n economy sized rental van-packed with four
practically fearless freaks, three snowboards, a
tape deck, a CD player, two pencil sharpeners,
twenty pencils, a nine-pound stick of smoked
beef, four pounds of calf liver pate, two pounds of brie,
eleven professional high-tech, high-altitude cameras, one
hundred rolls of film, seven black felt pens with assorted
tips, twenty-nine dollars and fifty cents worth of Mrs. See's
ultra-rich chocolate energy and a butcher knife-slowly
makes its way up the narrow, winding mountain road.
The fearless freaks are: Ripstop, Mountain Mexican, #43
and # 11%. The tedious drive pushes the entourage to
creative levels of misconduct. In the passenger seat #11½
fiddles through his coat pockets. He finally produces a
broad tipped felt pen and draws a large two-foot swastika
on the inside of the windshield, just below the rear-view
mirror, with the same casual air with which one would
pick a radio station. The other passengers remain
indifferent to this action, as they are deep in devious
thoughts of their own.
Ripstop is quickly becoming annoyed by the poor
driving practices of the locals. After being cut off for the
third time in one minute, he turns on # 11%.
Ripstop lurches across the compartment, jabbing
SLEEP
70
D
by Jimi Jo Jake Johnson, Jr.
his hand deep into #11%'s pocket and pulling out the writing utensil.
The van swerves into oncoming traffic and onto the left shoulder then
back across oncoming traffic, causing a station wagon load of pro-
nuke activists to lock up their brakes. Ripstop finally guides the van
back on course with dramatic precision.
"You're not safe with any writing utensil," #11% says in a tone he
normally reserves for church.
"Button yer lip!" Ripstop replies as he begins to write, backwards,
on the inside of the windshield, just above the steering wheel.
-HEY LOOK OUT. WE'RE ASSHOLES, SO GET OUT OF OUR WAY.-
From then on, when anyone messed with Ripstop's driving, he honked
and pointed at the message
The van pulls into Hell Inn, where its passengers will stay for the
next three nights. No snow in sight.
Hell Inn is under new management, which, in this case, is advan-
tageous, as Ripstop and #11% stayed here just a year previous. Had
they been recognized, the following conversation would have been
considerably less pleasant.
"Oh, you look like nice young men." The manager, an elderly lady
with glasses, said, poorly accessing the damaging potential of the four-
some. "Are you here for this weekend's snowboard contest up on Mount
Baker?"
"Yeah. Me and him are gonna enter." Ripstop said, pointing to Moun-
tain Mexican. "These two guys," he continues, "are photo journalists
from a magazine out of Frisco, down on the Barbary Coast."
"Oh, there are some gentlemen staying here from a snowboard
magazine. Are you associated with them?"
"That would be either Intertropical Snowgourd or Okey-Dokey
World. We couldn't work for either of them, 'cause WE are not
gentlemen," says #43 to the lady,
"Our magazine has nothing to do with snowboarding. We're only
here because we were supposed to go somewhere else, but we➤