Crazy for the Storm

little tense. He slouched in his seat and his eyes shifted from side to side. I pretended not to notice. The truck chattered over the cobblestones and it was weird to see cement buildings, a soccer stadium, churches and shops. We crossed the bridge and I knew we were close.

My dad floored it up the steep cobblestone road to my grandparents’ house. The house clung to the hillside and overlooked the entire Vallarta bay. We parked in front of the open garage where the sign CASA NORMAN was screwed into the stone wall. My dad looked at me. He twisted his lips to one side.

Well that was quite a journey. Wasn’t it? he said.

I nodded.

Maybe we don’t want to scare Grandma and Grandpa, you know? he added.

He patted my leg. He looked in the rearview and brushed down his mustache with his fingers. He hadn’t shaved in days and his whiskers poked out, gray ones appearing.

You got some blond surfer hairs, I said, thinking I was awfully clever repeating back to him one of his own jokes.

He smiled and then Grandma came out of the house.

There was a lot of kissing and hugging and she was ecstatic about the new washing machine. My dad said it was no problemo and talked about my great tube rides. Grandma took a deep breath, put her hand on her chest and lifted onto her toes.

Oh my, she said.

Grandpa came home and kissed us all and he and my dad carried the washing machine up some stairs, grunting and groaning until they got the machine onto the deck above the garage and Grandpa hooked it up. Grandpa knew how to fix things because he used to be a telephone repairman. He could climb a pole faster than any other man in his unit, only missing one day of work in thirty years. Thinking of him shimmying up the pole reminded me that he was a great dancer like Dad. That’s how he had wooed Grandma, dazzling her with his waltz and swing moves. He married Grandma after her first husband left her with two kids—Uncle Joe and Aunt Charlotte. Grandpa was willing to take on a preformed family, which was rare in those days, said Grandma. Then my dad was born and, last, his sister Aunt Kristina.

We all went swimming, then after dinner we played a card game. Grandma asked me about my puka-shell necklace. Already what had happened seemed like a dream in another time long ago.

I found the shells where I got tubed, I said. Somebody strung them for me.

They sound like wonderful people, she said. That’s Mexico.

For dessert we had apples that had been brought down from California by one of the many visitors my grandparents took in each month. Dad bit into a worm and Grandma got excited.

Great, Norie. Now we know they’re organic, she said.

After the card game, Grandma wrote the Mexico Report, a monthly update sent to the entire family. But Bob Barrow and my mom said that it was the occasional letter by Grandpa that proved he should have been writing the report, and Al said that Grandpa’s letters reminded him of Hemingway.

It was a real luxury to sleep on a soft mattress that night. I slept in a separate room, hearing the bugs buzzing and the animals thrashing around, and I wasn’t scared at all.

My dad had arranged a special treat for me. We went to the airport the next day and Chris Rolloff, my friend who I surfed with at Topanga, stepped off the plane.

You bought him a ticket? I said.

Well you said you missed your friends.

Grandpa and Dad took us surfing every day, driving Grandpa’s orange jeep. In Sayulita Grandpa would order ostras from the only restaurant in the village while we waxed up the boards. The waiter would write down the order, take off his shirt and then drive his boat out to the rocky headland. When we came in from the surf the oysters would be waiting for us under the palapa.

Finally having a buddy of my own to surf and pal around with instead of my dad gave me a taste of what pure fun was like. There was no one pressing for more. I loved when Rolloff and I just hung out, sometimes letting good waves go by while we made up our own surfing lingo like tweak-mondo and hairball-McGulicutty.

One day we rode burros up to a waterfall and all four of us had a contest: who could swim under the waterfall and back the fastest. It was tricky because the current tried to sweep you into the boulders and tried to tow you into the rapids just below our pool. After Dad and Grandpa clearly let us boys win the contest, declaring a tie, Dad dove off the top of the waterfall. Grandpa spotted a deep hole in the pool for him to land in. I could tell that Rolloff thought my dad was the coolest guy in the world, and it made me proud. Too bad it only lasted a week, I thought when Rolloff boarded the plane home.

CHAPTER 17

FROM AN ELEVATED position above the crash site I could see Sandra and myself under the wing of the airplane.

We were fused together. An ice-clad heap. Frosted hair. Blue lips. It took me a while to understand that I was dreaming. I felt like I was swimming and swimming and swimming. Never reaching the top. Running out of oxygen. A last gulp of air trapped in my throat.

Yielding to the warm water I sank. A pebble landing softly on a cushioned floor. Safe. Comfortable. Warm at last.

I saw this as if from outside my body and finally realized I had to pull myself out of the sleep. Move your arm, lift your head, I told myself. I used all my strength but to no avail. Instead I waded in blobs of glue. Drunk and unable to coordinate my muscles. The feathery bottom was irresistible. Cozy and inviting.

No. Get up, I insisted.

I bucked. My lids cracked, then closed again under pneumatic pressure.

Now my fingers wiggled. They are wiggling. Or I just think they are—a dream within a dream within a dream. No they are wiggling. And then a vacuum of bliss drew me deep into a heated cave. I countered the seductive sleep by trying to move my fingers again.

One eye splintered open. Light. White. Cool. But dark warmth enveloped me once more. Mmm. Goodnight.

I ordered my fingers to spread. A pitchfork. Elbow unbend. Elbow unbend. Unbend!

My arm was reaching up. But it would hit the wing. I see from my elevated perch that I am only dreaming this. Reach, I urge. Punch the wing.

My fingers struck metal.

Pull open your eyelids. Use anything. I used my stomach muscles. My forehead muscles.

The lids peeled open and my hand banged against the metal roof. All was blurry and I lunged toward the light. Don’t close your fucking eyes, Ollestad.

My body corkscrewed as if wringing itself out. I was in the snow. My eyelids dipped and then ripped free of the last tugging webs of sleep. I saw the snow and the tree and the wing. It was darker now and that accentuated my panic—afternoon is here, next is night, no chance then.

The horror of having observed myself slipping away widened my focus, allowing my dad’s crumpled body, the pilot’s leaky brains, and the wound in Sandra’s forehead to assault me. I wanted to roll back under the wing and say good night to this cruel hell.

Fight through it, Ollestad, boomed a voice. Keep moving.

I shouted under the wing.

Get up!

Sandra did not flinch.

I reached under the wing and shook her violently.

Get up! You can’t sleep.

Norman?

Get up.