Fonzie snapped his fingers, thrust his thumbs up, and shouted, “Aaay!”
The boat took off at full speed with the Fonz, in his leather jacket
and perfectly parted hair, in tow on a pair of over sized planks.
Ahead, were a half dozen hungry sharks, their dorsal fins protruding
through the water, and the Fonz was headed straight for them. But
Fonzie was cool. At the last moment, he hit a jump and flew over the
sharks, narrowly escaping being dinner. A television series will often
“jump the shark,” throw a desperate maneuver- (a marriage, a sudden
death, the reapperance of a long lost twin from Minnesota) to reignite
the viewers interest. Afterwards the show's quality often declines as
was the case in Happy Days.
The clouds were lighting up in Toulumne. It'd been raining for
days. It didn't come hard all day, just the hours between sunrise and
sunset. Still, I was psyched to climb. One decent day and I'd fire
Cowabunga, a steep traverse below DAFF Dome. I kept lurking as the
thunderstorms continued. My wallet, already thinned by the cost of a
root canal, shrank. The rainy days were spent eating, drowning the
doldrums of bad weather in peanut butter cookies and chocolate milk.
The forecast looked grim, more rain. I'd already eaten all the food in
the bear box: the spaghetti had disappeared a week ago, the tuna was
all gone, even the packets of Sweet & Low had been raided.
Desperate times call for desperate action. After a few more rainy
Toulumne days, I finagled a ride to Berkeley, and got a j-o-b. I jumped
the shark.
By the end of the week, I was working. During the days, I belayed
kids at Ironworks. At night, I stood outside Jupiters in Berkeley
tossing out drunks and minors. Besides the proletarian wages, neither
job was bad though neither job was good. And the bay's climbing left
something to be desired.
A small park sits on the Berkeley hills, containing two large
pieces of rhyolite. Before the fog has settled, the view shows the
steel of the Bay Bridge, the gateway from Oakland to San Francisco,
reflecting its dull hue. The scenery is beautiful; the climbing is
something else. Mortar Rock and Indian Rock feature a thousand boulder
problems-provided you know nine hundred fifty ways to element holds.
Indian Rock, the larger of the two faces, contains a spread of moderate
boulder problems while Mortar, though smaller, has a higher
concentration of difficult climbing. The infamous Nat's Traverse runs
along the base of Mortar and a number of bored locals have cranked out
serious test pieces on the tiny crimps. The other city crags- Glen Park
and Beaver St., are just as polished and twice as lame.
The other climbing option involves driving across the Golden Gate
bridge, into the wealthy areas of Marin, and heading north along the
Pacific coast. Mickey's Beach sits on the ocean; high tide on the north
side will drown a belayer and soak the holds. The routes are smooth,
technical, and hard; it's a locals' crag. The ocean crashes ten feet
away from the cliff and thousands of tiny sea creatures- aenomes,
barnacles, shellfish, scamper at the base. The conditions are often
affected by fog, the routes feel slicker than normal at times. There's
offensive scenery at times. On sunny days, when the bouldering and
sport climbing are best, dozens of obese dirty naked men chase down
rogue Frisbees on the beach. It's best to stay away from the lecherous
men; they attract crabs. All in all, the crag does have a number of
challenging sport climbs- a half dozen 5.12s and a few 13s- and makes a
worthy day outing.
The best Bay Area climbing may be Berkeley's plastic mountain.
Ironworks' lead cave sits in the back of the gym, hanging ominously for
aspiring plastic pullers. Two of my friends, one who has climbed 13d
trad and another who has fired the dangerous Bachar-Yerian, both failed
the belay tests and weren't allowed to lead. At the Touchstone gyms,
lead climbing is “for serious climbers only.” Though holds occasionally
spin, the climbing remains safe. The scene is dangerous though. The gym
transforms into a zoo in the evenings, with a hundred monkeys
clambering over each other to send the newest boulder problem or tick
the rad green and orange route. Climbing here regularly, will turn one
into a beast; every boulder problem, every top rope, and every lead
route is steep, and requires muscle. Climbing a lot out doors does not
transfer easily to the gym. Whenever I was trying to send my gym proj,
trying to hit all the black holds, I would find myself pumping out,
grabbing the biggest holds I could find. Gym climbing isn't easy.
“I climbed it!” Liam took my hand, pulled me to the wall, and
pointed. “I went all the way to the top, James.” He'd been working on
the steep 5.6 route since the beginning of the climbing day camp, and
on the last day he managed to do it.
“Good job.” A munchkin ran between my legs, grabbed the nearby climbing rope, and shouted Tarzan style.
“Aaaah!” Jack beat his chest as he swung on the thick rope, aiming for a pair of climbers.
“James, can you belay us?” Daphne and Lilly tugged on my shirt simultaneously. Liam stabbed his finger upward.
“Twice, James. I did it twice.”
Jack, the wrecking ball, had bowled over the climbers and had begun a second swing.
“Belay us. Belay us. Don't you work here? Belay us!”
The space between my ears hurt. And this was my day job.
Every hour the doormen switch from the back gate to the front
door. The majority of patrons come in through the front entrance on
Shattuck while the waiters, runners, and bartenders go for their
cigarette breaks out towards the back alley of Allston. While the
Jupiters employees neurotically inhale coffin nails, I play solatiare
on my Ipod. I shuffle through most of the deals, only accepting a
quarter. An ace or two with an even mix of black and red cards must
show up before I start; if you're gonna play with yourself you better
have a good hand.
At 1:30 Matt, or one of the other black shirted bartenders, will
emerge from the bar, step out to the patio, and shout, "Last call for
alcohol!" The other doorman and I lock the gates, close the windows,
and pick up random pint glasses. By quarter of two, most of the patrons
have left. Those that haven't get a second warning, "You don't have to
go home, but you can't stay here."
My twin brother closes the bar down a couple nights a week, and
Monday night, after I'd turned off the patio lights, he poured me a
Racer 5 while he finished stacking the glasses.
"I'll be graduating in the spring Matt, with an Economics and
Business Management degree. After that, I'm gonna have to get a job, a
house, a car. I'll be slaving away to repay my student loans, my
medical bills, and a f*#king mortgage. I'll gain twenty pounds and
won't ever climb again."
"No complaining at the bar," Matt started wiping down the wood counter.
"That old man sobbed earlier."
"The guy at the end of the bar? Phil, the human walrus? He's been
coming here for years. You could wring a pint of Red Spot out of his
mustache." The upstairs lights were shut off and the bar darkened. "I
wasn't listening to him. He was ordering a beer and got teary cause the
keg of Red Spot was dry. Besides, I'd cut my shoulder off before I'd
let him cry on it."
"Oh. But what am I gonna do? I suck as a climber, and there's no way I could write for a living."
Matt snatched my glass, tilting his swollen nose down at me. Two
days prior he'd been in a Muay Thai fight. Though he'd fought well,
he'd received a TKO; he'd been bleeding profusely from a small cut on
his nose. It was a bad decision by the referee. "Life's a
disappointment," He placed two beers on the bar and drank with me. "And
in the morning it's a hangover. Let's go see if the Pasand Lounge is
still open.
Fortunately, the other bar hadn't closed yet. The bar stool swayed
uncontrollably as I climbed on to it. There was a small karaoke stage
and a pale thirty year old relived his glory days, singing the Cure. A
head fell onto my shoulder, and an arm caressed my bicep.
"Looks like someone likes you James," Matt smiled. The Asian girl next to me tottered on her stool.
"Hey?" my mind shuffled through a series of bad pickup lines. "If I
told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"
Matt's eyes rolled as the girl grabbed my arm tighter to keep from falling off her seat. The bartender noticed.
"I think you've had enough," he took her beer and placed it behind the bar.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of Korean fury. "You can't take that!"
The drunk girl grabbed an empty pint glass and pitched it with Nolan
Ryan speed at the mirror behind the bar. Glass sprayed across the room.
Then she swiped her hand across the counter top, knocking more glasses
over.
"Get the f*#k out of my bar!" The bartender stared at the shards of
glass strewn through the room. A bouncer ran up, grabbed the girl, and
dragged her to the street. as the bartender picked up glass.
Matt plucked a piece of shrapnel from his beer, and downed the
rest. "You couldn't afford a condom anyway. Let's go, there's a couple
of pale ales back at the house." He tossed an extra bill to the
bartender. "Be thankful this sh#t doesn't happy at Jupiters."
I stumbled behind. The future looked grim: work, shitty climbing,
and hangovers. I'd jumped the shark. But leaving the bar, I was happy
that, at least for a moment, life was exciting.
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