“Barb, are my ski mask and gloves still in the boxes from North Dakota?” Dad hollered through the house, clearly annoyed at having to help get Chris ready for his first field trip. “I gotta get to work, but I’m stuck helping get you ready for a vacation.”

“It’s okay. I don’t even really need them. I can just wear these.” Chris held up the gloves full of holes and missing the top half of the index finger on the right hand.

“Yeah, sure. And then I’ll hear about it at Social Services. Everyone will think I’m the guy that sent my kid on a damn ski trip with rags for gloves.”

“HERE THEY ARE!” Mom yelled from the back of the house.

Mom came into the living room, where all the supplies were spread out on the couch, ready for one last inspection. Steven snatched his well-used but still-in-good-shape winter gear from Barbara. He tossed them over in his hands, giving them a cursory inspection. Then he smacked Chris in the chest with them hard as he handed them over for the day.

“I expect these to be in the same shape they are in now when you get home. Do you understand me?” Dad leaned in to emphasize his point. The rum from the night before was just barely audible behind the warning. “I gotta go, or I’ll be late, and they’ll be gossiping about that next.”

Dad hurried out of the house without so much as a goodbye to Mom.

“Okay, let’s make sure we are all set. Gloves and hat… check, snow pants… too big but check, jacket… too small but check, extra socks for the ride home… full of holes but check.” Mom giggled after the last item on her list. The socks weren’t full of holes yet, but they were on their last legs.

“What about lunch money for the hot cocoa and nachos in the lodge?” Chris was so excited he could already taste it. He heard the kids that got to go last year, before they moved to town, talk about the lodge and the arcade all week. The skiing felt like an afterthought as he started dreaming about what arcade machines they had. “And some quarters for the games.”

“Oh, shit. Go see if Dad left already.” Mom looked worried.

Chris knew what that meant.

He flew through the house just in time to hit the back door and watch Dad’s Travelall disappear around the corner.

“Shit,” Chris whispered to himself.

“I heard that,” Drew warned as he came slinking out of the bathroom.

Chris’ brother always had a way of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was sneaky like that—always sneaking out of the house, always hiding around a corner to catch him being bad. Not that Drew told on him all that much or got him in trouble. It was just his big brother way of always being better than him.

“So what? Like you’d even tell Dad. He’d probably just get mad at you anyway.” Chris teased and ran away before Drew could sock him.

“So, what, he’s gone?” Mom asked as Chris entered the living room.

“Yeah,” Chris already knew what was coming.

“Well, I don’t have any cash. Dad has it all. DREW…” Mom waited the mandatory 3 seconds before rattling on. “Do you have any money from shoveling to give to your brother to take with for lunch?”

“Nope.” Drew poked his head around the corner to let Chris know he shouldn’t have teased him a minute ago.
He knew Drew had money. He was with him when he was shoveling sidewalks. In fact, the only reason Chris was getting to go on the ski trip was the fact that Dad made him go with him to help on some of the jobs and split the money. Drew wasn’t happy about having to give him $20, especially because Chris had spent most of the time harassing him with snowballs, but Chris didn’t want to be outside shoveling snow anyway. He would have much preferred for Dad to just make Drew give him the money.

“Well, it’s a bag lunch for you. Sorry.” Mom was already hustling into the kitchen to try to throw something together.

“But Moo’oom,” Chris complained, but he knew it was useless.

The only consolation prize from that morning was the pocket full of change Mom let him pilfer from her purse for the arcade machines. The coins jangled away as he hustled to catch the bus before he got left behind again.

​

More than once, he had been relegated to the empty classroom for the kids with bad grades and no permission slips for the day to watch movies and catch up on homework. But not today.

He only slowed down once he got close to the parking lot and saw his class loitering around the bus, waiting to go. The energy was contagious, even from across the street. Everyone was laughing and showing off skis. But a few of the boys were off to the side, staring up at the sky. Chris looked over his shoulder at the sky and instantly saw what the boys were looking at. Everyone had been talking about it for months, but it was finally there: Hale-Bopp, the comet. Chris froze in his tracks and looked at the alien feature in the morning sky. The tail was trailing behind it, throwing off bluish-grey colors. Chris’ head started spinning from looking up while he was stumbling toward the other kids.

“HALE-BOPP!” the group of boys shouted and smacked their chests, then threw their hands in the sky, saluting the comet. “THE SYMBOL OF THE HAND SHALL RULE.” The boys all finished the chant and started howling with laughter.

Must be some kind of inside joke—one he would have been included in if they hadn’t moved away from North Dakota, where he was popular in his class and always had a friend to play with and make goofy inside jokes.

​

Lately, his SNES was his best friend, and the beep-boop-beep of the video games was the most social interaction he had. Despite this, Chris found himself laughing as he stood next to the group of boys, awkwardly trying to blend in. A few of them gave him a look, but none of them were mean about it. They just shuffled away after a few seconds and continued their conversation about their fancy skis and comets and whatever they didn’t want to share with him.

“Okay, pair up and find a seat. We have to get going, or we will miss all that fresh powder,” Mrs. Schue said excitedly.

The kids started peeling off in groups of two. It all looked rehearsed—a rehearsal he wasn’t included in.
Panic started to set in as the number of boys left thinned to zero. Chris looked around in a panic at the girls. But that situation was even worse. The ones pretty enough to be partners with were already paired up, and the shy, nerdy girls had their eyes on the ground.

Mrs. Schue sensed the pace was slowing and, with her experience, got the progress moving again.

“Megan, Sarah, on the bus. Chloe and Tiffany, you too,” she paused, surveyed the crowd. “Who is left? Hands up.”

An unfamiliar panic was setting in. The feeling had been creeping into his daily life since they moved. The confidence he’d had at the beginning of the year was shot by Halloween, and now, nearing Christmas, was almost nonexistent. He wasn’t used to being the odd boy, and the affluent community seemed too tight-knit to welcome some not-so-well-off newcomers. Hesitantly, his hand with his dad’s giant glove shot into the sky.

“HALE-BOPP, THE SYMBOL OF THE HAND SHALL RULE.” The group of private-joke boys shouted at the sight of his giant mitt in the air.

Chris wasn’t sure if they were teasing him or if his hand just presented an opportunity. But either way, it made him feel even more insecure.

“Boys, shut up. Chris, aaaaaaand,” Mrs. Schue did one last look around and saw one boy whose hand wasn’t in the air and also didn’t have a partner. “JOEY! Come here, Joey. We have a partner for you.”

Chris’ stomach tied itself in a knot. Joey was the severely handicapped kid in class. Chris knew it wasn’t his fault that he had to wear diapers and used them frequently. He knew he was slow and couldn’t help not understanding things. He knew his anger and tantrums were probably just a manifestation of his internal struggles with being handicapped. But none of that made him feel better about having him for a partner on his first field trip.

“Okay, Chris, you and Joey will be partners, but Joey might need a little extra help.” Mrs. Schue leaned in and whispered, “But I think it’s best because you are such a good kid.” She tousled Chris’ hair and shooed them onto the bus.

The only seat available by the time they got on the bus was the one right up front, right by the chaperones and the teachers. Chris got to listen to all the rest of the kids for the next 2 hours. He got to hear parts of private stories, parts of inside jokes, parts of their social lives. A few times, he almost chimed in and added to the conversation, but each time he turned around, Joey would grab his hand. At first, he just pushed his hand away, but each time it returned more forcefully. The only way he would leave him alone is if he sat facing forward and looked at the football cards he was trying to show him for the 20th time.

Joey wasn’t audible, but if you gave him more than three seconds, he would bombard you with one of his collections of cards. Some days it was Pokémon. Some days it was baseball. Today, it was football, specifically the Houston Oilers. Over and over, he flashed the cards in his face. Chris could feel himself getting angry, but there was nothing he could do. Every time he thought about throwing an elbow to get him to leave him alone, Mrs. Schue’s smiling face was there, staring at him from across the aisle. Not that he cared what she thought, but if he got in trouble at school, Dad was going to do to him what he usually did to Drew.

Finally, the bus bounced into the parking lot at the ski lodge. The giant swaths of white ski trails cut through the blackness of the pines all around them. A ski lift loomed above it all, going so high it disappeared into the mist near the top of the hill. Maybe it wasn’t mist; maybe it was just a cloud? Chris wasn’t sure, but what he was sure about was his excitement. He had never been skiing. The closest he got was flying down giant mounds of snow piled up from the streets on his little round orange plastic sled. But even more exciting was the flashing lights of the arcade teasing him from behind tinted glass.

The kids started shuffling around on the bus, gathering the things that tumbled around as they drove. Chris was busy trying to keep Joey from holding his hand and gather up his own belongings when he saw his bag lunch. It was smeared all over Joey’s ass. Somehow, his bag lunch had ended up beneath him, and Joey spent the whole trip sitting on it and smearing it around.

The knot in Chris’ stomach tightened again.

“Uh, Mrs. Schue… I think Joey sat on my lunch.” That was all he could manage, red-faced, from across the aisle.
Her own face was red, and after seeing the mess the two of them had made, it deepened to an almost purple.

​

Her veneer of pleasantness was fading fast, and the angry wine mom she was outside of class was showing her face.

“Okay, you two stay behind. We will get you all cleaned up. The rest of you, go with Mrs. Klein and start going through the line if you need to rent skis.”

Chris waited beside Joey, feeling like an idiot, shaking his hands out of his own as the rest of the class made its way past. They were all looking at the mess, and one of the private-joke boys said something about “PB & ass.”

 

Chris laughed reflexively, and for some reason, he was the one to draw the ire of Mrs. Schue.

“Not funny, Chris. Now go into the lobby and get some paper towels so we can clean him up.”

Chris didn’t argue. It was his chance to get away from Joey for a minute and possibly sneak a peek at the games lounge. The pocket full of change agreed with him as it jangled while he ran. The smell of hot cocoa, soft pretzels, mall-style pizza, and perfume hit him like a bus. It was delicious. The older moms in their tight-fitting snow bunny suits were all busy drinking the same orange-colored drinks. The dads were all drinking beers and watching sports news in the lounge. It was a far cry from the rum-and-Coke evenings they spent at home with Dad every weekend. This was upscale fun.

The napkin dispenser was on the table in front of him, but the game room was just around the corner. He almost snuck a peek but decided to save the surprise for after the skiing lessons and lunch—most of which was still stuck to Joey’s ass. Chris grabbed the whole dispenser and sprinted back outside, hoping to catch up with the rest of the class so he could blend in for a couple of hours and let his guts relax.

The rest of the class was long gone by the time the lunch mess was cleaned up. They already had skis and boots, and a few of them were already finished with the instruction, making their way up the ski lift—likely the kids that had season passes. The rest were on the other side of the lodge. Chris could hear them chanting, “PIZZA, FRENCH FRIES, PIZZA, FRENCH FRIES.” Another private joke he was being left out of.

Mrs. Schue was rushing them through the ski and boot rental line, but Joey was being difficult. Her once-red face was fully purple now, and Chris heard her say something about a mimosa after the kids were all on the slopes. Chris wasn’t sure, but he was pretty positive that was the name of the orange-colored drinks the rich moms were all carrying around.

“Hey, buddy, where’s your hat and gloves? We can’t let you hit the slopes without those, or you’ll lose a finger,” the twenty-something attendant asked.

Chris reached into the pocket on the front of his jacket, and the knot cinched tight in his stomach. There was no hat. There were no gloves. Full-on panic set in. He checked the rest of his pockets in vain. All he had there was a bulge of coins.

“Uh, I think I left them on the bus when he sat on my lunch, and I had to go get napkins.” Chris tried to deflect and pass the buck; it didn’t work.

“Jeez, Chris, here I thought by making you two partners I was going to make this easier, but it looks like I may have made the wrong choice,” Mrs. Schue said flatly.

The panic in Chris was starting to make him feel like he was going to be sick.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Run back to the bus and get them.” Full-on wine mom now.

Chris didn’t hesitate. He sprinted through the rental building and out to the parking lot for the second time in ten minutes. The chanting of “PIZZA, FRENCH FRIES” was gone now. Chris could see the last of his classmates waiting in line for the ski lift to take them up to upper-class fun. The bus driver was busy chatting up some lady in tight pants, so he barely even saw Chris almost dive into the open door. Frantically, Chris surveyed the area he and Joey were sitting in.

Nothing.

Maybe they got kicked around and bounced around on the trip? Chris scurried on all fours like a monitor lizard, checking under every seat, back and forth all down the aisle.

Nothing.

Nothing but more knots twisting themselves up in his stomach. His ears were ringing, and he could already hear all the things Dad usually said to Drew being directed at him after the school called to let them know about his behavior on the field trip, followed by a beating with whatever Dad could get his hands on.

He checked one more time, praying that one of the rich kids with skis left their hat and gloves behind. Chris wasn’t above stealing at this point.

Nothing.

Now frustrated, angry, and embarrassed, Chris sprinted his way back to the rental lobby. An angry Mrs. Schue was waiting for him, not as patiently as she was this morning.

“Well? What, nothing? What the hell did you do with them?” She obviously gathered that he was empty-handed (and headed) by the look of defeat on his face. “Well, now Joey is out there waiting for you… what are we going to do with you?”

“Hey, hey, hey, no worries, buddy. We have a lost and found full of shit… stuff… let’s go find something cool and snag it.” The rental guy was doing his best to help.

“Okay, yes, let’s do that, but let’s hurry so they can catch up with the group… I am not riding that thing up to the top with them. If anything, I’m riding the Poma lift to the bunny slopes.” She followed this with a laugh that made Chris wonder if she’d found a mimosa or two while he was on the bus.

Chris followed the guy into the lobby again, and he grabbed a giant box from behind the counter.

“Pick out whatever you want, dude, but you better hurry ‘cause I think that teacher lady is about to lose her shit.” He winked with the swear.

Chris tore through the box, not caring what he grabbed as long as it was a left, a right, and a head. He snagged the first of each he found and hurried away from the guy that helped him and back to the teacher who was beginning to hate him. He wriggled his hands into the strange gloves and could feel the remnants of someone else’s sweat. He figured it was always going to be that way since he was going to have to wear Dad’s gloves anyway. The knots in his stomach made him gag audibly. Dad’s gloves… that was the last thing Dad told him: not to lose them.

Mrs. Schue was ready to be done. She took the ski mask, which Chris had perched on top of his head folded in half, and pulled the eye holes and face holes over their appropriate places.

“You are not losing it again, so wear it the right way.”

The cold air blasted Chris in the face. It turned his breath into a mix of foggy air and spitty face mask. As his own breath condensed on the fabric, it brought to life the dry spit of the previous owner. Chris could now taste the stranger’s breath with every inhale. He tried tucking his lips back so they didn’t come in contact with the saliva-saturated fabric.

Another younger guy was frantically waving Chris and Mrs. Schue over to where he was struggling to help Joey.
“Lady, I don’t think he’s going to get it. He might have to stay back with you,” he tried to explain, seemingly frustrated with Joey’s limitations.

“Well, no, he can do anything the other kids can do; he just needs some special help. The other chaperones and instructors are already up there, right?”

“Yeah, but they already had the class and are probably already skiing,” the young man tried to explain.
“Well, then you better hurry up and get them to the top.” She looked over her shoulder at the waiting lounge.
Just then, Chris found his dad’s hat and gloves.

“Mrs. Schue, Joey has my hat and gloves.” The realization was both comforting and terrifying. He was off the hook with Dad. But now…

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” She snatched the stolen gear from Joey in one swift motion and threw it at Chris before snatching Chris’ borrowed gear and throwing it at Joey.

…He was going to have to wear the gear that Joey had just been wearing.

Joey wasn’t as careful as Chris. He didn’t tuck his lips back. In fact, it seemed that Joey enjoyed the taste of his dad’s spit because the inside of the ski mask was lined with saliva, as if he’d spent the last 30 minutes licking the inside of it. The gloves weren’t much better, but at least the hot, greasy sweat that had gathered in them wasn’t in his mouth.

Chris’ eyes watered as she tugged the mask even tighter.

“How about we hold onto them this time,” she sneered.

Chris’ panic, now that Dad’s gear was back, was turning into anger. Fuck this lady, he thought to himself.

​

Pairing me up with the special kid and then blaming me when he messes everything up. Now I don’t get lunch, my gloves are all sweaty, my mask is all spitty, and the whole class is already having high-class fun.

“Okay, dude, here’s the thing: I don’t have time to teach you, but just watch the other kids. PIZZA, FRENCH FRIES.” He demonstrated with his skis.

It meant something, Chris was sure about that, but he had no idea what, and there was no time for questions. He was just glad to be included in the inside joke for a change.

The guy pushed Joey into the path of the ski lift chairs that were swinging around the pole at the bottom. Then he grabbed Chris just in time to plop him in the chair next to Joey and lower the safety bar before the chair started its ascent.

“PIZZA AND FRENCH FRIES, BUDDY!” the guy called after them.

“HALE-BOPP, THE SYMBOL OF THE HAND SHALL RULE.” Chris smacked his chest and saluted the comet. There was nobody around besides Joey, and he wanted to test the joke out in private before trying to join the group.

Joey tried to grab his hand again.

“Stop doing that, Joey.” He slammed Joey’s hand onto the safety bar.

Chris looked behind them and realized that they were alone on the lift. Mrs. Schue never got on, and neither did the lift attendant. They were climbing up into the mist now, and Chris wondered how far they were going. He still couldn’t see the top.

Joey was tugging on his mask now. He grunted and tugged at the mask while holding the lost-and-found one out in trade.

“No way, Joey, I’m not trading you. This is my dad’s, and he will kill me—and not in a joking way—if I don’t bring it back.”

Now Joey was tugging at the fingers of Dad’s gloves. He seemed to be confused. In the 30 minutes he’d had them, he must have decided they were his.

Chris made fists of his gloves to hold them tight from him. Joey clawed even more and started pulling on his pants too. Then there was a particularly hard pull. His hand must have found something to grip beside the slippery fabric: his coins for the arcade.

RIIIIIIIP

The thin fabric gave way to the clawing from Joey.

Chris watched in disbelief as his coins for the arcade rained down on the rocks below them. None of them made a sound as they disappeared forever into the snow.

Joey seemed to have lost interest in his imagined belongings. By the time Chris looked back up from the lost coins, Joey was already distracted by the fresh snowflakes that were falling. His giant red tongue was outstretched, trying its best to wiggle around and catch a snowflake.

The safety bar flew up in a flash. Chris was pushing with all of his might, but honestly, it didn’t even take half of that. Joey was already falling. It looked like it hadn’t registered with him as his tongue still wiggled around at the snowflakes he was falling through. Unlike the coins, Chris could hear Joey land. The splat on the rocks cracked the air like thunder in a snowstorm.

There was no screaming, no yelling in disbelief from the skiers below. The mist had concealed him, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

Chris wondered if there was any change left in the tear that used to be his pocket.

There wasn’t.

It wasn’t until the top of the ski lift that Chris started to panic again. His stomach had relaxed on the rest of the ride up, but now that he could see some of his classmates, he knew he was going to have to acknowledge the missing boy.

His mind raced, but he couldn’t come up with anything. The ski lift chair rounded the pole at the top, and Chris was still lost in thought.

“JUMP, IDIOT!” someone yelled and jostled him out of his rut.

Chris realized the chair was going back down the hill—back toward Joey.

Without thinking, Chris leapt from the chair. His skis gripped the snow, and the still-in-motion chair sent him tumbling. It hit him right on the back of his head, and the world was spinning as fast as his skis. He came to rest next to a tree, in pain but conscious. At least he wasn’t going to have to fake tears.

Chris really hammed it up. He’d been practicing getting out of chores by faking headaches and injuries for so long that this part felt natural. He owed the gathering crowd an explanation.

“Joey tried to fight me for my hat and gloves, and when I wouldn’t give them to him, he jumped out of the ski lift… he almost pulled me off too.” Chris held out his ripped snow pants as proof.

The shocked group of people that were expecting to be checking on Chris’ bumps and bruises was taken off guard.

“We have to go see if he is okay. He is still down there.” Chris was blubbering now with a full supply of tears.

Some people were in a daze of sorts, but others, the ones wearing orange, were already taking off on snowmobiles. One of them grabbed Chris on his way past.

“Can you show me where he fell?” the panicking man asked.

“Yeah, it was like halfway up,” Chris said, feeling confident.

They eventually found Joey—dead, on the rocks—but Chris wasn’t around for that part. He had worked his way down the path of the ski lift a little ways, far enough back to where he recognized the rocks where his coins fell.

​

He spent an hour or so and ended up finding a few quarters. But he had to stop looking sooner than he wanted to. The voices calling for him sounded concerned. Maybe they thought he had run away from the tragedy or gone off to harm himself. Either way, they didn’t sound accusatory.

By the time they were down at the lodge, Chris had learned all about “pizza and French fries.” It wasn’t an inside joke, just a way for stupid kids to remember how to speed up and slow down while skiing. There was plenty of free hot cocoa and mall-style pizza too. It seemed like the lounge didn’t mind feeding a kid for free if his ski lift partner died.

Mrs. Schue was distraught, and by the looks on the faces of the cops now talking to her, most of the blame was going to be headed her way. They could smell the mimosa on her breath, and she was in charge, after all.

The police found Chris just before the bus was supposed to be taking them back home. He had snuck away and found the game room. The coins he had retrieved were burning a hole in his pocket, and he didn’t think he was going to be coming back to the ski lodge anytime soon. After Chris’ side of the story and a few hugs letting him know it was going to be okay… it was over.

They were back on the bus, minus Mrs. Schue and another chaperone who left with her daughter who was in the class. The ride home had a very different energy. The kids weren’t sharing private stories or telling inside jokes.

 

They were all remembering all the funny times they had with Joey. Chris remembered some of the things they were talking about, and it wasn’t fun with Joey—it was always at his expense. Chris hated them all. They were phonies. If they all loved Joey so much, why was he the last one picked to pair up? If they loved him so much, how did Chris get stuck with him all day?

The bus pulled up in front of the school a while later. Silence had consumed the group. Chris didn’t have anything to gather since he hadn’t let go of Dad’s hat and gloves the whole drive. He was still up front, so he was the first to the door of the bus, even though it was a mad scramble. Chris waited for the door, and as it opened, the sky looked brighter than usual.

Hale-Bopp was there, shining right in his face, welcoming him off the bus and back home.

Chris slapped his chest and saluted.

“HALE-BOPP, THE SYMBOL OF THE HAND SHALL RULE.”

The rest of the kids groaned behind him.

That was the only field trip Chris ever got to go on. The school insisted.