The Catalyst, Ch. 3
#3 of The Catalyst
I didn't know who he was, at the time. How could I have? It's not like he told me, not like anyone noticed. If I knew then what I knew now... maybe I would have taken his advice. It's funny sometimes, what key events the world turns on. A young man misses his chance at glory, and decides to go get a sandwich. An aspiring student of the arts is rejected from college, and turns to politics instead. And me...
If I knew then what I knew now, I'd have taken the damn beer.
Some drink to remember, some drink to forget.
A nameless day in December, 2012. It wasn't horribly hard to get a video feed streaming to the internet, and we tested it in the hours before Jacky began her ascent. Another fresh drift blew in overnight, but with how anxious I was, I likely wouldn't have slept well anyways.
"My god Kael, would you relax?!? We've been through the back country before, I'm taking Badda Bing to the Motherlode, and from there it's a clean path down." Jacky was getting increasingly annoyed with my 'mothering,' but living on the slopes, we'd both seen the news stories of what can happen when boarders get cocky.
While I hadn't been able to convince her to call it off completely, she needed a helmet to secure the camera to, and I managed to convince her that wrist braces were worth bringing along. She gave me one last hug at the lifts before hopping into a chair and flipping the stream on; there was already a small crowd of our classmates at Pizza Stop, and she always did love the spotlight.
By the time I made it there, she was almost to the top of the lift, chattering freely to the open air. I saw a few surreptitious hands passing dollars around and suppressed a grin; in a small town like this, a grudge race was high value entertainment, and it was no surprise to see some of the more adventurous souls betting on the winner.
My favorite booth was occupied, and I was alone, so I went to the bar instead. I turned my back to the counter and stared into the glass and light as Jacky hopped off the lift at the top and started the trudge up to the top.
"You here to see the race, kid?" A grizzled man who looked older than he probably was settled into the chair next to me. I gave him an inquisitive look and he shrugged. "Friend's son mentioned it to me. Got nothin' better to do."
"Yea... my sister's the one with the camera helmet." Something seemed wrong, with the air, with the atmosphere. There was a general tension to the whole world with the doomsday myths that were passing around, that the world was going to end in about a week or so, but that tension suddenly felt far more acute. I tried to keep my worries from showing on my face, but apparently I failed.
He cracked open the second bottle and offered it to me. "Here, have one on me. It's good luck to drink before a race." I looked over to him quizzically, attention focused just for the moment. Something in the way he said it... It almost sounded rehearsed.
I felt dizzy, but clearheaded, as if I was balancing on a knife's edge and that act lent my mind all the razor clarity of the blade. "I'm a bit young for that sir... I'm only eighteen."
He gave a gruff snort of disdain and proffered the drink towards me again. "You're old enough to vote and you're old enough to fight and die for our country, so by god you're old enough to drink. You look like you're about to have an anxiety attack, a beer will do you good."
I'd been drunk before; around the age I started to become interested in alcohol, Dad had made a grand show of opening his liquor cabinet so I could taste a little bit of everything he had. The miserable hangover served as a far better warning against liquor than any PSA, but he'd shared the old man's opinion, and one beer couldn't hurt... could it?
I took the beer from him and looked at it for a moment before setting it on the counter. "Sorry, but you'll have to drink alone today. I don't think my stomach could handle it."
Something in his demeanor changed then. He'd been playing the jovial old drunk quite well, but his eyes were sober and cold as he pushed it my way just a few inches. "You don't know me, Triskael, but trust me. You need this drink more than I do."
"Pass." I didn't mean to be rude, but I was feeling worse by the moment. I felt exhausted, but not drained of energy... Rather, I felt almost as if my energy was pulling out of my muscles and concentrating into a tight ball in my heart. I slid off the stool to go splash some water on my face, hoping that a shock of cold would help settle me.
By the time I got back to the bar, the old man was gone. He'd left the beer though. When I sat down in front of it, the bartender gave me a curious look. "This yours?" I didn't recognize her, and saying 'yes' probably would have been the easiest way to drink underage short of looting dad's cabinet, but I shook my head. "Nah... that other guy left it here, I think. I'll just have a glass of water, thanks." She gave me a bit of a quizzical look, but shrugged and grabbed a cup for me. I drank gratefully and turned back to watch the stream. The minutes ticked closer to noon, and it wasn't until Jacky got to the summit that I realized it; the old man had called me by name.
Noon at the summit. The storm from two nights ago had lingered, and slow snowfall had gone on almost continuously for two days. The weak winter sun struggled to pierce the sky, but the greedy clouds seemed to strangle all the color from its rays by the time it reached the ground. With gray sky, white snow, and green trees, the mountaintop on the TV looked oddly whitewashed and barren, especially compared to the artificial noise and color of the pizza bar.
Jacky had fallen silent for the arduous hike, and Israel had put on a playlist he'd tossed together, soft, tense music that would no doubt build up to a brutal bass drop when the race started. I didn't feel quite so physically unwell, but I still felt unbalanced, as if I hadn't stopped dreaming when I woke up that morning. I remembered a day not unlike this, flying through frozen clouds until my wings were caked over with ice enough that I couldn't fly.
No... that was the dream. My warm bed and Jacky's smiles, those were the memories. But if I only dreamt of wings, why did they seem more real in my mind than a conversation that had happened in this exact bar not twenty minutes ago?
11:55. It was hard to make out Zane's expression beneath his goggles, but Jacky said something that put him off guard. He looked at the camera and then mouthed a question. He must not have liked her response, because his eyes hardened and his face tightened in disdain. He dusted the snow off his boots and clamped down into his board. I guess that was the last chance for either of them to back out, because she likewise bent down to secure her boots.
A handful of minutes passed. The clock ticked down. The music built higher and higher. Jacky and Zane gave eachother one last look, and she held out her fist. He looked at it, then at her for a moment before bumping it, and the camera wobbled as they traded a nod. Then, with a bass drop so heavy that it almost knocked bottles off the shelf, they leaned forwards and plummeted off of the top of the world.