I don’t think that Albie ever knew what to do with snow other than shovel it out of your driveway. I think that snow and shoveling it were necessary parts of a defense mechanism for basic survival back in NYC. When he thinks of mountains, he thinks cold, he thinks lost hikers…basically, a place to stay away from. I began going skiing when the snow started coming down on the mountains, skiing is just a part of my life, my lifestyle, and my recreation in the winter. I don’t know what else to do and that is one of the reasons I live in Portland, OR. When I mentioned it would be cool if Albie came along with me one day the look on his face was just blank. He was horrified as well. He was secretly hoping I would never involve him in the affair. I bartered with him to just go up to the mountain and chill, maybe have a snowball fight or something. I was devising my plan already, working him in so to say. Well, needless to say, we never had a snowball fight. I took him kicking and screaming up there for the real thing… skiing.

So, I gathered all the extra gear that I had and strapped him onto one of my mom’s pairs of skis. They were a little short, but shorter is the thing now, and it is easier to learn on them because you don’t go so fast. We started out on this contraption called the rope tow, for people that can’t get on the regular lift or are daunted by the incline of the regular slopes. The rope tow goes up about 20 feet or so and has a really flat incline that is easier for beginners.

So there he was, staring at the rope that moved up and you had to grab it. I grabbed it and gradually started moving up the hill. It took Albie about two minutes to grab it, but he finally did. His skis started going out from under him on both sides and I could see him struggling hard. I told him to lean back and just let the rope pull him and relax. He got into this position leaning forward, with his butt prone, and his skis pulling him into the splits. Finally he let go and we were at the top. I told him about the “pizza wedge” where you put your skis kind of together at the tips and far apart to slide down the hill easily and have a good way to stop. He mastered this, but after about four runs doing this his thighs hurt so bad that he didn’t want to do it anymore. Well actually, he couldn’t. So, all of the sudden we got off the rope tow and I see him barreling down the mountain. I think to myself “great, he got the hang of it.” But then I realize he doesn’t know how to stop and he barrels down the hill into a huge Salomon advertisement banner sticking 30 feet up into the air. It sways left and right, and then manages to stay up. I had to put him back together and I took him over to Buttercup, the easiest chair lift.

I told him just to sit down and he did. He managed to get on the chairlift, but I did have to have them slow it way down for him, which was a little embarrassing, but given the circumstances I didn’t know what else to do. So he went down the slopes on Buttercup falling a few times and I couldn’t help but smirk behind the lining of my coat. I got him up on his feet and he went sailing again, barreling down the hill to fall once again. I started documenting the falls with my camera. I started counting how many times he had fallen, we were already at five. Stage right… Gabe appears in a Santa hat holding a bottle of Sake. He insists we go up for a run with him saying it’s easy, and I believed him too because I had forgotten what the runs were like on that side of the hill. We got all the way to the top of the hill on the chair lift and it was a fucking blizzard. A horrible pained look spread across Albie’s face and he tried to block the wind by putting his gloves in front of his face and turning backwards. I told him this was nothing, but to him, it was everything. Being cold is not something Albie willingly subjects himself to, it is something to be feared and to be defeated daily. As Albie works in a warehouse where his parents don’t let him turn on the heat to save money, so he freezes his ass off every single day. This was another type of blustering, stinging cold though with drops of snow everywhere.

Going down this hill with Albie was the worst decision I have ever made. He flipped out and insisted that he couldn’t go down. He fell in so many ways that I couldn’t even fathom what he could do next to contort himself. He was playing Twister in the snow, but some sort of devil’s version where you actually went in ways that were impossible for the human body. He must be very flexible, but he actually isn’t, so it was worse for him. I kept on taking pictures and laughing through the whole fiasco, it was pure joy for me, but when I saw him headed straight for the rocks on the side of the run, I flipped out. I just started screaming “stop” and he just kept on going. I wasn’t even worried about the huge gashes that were going to be made on the bottom of my mom’s skis. I was worried about Albie’s life, luckily he sort of gave up and plopped over on a rock. His ass suffered, but I was worried. I towed him out of the rocks and got him up again.

An hour later we were still battling the bulge, of the hill, and at this point Gabe and I considered getting the ski patrol to take him down in a sled. I was laughing so hard though that I maliciously wanted to see him attempt more. He was so frustrated he started throwing snow in my face that got under my goggles and down my shirt. I was pissed. Here I was trying to teach him something and he disrespects me like that. I got mad and he said he was sorry and we decided to take a break and all sit down. After a few gulps of Sake and a failed attempt at giving the finger to us through a mitten, Albie wanted to battle the elements again. He was frustrated, but determind. This is the type of determination you see in a young child that makes you want to cry. Battered, bruised, beaten, cold, this kid was in it for the long haul. He was so determined to win this battle it was simply beautiful to me. At one point when both skis fell off and I went trekking up the hill to find them, I told him maybe he should walk down. After a long time of being stubborn about it and trying every other way, side-stepping down, sliding on his butt, etc., he took off his skis, gave them to me, and started walking down. But he doesn’t know how to walk in ski boots so he more slid and ended up falling on his big face a few times. Did I mention that Albie has a big head? After two hours we finally got him down and we decided to all go in and call it a day.

In retrospect, I think Albie was frustrated but proud of himself that he actually did it. I was giving him mad props for his courage and bravery. I probably wouldn’t have done it myself if I had never been to a mountain before. Just the mere fact of strapping yourself in to two long boards of fiberglass and heading them down an incline is somewhat daunting. Hell, the kid has a lot of determination in everything he does, so he is now determined to master the art of skiing. Just yesterday, we went down to a ski shop and he bought himself a thousand dollars worth of ski equipment. It didn’t take any prodding on my part, he was all for it. The determination when it came to finding the correct ski boots, the perfect helmet, the best neckwarmer, the thinnest socks that were still warm, the best fleece jacket, the lust for the sport was all over him. I could see it in his bright eyes and his serious face. There were glimpses of this character of a little boy in a record store or a toy shop looking at the fabulous array of shiny materials and colorful toys. We got all the goods into my car and headed home. I couldn’t believe he had just invested so much in the sport after going only one time! Oh, the determination of Albea Iris. Hardcore CEO, self-professed “ridiculously good looking guy”, and you guys know all the rest of this kid’s exuberant confidence. There is more to his forensic measurements of a big head than just the tangible aspect. Albie is a person that has to be good at whatever he does, and usually is, and I don’t think he liked being a novice at something that I was good at. It was not hard to get him to commit to going on New Year’s Day and to sacrifice a night of binge drinking and late night partying. It takes sacrifice, discipline, and extreme determination to wake up at 7 in the morning and put all these weird clothes on and head up to the mountain on scary roads that have cliffs on both sides and drive in the snow and blizzards and slide around in your car and thank God and Allah and Buddha and whoever else you would like to thank for living through the whole journey. But I would never let Albie drive, he has never driven in snow, city boy in and out, I leave that up to me. Besides, Albie is too pretty for that, he wasn’t born for manual labor, he just likes to look good on the slopes and be better than some of the people. I point out people that are worse than him just to boost his ego, and give him so much encouragement to keep his ego going. If you bruise his ego, you have bruised his very existence, and that can not happen.