[Part Three of Four]
The excitement of our gas scare had fully revived Dave, and he offered to drive. “Which way?” he said.
“Just follow 93 until we get to Baldy – it’ll be on your left when we reach the Yacht Club.”
“What?!”
But I was already gone, the Beatles crooning me to sleep with “Let it Be”.
“Hey – Hey! Wake up; ya gotta see this!”
“Wha – what? Are we there yet? Geez, it’s still dark. What is it, anyway?” I said, seeing nothing but mountains – valley – mountains all around me. Not even a rock to break the central Nevada monotony.
“Look!” Dave said, his eyes wide with a manic glee induced by seeing nothing but straight-line pitch-dark blacktop for 2 1/2 hours. “A turn – we’re gonna turn!”
“So?”
“So?! It’s the first one in forty miles. This place is amazing – there’s nothing here. No houses, no cars, no rivers, just a couple of rabbits jumping across the road now and then.”
I looked at the speedometer. It was somewhere above 100. I went back to sleep, mumbling, “Wake me when we get to Jackpot.”
Naturally, Dave couldn’t wait until then. He had been sneaking peeks at the map and had discovered that the next landmark would be a spot called Contact, thirty miles before the border burg of Jackpot.
I awoke to silence – no tires, no engine no muffler. Just the creaking of a metal sign dangling from a chain outside my window.
Dave was not in the car. Wearily, I turned my head to see him tapping on my window. His eyes were blazing brighter than the late-night moon slung low over the desert hills. He was pointing at the sign, smiling gleefully, raving some gibberish about “so small, it’s on both sides!” and cackling his asthmatic laugh like an allergic refugee from a Marx Brothers marathon film festival. I decided the time had come for me to take command; he’d obviously cracked and couldn’t even be trusted with so simple a function as piloting a motor car down a deserted unbending road. Now he was probably going to tell me he’d stopped because this was the first sign he’d seen in 2 hours. Just before I flipped the door handle to “open”, I realized that the white stuff coming from his mouth was frosted breath – that maniac was out there freezing in his short-sleeve California polyester college frat-boy shirt. Arming myself with ski cap, gloves, and down parka, I stepped outside and was shaken fully awake by the sudden reality of the cold, dry air. I was at that time half-way through my first Southern California winter; never have I been so shocked by a blast of cold air. How quickly we forget, I mused. Still, there was Dave to consider and corral back into the shotgun seat. I contemplated direct physical force, but quickly realized that, encumbered as I was by my cold weather accoutrements, he easily had the upper hand in that department.
So I tried humoring him.
“Whatsamatter this time, huh?”
“Look, this sign: this place is so small, they’ve got the name on both sides of the sign!”
It was true. And you can verify it for yourself, should you ever drive through the town of Contact, Nevada, 30 miles south of Jackpot, on US 93.
Despite all obstacles, we eventually did arrive at my sister’s in Ketchum by 9:30 in the morning. She lived in a little gingerbread house half-way out Warm Springs Road, just above the golf course. We started to bring our stuff in, stacking it all in the corner of her kitchen. In the middle of our third trip, Leigh walked in, looked at our pile of clothes, skis, and books, and started laughing. We looked quizzically at each other, then at the pile.
“What’s so funny?!” I demanded.
“What are you planning to do with all these books?” she laughed.
If you ever saw pre-meds grind in college, you can triple the intensity they have for studying, and you’ve got the average medical student. We had decided we might get a few hours of study time in while we were there, so we’d brought along several textbooks, as unconsciously as some people bring toothpaste. But medical texts are each about two or three inches thick, so the pile was about three feet high and weighed fifty pounds – just the bare essentials, we’d thought. Wouldn’t go anywhere without ’em, like a spare pair of underwear.
“What books?” I said, innocently.
“Hmm, I see we’ve got to loosen up your attitude a little bit. King! Come in here a minute,” Leigh said.
Her boyfriend, King, came in from the living room and surveyed us. He had lived all his life in Ketchum and sported that odd combination of rural airs and clothing, with jet-set sophistication common to residents of mountain resorts.
“What’s up, Leigh?” he asked.
After introductions, she explained the situation, meaning the books.
“Well, they came here to ski; maybe we’d better go skiing!”
After depositing Dave in the beginner’s class at Dollar Mountain, we swung over to the River Run parking lot. Three chairs later, we were on top. Leigh quickly began accumulating her acquaintances; she seemed to know everybody there. Two or three came with us down the impeccably groomed ridge of College, over to Flying Squirrel and down to the Warm Springs lift. I found myself riding up with Jim, who worked for the cable TV company where my sister was secretary. He dug ditches for the cables. It being winter and all (with the ground frozen), there wasn’t much call for his services, so he spent most of his time skiing.
“So, you’re sort of like a grave digger in paradise this time of year, huh?” I ventured.
Jim was skiing in overalls and a pea coat; his long blond pony-tailed hair hung out from his heavy watch cap. His eyes were perpetually smiling behind glasses almost as thick as mine. His glowing face broke into an even bigger smile as he laughed heartily. “Yeah, I guess that’s right. All we do now is go around and unhook the boxes from the sets of people who won’t pay their bills. Hey, you got any matches?”
[To Be Concluded]