This is Gonna Rock

We’d talked about it for months, despite the pandemic, despite everything. Over the years we’ve had hundreds of plans and promises. We keep saying that when the borders open back up, we’ll visit Canada together. We always tell each other that we’re going to drive across America and live out of our cars. We’re going to become bestselling authors and travel the world. We’ll be the greatest comedic double act the world’s ever seen. It’s nice, when you’re people like us, to believe in a future, any future. But our small lives, our day-to-day existence, offer real substance to those dreams. No, we aren’t the characters in the John Green novels we ruthlessly tear apart, but on an unseasonably warm December weekend, we can put on ripped jeans and band tees and grab our skateboards, and we can do our best not to fall, and we can laugh at each other, and days like this are enough to keep us fed.

Last summer we stayed out of our houses as much as we dared, trying to get a breath of that freedom we had found in our first year of college. I would drive out to see her almost daily, making my way down the hills and into the valley in the late afternoons when the sun would be low and golden, and the bushes and leaves would overwhelm the roadside and tumble out onto the street. I’d pick her up at her house behind the near-vacant strip mall, where the train tracks ran right through and on, past the High School we went to together. Sometimes, when I slowed down to drive over the train crossing on my way to see her, I’d remember my brother’s face when he first learned that his friend had died on those tracks. Two kids were hit by the train in the four years we went to that school. 

I’d wait for her in the driveway and watch the feral cats run back and forth in the street, and listen inanely while the couple across the street shouted at each other, at their kids, at their dogs. She’d climb into my car and we would turn right around, back into the countryside, blaring bad music and laughing at our lives. We often found ourselves at the Overlook, where the gliders are towed off and into the warm updrafts that rise from the valley. It’s one of the highest hills in the area. There’s a large plateau and then a sharp cutoff into heavily forested cliffside that’s littered with plastic and crushed cans of Miller Lite. From here we could see our favorite part of town stretching far out below us. We would park my car and sit on the hard stone benches, looking out at the broad flat fields hundreds of feet down, while on the distant hills the red lights of the radio towers would get steadily brighter as the sky got dark. The valley had patches of bright and dark; the car park and the factory shone bright white, the bridge over the river was lit with gold, and underneath the water ran a satin silver-black. We could see car lights flashing through the trees on the hills across the valley, and fireflies blinking in the weeds in front of us. When it was time to leave, we’d pass the other visitors who sat in their cars, having sex, getting high and enjoying the view. Then we would get in and we would go. 

But sometimes we wanted a taste of civility, cuteness, and safety. We wanted to bask in the glow of wealth that the richer towns gave off, so instead of driving through those golden-green hills we would hop on the highway and follow the river down to civilization.

Market Street, the Gaffer District, the Crystal City! A whole street lined with trees and golden string lights, home to shops that sold thousands of dollars worth of art and restaurants full of people who had just left their jobs at Headquarters. Even my parents, well-off engineers who work for the company, don’t have an office in that formidable glass building that stands beside the river, blocking little Market Street from the eyes of the rest of the world. I’d heard about it from them though. Apparently, the walls are lined with glass sculptures and the floor is decorated in mosaics of skeletons. It's made of windows but still feels dark, and its passages wound, snakelike, throughout the long, low building. I’m sure that I must have imagined some of that, though; every time I see it, I feel a shudder go down my spine. Millionaires work there, in those dark hallways, and for some reason that scares me enough to fuel my fearful imagination. My eyes never stay on Headquarters for long.

We drive down Market Street, taking in the sites, enjoying every streetlight and every window. Then, we dine at the fanciest McDonald's in the area. It has electronic screens you can order from, watercolors of glass sculptures hanging on the walls, and a view of Market Street’s welcoming backside. All McDonald's have the same food and yet somehow, the fries are best there. Just a little saltier, just a little more greasy. It’s the perfect place for two bored teenagers with light pockets.

One summer afternoon, I felt listless. I took her and we left the McDonald’s parking lot in search of something new. I had the feeling we were looking for something in particular, and I followed my instinct to the top of the hills that rise from the river that divides the wealthy side from the poor side. What we found was a playground. It was an adorable playground, made of wood. I’ve always had a soft spot for wooden playgrounds. They remind me of my hometown in the North Country, and so of course we stopped. When we looked closer we noticed the playground was a miniature version of Market Street. The museum, the clock tower, and the gaffer tower were all there in miniature, no taller than seven or eight feet at most. We adored it. Then we toured the surrounding area, where a flat, manmade field had been cut into the side of a very steep hill to make two smaller very steep hills. I knew what I had to do. I ran to the top while she sat in the field and watched me, laughing. I looked down and shouted that I wish I had brought my inhaler, and she shouted back that she wished she’d brought hers. I stood at the top and looked out at a new valley, one on the other side of our small world. Then I did what I always do on a good grassy hill and I rolled right down.

We stayed at the playground for a long time, until the sun set and it got dark. We didn’t want to leave our little perch at the top of the world, but when we finally departed, we were in agreement: it would be a great place to sled.

We left each other and our families for our second year of college, and our contact gently waned as it always does. The nights got steadily darker and colder, counting down the days until we would be home again. I stayed at school for as long as I could, dreading what I knew would be a silent and near-empty winter. I love the cold and I love snow, and I love clear winter skies and a blanket of darkness, but I don’t love being alone. I finally left my dorm late at night, listening to the same 11 songs on repeat as I drove down the highway.

Soon after I got home, a snowstorm hit. I was delighted. I ran outside in the darkness and I threw myself into the snow, I built a tiny snowman, I rolled down the mountains of it we had piled up at the edges of our driveway, and when I got tired I lied down on my back and looked up at the night sky, listening to the snowflakes melting under me and imaging it was the sound of the stars. The next day, I woke up early and I sent her a text:

"We did talk about sledding..."

She responded, "Oooo yes", to which I replied, "This is gonna rock, I'll see you at McDonald's."

We met in the parking lot and drove in a two car convoy up to the hills. The playground was overrun by families. School-aged kids were running up and down the hills and sliding all the way down, onto the frozen pavement of the parking lot. We didn’t dare put our adult-sized bodies on child-sized sleds and plow into a row of parked cars, so we made the voyage to the top of the second hill. It was steep. We are asthmatic. It was not easy. When we finally arrived at the top and had found a place suitably far from the children (to keep them safe from both our sleds and our colorful language), we took a second to catch our breath and look out again at the valley. The world had been transformed from the green summer landscape we remembered to the blue-greys of winter. The hills on the other side of the river were white with snow, and the leafless trees made them look cold and bare. We could follow their clear-lined edges all the way down into the town, where the houses looked dark under the white sky. The trees all around us were covered in snow, and seeing it gathered so perfectly on every branch sparked a million happy memories of wintertime in a town with a wooden playground hundreds of miles away. I don’t know exactly what she was thinking, but when I looked at her I knew she and I felt the same.

We mounted our sleds and got ready. I admit I was scared. I had just recovered from a concussion and I didn’t want another any time soon. I sat perched on the most ridiculous sled I’ve ever seen. It was tiny, and shaped like a saddle with a black handle poking up from the center. It had a big decal number 8 on the side, which felt like a fast and dangerous number. I didn’t trust this little piece of plastic made for a third grader to keep me on, but I’d lent the regular sled to her. We decided I should go first, because we didn’t want to hit each other. I grabbed on to the handle with both hands and dug my heels into the snow. The hill was so steep. I mean it was really steep. I’d never sledded on a hill as steep, and in fact I hadn’t sledded at all in at least six years. I held on as tight as I could and pushed off, flying down the hill on my little red sled and engaging in a superb balancing act so as not to be thrown off. I broke through the soft layer of powder which was gently gathering and it was thrown up in my face, melting on my skin and dousing me in water. When I got to the bottom, I let myself fall off the sled and laid in the snow, laughing. 

She waited for me to climb all the way back up before she went. I sat beside her and watched as she got on to my old blue sled with its yellow pull rope. Like always, I was showering her in a constant stream of anecdotes and concerned safety warnings that she had learned years ago she didn’t need to pay attention to. She pressed her hands into the hillside and pushed off. She sped off down the hill and I saw the plume of powder hit her too, and leave a bright streak of snowfall in her wake. When she hit the base of the hill, the sled threw her off and she stayed where she was for a moment while I laughed from my little spot above her. 

We were there for a long time, but not as long as we would have liked. Our asthma had gotten the better of us, and soon enough, climbing the hill wasn’t worth the thrill of arriving at the bottom. I had started to throw myself down the hill on my stomach because I didn’t want to keep carrying the sled back up, and while it was surprisingly effective, my stamina quickly wore down.

We elected to hold a final race down the hillside. I took the fastest of the three sleds, while she decided to take the slowest so that she was less likely to fall off. I had a minute of confusion about what to do with the third sled before she told me to push it down the hill before us, proving definitively that my year and a half of engineering education wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped.

The seconds before the race were tense. I mounted my red steed with the practiced movements of someone who had been doing this for at least forty-five minutes. I gripped the handle and hunched over with the spirit of an Olympic cyclist. She scooted up beside me in her big blue sled and we agreed to countdown. I decided a French countdown would be the way to go, but after I mistakenly started in German, and at the number 1, I let her take control of the counting.

Dix!

Neuf!

Huit!

Sss-ssept! (It’s a good thing she had taken the lead on counting)

Six!

Cinq!

Quatre!

Trois!

Duex!

Un!

Zero!

And we were off! We rocketed down the hill. I leaned forward, feeling the ground under me rumble through the plastic underside of my wonderful vehicle. Woman and sled became one, and I urged us onward, my eyes fixed on the horizon, my body shifting to keep my weight center. The blue streak at my side disappeared from my peripheral. I heard a thump behind me and knew I had won, but I was going faster and further than I had all day, and I wanted to see just how far I could take it. I slid down the hill and across the field, never falling, and came to a natural, graceful stop somewhere in the middle. I looked at the edge of the field where the second hill which led into the parking lot started, and I felt a bit of relief that I hadn’t gotten any further. Instead, she took my sled and I slid down on my chest for the last time, still amazed at how fast my coat could slide on snow.

We met up at the local Burger King and changed out of our wet clothes. Then, in our two car convoy, we set off on our next adventure.