my dad. The mothers eyed us—we were out of place in our wet ski clothes and soiled matted hair, and we smelled like sweat. They had come from showers and smelled like lilacs and we had just crawled out of the woods. Oblivious to it all my dad charmed the ladies and then scarfed down the vegetable plate. Feeling rough and dirty compared to everyone else I stayed in the background, hoping for, but never finding, a thread of conversation to grab that would tow me into the gang’s banter. I had nothing in common with these kids, and once again, I yearned to live the life of my peers—riding bikes together after school, playing ball in a cul-de-sac.

Am I going to miss any birthday parties? I asked my dad as he cracked open a bottle of water and handed it to me, the Baja heat coming on early this morning.

None that I know of.

I gave him a bitter look and he added, There will always be more birthday parties.

I turned away from him, sulking. He patted my back.

You got it easy, Ollestad, he said. Grandma used to drag me off the baseball field right in the middle of games and make me go to dance lessons. Imagine that. Shit, all you have to do is go surfing and skiing, fun stuff.

Shocked, I swung around to face him. Dance lessons? Like tap-dancing? I said.

Worse. Ballet.

Oh man, I said. Why?

She had a dream, he said, stretching out the word dream, of me being in movies.

In Cheaper by the Dozen Dad played the oldest son, twelve or thirteen years old, and I remembered that in his first scene he was wearing a baseball uniform.

Was it your idea to wear the baseball uniform in Cheaper by the Dozen? I said.

A smile lifted his whole face.

Absolutely, he said.

That’s pretty cool, Dad, I said.

Well, he said, riding that bus for hours to one of the studios and then having to wait like cattle for two or three more hours wasn’t cool. I missed a lot of fun for Grandma’s dream.

Dad looked like a little boy asking for sympathy, and I knew he was still pissed at Grandma.

Waiting in those lines I’d sleep leaning against the wall, he said.

Didn’t you fall down? I said.

He glanced at the road and shook his head.

You made money though, I said trying to make him feel better.

True. That helped me get through college, he said.

We stopped to get gas and eat and then we were on the road again. The road climbed through higher