Jim and Chad, Part 2 - 6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 

The hike on this section hasn't been too difficult, but it has been tiring because of the distance. I'm finally at treeline, so all the trees, actually all vegetation, has pretty much disappeared from the landscape. What's left of the terrain really does look like a moonscape, pock marked, barren, and lifeless.

 

It's about noon, almost two hours since the last stop, so I stop for a short break to figure out why I'm now about an hour behind schedule. As I look at the map, I find I'm only about 500 feet in altitude from the peak, but still have about a half mile left on the trail. The slope has gotten steep again, and my feet and legs are screaming in pain from the climb. I drink more water and hope that I can make it to the top before I give up.

 

As I continue the hike, my mind goes blank and I try to ignore my body's pain. I desperately look around the mountain as I walk, hoping to find something of interest that will help me. The wind has slowed some, so at least I'm not having to battle that too. I'm beginning to feel a little helpless. If only Chad were here so I could see his face and get some hope, some energy from him being nearby.

 

Another 30 minutes pass and I finally notice that the air is thinner. I'm almost panting and feel a little nauseous. The feeling makes me think, 'Crap, now I'm getting altitude sickness. What a way to fuck up a good hike.'

 

Finally, I get to the top of the ridge I'm walking on and find that I'm at the peak. Suddenly, a burst of energy hits me as I run that last hundred feet to the small weather station on top of the peak. An intense happiness floods by body and I feel like dancing as I move around on top, looking out close to a hundred miles or more in all directions. As Jeff had said, the sky is cloudless with virtually no haze. I feel a big smile cover my face as I see that the view is far more than what I could have hoped for.

 

I drop my daypack next to a set of rocks, get out the camera and excitedly start taking pictures. All around me are mountains jutting up from the flat lands below, decorated mostly in brown but with a few lush green spots here and there. To the north, there's the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, which also contains the controversial Area 51. I wonder if the test range glows in the dark at night time and that's what attracts aliens. To the southeast is Las Vegas with Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam a little farther out. A little farther out from them is the Grand Canyon.

 

To the south is the Mojave Desert. To the west is Pahrump with Death Valley a little further out. And way out in the southwest there's a small, dirty, green cloud in the sky. Although I can't actually see the city itself, I guess that must be the area around Los Angeles at about 175 miles away. Seeing what I see from this distance, I'm kind of glad I don't live there. In addition to pictures, I also turn on the camera's movie settings and narrate a 360 degree picture of the whole thing.

 

After taking the pictures, I have to sit and finally rest my legs and feet, especially the bottoms of my feet. Six and a half hours to the summit (only an hour behind schedule), 4,300 feet in altitude, and eight miles of hiking have taken their toll on my older body. I hurt, but I've done it. I've conquered the mountain. Once again I feel elation as I put away the camera and get out a bottle of water and a protein bar for a celebratory snack.

 

To relax some more, I lie back on the rocky terrain just to stare at the clear, cloudless, deep blue sky above me. I think to myself that life as I know it right now is okay, not great, but tolerable. And since I've just proven that I can do things by myself again, maybe the problems of this past week aren't so bad after all. Maybe Chad and I really can work through our situation and repair the damage we've done to each other.

 

I eventually look at my watch and realize that it's 1 p.m. and time for me to get up and start the trip back down. I stand up and groan as my back, legs, and feet feel the load of the daypack as I put it on. With a wide grin on my face, I take one last look out at the horizon from all sides of the summit, mentally recording the blue sky and the jagged mountain terrains for the future.

 

Then I look down into the canyon, barely able to see the outline of the street where the lodge sits in the little town of Mt. Charleston. With a deep-seated longing to return to what we had, to return to some sort of normalcy in our lives, I wonder if Chad was able to make the trip up and is waiting for me there.

 

While standing there in the chill of the wind, I suddenly feel a warmth surround me, covering me in something which feels like a hug over my entire body. Remembering a similar, very good feeling like this about a year ago when Chad and I first started our relationship, I stand still and wait, expecting some good news.

 

After a few more seconds, a still, small voice that sounds like my wife says, "It's time to let Chad go. He's in love with a young lady named Sarah." Then as suddenly as I had felt the warmth, I feel it no more. It's been replaced by the cold breeze coming up the side of the mountain, a breeze which seems to pass right through me, chilling me completely from the inside out.

 

Those few seconds on top of the mountain had just confirmed what I really did not want to hear or believe. My disbelief at what I'd heard slowly turns to anger, the anger slowly building deep down inside me. At the same time, a new, more chilling darkness invades my thoughts--I feel betrayed to the core of my very being, as if both heaven and earth have turned against me, both purposely trying to destroy the relationship between Chad and me.

 

For some reason I pick up a rock from the nearby rock pile and throw it at the sky, watching the rock fall back to Earth down the side of the mountain. Then I do it again and again, all the while shouting, "Why the FUCK . . . (throw rock) . . . did YOU . . . (throw rock) . . . bring ME . . . (rock) . . . all the FUCKing way . . . (rock) . . . up HERE . . . (rock) . . . to TELL me . . . (rock) . . . THAT? . . . (rock) . . . Why didn't YOU . . . (rock) . . . tell me back HOME . . . (rock) . . . so I . . . (rock) . . . wouldn't come all the FUCKing way out HERE . . . (throw two small rocks) . . . AND WASTE MY TIME AND MONEY? . . . (throw two bigger rocks, hurt shoulder)."

 

I stomp down the side of the mountain, hurting deep inside and angry at everything and everyone. And now I'm especially angry at Chad for keeping this a secret and not telling me sooner. Being so pissed off makes me think back to Monday and what had happened through the day that led to our fight.

 

I had "slept late" Monday morning, sleeping until the late hour of 6:30 (9:30 East Coast time). I remember groaning when I realized that the sun had just risen and I had missed it. I also remember looking over to Chad's bed and seeing that he wasn't there. Since I needed to take a leak, I got up and went to the bathroom. When I was done, I quietly walked into the living room part of the suite, only to find Chad slaving away on his laptop.

 

I walked over to Chad and slowly and lightly began to massage his shoulders and neck. The chair prevented me from massaging much down his back so I began to massage down the front of his body in some effort to distract him long enough to plan our day. In a rather hostile move, Chad pushed me away. "Not now, I'm busy." Then he resumed working on his laptop, as if the incident never happened.

 

I threw up my hands and backed away while thinking, 'So, Mr. Pissy is back. Well, if I order breakfast in, maybe he'll calm down and talk to me.' So I ordered room service and it was delivered about 45 minutes later. After I set it up, all I got from Chad was, "I'll come eat it in a minute," while he continued to work. I ate slowly on purpose, but twenty minutes later when I finished, he was still working. So I left the table and went to take a shower. After the shower, I took a quick look out to see if he had eaten. He had. I began to feel like he was avoiding me again.

 

The rest of the day went by in a blur. In the morning, I left the suite, went downstairs, and took a walk around the golf course at the back of the hotel. Chad loved golf and I was hoping to get him to play a round later. However, when I got back to the suite, he was still busy. From what I saw, we obviously weren't going to play a round that day, so I moved to the bedroom, lay down on my bed, and began to watch the television.

 

About noon, I ordered lunch for both of us. Chad ate his when he could. I ate mine alone, again. Being bored with nothing to do and tired from getting up early, I took a long nap that afternoon. At 6 p.m., I ordered dinner for both of us, and we ate separately a third time. Because I was suffering from cabin fever, I left the room after dinner and walked over to the Bellagio to look at the fountains and take some pictures of them and other sights along the Strip. All the while, I thought, 'Too bad Chad's missing all of this.'

 

When I got back to the hotel about 10 p.m., I noticed that Chad was still at it. I quietly walked over to the desk where he was sitting and looked over his shoulder at what he was doing. I saw him scan through a number of sections that looked like they contained questions about computer systems and the like. Since this was my type of job, I thought, 'Maybe I could help him with something.'

 

After about three or four minutes, Chad suddenly stopped and said, "Will you stop looking over my shoulder?"

 

"Could you use any help?"

 

"No," he said curtly.

 

"But there are a number of questions on computer systems that I saw. Are you sure you don't want my help?"

 

Chad abruptly stood up, spun around to me and emphatically said, "No. I mean yes. Yes, I don't want your help."

 

Even though I saw the fatigue in his eyes and should have known not to push the issue, for some reason I sarcastically responded, "So what you're saying is that, just because you've brought in about $8 million in new contracts since about this time last year, you're all the sudden the expert on everything?"

 

"$9.43 million," Chad immediately shot back, obviously angry at the question.

 

"What?"

 

"That's the latest number, $9.43 million. I found out early today that I won another contract. If you had checked your e-mail, you would have read about it."

 

While thinking 'Unlike you, asshole, I don't check e-mail on vacation,' I dismissed the dodge that he was trying to make. "You, who has only five years of experience, and not even in a majority of the subject areas that the proposal asks about? And you can't possibly be bothered to ask for some simple input from someone who has over 20 years of experience in a few of those areas? In the last few months, have you gotten so bull-headed, so blinded by your success, that you can't ask for some help, especially some help that might relieve some of the tension in what you're doing?"

 

Chad's eyes narrowed to slits as he condescendingly said, "Maybe I don't need your help. Maybe I already know enough about this customer that I and the three others on my team can handle this proposal by ourselves, especially since one of the team members is a Computer Science major."

 

The arrogance of his answer raised my blood pressure and began to piss me off again. "Who? Dave? Dave the dysfunctional? Even with written instructions that moron couldn't find his way out of a paper bag."

 

"Whether you think so or not, Dave's qualified to do this work. He may need some help, but he'll get it done."

 

With some bitterness and a heavy dose of sarcasm I said, "Yeah, right, but only with a swift kick in the ass, too."

 

Chad then fired back, "Damn it Jim, leave us alone. We can do this without your help. Let us learn and do something ourselves for a change."

 

At that point I was fed up, so I threw up my hands and walked away from Chad. "Okay. Fine. Do it however you want, but do it quickly. Just remember, we're supposed to leave here tomorrow morning to go to the cabin at Mt. Charleston. And, by the way, they don't have phones or Internet connections in the cabins."

 

Chad looked at me puzzled and pissed off at the same time. "NO PHONES? NO INTERNET? How the HELL am I supposed to do anything? How am I supposed to control this proposal and get it done?"

 

"Either you relax and delegate it to someone else or you do it later this week. We can come back here early. But for the next couple of days, you need to take some time off, rest up, and go hiking with me. Hell, you can go hiking without me if you choose, but you need some time off. Just look at you now. You've already spent over fifteen hours on this today."

 

Rather angrily Chad said, "No, I don't need time off. I need to finish this proposal and I need to do it with the high-speed Internet connection that this hotel has. And besides, the proposal is due this Friday so I have to work on it now so that it can be reviewed by management and sent to the customer on-time."

 

I walked back over to Chad, my face about a foot from his. With squinted eyes, I quietly said, "I thought we were a team, two guys who help each other, partners who would want to spend some time together, maybe some of that in bed enjoying each other again. Maybe something like we had in July which, believe it or not, is the last time we did anything together. But you seem so intent on furthering your career at my expense that I wonder sometimes. I've spent nearly five thousand for this trip and maybe it's time you paid up." With the last comment, I grabbed his crotch and gave it a quick squeeze.

 

Chad immediately batted my hand away, balled his fists up like he wanted to hit me, then sneered, "Well, maybe I don't want to have sex with you anymore, you old fag."

 

I had tried to be nice. I had tried to work around Chad's schedule. I had even tried to help where I could, but three months of frustration at the lack of attention and Chad's pissy mood on this trip had pushed me right to the very edge. So when he made the "old fag" comment, I lost control, my adrenaline sending me over the edge.

 

I jabbed my left hand up to his throat, quickly backed him up about four feet to the nearest wall, and pushed up my thumb and forefinger tightly against the bottom of his jaw. My right hand balled up and I was so angry that I really wanted to beat the shit out of him. But instead I said in a quiet, very intense voice, "Since I need you to hear this clearly, I suggest that you don't move. If you try to struggle, my hand is aimed for your stomach and my knee is about a foot away from your balls, and I'll use either or both to make sure you get the message. Got it?"

 

All I got from Chad was an intensely defiant stare through squinted eyes, but at least he didn't try to move. So I continued in the same voice. "This is the second time you've used the 'old fag' comment, and you already know that it really pissed me off the first time, enough that I felt like beating the shit out of you then. But I'll ignore it for now, because the more important thing you need to do is to get your priorities straight. This was supposed to be OUR TIME together, NOT COMPANY TIME. I'm sorry you forgot about it, and I'm really sorry that you got scheduled for a proposal. But you really don't need to treat me like shit either. All I was trying to do was help out so that maybe you could get your fucking proposal done a little sooner. And just remember this: my dick has been up your ass about as many times as your's has been up mine, so that pretty much makes you as much a fag as me."

 

After a short pause, I added, "Now I'm going to leave, go to the first bar I can find in this fucking huge hotel, have a couple of drinks, and come back in about thirty minutes. Maybe by then both of us will have calmed down enough to have a civil conversation and see if we can compromise."

 

As I removed my hand from his throat, Chad continued to glare at me, a glare that yelled 'I don't need you. I don't need this shit bothering me. And sure as hell I'm not going to compromise with you.' I ignored the glare, turned, and walked out the door to go to the bar, all the while thinking, 'That fucking prick. Maybe I should have given him a swift kick in the balls so he could feel the pain I'm feeling from the 'old fag' comment.'