Norman Ollestad - Crazy for the Storm

I glared at the storm as it feasted on the mountain, hammering on my dad still trapped in there. It did not get me. And I knew—I knew that what he had put me through saved my life.

In the charcoal gray dusk the teenager, who said his name was Glenn Farmer, carried me toward a sawmill that was next to a ranch house. A tall blond woman was standing outside the sawmill watching us approach. She moved into the middle of the road and Glenn carried me right to her. She winced at my black-and-blue eyes, blood-encrusted lacerations, and raw knuckles, but just for an instant, then her heavily hooded eyelids relaxed, softening her gaze.

Are you from the plane crash? she said.

I was startled that she knew too. I nodded.

My name’s Patricia Chapman, she said. You’re safe now.

She called into the sawmill. A man in overalls came out. This was her husband Bob. I told him what had happened and where to find Sandra and my dad.

Then Patricia walked me to her house. She tugged the heavy block of wood open and ushered me inside. An old Native American rug cushioned my feet. I saw two low-slung rocking chairs facing a potbelly stove like the one in my dad’s house. I could feel the heat defrosting my skin all the way from the doorway.

Sit down, she said.

The chair was something amazing, the way it cradled me and let me rest. I reached my hands and feet toward the embers. She asked me if I wanted hot chocolate.

Yes please.

Patricia said she was a mom and that her two sons were playing down at the far end of the road. I stared into the pink-red glow throbbing beyond the open door of the potbelly stove. I wondered if they had bikes or skateboards.

A few minutes later Patricia handed me a mug of hot chocolate. She sat in the other rocking chair and we both leaned forward. My feet tingled and needles shot up my ankles and shins. The hot cocoa and the radiating stove thawed my hands.

There was a crippling pain in my right hand and I noticed that it was swollen so I switched the mug to the other hand.

Patricia asked me if there was anything else I wanted.

No. Just to get warm.

She was relaxed and patient. We sat quietly, staring at the fire. I felt myself adapting to the calm and warmth of the room. My first rest in more than nine hours.

After I finished my hot chocolate she said she thought she had better call somebody and let them know I was okay. I nodded.

Patricia called the Mount Baldy fire station from the other room and came back and told me they would meet us at the gate by the highway. I got up and took her hand and she led me out the door.

We walked under the last whisper of light down a path through pools of snow and around big reddish-brown tree trunks. Patricia told me the footprints I had spotted leading down from the meadow were hers and her sons’. I asked her why she went there.

Just had a feeling, she said.

I thought about us both being drawn to the meadow, about the helicopter not being able to help me, about how only she helped me—her footprints were like a yellow brick road.

At a wooden gate by the main road I saw a fire truck, an ambulance and a couple unmarked cars. Guys in suits stood in front of the cars. They approached as a group while a paramedic looked me over. When he was done one of the men wearing a suit stepped forward. Detective So-and-So. He was taking me to the Ontario hospital. I waved good-bye to Patricia.

On the way down the winding road the detective asked me questions about the crash. Who was flying? Was I sure it was not my dad? Did I notice anybody suspicious when I boarded the plane? Did the pilot say anything before we hit the mountain? Was something wrong with the plane? I told him what I knew, and twenty minutes later we arrived at the hospital.

IWAS LYING ON my back looking into a lamp. The faces of a nurse and doctor stared down at me while they stitched up my chin. The doctor sutured it from the inside, going through my mouth, then from the outside. He then worked on the punctures in my cheeks.

You’re doin’ great, said the doctor. When I’m done, is there anything you want to eat or drink?

I hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours. My stomach grumbled.

Yeah. A chocolate milkshake, I said.

I sort of held my breath after I said it, half expecting my dad’s voice to boom out, No way, Ollestad. How about a turkey sandwich on wheat?

No one objected. And the doctor called out to someone to fix up a chocolate milkshake right away.

When he was finished stitching my face I sat up and the nurse handed me the milkshake. I slurped it right down. I couldn’t understand why there was a sheriff standing at the door the whole time. I wasn’t a criminal. Then they put ointment on my raw knuckles and wrapped gauze around them.

The doctor took me to another room and the sheriff followed us. On the way I saw all the news people with cameras and microphones jostling at the end of the corridor. What’s the big deal? I told myself. I just couldn’t admit what had really happened. It would crush me and I could never let anything ever crush me. Those news people were forcing me to acknowledge the whole ordeal, so I turned away.

The doctor X-rayed my right hand and the nurse stayed with me when he left to check the results.

You have a broken hand, he said when he got back.

I looked at my hand. The top bulged into a red mound. Trying to flex it was impossible and the pain immobilized my whole arm. I heard the sheriff’s radio chirp—something about the rescue team needing ropes to get up the mountain. I thought of the chute—so steep it nearly pitched me backward as I hugged the ice. It seemed impossible to make it down that mountain with my hand like this. The doctor bent his ear toward the sheriff’s radio while stealing a glance at my broken hand. Ever so slightly he recoiled and he looked spooked for a second. Then he smiled.

Time to put a cast on that hand, Norman, he said.

After the cast was on the nurse re-dressed my seared fingers with ointment and gauze, then wrapped an Ace bandage around the cast—it looked like a fatheaded club.

I was lost in thought—Sandra’s wide-open eyes staring up at me, tiny chunks of sapphire, not brown like they were supposed to be. No matter how hard I pressed the blue out and pushed the brown in, the iris remained sapphire. A voice was directing somebody into my room. I slid off the bed. The door opened and my mom rushed up to me and her purse banged the linoleum floor as she kneeled and hugged me, her tears dripping onto my cheek. Her voice sputtered. They told me the search had been called off, she said.

My mom raked her fingers through my hair. Her eyes searched as if to make sure I was really there.

Then an hour later they called again and said, A boy alleging to be from a plane crash showed up in Baldy Village .

My mom clenched me tighter.

Nick came forward. He patted my back and told me he thanked God I was alive. I remembered the deal I had made—that if I made it down I’d believe in God—but it didn’t seem like God had anything to do with my making it down. Instead I thanked my dad.

Did they get Dad yet? I said.

Nick glanced at my mom.

No, honey, she said. They found Sandra though.

Is she dead?

Yes.

I thought so, I said.

They said you covered her with twigs, said Nick.

Yeah. To keep her warm.

If you thought she was dead why did you cover her up? said Nick.

I furrowed my brow. Does he think I’m lying again?

What if she wasn’t dead, I said.

Nick blinked as if having been slapped across the cheek. Uh-huh, he said.

There was a window in the room and I noticed it was dark. That was the last time I asked about my dad. No tears. I felt buffered, having replaced my eleven-year-old-boy skin with something thicker.