Ski Slope

We drove across this guy’s ski hill twice and pretty much ruined it, but it really wasn’t our fault. We had driven into this little town in the Alps somewhere in Austria to go skiing the next day on one of the huge glaciers they had set up as a ski resort. There wasn’t much snow that winter but the glaciers still had enough at the tops to get some skiing done. You had to walk down the rest of the mountain from halfway down, unless you wanted to scrape your skis to pieces on the dirt and rocks, but that was okay. At least we were skiing the Alps.

But as usual on one of these weekend skiing trips, we hadn’t called any hotels or pensions in advance to make reservations for the two nights we’d be staying. First of all, we weren’t always sure if there would be anyplace to stay in the sometimes really tiny towns near the ski slopes. Then even if there were hotels, if they could afford to advertise themselves outside of Austria and in Germany where we lived – in other words, if we as Americans could get their phone number and call to make reservations -- then they were going to be way too expensive for us. Then there was the fact that almost every single town in Europe had one or two tiny bed and breakfast-type places to stay, which were really just some family’s home, with a couple of the bedrooms and a bathroom set up for guests. These were the kinds of places we liked to find, but you couldn’t really find the good ones until you were in the town, driving around, and there they were. Most of the time they would have a room or two for us all to stay in, and they were much cheaper than any fancy hotel or chalet or whatever. And the breakfasts they served – my God! Breakfasts in Europe are exquisite, immense, heaven. I won’t go into detail, since this isn’t a story about breakfast, but if you’ve been to Europe and had breakfast, then you know what I mean. If you haven’t I strongly recommend a vacation in Europe just for the breakfasts alone. You won’t regret it. The best breakfasts of all are found at these family-run bed and breakfast places.

So we were on this weekend ski trip, we being me, my boyfriend Jesse, our friend Ben, and some other guys who wanted to come along to ski – I forget their names, but one of them hurt his hand when we were skiing the next day, and since I was the only one who spoke German, he screamed at me to stop skiing and take him to the hospital. Then he started crying. It turned out his hand was only sprained a little at the wrist, but the way he cried and carried on, you’d have thought it was broken and mangled. I’ll call him Wimp. The other guys who came along were named Rich and Pete or something like that, I think. Anyway that’s what I’ll call them.

Jesse and Ben were best friends and shared a room at the barracks on the Air Force base near Frankfurt -- Rhein-Main. The other two guys lived on their hall or something. I wasn’t in the Air Force. I was over in Germany on my own, working for an ad agency and having fun learning German and figuring out what I wanted to do next. Jesse and I had met at a bar in Sachsenhausen, an ancient area of Frankfurt with several fun bars and restaurants. A lot of tourists hung out there but the Spritzehaus where we met always had really good live bands and I knew the bartender, so when I wasn’t dating anyone, I hung out there and listened to the music and tried to ignore the tourists. I usually went there every Friday night and I had met Jesse there about two years before this particular ski trip.

On the drive through Germany that Friday afternoon, we had stopped at some Army base in Bavaria to eat at the Burger King. When Jesse and I traveled alone, we liked to find good German restaurants in the towns we were passing through and tried to avoid other Americans and American restaurants or bases or whatever. But Wimp, Pete and Rich wanted Burger King, and since Rich was driving the other car and pulled into the base, then into the restaurant parking lot, and we were following them in Jesse’s car, we went in, too.

Once we all gathered inside to order, Ben and I noticed a little 5 or 6-year-old black kid, all dressed up in a fancy blue suit, a white shirt, a red bowtie, and shiny black dress shoes. He was traipsing through the restaurant, grinning a big grin at someone in the long line to order, probably his mom. We had already put in our orders. Ben and I were sitting at a table waiting for our numbers to be called, and Jesse and the other guys were in the bathroom. Ben and I looked at this cute kid at the same time and we both started laughing. Ben said, “He looks like Ben Vereen.”

That did it. We cracked up and laughed until we were both gasping and tears were rolling down our faces. Jesse and the other guys came back from the bathroom and wanted to know what was so funny. When we stopped laughing long enough to spit it out, they just sort of shrugged their shoulders and said we were weird. I think the kid knew we were laughing at him, but that we meant it in a good way. He kept grinning at us between bites of his cheeseburger. For the rest of the weekend, every time Ben or I said “Ben Vereen” to each other, we’d start giggling again. I think you had to be there or maybe just be Ben and me.

* * *

So there we were, driving into this little town near the ski resort at around 10 p.m. By then any bed and breakfast places that might have had some rooms available were dark and shuttered. We finally found a place that had a sign outside advertising a room vacancy and there was actually a light on. By this time Jesse was driving in the lead since I was the one who knew how to find the bed and breakfast places. The other guys were following us. I spotted the vacancy sign and told Jesse to pull into the back area where there was probably a parking lot. He drove down this kind of long, narrow driveway on the side of the house. When we got to the back there was no parking lot and no place to turn around. Rich was following right behind us. We couldn’t park or turn around and the back area or yard of this place was pitch dark. Jesse turned on his hi-beams and we stopped and got out of the car to take a look. The narrow driveway seemed to continue across a gently sloping hill, over to a road about 50 yards ahead. I told Jesse to keep going and get to that road, so we got back in the car and he did. Rich was still following us.

It had snowed all day, but it was a wet, slushy snow. It had stuck to the ground enough to make the roads slippery and muddy. The driveway next to and behind the house was asphalt, but once we started driving across the little hill, we realized the driveway had turned to thick, slushy mud and it was very slippery. Jesse grew up in South Dakota, so he really knows how to negotiate mud, snow, ice, etc. He just kept driving slowly and didn’t brake once. Ben, who was riding with us, looked out the back window and said, “Where’s Rich?”

I looked back, but Jesse didn’t want to stop until he reached the main road, so he kept the car going. I looked out the window and it looked like Rich had slid down off the driveway/road thing because his car was now driving down the hill. Or possibly sliding down. It was hard to tell in the extreme darkness. All I could really see were these two headlights sort of weaving downwards. Once we reached the main road, Jesse parked the car and we got out to see what had happened to Rich’s car. It was stopped at the bottom of the little hill and the three guys had gotten out and were walking up the slushy, muddy hill.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Yeah, you dorks! What’d you do?” yelled Ben.

“Shut up!” whispered Jesse. “Let’s not wake up everyone in town.”

Rich, Wimp, and Pete reached the road and stopped to catch their breath.

“My car is stuck down there in the mud,” said Rich.

“Well, shit.” said Jesse. “Why’d you drive off of that driveway thing?”

“I didn’t! I was just driving along, following you, and all of a sudden the car slipped and started going downhill. I couldn’t even turn the wheel – it just kept sliding down. Good thing there wasn’t a tree or something in the way. It stopped once it got level down there.” Rich turned around and looked mournfully at his car at the bottom of the hill.

“Okay, I have a tow rope in my trunk,” said Jesse. “I’ll drive around again, stop in the middle of the hill somewhere, we’ll attach the rope to your car, and I’ll pull you up.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Rich and the other two guys started tromping back down the hill. Ben whispered to me, “Maybe this is a job for Ben Vereen.”

I started giggling, but when I glanced at Jesse’s face, I decided this wasn’t the time. We got back in the car and started to drive back around to the driveway.

“Are you sure you want to drive through that slushy mess on the hill again?” I asked Jesse.

“Hell, no, I don’t want to.” He looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. “But that shithead Rich doesn’t know how to drive and I sure as hell don’t want the Austrian police up our ass for wrecking his car or whatever.”

“Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry—“ Ben sang in the back seat and I started to giggle.

“God damn, Ben! Can’t you ever be serious, man?” Jesse turned to glare at Ben before turning back into the driveway at the side of the house. Ben stopped his singing and gave Jesse the finger. I had to pretend to have a coughing fit to stifle my giggles.

We had reached the asphalt part of the driveway at the side of the house again, and as we drove past the entrance to the house, I noticed that the “Vacancy” part of the sign had been changed to “No Vacancy” and the light had been turned off. The slice of moon that had sort of given us a tiny bit of light earlier was now hidden behind a cloud, so when we reached the mud part of the driveway/road it was even darker than before. Jesse turned his hi-beams on again and we set off across the slippery hill. We reached a point about halfway across and Jesse stopped. We all got out, and Jesse and Ben took the thick tow rope down the hill.

They attached it to something underneath Rich’s car and then Jesse came back up the hill. Ben, Wimp, and Pete were going to help push the car up the hill with Rich driving. Jesse tied the rope to something underneath his own car, told me to stay outside and help guide him and Rich, and got into the driver’s seat. He slowly drove along the driveway across the hill and the rope tightened. When there was no more slack in the rope, Jesse’s car began to strain and slide in the mud. Rich’s car didn’t move and didn’t move for a long time, even with all three guys pushing and grunting behind it. It must have been really stuck down there. Finally, after about five minutes of Jesse’s car slipping, revving, and groaning, with him absolutely gunning the motor, Rich’s car moved a few feet.

Ben and the other two guys began to run, trying to keep the car’s momentum going. Somehow, slowly but surely, Rich’s car slid and jerked its way up the hill, at a huge slant, tearing up grass and dirt and churning mud and slush all over the three guys behind it. Jesse kept the motor revved and when he reached the road, he kept going until Rich’s car got to the level driveway on the hill and he was able to drive his car to the road.

Ben, Wimp, and Pete trudged up the hill and I slipped around in the mud and slush on the driveway. I hadn’t quite reached the road when I heard someone shouting behind me, back towards the house. I turned around and a short guy was running across the hill on the muddy driveway, wearing pajamas, a bathrobe, and huge black snow boots. At first I couldn’t make out what he was shouting, since he was still kind of far away and Austrian German is hard to understand when you first hear it. He got closer, still shouting and waving his arms around. He stopped running when he reached me, but he kept shouting and waving his arms.

“What did you say?” I asked him in German. I don’t know if he even heard me but since he kept repeating the same question over and over, I eventually understood what he was saying.

“Why did you drive across my ski slope, you idiots?! Why did you drive across my ski slope? Why did you drive across my ski slope?” His face was sweaty and red and spit was flying everywhere.

“Sir,” I interrupted, “please, sir! Please stop shouting.”

“Why did you drive across my ski slope, you idiots?!”

We went back and forth like that for a few minutes, with him shouting the same question over and over and me trying to get him to shut up for a second. But he wouldn’t stop shouting at me. By this time Jesse, Ben, and the other guys had reached us, and Jesse asked me what he was saying.

“He keeps screaming why did we drive across his ski slope,” I replied. “But I can’t get him to shut up long enough to figure out what he’s talking about.”

Finally, when the guy noticed these five huge American men looming over him, he stopped shouting.

“Please, sir,” I said to him. “What do you mean, why did we drive across your ski slope? We saw the sign on your house for a room and we were going to park in the back area to go in and rent a room from you for the night, but there was no parking lot and the driveway kept going, and we couldn’t turn around—“

“Quiet! There is no parking lot back here, you idiot, as you can see! Didn’t you see the sign pointing to the ski slope back here, you fool!” He pointed to a barely visible, tiny white sign across the street from his house. We hadn’t noticed it at all when we drove by.

“That little white sign?” I asked. “No, we didn’t see it. We’re really sorry—“

“Wait, Christy,” Jesse said to me. “What are you guys talking about?”

“He says this is a ski slope and that tiny white sign way over there, across the street, says that,” I replied to Jesse.

“This is a fuckin’ ski slope?!” Jesse shouted. Then he began to laugh. Ben, Rich, Pete, and Wimp also started laughing, and I did, too. I couldn’t help it. How in the world could you call this tiny, muddy, barely slanting hill a ski slope? And there weren’t any tow lifts or chairlifts or anything.

I turned back to the Austrian man, who was now back to shouting his same question over and over again and waving his arms.

“How can this be a ski slope?” I interrupted. “Where are the tow lifts? How do you get to the top?” He glared at me.

“You walk up, idiot!”

“Did he just call you an idiot, Christy?” asked Jesse. I could tell by the quiet menace in his voice that he was now officially angry.

“Yes, but he’s kind of upset. We drove all over his ski slope—” I began to reply.

“This isn’t a fuckin’ ski slope! It’s a fuckin’ hill of mud!” Jesse took a step towards the man.

“No! Don’t hit me!” shouted the man. “I know about you American idiots! All you want to do is kill people!”

I stepped between Jesse and him, and Jesse folded his arms and stood there, all 6’5” of him towering over this tiny, screaming man in his bathrobe and huge snow boots.

“Please, sir,” I said quietly. “Can you just calm down for a minute so we can talk about this?”

The man began to shout and wave his arms again, “No, I won’t calm down! You drove your stupid American cars across my ski slope! Why did you do that?!”

Jesse stepped quickly around me, picked up the tiny man by the lapels of his bathrobe, held him about an inch from his face, with the man’s big boots swinging a foot off the ground, and whisper-growled into his terrified, finally quiet face, “When my girlfriend tells you to shut the fuck up for a second, you shut the fuck up, you got that, you fuckin’ idiot?!”

Then Jesse dropped the man on his butt in the mud and slush. He scrambled up immediately, wiping at his now wet and muddy bathrobe and shouting that he was going to call the police and have us all put in jail. He was too late. We turned around to see the blue flashing light of an Austrian police car parked on the road in front of Jesse’s car, with two officers just getting out of it. As soon as the guy saw them, he started running toward them, shouting about us driving all over his ski slope and pushing him around and threatening to kill him, etc. He slipped in the slushy mud and landed on his butt, but got up immediately and started shouting again. When the police officers reached us in the middle of the hill, he was still jumping up and down around them, screaming at them that they had to arrest us all, us idiot Americans, and put us in jail and whatnot.

The first officer reached us and looked at me. “Do any of you speak German?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Well, what in the world happened here? Why did you drive your cars across Heine Maier’s ski slope?” he asked.

“We didn’t mean to do it,” I replied. “We had no idea it was a ski slope. We saw the sign for a room to sleep for the night on Mr. Maier’s house and there was a light on, so we drove around back to park. But there wasn’t a parking lot or even anyplace to turn around, so we just kept driving on the driveway. It kept going across this hill and our car made it across, but our friend’s car slipped off in the mud and just kept going down the hill, and—“

By this time both of the officers, and Ben, Rich, Pete, and Wimp were all snickering and snorting, trying really hard not to laugh. Jesse wasn’t laughing – he told me later he was scared the officers would arrest him and the Air Force would kick him out for throwing an Austrian guy in the mud, even if his name was Heinie. One of the officers stopped laughing and said, “You mean you didn’t see the sign pointing to Heine’s ski slope?”

“Fuckin’ Heinie, fuckin’ ski slope,” Jesse whispered. “Heine, without the second ‘i’” I whispered back. “It’s pronounced ‘Hy-neh,’ damnit Jesse!” I whispered.

“Maybe he knows Ben Vereen,” whispered Ben.

That was it. Jesse looked at Ben’s face, then at my face, and then at the two Austrian police officers’ faces, and all of us except Heine Maier roared with laughter. Heine Maier just kept shouting and waving his arms.

Once we had gotten ourselves somewhat under control, the officer asked again if we had seen the sign for Heine’s ski slope.

“No.” I tried hard to suppress my giggles, but snorts kept escaping from my nose. “You can barely see that tiny sign – we were just looking for a place to stay for the night and we saw the sign for the room—“

“Okay, okay, I get it, Miss,” said the officer. He turned to Heine and told him to go in and change his muddy clothes.

“But, but! They drove across my ski slope! This big one tried to kill me. He threw me in the mud!” He kept shouting, but the other officer took him by the arm and walked him across the muddy hill towards his house.

“Okay, all of you. Get back in your cars, get out of this town, and don’t ever come back here again,” he said to us. Then he turned towards the road and began to laugh.

“Driving all over Heine’s ski slope,” he kept muttering between laughing fits, while imitating someone driving a car and weaving all over the place.

We got back into the cars and left that town. We ended up finding a huge, brightly lit hotel in the next town, which was still open and had one room left for the night, with two sleeping areas. Jesse and I got the loft area and the other guys slept in the other beds and on the floor.

Before we bought our lift tickets at the big, fancy ski resort the next morning, we went back to take a look at Heinie’s ski slope. And, by God, it was a ski slope after all. There were several little kids trudging up the hill with their tiny skis on their shoulders and others slipping and sliding down and around the churned up grass and mud we had left behind. The driveway across the ski slope was really a driveway also. It was the only level part of the hill and when we walked up to look closer, we could see from the zillions of tire marks that there had been plenty of cars driven across that ski slope before ours. But we didn’t stick around long to ponder why Heinie got so upset when we drove across and ended up with Rich’s car skiing down the hill. We didn’t want Heinie to look out the window, see us, and come out to shout some more.