Or ‘AshVegas’, as the locals liked to refer to it.
I don’t know why, but I got the feeling there was a touch of irony in that nick-name.
Ashburton wasn’t much of a place; it had one supermarket, called Countdown, so we headed in there with our CV’s and applied for jobs on the shelf-stacking team.
There wasn’t much else on offer – it was either that, or McDonalds, and if I worked there and ended up being grossed out by the food, I’d lose about a quarter of my dietary options at a stroke.
It was a tense couple of weeks while we waited for a call from the supermarket manager, but when it came it was good news; we’d both been offered jobs on the night shift, which would leave the days free to snowboard. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
They’d hired Roo without a second thought, as being an Aussie she could legally work for them until the day she died (and probably for several months afterwards – what with the smell of the stockroom and the average IQ of the staff, I doubt anyone would have noticed). My UK passport had caused some head-scratching though, until I convinced them that my visa was valid for at least another year, after which I was eligible to be sponsored by them.
Lyndon, the manager, took himself very seriously. Possibly because he looked about sixteen. He’d actually called all our references – most of whom were overseas, and all of whom were fake – and asked them extensive questions about our trustworthiness.
So. Obviously he was satisfied, and we could get to work…
Well, after the inevitable reams of paperwork, mandatory inductions, Health and Safety videos and Job Orientation.
It was laughable, because the job description read like this: 1) Stack shelves with assorted products.
2) Refer to item 1 (see above)
Providing I could avoid decapitating myself with my box knife, and resist the urge to shout “INCOMING!” and hurl five-kilo sacks of rice over the shelves into the next isle, it was pretty much in the bag.
Although we were treated to a fascinating lecture on how to wash our hands.
A whole staffroom full of new employees sat in on this one, again delivered via the magic of corporate training video circa 1987.
It covered every aspect of safe chemical usage, from the omnipresent dispensers of foaming hand-wash (classified as ‘C1’), all the way up to harmful chemicals like industrial bleach (known as ‘C10’). This intrigued me. As the tape droned on, I squirmed round in my seat to cast a surreptitious glance at the wall behind me. A series of brightly-coloured posters marched across it, describing in detail the directives associated with each chemical in sequence. And sure enough, there it was: the official, company-approved guidelines for handling C4.
I was laughing about this later that evening, as we watched the intro to a TV show which purported to be an exposé on New Zealand’s deadly criminal gangs.
The reporter, using hushed tones, described the horrors facing those foolish enough to stray into gang-controlled territory. There was shot after shot of the teenaged gangsters, all huddled together in their hoodies. I got the impression they were hiding from their parents, rather than the dreaded 5-0. In every shot, a different member of the gang would get up close and personal with the camera, waving a big shiny hunting knife in front of the lens whilst making threatening faces and gestures.
For no immediately apparent reason, the other five of them would be bobbing and weaving in the background, doing overly aggressive hand movements. It looked like they were making a really bad rap video.
I leaned closer to the TV in mock awe, and that’s when I noticed – they were all using the same knife! This gang was so bad-ass they must only have one between them, and they were taking it in turns to menace the camera with it. I even recognised the knife; you could ‘Buy It Now’ on eBay for $15.
The clincher, though, was the final dramatic interview. The reporter had saved this one till last, presumably attempting to build up the tension throughout the show.
Now she spoke in hushed tones with the masked leader of this vicious street gang.
“Have you… done robberies?” she asked.
“Yeah, we done robberies,” came the callous answer.
“Have you… done assault?”
“Yeah, we done assault!”
“Have you… done murder?”
“Yeah, we done murder!”
Then a high-pitched voice at the back piped up, “Uh, we ain’t done murder…”
The ringleader glanced around, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh yeah, we ain’t done murder,” he agreed.
I was laughing too hard by that point to hear the wrap-up.
I imagine it was some terrifying message about the out-of-control violence on New Zealand’s inner-city streets, and how our lives were in constant danger from this shadowy underworld.
Ha!
I think the most serious criminal activity any of them had been involved in was shoplifting Mars Bars. Unless you count Deceiving a Reporter. Or Impersonating N.W.A.
I bet not one of them was late home for his dinner.
I debated the authenticity of the show with a couple of the shelf-fillers at work the following evening.
“It could happen, you know,” one of the ladies told me. “Even here! Look.”
And she pointed to a section of the staff room walls, which were festooned with information sheets and notices of the kind I presume litter such rooms the world over. Bulletins from Head Office explaining the importance of being polite to customers (and presumably waiting until they’re out of earshot before commenting on the size of their tits). A Store Evacuation Plan (Leave by the door. Assemble in the car park. Try not to shout “Shit! Shit! The shop’s on fire!”). I half expected to see an alphabet chart, or one of those diagrams on how to tie shoe laces – but she was drawing my attention to a cheerfully laminated poster giving the guidelines for dealing with an armed robbery.
In Ashburton, for Christ’s sake! I mean, leaving aside for the moment the fact that acquiring an illegal firearm in small town New Zealand was likely so difficult and expensive you’d have to rob every supermarket in the country just to break even, there was one other mitigating circumstance, making casual armed robbery highly unlikely in Ashburton: the size of the place. Everybody knows everybody else. I doubt more than five people there have ever been to jail. And every one of their mums works at Countdown. I imagined it going down something like this:
Robber: “Everybody FREEZE! This is a robbery!”
Cashier: “Hey, Fred? Is that you?”
Fred: [Deeper voice] “No.”
Manager: “What’s going on here?”
Customer: “Fred’s robbing the store!”
Manager: “Oh, hey Fred.”
But you had to hand it to them; the top links of the supermarket chain weren’t leaving anything to chance. If there was to be a hold-up in one of their stores, well, they’d at least made sure we were all prepared for it.
‘The 5 C’s of Armed Robbery Response’ the poster was titled.
1) Calm - Remain calm at all times (which seemed easier said than done. After all, everyone knows Fred used to pull the legs off of insects as a child. He makes a damn good pot roast though).
2) Cooperate - Do precisely as the offender instructs (“Don’t call me Fred!”)
3) Communicate - Activate alarm and call police as soon as it is safe to do so.
4) Conserve - Remain calm at all times. (Wait a minute! I think we’ve had this one?)
5) Complete - Remain calm at all times. (So basically they could only think of 3 C’s, but decided to repeat C1 three times because ‘5 C’s’ sounded like a much more comprehensive strategy…)
I could see the headline: ‘Gunfight narrowly avoided in Ashburton supermarket this morning, as staff remained three times more calm than expected…’
On my next break I pointed out the poster to Ron, a kindly old bloke who’d started working at Countdown at the same time as Roo and me.
“So, Ron, do yo
u know what to say in case of a hold-up?”
“Sure,” he replied. “I’d say ‘This is a stick-up! Put all your money in this bag!’”
White Out
With all our days free, Roo and I spent every possible opportunity sliding down Mount Hutt on our shiny, yet woefully inappropriate snowboards. We loved the place. It benefitted from a significantly milder climate than Mount Ruapehu, with none of the ice we’d become accustomed to. Consequently, the snowboarding here was as fun and easy as a lazy summer afternoon.
At least until the weather turned to shit.
It was bound to happen one day, and at first we were keen to carry on regardless. Slushy rain was falling from a sky so low we could touch it.
There was no wind, so the freezing rain fell in eerie silence, soaking everything it came into contact with. If I’d been working in Turoa, I’d have been cursing the birth-circumstances of the half-dozen die-hard kids who refused to quit, forcing me to stay at my post long after the will to live had departed. Thankfully, these days I was my own master. Visibility was getting worse, the clouds were threatening, and it looked like an early trip home was on the cards.
There was just the glimmer of a chance that conditions were better up top – with the clouds so low, we’d be passing through them on the lift. Anything could be going on above them, up to and including a perfect summer’s day. So.
“You wanna try one more?” I asked Roo. “In case?”
She thought about it. “One more. It’s cold, and I’m wet. Unless it’s amazing up there, we should probably go.”
“Sweet!”
So we jumped on the express lift, taking advantage of the empty queue gates as most of the public had already called it a day.
The chairs carried us through the worst of the blizzard, and then up into the clouds producing it; it was fantastical, a featureless white veil surrounding us, enclosing us, stealing away everything but the wood and steel of the chair we were sat in.
“We’re about halfway up,” Roo pointed out. “We’re going to have to go through this on the way down!”
“Cool,” I said.
“Just go slow,” she told me, “be careful.”
“Always!”
“Yeah, right.”
And then we were above it, the rest of the world dropping back into focus around us. As surreal experiences go, it was one of the best – and one of the wettest.
“Bugger this,” Roo said. Rain from higher up was already pelting us, only this rain was substantially more frozen. It was like being shot at with a ball-bearing rifle set to fully automatic.
We reached the top, strapped into our boards, and set off. The fresh snow and hail made for a super-slick surface, and I was cruising along quite happily. Roo caught up to me a few times, and I hung back to agree with her that this would be our last run.
Then I noticed the cloud thickening, almost imperceptibly, as I rode. Ahead, the trail faded into impenetrable white mist. I could hear the hiss of Roo’s board just behind me, so I craned my neck and gave her a shaky thumbs-up – and the cloud swallowed me whole.
That was the last I saw of her for a while.
A white-out is very hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It felt like I was floating; the mist enveloped me so completely I could see absolutely nothing. Not the board under my feet, or the gloves on my hands – much less the surrounding terrain. I was flying; with no frame of reference beyond the slight tremor of my board on the smooth snow, I could have been going downwards, upwards, or just standing still. No breath of wind betrayed my passage, which is why I was shocked when my board began to judder, grinding against something hard – ice? Somehow I’d crossed the run from left to right, and was now being forced against the side of it – a near vertical wall of ice reaching up towards a different run. I was obviously travelling much faster than I’d thought, so I swished around to carve what I hoped would be a shallow angle back across the slope.
In this, I was far more successful than I anticipated. I shot right across the width of the track in a handful of heartbeats, and must have whipped through a row of now-invisible warning flags.
I saw the edge of the cliff at exactly the same moment I went over it.
Oh. Shit, my mind said.
Suddenly I was in free-fall, and although it can’t have lasted for more than a couple of seconds, it felt like an eternity.
Still the white clouds wrapped me; it was like an out-of-body experience, or that scene in a movie where the main character is suddenly whisked into the presence of God; weightless, drifting in an endless sea of pure white light. It was quite idyllic, apart from the bowel-loosening certainty of serious injury at the end of it.
I landed upside-down on a block of ice with bone-jarring force. Luckily, my head broke my fall. It’s the softest part of me after all, and there’s nothing in there worth damaging.
In all seriousness though, I probably owe the fact that I’m still walking to the fact that ski areas are, well you know, pointy. There aren’t many flat bits on them, and this area was no exception. It was an ice-field, too steep and broken to ski on, littered with chunks and boulders of frozen rock and snow. I ploughed through the lot head-first, picking up speed as I careened downhill.
I slid through a patch of clearer air, and thought I could make something out; quite a way below me, clinging for all her worth to an icy outcrop, was a girl.
And I was heading right for her.
I think she noticed it in the same moment I did. Along with realising that I wasn’t going to slow down.
There was nothing I could do.
“SORRY!” I called out – and seconds later I cannoned into her, smashing her from her perch and sending her skidding off down the mountain.
As she vanished into the fog below, her ghostly cry wafted back up to me; “That’s okay!”
That was the last I saw of her, for a little while, as well.
The impact had transferred all my momentum to the poor woman; now I found myself taking her place, hung up by my board on the outcropping. Face up but head down, the logical part of my brain began considering my next move. Slide, fall or tumble seemed to be the options. Apparently this was quite a popular cliff to ski off today, and there was a reasonable chance that the next person over the precipice would do to me what I’d just done to that rather polite young lady.
So.
What I really needed to do, was get my board under me. The very first thing a beginner learns is the heel-edge descent: a slow, controlled grind where you assume the position of someone stood upright on the flat, letting only the metal rim on the back of your board contact the slope. In my days of working much higher than I could safely get down from, I’d honed this technique to a fine art.
If I could right myself, I could ride my heels all the way down the mountain, if need be.
If only I could get my board under me…
My struggles dislodged me, and I began to slide again. This time I wasn’t going too fast, though it was still making a mess of my hair. I seemed to be slowing.
And then I slid to a halt on a rare patch of level ground. Just beyond me was a huge hole in the ice, with a massive steel pylon rising out of it.
From somewhere in the hole, I could hear movement. And cursing.
Aha! That’ll be that girl, then.
Owing to her borrowed momentum, she’d shot out into fresh air once again, crashed into the tower, and had ended up in a heap at the bottom of it. After I unstrapped from my board and helped her climb out, I found she didn’t blame me at all. Which was nice.
“How the hell do we get home?” was what she was more concerned about.
This was where I got to repay her trust. Knowing the slopes pretty well, I guessed which ski lift was cranking away invisibly above us. And as a general rule of thumb, when you’re trying to get off a ski-slope the way to go is down. Carrying our boards, we hiked through the rough terrain, supporting each other over ridges and ditches, until we stumbled
out onto a stretch of groomed piste.
It was the end section of the very lowest run, and we both strapped on our boards for a gentle glide home.
Roo was waiting for me at the finish line, almost an hour since she’d seen me vanish into the mist in front of her.
“I was starting to get worried,” she said, her words belying the trembling of her body as she hugged me. “I was about to send out the ski patrollers.”
“They wouldn’t have found me in this,” I said. “How did you get down?”
“Same as always, you know – slow and careful.”
“Hm. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.”
“Ah! So you’re going to be more slow and careful in future, are you?”
“Well, no, but it’s not a bad thing for you.”
“Asshole!”
And yet she was delightfully careful with my bruised body, once we were safely back home.
Ma Homies
Home, incidentally, was a room in a shared house; following an advert on the supermarket noticeboard, we’d moved in with a friendly Kiwi girl called Nikki. A tall, easy-going blonde chick, Nikki got on great with us, especially Roo, as they’d both studied agriculture at college and were both farm girls at heart. Nikki owned a brace of gorgeous horses, which we went to visit a couple of times. Unfortunately, she also suffered with ME, which we only discovered when she walked into the lounge one afternoon and said, “Hey guys, I don’t want to worry you, but I’m about to pass out and have a fit. I’ll be fine, you don’t have to call an ambulance or anything, but you might have to help me back to my room afterwards. Is that okay?”
Roo and I exchanged glances, and said, “Err… okay?”
“Thanks guys, that’s great!” said Nikki.
And then she keeled over on the carpet.
It was frightening to me, to find out there was a condition about which so little was known – and which, like PTSD before it became accepted, was widely dismissed by the medical community. With no cure and little sympathy from her doctors, Nikki was left struggling through daily life when just a few years previously she’d been a semi-professional athlete.
Kamikaze Kangaroos! Page 38
