Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 29-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
continued from Aug. 3, 2013
So we’re beside the river eating a huge portion of what I’d call tuna tataki, but in this hick town they call it seared tuna. His enormous truck is in the parking lot with its orange and black Search and Rescue sign above the license plate. I noticed this when I went back to the truck to get my sweater, and while I was dicking around with the suicide doors, some people came down the stairs from the patio and looked at me as though I was somehow Search and Rescue, whereas I was a slightly chilly, somewhat roughed-up lady putting on a cardigan. In their minds, I was connected to Search and Rescue (maybe I was the wife of a Search and Rescue guy), which, from my days as a ski instructor, I understand the hierarchies of outdoor facilitation with ski instructors being the rock stars of groomed slopes and ski patrol being the heroes of the mountain in a larger context. Search and Rescue arriving by helicopter temporarily supersedes all existing levels of power and fame.
My instructor’s jacket was pretty cool: an orange and red Head bomber jacket with ski instructor crests and logos sewn on it.
Back to the restaurant and the conversation about the hike. He said he’d seen people react negatively before. Of course, because it’s his hobby to push people out of their comfort zone. I asked what his options were if I really couldn’t get it together to come back down that slope. He made a gesture with his arm and told me that in swimming, when someone is drowning and you’re trying to rescue them and they’re grabbing onto you, it may be necessary for the rescuer to drill them in the head hard enough to knock them out.
I asked him if that’s what he was considering, and he said, “Yes.”
Seriously? If I hadn’t gotten it together within some amount of time he was going to punch me in the head so hard that he could heave me over his shoulder and carry me down the slope? And then, presumably, use the device in his pocket to summon his Search and Rescue pals with the helicopter?
I might add, that in the case of the swimmer, the rescuer’s safety is in jeopardy. In the case of me wanting to sit on a rock for five minutes until the fear subsided was no threat to his safety, but still, he was hatching a plan to punch me the head? Seems I had good reason to be fearful.
Was I some sort of Search and Rescue guinea pig in a warped comfort zone experiment? I told him I was a novice hiker. I deferred to him on all points of protocol and willingly gave him all the power.
Perhaps the epic failure in all of this was his and not mine.
In my mind, that punch does not connect with my head as I lean slightly to the left and his forward motion is accelerated by a bit of improvised jujitsu, and it is he who sails over the edge of that cliff—so surprised that he forgets to scream.
Seriously? You’re going to try to punch-out Jean Smith on the side of a mountain and carry her over your fucking shoulder? I don’t think so.
“Peach-A-Vanilla,” from The Eagle & The Poodle (Matador, 1996; Smarten UP!, 2009) (download):
