Status: Chapter 25 to come!
Reach for the Sky
Night Terrors.
The guys had enjoyed our story before we all fell into bed exhausted - Godfrey especially enjoyed filming the new plethora of injuries and bruises we had all sustained that day. I felt a little more exhausted than usual as I collapsed into a full-sized bed beside Travis (the only one of the three boys I shared a room with that I trusted not to molest me in my sleep), and fell asleep almost instantly.
I hadn’t dreamed at all during the trip, nor had I suffered from my normal insomnia, which was why I knew the intense, vivid feeling of fear was definitely not normal. The feeling wasn’t a dream, just a feeling, and it gripped at my chest; it wasn’t fear, it was terror. I was terrified of something, of falling off the bridge, of diving headfirst down a hill climb on a mini-bike, of falling down seven flights of stairs with a DR-Z250 crashing down ominously behind me. Those scenarios all came and went, accompanied by others I couldn’t remember.
“Scottie! Scottie, wake up!” Someone was shaking my shoulders, but I was so scared. Someone hugged me close to their bare chest, but all I could feel was horror gripping my stomach like a vice. I might have puked had it been anything more substantial. “Scottie, it’s okay, it’s just a dream. Scottie?” The voice was soothing and gentle now, and I felt the fear begin to recede as I slowly opened my eyes.
“You alright, Sweet Cheeks?” Andy Bell, Gregg Godfrey and Travis Pastrana’s faces floated over mine, all of them in their underwear. Travis held me up off the ground - how did I end up on the floor? - on his lap, and I gripped one of his hands in both of mine as I tried (and failed) to stop shaking.
“What happened?” I asked, sounding more groggy than I felt. Travis helped me sit down on the edge of the bed.
“You pulled a TP and just started shouting and crying before you stood up and fell out of bed. Pretty good show, if you ask me, a fantastic impression.” Always the comedian, Andy got me to laugh before he and Gregg went back to sleep.
Travis took my face in his hands and looked from one light blue eye to the other, as if checking for brain damage. Normally, I would have probably pulled a strange fan girl act and gotten lost in his enormous, brownish green peepers, but I had been more than a little shaken already.
“Are you alright, Scottie?” I had already been asked the question a few times, and the answer had been the same each time.
“I don’t know. I still feel so scared,” Readily, I buried myself in his open arms, and he comforted me as I had comforted him so many times before after his night terrors left him shaking.
“It’s okay Scottie, you’re up now. I’m here. It’s okay.” It felt ‘okay,’ and so I didn’t protest as Travis gently soothed me back to sleep as if I were a small child who had fantasized about monsters under the bed.
The morning of the last day I awoke, more sore and stiff than ever; it was a labor to pull the knee-high socks up my thighs and even harder to hold still enough for Travis to re-wrap the enormous cut on my leg and both wrists. My muscles twitched from exhaustion, and it hurt to breathe because day five had broken two of the ribs on the right side of my body.
“Scottie, really. Even I would have quit by now.” Travis was saying, as he snipped off the white tape from the roll, finishing the wrap around my right wrist
“Never say die,” I laughed, as I tested the strength of the wrap around my sore wrist before I returned the favor for Travis’s left wrist. “It’s not worth quitting now, there’s only, what, eight more hours to go now?” I wielded the scissors deftly and returned the white tape to my backpack before I began to dress - red gear for the last day.
As I kicked my bike over (the electric start on it had been irreparably smashed after a few trips down several different mountains) at the starting line, I realized that the last day was going to hurt a lot more than I had originally thought. Just turning the bike on left me gasping for breath like a fish in a chlorine pool, leaning on one foot against the handlebars with the engine pinned so the beaten warrior I rode wouldn’t turn off. Travis glanced over at me, and rested a hand on my shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze - he knew my mind was made up and understood that nothing would change it.
At the firing of the starting gun, we took off together, fighting for a lead into the woods against competition who were probably more battered and less determined than we were. I led Travis into the woods and down the first steep embankment before we began to loose what scant competition we had left to exhaustion and the forest.
I managed to stay upright for three hours and two checkpoints before I finally made a mistake and slid sideways down a muddy hill, crushing my way to a stop against a thick old tree. Travis let his momentum carry him down so he could lean his bike against the tree and help me pick the bruised 250 - my ribs screamed in protest every time I leaned over. Silently, we carried on as a light rain began to penetrate the thick canopy above us, I was afraid that if I opened my mouth for one second, the words ‘I quit’ might just have slipped out.
By the time we reached the third checkpoint I realized my jaw was clenched in pain and I could barely release my grip on the handlebars to take the Tylenol Cam proffered in a dingy glove. Summoning the suction necessary to bring water from the camel pack into my mouth was a fight I almost lost, and I caught Hubert’s attention when I spluttered in pain after taking a sip of water.
“I think you should throw in the towel, Scottie.” Everyone’s favorite redneck was not my favorite redneck at that moment, as I leaned painfully against the side of my bike.
“Call it quits. You could seriously hurt yourself,” Erik Roner sounded like my mom.
“I’d consider it if it didn’t sound negative,” I couldn’t mince words, I could only hope they got the point as I clambered back onto the bike - which seemed to be getting taller and taller every checkpoint.
“Only four more hours of this shit,” Travis didn’t mince words either, he was about as ready to give up as I was. The more and more people like he and I heard people telling us to quit, the harder we set our jaw and continued on. Cam shrugged and kicked the bike back to life for me and I began to chew a hole in my lip as Travis and I made our way back into the trees in a very brisk second gear pace.
The two hours between the last checkpoint and the next were very difficult, slow going; it had become imperative that I not take any more falls and gain any more injuries and this revelation slowed us a lot. Travis took the lead and picked our line - the path of least resistance wasn’t always as easy as it should have been. I couldn’t remember a time when I had sworn and prayed at the same time before roManiacs, but there it was. At the bottom of every descent, at the end of every rough section I was forced to stop and wait until I could breathe once more before we continued on.
Travis started to look more and more worried, but finally we reached the last checkpoint before the finish line - I was surprised to learn that we were the first team through despite how slow we had to go. After a quick throttle repair on Travis’s bike and a header replacement on mine, Cam again turned the bike over to me running so Pastrana and I could make off into the trees.
At some point, I knew something was going to fail on me. My body or my bike, I wasn’t certain; I anticipated my last fall but was arrogant enough to think that my body could handle Travis’s aggressive line down one of the last hills when I could barely stand up. The front end popped up over a rock and was more than I could handle in the last stretch of terrain - I felt the handlebars leave my hands and braced for the impact with rock I knew as on its way.
Gasping for breath almost as much as I was crying, I slid down the rocky outcropping on my ass, arms tucked to protect center mass from possible breakages.
I hadn’t realized I had passed out until Travis was worriedly shaking me at the bottom of the hill, next to the twisted heap of a bike I had let fly down alone.
“Scottie? Scottie! Thank God. Come on, stand up.” I shook my head.
“I can’t,” I was embarrassed to realize I was crying in front of Travis, and even more embarrassed at the realization that I had just quit, in fewer words. “I can’t go any more.” Travis’s face hardened, and his grip on my shoulders tightened as he lifted me to my feet.
“Really, Scottie? We’re - what? - three or four miles away from the finish and you’re going to quit?”
“Yes!” I bawled, ripping my goggles off my face with a pained gasp. “I can’t take this any more.” Travis let go of my shoulders, leaving me to sway on my own as he jumped on the front tire of my bike to straighten it out before he lifted it off the ground.
“Get on the bike.”
“No.”
“Scottie, get on the fucking bike! I will not let you quit now!” The last statement sounded like a threat as he doggedly kicked the engine over. Silently, I took the handlebars and nearly began to cry once more as I swung my leg over the bike.
I managed to keep myself from collapsing again until we reached the last grass straightaway before the finish line, and then I may have collapsed with joy. Again, Travis screwed up his face and resuscitated the bike as I trembled from pain and exhaustion. We crawled through that last straightaway, nearly leaning on each other as we crept along in first gear.
They sent me right to the ambulance when we did reach the finish line, before they informed Travis and I that we had finished first for the day. Points overall were still being calculated, but it looked like we were very close to first. Very close.
With my right arm in a sling it was very difficult to spray that winning bottle of champagne at Travis, but I managed. As I gave my teammate a one-armed hug, he whispered vehemently in my ear;
“Don’t ever make me yell at you like that again!”
I hadn’t dreamed at all during the trip, nor had I suffered from my normal insomnia, which was why I knew the intense, vivid feeling of fear was definitely not normal. The feeling wasn’t a dream, just a feeling, and it gripped at my chest; it wasn’t fear, it was terror. I was terrified of something, of falling off the bridge, of diving headfirst down a hill climb on a mini-bike, of falling down seven flights of stairs with a DR-Z250 crashing down ominously behind me. Those scenarios all came and went, accompanied by others I couldn’t remember.
“Scottie! Scottie, wake up!” Someone was shaking my shoulders, but I was so scared. Someone hugged me close to their bare chest, but all I could feel was horror gripping my stomach like a vice. I might have puked had it been anything more substantial. “Scottie, it’s okay, it’s just a dream. Scottie?” The voice was soothing and gentle now, and I felt the fear begin to recede as I slowly opened my eyes.
“You alright, Sweet Cheeks?” Andy Bell, Gregg Godfrey and Travis Pastrana’s faces floated over mine, all of them in their underwear. Travis held me up off the ground - how did I end up on the floor? - on his lap, and I gripped one of his hands in both of mine as I tried (and failed) to stop shaking.
“What happened?” I asked, sounding more groggy than I felt. Travis helped me sit down on the edge of the bed.
“You pulled a TP and just started shouting and crying before you stood up and fell out of bed. Pretty good show, if you ask me, a fantastic impression.” Always the comedian, Andy got me to laugh before he and Gregg went back to sleep.
Travis took my face in his hands and looked from one light blue eye to the other, as if checking for brain damage. Normally, I would have probably pulled a strange fan girl act and gotten lost in his enormous, brownish green peepers, but I had been more than a little shaken already.
“Are you alright, Scottie?” I had already been asked the question a few times, and the answer had been the same each time.
“I don’t know. I still feel so scared,” Readily, I buried myself in his open arms, and he comforted me as I had comforted him so many times before after his night terrors left him shaking.
“It’s okay Scottie, you’re up now. I’m here. It’s okay.” It felt ‘okay,’ and so I didn’t protest as Travis gently soothed me back to sleep as if I were a small child who had fantasized about monsters under the bed.
The morning of the last day I awoke, more sore and stiff than ever; it was a labor to pull the knee-high socks up my thighs and even harder to hold still enough for Travis to re-wrap the enormous cut on my leg and both wrists. My muscles twitched from exhaustion, and it hurt to breathe because day five had broken two of the ribs on the right side of my body.
“Scottie, really. Even I would have quit by now.” Travis was saying, as he snipped off the white tape from the roll, finishing the wrap around my right wrist
“Never say die,” I laughed, as I tested the strength of the wrap around my sore wrist before I returned the favor for Travis’s left wrist. “It’s not worth quitting now, there’s only, what, eight more hours to go now?” I wielded the scissors deftly and returned the white tape to my backpack before I began to dress - red gear for the last day.
As I kicked my bike over (the electric start on it had been irreparably smashed after a few trips down several different mountains) at the starting line, I realized that the last day was going to hurt a lot more than I had originally thought. Just turning the bike on left me gasping for breath like a fish in a chlorine pool, leaning on one foot against the handlebars with the engine pinned so the beaten warrior I rode wouldn’t turn off. Travis glanced over at me, and rested a hand on my shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze - he knew my mind was made up and understood that nothing would change it.
At the firing of the starting gun, we took off together, fighting for a lead into the woods against competition who were probably more battered and less determined than we were. I led Travis into the woods and down the first steep embankment before we began to loose what scant competition we had left to exhaustion and the forest.
I managed to stay upright for three hours and two checkpoints before I finally made a mistake and slid sideways down a muddy hill, crushing my way to a stop against a thick old tree. Travis let his momentum carry him down so he could lean his bike against the tree and help me pick the bruised 250 - my ribs screamed in protest every time I leaned over. Silently, we carried on as a light rain began to penetrate the thick canopy above us, I was afraid that if I opened my mouth for one second, the words ‘I quit’ might just have slipped out.
By the time we reached the third checkpoint I realized my jaw was clenched in pain and I could barely release my grip on the handlebars to take the Tylenol Cam proffered in a dingy glove. Summoning the suction necessary to bring water from the camel pack into my mouth was a fight I almost lost, and I caught Hubert’s attention when I spluttered in pain after taking a sip of water.
“I think you should throw in the towel, Scottie.” Everyone’s favorite redneck was not my favorite redneck at that moment, as I leaned painfully against the side of my bike.
“Call it quits. You could seriously hurt yourself,” Erik Roner sounded like my mom.
“I’d consider it if it didn’t sound negative,” I couldn’t mince words, I could only hope they got the point as I clambered back onto the bike - which seemed to be getting taller and taller every checkpoint.
“Only four more hours of this shit,” Travis didn’t mince words either, he was about as ready to give up as I was. The more and more people like he and I heard people telling us to quit, the harder we set our jaw and continued on. Cam shrugged and kicked the bike back to life for me and I began to chew a hole in my lip as Travis and I made our way back into the trees in a very brisk second gear pace.
The two hours between the last checkpoint and the next were very difficult, slow going; it had become imperative that I not take any more falls and gain any more injuries and this revelation slowed us a lot. Travis took the lead and picked our line - the path of least resistance wasn’t always as easy as it should have been. I couldn’t remember a time when I had sworn and prayed at the same time before roManiacs, but there it was. At the bottom of every descent, at the end of every rough section I was forced to stop and wait until I could breathe once more before we continued on.
Travis started to look more and more worried, but finally we reached the last checkpoint before the finish line - I was surprised to learn that we were the first team through despite how slow we had to go. After a quick throttle repair on Travis’s bike and a header replacement on mine, Cam again turned the bike over to me running so Pastrana and I could make off into the trees.
At some point, I knew something was going to fail on me. My body or my bike, I wasn’t certain; I anticipated my last fall but was arrogant enough to think that my body could handle Travis’s aggressive line down one of the last hills when I could barely stand up. The front end popped up over a rock and was more than I could handle in the last stretch of terrain - I felt the handlebars leave my hands and braced for the impact with rock I knew as on its way.
Gasping for breath almost as much as I was crying, I slid down the rocky outcropping on my ass, arms tucked to protect center mass from possible breakages.
I hadn’t realized I had passed out until Travis was worriedly shaking me at the bottom of the hill, next to the twisted heap of a bike I had let fly down alone.
“Scottie? Scottie! Thank God. Come on, stand up.” I shook my head.
“I can’t,” I was embarrassed to realize I was crying in front of Travis, and even more embarrassed at the realization that I had just quit, in fewer words. “I can’t go any more.” Travis’s face hardened, and his grip on my shoulders tightened as he lifted me to my feet.
“Really, Scottie? We’re - what? - three or four miles away from the finish and you’re going to quit?”
“Yes!” I bawled, ripping my goggles off my face with a pained gasp. “I can’t take this any more.” Travis let go of my shoulders, leaving me to sway on my own as he jumped on the front tire of my bike to straighten it out before he lifted it off the ground.
“Get on the bike.”
“No.”
“Scottie, get on the fucking bike! I will not let you quit now!” The last statement sounded like a threat as he doggedly kicked the engine over. Silently, I took the handlebars and nearly began to cry once more as I swung my leg over the bike.
I managed to keep myself from collapsing again until we reached the last grass straightaway before the finish line, and then I may have collapsed with joy. Again, Travis screwed up his face and resuscitated the bike as I trembled from pain and exhaustion. We crawled through that last straightaway, nearly leaning on each other as we crept along in first gear.
They sent me right to the ambulance when we did reach the finish line, before they informed Travis and I that we had finished first for the day. Points overall were still being calculated, but it looked like we were very close to first. Very close.
With my right arm in a sling it was very difficult to spray that winning bottle of champagne at Travis, but I managed. As I gave my teammate a one-armed hug, he whispered vehemently in my ear;
“Don’t ever make me yell at you like that again!”