Chapter Six - Sweet Dreams and Other Fallacies

Pete Schmidt popped his favorite Eurhythmics tape in the Walkman and adjusted his headphones just in time to grab his ski poles and slide off the chair lift. It was another fantastic spring day in the Utah Mountains and there was no better vantage point to enjoy it from than the top of the black diamond run at Snowbird.

The air was crisp, thin and clean and there was not a cloud in sight. The only thing that could improve this moment would be having his best friend beside him on the chairlift. Okay, fresh powder would be nice too but it was too late in the season for that.

It used to be that after a major snowstorm he could count on an early morning call from Rudy. “Powder morning!” he would shout into the phone. “I’m calling in sick.” Pete never needed convincing to go skiing and he smiled at the memory.

Pete was the son of a German born engineer who worked for an American defense contractor. Hans, Pete’s father, came to the States to attend college and to escape the Nazi’s and he proudly became an American citizen before he’d finished his undergraduate work at MIT.

The rest of his well-to-do family had remained in Germany and they lost most of their wealth to the Third Reich. Hans was eager to join the war against Hitler when he graduated in 1943 so he joined the Army Air Corp and spent the remainder of the war working on Allied airplanes in England.

After the war, he returned to MIT for his Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering and that was where he met his future bride. He loved to fly and he intended to use his engineering background to his advantage as a test pilot.

Masters degree in hand, he was recruited by all the major aircraft builders and chose the one where he felt he had the greatest opportunity to reach his dream of being a test pilot. He flew often in the course of his duties, usually as co-pilot, and he was accumulating enough hours to qualify as a test pilot for his company. Most of his peers had flown in the war and were light years ahead of him in terms of flight hours and experience required to be a test pilot.

As they neared middle age, their lives were right on the track that Hans had envisioned for them. They were childless and they had never planned on having a family; at least his father hadn’t, and he assumed that his mother agreed. Ultimately, though, it’s the woman who controls that department and she wasn’t the first woman to quietly get her way.

Just when it seemed that his mother was nearing the end of her child bearing years she got pregnant and Pete was born in 1956. His father had achieved his dream of being a test pilot by then but his mother, with her new found maternal instincts, insisted that he quit flying untested aircraft. The engineer and pilot was grudgingly grounded.

The family moved frequently during Pete’s early years until Hans accepted a long-term assignment in Germany, when Pete was in the third grade. In Germany, they were near his grandparent’s who had managed to recover some of their wealth after the Nazi’s were defeated. Pete attended the American school at the local Army base and the next four years were some of the happiest of his life.

Looking back as an adult, Pete could see that his parents had been unhappy and their heavy drinking was one obvious symptom. Hans felt that his family was keeping him from what he loved and his mother felt the weight of his discontent. Hard drinking was the norm among the engineers and hotshot pilots in their circle so it didn’t occur to any of them that it had become excessive.

When Pete was in the 7th Grade, his life took a tragic turn when his mother fell down the stairs in their home during a drunken stupor. It was Pete who found her when he arrived home from school on that awful afternoon. He called Hans at work and an ambulance was dispatched while he hurried to the hospital. She died in the American Army Hospital three days later, leaving the man who’d never wanted to be a father and a motherless boy to find their way through this bizarre tragedy.

Pete was a good athlete and soon found that when he was competing on the athletic field, his mind didn’t have room for thoughts of his mother and the loneliness from an absent father. At boarding school he became a star on the soccer team.

Weekends and school holidays, his father took him skiing, probably because he didn’t know what else to do with Pete. It really didn’t matter why, only that the two of them finally made a connection on the slopes. They skied all over Europe and they both came to favor the French and Swiss Alps.

They didn’t talk about what happened, or much of anything of consequence, preferring instead to play their weekends away. On the slopes, Pete would lose himself in the moment until there was nothing but him and the hill. He called it “Zenning” and he presumed that his father Zenned out on the slopes too, which was why they skied so much.

By the time Pete graduated from High School, he had become a brilliant skier. It was time to pick a college and he wanted to return stateside, away from the emptiness he’d felt in his home and in his father’s eyes. The decision to attend the University of Utah was a no-brainer because they had a top-notch ski team and they were close to Park City, where the US Olympic team trained.

His freshman year at Utah Pete discovered the only thing that he would come to love more than skiing. Her name was Elizabeth. She was one of the first people he met in Utah and Elizabeth just happened to be his mother’s name. His recollection of his mother had faded over the years and, despite the unfortunate circumstances of her death, he recalled her as a graceful woman, very much like Beth. He was certain that his mother would have adored her.

Beth was tall, lean and athletic, with reddish-brown hair, lily-white skin and a smattering of freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. They met at the Athletic Field House where they were training for their respective sports. Elizabeth was on a Volleyball scholarship and it didn’t hurt their budding romance that she also happened to be an excellent skier.

The pair spent many winter days on the slopes of the Wasatch Mountains and many winter nights in each other’s arms. By the end of freshman year, Pete was a standout on the ski team and he had fallen in love with Beth and with the Wasatch Mountains.

He was a natural leader who made friends easily and his ski career couldn’t have gone better. Two years with a college level coach had enhanced his skiing exponentially and he soon became the best skier on the best team in the country and a favorite to make the US Olympic Team.

During another workout at the Athletic Field House, he met Rudy Davis, the budding star of the University of Utah basketball team. The two of them were soon the best of friends. Pete introduced Rudy to skiing and, natural athlete that he was, Rudy quickly became a very good skier.

Just after the end of the ski season his senior year, Pete placed second in the Nationals in Park City, qualifying him for the US Ski team. It was Rudy and Beth who celebrated with him and what a night that had been!

The three of them partied at their favorite Park City Blues Bar, dancing to the live band and toasting the next US Gold Medalist in the giant slalom. They were laughing and jubilant acting like the immortal youth that they were and soon their joy had infected the place. Before long, the whole bar was toasting Pete, the Utah Ski Team, the US Ski Team and Budweiser and both Brigham and Steve Young, not necessarily in that order.

The three friends joined the band onstage, leading the cheering and dancing and keeping the joint hopping, electric with energy. They danced on their chairs and on the stage and even the barmaids joined in. It was a celebration of unbridled youthful joy and innocent, arrogant bravado.

When the last song was over and last call was a memory, Pete, Beth and Rudy sat alone until the bartender came over and told them that they were closing. None of them wanted the evening to end.

Rudy raised his glass and said, “One last toast: To Pete, the best friend I ever had and the best skier I ever saw. To dreams that come true, and to Beth, the woman I’d have fallen for if Pete hadn’t beaten me to it.”

They clinked their glasses in silence, each of them knowing that he meant every word. With that, Rudy went outside alone and drove away.

The young lovers strolled arm in arm down Main Street toward the snow-covered parking lot where Beth’s VW Bug was parked. The little bars that line Park City’s Main Street had long ago closed and the night was quiet as the frozen snow crunched under their feet. Their crystallized breath lingered in the cold mountain air and Beth’s hair caught the snowflakes and reflected the full moon in tiny, white sparkles.

They didn’t speak nor did they didn’t need to. Pete was a master at living in the moment. He’d been practicing since the 7th grade. He knew that this memory would last him a lifetime.

For one concise moment, the world stood still and everything in their Universe was just as it should be. Everything he’d ever wanted and more than he’d ever dreamed of was his and Beth was there to share it. This moment was theirs and theirs alone.

The little Bug left Park City and headed toward Interstate 80 then down Parleys Canyon to Salt Lake. It had been a long day - a perfect day – but Pete was trashed and he fell asleep in a matter of minutes. He was sleeping soundly when he awoke with a start from a loud bang followed by a violent jolt. The Bug had slid on a patch of ice, brushed off a guardrail and then left the highway as they were descending the steep canyon road.

When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was Beth’s panic-stricken face illuminated by the dashboard, her eyes wide with horror. In an instant he realized that they were airborne and his reaction was to take hold of Beth’s hand. It must have been only a few seconds but it seemed like the Bug glided for hours through the deathly silent night before it hit the ground a hundred feet below.

After the silence came mass confusion as the car rolled end over end several times amid obscenely loud crashes. A blur of glass and dirt and snow were all he saw until the car finally came to a rest on its side against a pine tree, looking like a crumpled piece of paper.

Pete looked over at Beth to see how she was but she wasn’t there. Her seat wasn’t there. He unfastened his seat belt and crawled out of through the back window, the only opening left that a person could possible squeeze through.

His foot was bleeding profusely so he wrapped it with his scarf. His face was also pouring blood and he could hardly see through it. He looked for Beth but could see nothing.

“BETH!!” he screamed. “BETH!! E-LIZ-A-BETH!!”

He tried to stand but couldn’t so he began crawling up the embankment on his hands and knees. Halfway to the highway he saw Beth lying in the snow and he crawled to her, lifting her head onto his lap. She was limp and lifeless and he didn’t bother checking for a pulse; he knew that she was gone. He held her in his arms while tears mixed with his blood and dripped into the snow around them.

He sat alone in the moonlight, holding her as the blood oozed from his wounds and he prayed to bleed out quickly and end this nightmare. It had all been too perfect. No one has a right to be as happy as they were.

His toes were beginning to numb and he held her until he finally passed out from hypothermia and blood loss with Beth’s lifeless head still on his lap. So ended the day that was both the best and the worst one of his life.

He awoke in the hospital to florescent lights stabbing at his pupils.

Physically, he’d come though the accident in pretty good shape, thanks to his seat belt. Beth had been wearing hers too but it caught in her jacket and hadn’t latched properly. The way her seat had been torn from the car, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Pete lost some sight in one eye and three toes to frostbite and he had a slight spinal cord injury. He would ski again, but not competitively. Aside from that, he had a few lacerations and lots of bruises but those wounds would heal.

He lay in the hospital and thought about his mother and about Beth. They were the only women he had ever loved and they had both been taken. Beth had Olympic aspirations of her own but there would be no Olympics and no Gold Medals for either of them now. None of that mattered. He would have given everything he’d ever had and everything he ever would have, just to hold Beth in his arms one more time.

Twenty-four hours ago, everything he’d ever dreamed of had been in his grasp and it had had all been washed away in thirty seconds.

He knew that he would never be happy again and that he never would love anyone again. Those things don’t last.

Annie Lennox’ clear voice sang about sweet dreams and the seven seas. Pete tucked his ski poles under his arms and he sped down the hill, trees flashing past in a blur. He was Zenning now, big time.

© 2008. David Heiniger. All Right Reserved.