Blue Hand

Blue Hand

When I was new to Grass Valley, I joined the DeMolay’s, hoping to make some friends. It was a small organization where geeky boys wore ties and recited long poems in front of each other, and very old, geeky old men sat in approval.

In the winter, though, the DeMolay’s had an angle on getting snowmobiles. An ex-member ran a big equipment outfit in the city, like one of those Caterpillar tractor places, and had two Ski-Doos he didn’t mind us using, however brutal we treated them. So we packed up and went to Bear Valley Lodge to ride the snowmobiles around in Bear Valley for a day.

The lodge was old and large, built for miners or something, but very old and very large. There was a huge fireplace in the center, with mangy, duct-taped couches around it. I sat by Jim Warnke all the way up to Bear Valley. He had an extra few measures of testosterone for thirteen, giving him instant popularity and adoration from girls and envy from some guys. He dressed in O.P. pants, shirts and shoes. I was hoping to bond.

“I’ve got the best room for us. I heard it’s right by the door and close to the fireplace. It’ll be warm, but there’s a way to sneak out too,” I said.

“Cool,” Jim said.

I convinced him to bunk with me, not that I would benefit by his popularity up in the mountains, hours from school, but knew it might pay off someday. We got there and the lodge smelled like mold and pine. Tony Portola and Pete Martinez found a better room right away, and ours was not as nice as I had described.

“This room sucks,” Jim said.

“I thought it was better than this,” I said.

“Let’s move across the hall.”

Our leader, Mongo, pulled out some #10 cans of chili from an old closet and, when he opened them up, they had an inch of hard, bright orange grease on top. Mongo swore it would be tasty. The closet was also full of candy that was for sale, but since the M&Ms had white spots from old age, we thought they should be cheap. Jim gave Mongo a buck and grabbed a whole handful of M&Ms bags, and that became the price.

Jim had a natural authority and beauty. At school, nerds were like his pets. One time, in English, he sat on a desk between Mark Hoofnagle and Jake Graversgaard, chewing an entire pack of Bubble Yum, and tousled their scalps, singing “balls itch, ball’s itch, baaaaall’s itch; ball’s itch, ball’s itch, baaaall’s itch.” It was barely enough to occupy his mind and sate his need to demean lesser boys.

Jim and I ate spotty M&Ms and some chili Mongo gave us in the kitchen. We were buds for now.

Later on, we explored the Lodge. The further you got from the central living room, the more broken down and dilapidated it was, and the colder it got. Whole sheets of ceiling had warped and fell, causing protrusions of the old bark insulation above. Condensation dripped and formed puddles on the floor. Blue and black mold made designs on the walls like dried watercolor paint. There was a furnace that they couldn’t get running, so we wore jackets, hats and gloves around to keep warm, and came close to the fireplace only when the fun died down.

Jim’s gloves, being a city boy, weren’t necessarily good for snow. They got wet when we had a snowball fight, because they didn’t have Gore-Tex, and when he took them off, his hands were dyed blue.

“We have to find some way to scare Tony and Pete,” I said.

“Let’s go to the attic,” Jim said.

On the second floor of the lodge was a secret ladder to the attic and we crawled around in there for a while. There was a hole down to the rec room where some kids were shooting pool, and it was directly above the pool table.

“Stick your hand through.”

Jim did. We were giggling hard, but trying not to make noise. Below us, in the rec room, they were shooting pool and talking. It went silent.

“What is it?”

“Somebody’s hand.”

“Is it alive?”

“I don’t know.”

Jim laughed.

“What?” I said.

“They’re poking it with the pool stick.”

I laughed, too.

“Shhhh!” he said, as the voices below stopped. We heard movement. They all left.

“They’re getting Mongo,” I said.

“Let’s go!”

We ran across the rafters and down the ladder. It was so dark. Jim put on his gloves and we went outside and around the lodge to the front entrance. By the time we made it back up to the rec room, they were playing pool like nothing had happened.

“What’s going on?” Jim said.

“What do you mean?” Tony answered.

“Someone said you saw a hand.”

“Yea, it was you,” said Pete.

“How do you know?” I said, but it was over and I was already dwelling on it. Tony challenged Jim to a pool game and I went down to the main area, where the fireplace was, to get warm. That night we ate more chili and watched a movie on the Alaskan Pipeline.

When we took the sleds out, the valley was smooth and white, like Cool Whip, and completely untouched. We had it all to ourselves. Mongo exercised his right to drive each sled off the trailer and tool around. He was the first to draw on the Valley floor. By noon, we’d scribbled all over it in no recognizable pattern but the dictations of whim.

Pete jumped one of the snowmobiles about seventy-five feet and broke it. I remember his face to this day, which I saw while he was in mid air. He looked confused and scared.

“Are you alright?” Mongo said.

“Yea, I guess so.” Pete said.

“That was killer!” I said.

Pete was a quiet guy who didn’t like me much, and didn’t know why anyone else could. I was a sperm introduced into a very content egg back in those days.

Some riders rode in patterns, forming trails which hardened the snow and enabled a faster ride. One trail had a sharp curve and that’s where I tried to pass Tony and landed on top of him. I was on the broken sled, which we had temporarily repaired, but now it was even more beat up. One of the skis was bent upward, like Daffy Duck’s bill when Elmer Fudd shot it. Some elected to keep riding “Daffy” even though it spat snow up from the ski, and pulled hard to the right.

The next night at the lodge was quiet. Like kids should, we became bored of the usual distractions. There was nothing left to explore, so we found ways to compete with each other at what we were doing the night before. We had a pool tournament, watched another film on Jacques Cousteau, and turned in early.

That Monday I saw the guys on the at school. Tony and Jim turned slightly to let me in the circle. Pete walked away.

“Come on, man. He’s cool,” Jim said.

I got out a pack of Bubble Yum and passed it around, like a burnt offering.

“Don’t you have M&Ms?” Tony said. I was in.