Wellingtonian Wastrels: The Rolling Reel

The next several days would be comprised of a series of snapshots strung together and completing a slide show.  Yes, the highlight reel.  The pointer finger of God having punched the play button.  And away, and away, and away.
　
Thursday:

That first night, after everyone found their way back to 61 Standen, after everyone arrived full-bellied from suppers consumed separately, after everyone was seated in a semi-circle around the television sipping wine, we somehow came collectively to the conclusion that the only way to kick off the weekend would be to watch "The Golden Compass."

"The Golden Compass" a children's film full of CGI special effects.  Full of witches and talking soul-animals and magic wands, et cetera.  This, the movie we choose after Caroline (earlier in the day) singled out the fans of the Fantasy genre as a group of people with whom she chooses not to associate.  This, the film that we choose.  And--once again--a children's film.

And a film that, in the end, not a single one of us can comprehend.  There are too many characters, the plot is all over the place, and we just don't know what's happening. No.  We can't follow the children's film on the screen.  So we file out of the room one by one until we are all downstairs.  All of us downstairs and the DVD still rolling on the television screen upstairs, still blasting through the stereo speakers on the second floor.  The last view before shutting the door to Eva's bedroom is this: Eva and Robin side by side in Eva's bed, their faces aglow in the digital light from their computers, and apparently the both of them gaming away.  

Dorks in the nighttime.  Travellers sharing beds so as not to sleep on the floor.  The internet a necessity until you don't have it.  And then an amazing commodity when you have it again.  The two of them looking like gamers in the gloom.  Goodnight.

Friday:

The day evaporates quickly.  Separate trips to the supermarket and the liquor store.  Another walk through the graveyard with the dog.  The late afternoon sun-soak on the deck.  Beers tabs popped in the sunshine.
And then it is roasted veggies tossed in oil and lemon-pepper and rosemary, the rosemary plucked from the grass between gravestones.  All of us grouped around the kitchen island and sipping wine and pretending to be characters from "Waiting to Exhale," what with the girl-talk gossip and the girlfriend shimmy and the limp-wristed laugh.  And why am I a part of this?

Slow jams on the stereo and we're dancing after dinner.  Switch back to beers.  Beers from the fridge and get ready to go out.

To Southern Cross below the southern cross.  And beers.  Pitchers of beers slopped on the too-long tables.  And pictures--snapshots--that look posed in the aftermath.  Bottoms up and cigarettes shared.  The dance floor closed by the time we make our way to the hardwood.  So on to another bar.

And on.  Like sneak thieves in the street.  We darting between the shadows of buildings.  Behind square columns square in the asphalt.  Like fat totem poles rising to greet the city gods.  And we the demon spirits, the incarnations, below the downtown totem poles.  Dancing through the liquid night to avoid Caroline's past.  Through the shadows to avoid the eyes of certain persons at bar-entrance openings.  Through the night.

Bar-hopping.  And I loose myself twice in conversations with strangers.  The first, a man whose attention I was attempting to divert from the girls.  This after he asked them where they were from, and, when they answered "America," he mouthed the word "yes" and fist-pounded a friend at another table.  Classy.  The second stranger a loner who bummed me a cigarette and explained why I should move from my native land on the South Island (I don't know why he assumed this) to the always exciting Wellington.  Best Friends Forever in the alcohol haze.  And "what was your name again, mate?"

In both instances the girls come to the rescue.  And eventually we taxi away to Karori in the early morning. Back to 61 Standen Street.  Where apparently it is time for left over corn on the cob.  And the inevitable fashion shoot that ensues.

So.  The girls vogue, striking pose after pose.  Seductive.  All while mowing down the un-eaten dinner veggies.  And I snap photos of them from different angles while they smile at me with corn kernels between their teeth.  And we're just getting drunk as we head to bed.

It is Diddy Dirty Money with the lullaby on the laptop.  I'm coming home. And over and over we ask "who would have thought?" "P-Diddy back on track?" "who would have thought?"  And over and over Robin answers, "I would have," "I did," "I knew."

And we're just getting drunk as we head to bed.

Saturday:

To wake up drunk and cook a mid-afternoon brunch.  Veggie-egg scramble, hash browns, and chocolate chip pancakes. Complete only with a slew of mimosas.  Let the highlight reel roll.  Outside in the pic-a-nic table sun with the fist-sized speakers blasting (Diddy Dirty) and the eating gold and gone.  Who eats brunch at 3:30 pm?
　
Soon drunk.  Still drunk in the late afternoon and watching Dawson's Creek on the television.  It is Wilmington landscapes within the digital cage. It is a teenage melodrama articulated by B-level actors using grad-school grammar.  But we're not really listening.  All of us taking turns talking over the story on the screen.

And after Caroline directs a diatribe at the character Joey Potter (I seem to remember the phrase "straighten your fucking hair you stupid bitch").  And after Robin takes an airplane ride on the soles of my feet--she lifted up by laughter--this prone plank flying through the room.  And after the last champagne bottle clinks into the recycling bin along with the rest of them--the orange juice jug empty and the house bereft of alcohol.  After all of this we look at each other one by one by one by one and wonder aloud why we are drunk and inappropriate in the middle of the afternoon on a random Saturday thousands of miles from North Carolina.

Let the reel roll.

And we roll into town to run errands and collect more booze for the nighttime falling.  And while I sit and wait on the girls--while I wait in the illegally parked car--while I wait on the city street called Lambton Quay, I browse through Robin's ipod until I find a playlist entitled "fun jamz," and am immediately transported back to West Cary Middle School.

I wonder to myself who could think of the west without the prefixes "wild" and "wild."  Who could think of the west without conjuring a mental image of the bleach-headed, bare-chested Sisquo and the gun-slinging, line-dancing Will Smith?  It's the Wild Wild West on repeat, and the car is a carriage through the avenues of time.

Back up the hill to sit and sip.  While watching Whale Rider--a New Zealnd film about the native Maori population, women's lib, and the use of cetaceans as horses.  And when it ends we flip through the channels looking for The Patriot.  Knowing that the Mel Gibson epic is supposed to be playing.  But alas: we have 30 minutes to kill before it begins.

And suddenly we're all frantic. What are we going to do? We have a whole half-hour. What are we supposed to do?  I don't know. Do you know?  No.  I don't know.  What can we do? Frantic.

But the movie comes on before we can make a decision.  Thank God.  And we settle into our seats for the duration.  And it is late before we know it.

Wine tonight to go along with Laura's five-star Lasagna dinner served in the middle of the movie.  And we're still eating as the Casio digital calculator turns today into tomorrow.

Sleep deep on distended bellies.  And the only alarm clock in the house is the pale figure of Robin running into the room in the much-too-early morning.  Jumping onto the bed in this: the last violent charge before her retreat.

Goodbye. And the highlight reel rolls to black.  Goodbye.
　

Wellingtonian Wastrels: Before the Reel Rolled

Ferry.  Ferry, ferry across the blue.  Through the sound country on the metal monster weaving.  The horn honk echo off island walls.  Off the steely decks of sister ferrys flowing past.  Low pitched like a whale's whistle in the salt breeze.  This buoyant belly bearing us through the Cook Straight.  Cutting through the waves like a hot buttered knife.  And on across to Wellington: the city on the sea, the capital city.

Into port.  Rubber wheels on the metal deck.  Push start the Corolla.  Feet planted firmly behind the car.  Within the metal cavern filling and always filling with carbon dioxide.  Shoulder down and push toward the cave opening, the ferry workers yelling, toward the sunlight and down the ramp to freedom.

Into the five o'clock traffic.  Into the congestion, the blocked intestines of city streets.  Past the parliament's beehive buzzing and up the hill to Karori.  To 61 Standen Street.  And standing in the street I bid farewell to Chester Boyes.  Chester in a hurry to get back to Rotorua and "sort out [his] life."  Chester throwing my belongings on the sidewalk.  Chester speeding away in the Corolla.

While I walk up the steps to re-unite with the lovely ladies of Carolina.  Freckled faces in the domicile and the smiles of southern belles.  Slide into the comfortable stasis of a house of a home.  And pretend.  Off the boat and afloat in Windy Welly.  Put John Prine on the six disk changer and "come back, baby, come back.  I want to play house with you."

And is that domesticity tap tap tapping at the door?  Put the dog on a leash and walk him through the cemetery sprawl on the edge of suburbia.  Through the garden of gravestones, the polished rock sprouting over the human seed.  Lay them in the ground lying down.  And I know your name, and yours.  You a decade gone and six feet deep.  Your name, and yours.  And your age, and yours.  And your family around you.  On and on, the cemetery sprawl.  Down the rows, the dog chewing grass growing from graves.  Pull the leash.  On and on.

Stop at the store for beans before heading home.  Then it is a pot on the stove, greens in a bowl and the promise of a blockbuster DVD to acompany the bottle of red wine.

"Come back, baby, come back.  I want to play house."  With you.  Long walks with Caro the morning after and for the rest of the week.  Into town hand-holding, and hootie-hoo, how easy it is to fall into rhythm with a girl who knows how to dance.  "Life is a stage," said the patron saint of writing Wild Willy.  And: Good God!  I'm with a fucking star.

Shoot.

Nothing to do in town but turn around.  The shops closed and the empty streets feeling like a sepia-filtered photograph.  Into and out of the library, our look-a-likes stalking behind us in the black-glass reflections of ground-floor office building windows.  So it is.  Back up the hill with the wind rising.  Back up to beans and rice and another blockbuster and another bottle of wine.  Back up.

To wake to sunshine and the pic-a-nic table lawn chair lay out.  From the late morning to the early afternoon: lounging.  Sun ray soaking, until we get the call we've been waiting for.  All business from the cell phone receiver.  But boy-o-boy what a pleasure.

Enter Robin Fail.  And thus: the pointer finger of god poised above the play button on the highlight reel of the Wellington weekend.  A highlight reel that is more a series of snapshots than it is a grouping of stories...

And which begins with Robins appearance at 61 Standen Street with her New Zealand "Mother" Mrs. Carolyn Stilwell, and a bottle of rose-colored champagne.  Drink up.  Cultured--cultivated--the five of us spinning yarns in the sitting room, legs crossed and laughing, pouring the pale pink liquid from wine glass to mouth as the sun slides through the bay window that looks out on the afternoon sky.  Drink up.

Before she and robin head back to the city centre, Carolyn invites me to come stay with her at her family's home "in the gorge outside of Nelson."  An offer that I then ignored with a smile while pocketing the piece of paper she handed me.  While pocketing the piece of paper that contained her scrawled number.  A piece of paper that is now secured firmly within a southern gothic novel, marking my progress through the word fields of Faulkner, and forever handy for I might need it now that the offer has been re-considered.  Now that I've re-assessed my situation.  Now that I'm headed south once again.

But on that first afternoon--after the introduction and the glass of champagne--I crumpled the piece of paper and stuffed it into my pocket and didn't think about it again for the next several days.  Didn't think about it at all for the next several days.

For the next several days would be comprised of a series of snapshots strung together to complete a slide show.  Yes, the highlight reel now rolling.  The pointer finger of God having punched the play button.  And away, and away, and away.

Godspeed and Goodbye to the Christchurch City

Out of Christchurch.  The final farewell.  Goodbye Park City.  Early morning and driving against the work traffic.  The low-riding Corolla riding low.  Packed to the brim and we're off.  This is the end.  The end of the South Island tour.

This is the morning of the end.  And this morning is all instant coffee swigged in the kitchen and the frantic search for the forgotten.  It is Anna and Simon seeing us off.  The two of them wrapped in towels, stumbling out of their shared room, and squinting through the haze of sleep.

Then the ceremonious ending.  The push-start down the driveway at 312 Greers Road.  Simon and I side by side.  Bent into the back of the car, and his towel slipping.  Pop the clutch and give her some gas.  I am waving goodbye as I run down the driveway to catch the Corolla.  Don't look back.  Simon's towel surely on the ground around his feet.

Goodbye.  And thank you so much.  Goodbye.

Out of the city center.  Up Highway 1 North.  Once again.  Into the golden fields of wine country.  Grape vines growing up the wire lattice work roadside.  Row upon row indentical and zipping by the window like a farm field flip-book.

And in between the vineyards the sheep grazing and the cows.  The sheep, white speckles into the distant hills.  The sheep infinate and spread like a net of bleating stars across the land.  And the cows.  The cows puddled beneath the trees.  Seeking shade.  Seeking shade from the all-alone sun in the sky.

Queen Anne's Lace in the ditch by the side of the road.  Bobbing in the breeze.  "Tossing their heads in sprightly dance" to the tune of the whistling wind.  The wind that blows us north.

These are the summer days.  The mid-January summer days.  Two boys in sunglasses and shorts cruising toward the coast.  A shared mason jar passed back and forth between them.  The mason jar full of a homemade banana milkshake.  The sweet dairy deity.  Gulp.  And: good god it feels good to be moving.

On the road after.

After climbing in the Port Hills on Saturday.  Three sport climbs in the dying light of the setting sun.  Climbing beneath a glided sky.  The Nor'wester cloud fleece tempered metallic so that the folds of the sprawling underbelly glitter silver pink.  The sky on fire.

After sleeping restlessly on a stomach full of bananas (the diet having momentarily changed from toasties to the potassium powerhouse because of a stack of FREE BANANAS at the local fruit store).  And climbing at the Cave Stream boulders beside Castle Hill.  Where--incidentally--both Marky and I take repeated falls from the top of a problem called "Baby Food," and re-injure elbows already throbbing from overuse.

After spending Saturday afternoon at the overcrowded beach-retreat of Taylor's Mistake.  All of us planking ourselves into the breakers to surf, horizontal and smiling, toward the shore.  Then the fish and chips sitting cross-legged in the sand.  Grease.  Flocks of seagulls circling endlessly.  Ride back into town in the boot of the car for a desert of frozen bananas.

After all of this and the rain sweeps in at the start of the workweek.  We are confined for the entirety of Monday and Tuesday to the living room jail-cell of the flat.

And after the rain we are--now--casually cruising through paradise.   On the road.  The one window of the Corolla that works rolled down.  And the sea breeze on the bare skin beneath the blue sky.  Drift.

Switch seats in Kaikoura and we're off once again.  Drift.  Bare feet working the gas and the clutch and--once we reach the road work--the brake as well.  The roadwork.  The stop and go.  And stop.  And go.  Swing around the slow movers in between work zones.  Hold tight through the curves and sling-shot into the straight aways.  We arrive with time to spare.

Ice cream in Picton before boarding the Ferry.  Sweaty.  Unshaved. Unshowered.

The only thing holding us up?  The sustenance of our farewell flight?  Bananas and ice cream.  Hooray!

Headed north.  And into the fray.

Stone Monkeys Swinging

The hitchhiking done for the time being and once again sedentary.  Temporarily sedentary in the city of Christchurch.

“Back into the swing of things.”  And swing we do.  From the city to the station in the basin.  Swing into the field of the limestone monolith.  The limestone monolith innumerable.  All together, an homage to the rock-climbing gods.

The first day back and the sweet kiss of the Quantum Field.  A hangboard workout once we’re back at the flat.  Swing.  This is the rock climbing way. 

Toasties in the toasty-maker, and here we are.  The willing dopes of a delicious Déjà Vu.  Thank you.  A classic movie cued on the laptop flipped.  Two toasties apiece.  Two toasties steaming hot and drowned in Homebrand smoked hickory sauce.  Cold beers from the fridge and the throb of fatigued forearms.  This is Monday night.

This is Monday night, and by Friday morning.  I will have taken two more trips to the Castle Hill basin.  From Christchurch.  Over Porters Pass and into the rhapsodic revelation of the limestone kingdom. 

I will have eaten nine more toasties.  That’s eleven all together.  From Monday night to Friday morning.  That’s twenty-two pieces of bread (a loaf), eleven eggs, two red peppers, a kilogram of mushrooms, a block of cheese, a package of ham, and a bottle of smoked hickory sauce.  “Get ‘ur down ya’, boy.”  A three day binge of sliced-bread pies.  And more to wolf down in the weekend waiting.

But the food is an afterthought.  A way to pass the time between bouldering excursions.

There is the first trip to Quantum.  Where the sun beats us off of the rock, and Marky and I hitch back to town.  Then.  There are two trips to the fabled Flock Hill.  Flock Hill “better than Castle Hill” according to the New Zealand Rock Jocks that we met in the Darrans.  Flock Hill with “more holds and cleaner lines” than Castle Hill according to the stars of the Boone Speed climbing film Big Game.  Flock Hill with more rock to climb than the combined Quantum Field and Spittle Hill.  According to Mark.  According to Mark and a new friend—who is a famed New Zealand Rock Jock in his own right—Mr. Peter Allison.  Sometimes referred to as “The Radness.”

No guidebook available.  Special access that must be granted by the landowner.  Across the road from Castle Hill.  On the other side of a shadow valley.  And up the slope of another hill entirely.  Here we are.  This is a Narnia Land.  Immortalized forever in the film version of the “final battle.”  And here we are.

After a gut-busting snack of coffee poured over heaping helpings of ice cream.  After a techno-blasted afternoon ride over the Canterbury plains.  With the sun sitting low in the sky.  Setting.  Here we are.  We are here.

And we are the nighttime ninjas.  The post-supper savages creeping.  Up the green folds of the earth.  Up the green field aslant.  The rectangle shells and the steady gait.  The slow and steady turtle gait and the setting sun behind us setting.  It is sinking below Castle Hill.  It is throwing our shadows in front of us.  Black boxes on moving legs.  And we chase them up the hill.  A motley flock up the hill.  To Flock.  We fly.

And does it strike anyone else as strange.  After the walk, the pads tossed on the ground below the boulders.  Does it strike anyone else as strange that this is what we do?

To climb to the top and walk off?  To the top of a boulder, to the top of a mountain?  To climb to the top and walk off?  Does it strike anyone else as strange?  To clip bolts up a sport climb?  To unclip them?  To place traditional gear up a trad climb?  To pull it out?  Does it strike anyone else as strange that this is what we do?

We like to climb rocks.  So we climb them.

It is a funny thing.  To monkey up the stones.  To play stone monkey.  A funny thing to figure out the body puzzle required to move up the rock.  The secret sequence.  And it is a different puzzle for every person.

To climb.  The verb has a special meaning—a different meaning—to each and every Subject perpetrating the act.  That is: each and every climber defines “climbing” in a nuance all his or her own.

But I believe it is a vehicle.  Above all a vehicle.  Like any number of vehicles designed to move men and women from the indoors out.  It is the vertical vehicle carrying we stone monkeys out.  Out from under ceilings.  Out from the hum of electric lights.  Out from the structure.  From the brick.  From the wood paneling.  Out.

To take communion with the open air.  This, the sweet Eucharist of mother earth.  Her body, her blood.  Eat.  Drink.  And be merry.  Carpe Diem.  Sieze.

These are the rudiments of our human roots.  To thrive in the open.  To find a problem.  To create a problem.  To find a problem and solve it.

Now go fang up that rock.

Yes, two nighttime missions to Flock Hill.  The first with Paddy and Peter Allison and a boy named Tony.  All of us hopped-up on ice cream and coffee.  Snacking on candy.  And coffee.  An exploratory mission, with Peter Allison the Flock facilitator and guide.  And it is through the field we Cyclops climbers.  The brigh-white eye of the headlamp strapped firmly to each forehead and floating up the rocks.  Moon sliver and the Milky Way burning above.  The temps falling.  And falling.  And falling until we leave the boulders around four in the morning. 

For toasties in the dawn-light leaking from the east.  Bedtime in the sunshine.  Rest for round two tomorrow.

The second mission made up of two cars of climbers.  Marky and Peter Hardcore and myself.  Peter Allison, Chester, The Fish, and a guy named Troy.  And we’re off.  Caravanning through Canterbury.  The obligatory stop for pies along the way.  One car in Sheffield, the other in Springfield.  And the battle of deliciousness rages on.  And on to Flock Hill.

The sun setting once again, and once again we are the nighttime ninjas.  Stealthy.  This is a mission to send the unsent.  To re-grapple and to grapple anew.  To gain the tops of the rocks and to walk off.  To climb

Into the shadow land.  The moon cradled now by nothing but blue.  Now by the enveloping black.  While the ninjas swing swift.  And swift into night.

The Thumb Song Sing-along

The Darran days done. 

Simon and I hitch out on Saturday beneath blue skies.  Chester and Carl head back into the hills.   

Roadside.  Simon and I wait roadside.  With a pack apiece and our thumbs outstretched.  Learn to speak the lingo.  Learn to sing the transient song.   

We wait roadside for an hour and a half before Ligar picks us up.  Ligar a Swiss photo-enthusiast with a self-proclaimed predilection to “getting smashed.”  North from the head of the Gertrude Valley to Te Anu to stop for two cups of cappuccino at a cafe and a slice of chocolate cake.  Then crowd back into the yellow hatch-back rental and blare techno all the way to Queenstown.  Stopping for Ligar to snap photos all the vistas.  Vista after vista.

All the way to Queenstown where Simon and I say goodbye and hustle down the street to stuff ourselves with a world famous Fergburger.  To give up a ride for a slab of beef on bun.  And well worth it.

We head back up the hill after fashioning a cut-out cardboard sign.  Thumbs out.  Half smiles.  And the cars go streaming by.  Two couples come walking past, the men handsome ogres, the women beautiful.  Trophies.  “Good on ya, boys,” says the smiling Alfa male.  “Keep it up young guns,” as they pass.  And over his shoulder, “But Geraldine’s quite far away.” 

We know.   

A twenty minute ride with three Maori boys in a jalopy.  They just come from the rugby match.  Drinking warm Tui beer out of bottles in the backseat with the speakers rattling fuzz into our eardrums.  And they drop us off in Frankton, which is really just the outskirts of Queenstown.  Not even twenty minutes.  But they’re “good cunts” nonetheless.  Finish the beers and throw away bottles and get back onto the road.

Another string of cars.  The yellow hatchback with Ligar behind the wheel.  He pretends not to see us.  Tactful. 

But before too long we are picked up by the Alfa male and his girlfriend.  They come cruising by in a flash car.  And the taillights blink.  And they do the side swerve.  And we realize once we’re inside that it’s one of the couples we saw on the sidewalk. 

“We’re only going to Cromwell,” says the man, “but we’ll get you that far.”  He slides his seat forward to accommodate Simon.  “A little farther on the way to Geraldine.”  And all of a sudden he is scrunched.  Like a freckled clown.  Huge.  Hunched in the driver’s seat.  His hulking frame too much, his knees jabbing into the dash.  Into the console on the one side, the door panel on the other.  Bending the shape of the car.  Genes, I think to myself, he’s got giant genes.

And as we chat.  And chat.  It comes out that he, too, is from Rotorua.  He graduated with Carl Fischer’s big brother.  The elder fish.  So he and Simon--common ground established--shoot the shit.  And after a while Simon says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name.”  And the man responds, “Tom Donnelley.”  And a silence falls.  And after another while Simon says, “I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of the loop, but don’t you play for the All Blacks?”  And the man responds, “Yep, yep.  I play a bit.”

A starting lock for the best rugby team in the world, and yet he’s modest as a mouse.  Down the road to Cromwell.  Chit-chatting about rock climbing and other “extreme sports.”  And after they drop us off in Cromwell, waving goodbye out of the sunroof, Simon says, “Well, you’ve just taken a ride with one of New Zealand’s premier sportsman.”  What a good cunt.

Then a ride from a milky-eyed man who may or may not have been three sheets to the wind.  A ride from scruffy Bruce and his mangy dog.  All the windows down, and a child lock employed.  I can’t hear a bit of the conversation from where I sit in the backseat.  So I pet the dog and wait.  And Bruce drops us off in the middle of nowhere.

No shoulder.  Few cars.  But nowhere, after all, is somewhere.  And as the clock tics toward seven in the evening we catch our fifth and final ride from a fellow traveler.  A German girl who is on her way to Christchurch.  On her way to the big city to sell her car and get out of the country.  The first female flagged down, and she plays Sufian Stevens as we cruise toward Geraldine.

She stays with us at the Sentinies’.  In the always welcome arms of Anna’s parents.  Yogurt and fresh fruit as a nighttime snack.  And a comfortable conversation with Ad before bed.

Wake up early and cruise to Christchurch.  To 312 Greers where Marky lounges shirtless and shoeless in the driveway.  Smoking.  Waiting on Paddy and a car to take him to Castle Hill (Sir Lancelot the Mitsubishi Lancer having exploded over Marky’s holiday break).  And I’m fiending to climb.  I’m ready to go.  Itchy fingers and the driveway pacing.

But Paddy arrives with a full ride.  And I’m forced to hitch to the hill.  No problem. 

By now a master: practiced and skilled in his art.  The thumb hung out in the afternoon sun.  And soon a ride with a young couple.  They sweating out alcohol from the revelry of the previous evening.  On their way to a late holiday celebration with a hospital-bound relative.  “We’re not too excited about it,” the boy behind the wheel says, blinking into the sun.  “Shit, I’m still drunk,” says the girl. 

And this is the way it goes.

Back to Castle Hill for a session in the sunshine.  The distant triangles of hang-gliders swooping through the hills surrounding.  A collection of multi-colored cut-outs, construction paper cutting through the blue.  But it is hot, and before long the sweating sun forces us from the field.

Marky and I bid farewell to Paddy and the rest of the posse and wait roadside, thumbs loose.  We hitch to the Springfield pub via a family of three.  And, after a jug and a cigarette each, back to Christchurch via one of the hang-gliders from the basin.

Back to Christchurch and the familiar faces.  Simon and Anna and Marky.  Carl and Chester due back by Tuesday.  Back to the comfortable couch in the living room.  Toasties cooking in the toasty machine, and a movie cued on the laptop.

The promise of good weather and trips to the basin.

The thumb song of the last two days echoing with the voices of helpful strangers.

Darran Days: Out of the Mountains

To Eat.  To Sleep.  To read and talk shit.  To shit-talk and read and eat and sleep.  Day in and day out.  And day in.  Red, yellow, black, and blue.  Slugs rolling around on the upper tier of the cave fortress.  Phil’s Bivvy.  Day in and day out.  And day in.

Until.  Until the food stores run low, and we collectively decide that it is time to go.  That the rain will not stop.  That there will be no more climbing on this jaunt into the mountain country.  And on this morning when we have the revelation, on this morning after we have resigned ourselves to the inevitable retreat, on this morning the rain stops and the clouds clear.

We exit together.  Out of the cave and into the sunshine.  Dancing beneath blue skies.  The scene spread wide open.  Immaculate.  The four of us dressed in socks and polyprops and hopping through the dew.  Everything visible.  The far away walls of the basin.  The glaciers perched between the peaks.  The mirror Lake Adelaide below in the valley.  The rugged country between here and there.  Turn in circles, arms outstretched.

And hope returns.  We have enough food for a few more days.  We can hold out.  We can climb tomorrow.  After everything has dried.  We can climb tomorrow.

And as the waterfalls shrink, as we talk about summiting the Sabre, the rain begins to fall once again.  Back into the cave like mice.  The cat clouds sweeping over the Adelaide Saddle.  Wet claws outstretched in dripping tendrils.  Back into the cave as the wind picks up, as it whistles down the granite.

And it is all over.  Pack up and get out.  The rain will not stop.  There will be no more climbing on this jaunt into the mountain country.  The revelation revisited.  And it is time to go.

Pull the clothes off the clothesline rigged.  All of them drooping damp across the entrance of the cave.  Tape the feet.  Stuff the backpacks full, and strap them to backs.  And once we are suited again in our semi-wet gear, we file out of Phil’s Bivvy for the last time.

Through the rugged country.  The ragged country.  The thigh-high grass and the uneven ground.  Back to the marsh and through the marsh, and up the steep walls to the saddle.  Clinging to tussock, placing the numb toes of the plastics on wet edges.  Up the waterfall way.  Up to the tarn and past the tarn.  Up the rock jumble to Barrier Knob.  Battling. 

The rest of the boys cruising.  But I’m battling.  Stepping at strange angles to prevent the plastics from cutting into my shins.  Falling behind.  Breathing heavily.  And making noises that I don’t mean to make.  I feel like a tourist on a guided trip.  This is not what I signed up for. 

But the boys are helpful.  Encouraging me onward and upward like good camp counselors.  I vomit twice in my mouth.  Choke it down.  In their eyes am I struggling student?

Onward and upward to Barrier Knob.  And down the snowfield on the other side.  The terror rising when we realize the path is not as stable as it was a few days ago.  The snow shallow and a sheet of ice underneath.  Chester shows me how to “arrest.”  How to fall on my ice axe if I slip and start sliding.  A quick tutorial and then it is down the steepness.  Down the snow and ice.  Hearts in our ears.  Down to the rocks on the other side. 

And down.  And down we go.  I can keep up.  More or less.  Down to the Gertrude Saddle.  Milford Sound visible through the valley.  Visible through the flitting mist-wigs, through the cloud-hair blown wild by the wind.  A group photograph there on the saddle.  And saddle up for the last push.  Down.

Past Black Lake and pick up the gear that we stashed on the first day of the trip.  Down the Gertrude Track and past the point where Carl and I—the Gertrude Gurus—turned back on that first day.  Yes, this is my second descent into this valley.  And I am still falling behind.  Again.

But the end is in sight.  Back across the scree pile at the base of the mountains.  To once again teeter-totter over the pointed rocks.  Back into the flatland.  And across the river crossings.  The boots stay strapped this time.  Splash through and know the end is just around the corner.

Wet and tired.  Stumble back into the parking lot.  Pull off the boots.  Strip off the layers.  And pop the tops of beer bottles waiting.  Smile as the clouds part.  As the sun shines down on the Darrans. 

Late afternoon, shirtless and shoeless in the parking lot.  And what a trip it was.        

Darran Days: The Waiting Game

The rainfall.

An early alarm once again.  And once again we wake to the rain.  The cloud curtain drawn tight across the mouth of our cave.  We wake in the wee hours to the sound of water.  Turn off the alarm.  We are not climbing today.

Re-awake between nine and ten o’clock.  And we sit slugged in our sleeping bags.  Inching this way and that.  Observing where the water drips.  Where the wet threads hang in moving stings from the ceiling to the floor.  Observe and move slowly into action.  Butterfly skeletons emerging stiffly from cacoons.  Cold and damp and flapping lamely about the cave.  Positioning the bottles.  The communal pot and the bottles beneath the running strands of water.  This way we don’t have to leave. 

Shut-ins.

And shrink back into the down.  To zip up and wait.  To read from the communal book.  To wait for the water to fill.  To wait for the rain to stop.  To wait.

And this is the way the day goes.  This is the way the days go.  While we play the waiting game.

I am a human tape player.  The votes tallied.  And it is unanimous.  Nate will read aloud from the one book that we have between the four of us.  We will shoot the shit when the shit needs to be shot.  But when we tire of talking Nate will read aloud.  Nate, the human tape player.  He will talk, and all will listen.  A dream.  Press play.

Away.  And away.  The time tics away on the Casio calculator watch.  The drip-drop constant in the corners.  The gray wall rolled across the entrance of this: our humble abode.  The lower level of the floor—below the stone bed terrace—fills with water to form a lake.  The waters rising always.  And always away and away.

The sound of a single voice in a cave.  The Bone People better when read aloud.  Fluid from the tongue.  Fluid but for the Maori words and phrases.  And when I come across these—across these alien addendums—I become a chop-shop butcher.  Cleaving syllables at awkward angles and hanging diphthongs where they need not be hung.  

But move along, move along, move along now.  We need not dwell on the swell of red cheeks.  Sound it out, boy.  Yes, stumble through the rocky-word-patch.  Until.  Until you find the familiar flow waiting on the other side.  Farther down the page.  Words in a line on the page.  Words in a line printed palpable here.  And line by line the story unfolds.  Line by line, and page by page.  Flip the page.  For no one pressed pause.  Read on.

Ka pai, e hoa.

The rain forever dribbling.  And on-again off-again pouring forth from the sky that is somewhere out there.  Out there.  The saturated world.  Out there. 

We leave intermittently.  One by one emerging throughout the day.  Throughout the days.  Between meals, between readings.  To take note of where we are.  Out of the hole in the valley like a primitive people.  Out of the shelter of rocks in the basin. 

And the steep stone walls surrounding.  And the waterfalls enumerable falling from them.  And the white rushing.  Beneath gray skies, the white rushing.  In the dribble, the white rushing.  And it is almost too much to take in.  The waterfalls everywhere.  Everywhere.  Thick strips of Adam’s Ale down the Granite.  Lake Adelaide below. 

And through the always rain is this scene of rugged beauty.  Water falling and silence.  Secreted away in the steep-walled basin.  We are alone.

But it is raining, and individually we slink back into the cave.  Day by day.  Back into the cave to play the waiting game.

To Eat.  To Sleep.  To read and talk shit.  To shit-talk and read and eat and sleep.  Day in and day out.  And day in.  Red, yellow, black, and blue.  Slugs rolling around on the upper tier of the cave fortress.  Phil’s Bivvy.  Day in and day out.  And day in.

Darran Days: The Rainfall

Pack up and pull out.

Up the slick slabs surrounding Black Lake on the tips of our toes.  Traverse across Gertrude Saddle and already we are within the clouds.  This is a water world, up here in the clouds, and we are alone with the rocks beneath us.  Not a scene to be seen.  As we begin snow-stepping up to the top of Barrier Knob.  Chester and Carl up front kicking steps through the steepness and Simon and I behind.  Following—literally—in their footsteps.

Careful to avoid the ice sheets that could quickly become the slick-quick death of us all.  None of us have crampons and there are only two sets of ice picks to split between the four.  Stick to the soft snow.  Find a path through the powder.  I will follow you there. 

Through the clouds to the top and then skip down the scree.  Or rather.  Or rather make sure not to face plant in the controlled fall down the pile of large loose and loose-large rocks.  Down to the Adelaide Saddle.  Down Down Down.  To the Adelaide Saddle and a tarn situated between drop-offs on either side.  But we are the cloud people, and the steep drop-offs down into the valleys are glimpsed only between breaks in the drifting gray sheets.

Slither out of the backpacks and crawl to the water’s edge.  Mouths to the icy clear and draw deep from the pool.  Mouths to the icy clear and it is all roots remembered, a communion with the four-legged fauna.  To the watering hole.  The watering hole for the weary.  And while we drink a group of climbers sidles up from the other side of the saddle.

And here we are on the Adelaide crotch.  Between two peaks chatting.  We are travelers travelling in opposite directions.  Helmeted against the drizzle, here.  High in the Darrans.  A chance meeting at a pool in a cloud.  We are the booted minions of Landau Calrissian.  Four of us marching into battle, the other four returning home from the front.  Into the clouds.  Out of the clouds. 

And in parting one of them turns and says over his shoulder, “Well, I hope the weather clears.”  And we smile and echo one another.  “It will.”  “It will.”  “It will.”  “It will.”  As they disappear into the mist.

And we too must move.  Must get going.  Must head for Phil’s Bivvy.  A cave built of boulders beneath the intimidating North Face of the Sabre. 

The hike down from the Adelaide Saddle, down toward the Adelaide Lake, is not so much a hike as a down climb.  A down climb through loose rock and tussock.  Face the steep hillside—toes toward the wet rock—and ladder down using grass patches as hand holds.  Down the water path—we are the stone flies crawling down the instant river, down the runnoff’s run, down the waterfall to the scree strewn across the flat land.

Across the scree and into a marsh, my boots already full of water.  Blisters biting into the Achilles and the insoles now.  Shins dented from the unforgiving plastics, and it feels like the nail has once again ripped off the big toe of my right foot.  Boo-hoo.

Keep on keepin’ on.  The slow slog now.  Into and out of the marsh and into the rugged country.  The ragged country.  The thick ground cover covered in rainwater and clinging to legs.  Thigh-high grass, and the dense green.  The dense green hiding the ground and the rocks in the ground.  And there is no path at all.  But push on toward the rock bivvy.  Toward the hope of dryness and what will quickly become home sweet home.  Push on.

And when we reach the cave we file in and peel off the wet clothes.  Layer after layer.  Like the weeping skins of onions.  Until we are bare-chested and bare-legged beneath the rock roof.  Pale and dew-damp before re-adorning ourselves in the dry stuffs stuffed into the bottoms of packs.

Rig a clothesline with tat and begin the waiting game.

A big feed of tortellini and tomato sauce and cheese.  The communal cooking and eating of we cave people.  Of we troglodyte.  And we take turns reading aloud from The Bone People until we turn in for the night.

Drift off one by one on a stone floor covered in hay.  We cocooned in nylon and down.  We dry in our rock fort while outside—in the dying light—the rain falls.

The rainfall.