The Last Run

This week we meet Jake. Cold and windy at the summit, but Jake's determined to make one last run. His buds say no way, done for the day, but Jake moves to the beat of his own drummer. He leaves the warmth and camaraderie of the lodge, steps into his Atomics, and heads for the lift. 
 
Trouble is, there's a perfect storm brewing. Wind, cold, snow, party at the tech billionaire's ski lodge, obstinance, and lift operators who are stoned, injured, and dreaming of sex. 
 
Man may think he has some measure of control over his life, but man is, by and large, a fool. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Many novels on steroids.
This week we meet Jake, cold and windy at the summit,

(00:45):
but Jake is determined to make one last run. His
buds say no, way done for the day, but Jake
moves to the beat of his own drummer. He leaves
the warmth and camaraderie of the lodge, steps into his atomics,
and heads for the lift. Trouble is, there's a perfect

(01:07):
storm brewing, wind cold snow party at the tech billionaire's
ski lodge, obstinates and lift operators who are stoned, injured,
and dreaming of sex. Man may think he has some
measure of control over his life, but Man is by

(01:28):
and large a fool. The last run, one more run,
that's all he wants. One more run, the last run
of the day. A pretty short day in early January,
dusky by four, pretty dark by four thirty, pitch black
and stone cold by five. But he'll be back in

(01:52):
the lodge long before that, sitting by the fire with
a shot of tequila, listening to some soft rock covers
by his buddy Paul, checking the room for snow bunnies,
looking for an opery ski adventure with a local. Come on,
he says to his buds at the bar, Come on,
one more run, No takers. The boys are into their

(02:15):
second and third bruskies. No interest in buckling up their technicas,
pulling on jackets, gloves and helmets and heading back out
into all that cold and wind chill bro comes the chant.
We'll hit it again in the morning, fresh powder overnight
six to eight inches predicted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he says,

(02:37):
climbing off the stool. You lightweights put off till tomorrow
what you could be doing today. Go ahead, But me,
I'm going skiing sum At to base boys some at
to base full boar on everest a jaxon sidewinder. No
sooner is he out the door than word reaches the
bar that it's party time up at the tech at

(03:00):
Billionaire's house on the Ridge, and that means free eats,
free booze, excellent weed and assortment of microdose hallucinogens and
absolutely the best looking girls in the valley. Beard tab extinguished.
Those boys are gone, gone gone. They're antsy, over zealous
ski bud long forgotten. Jake steps into his atomics. The

(03:27):
bindings lock with a snap. Plenty cold out here, be
down in the single digit soon, and with those northerly
gusts blowing across the face of the mountain, it's already
well below zero up there with the windshill. No big deal,
he assures himself, No big deal. I'll freeze my butt
off for ten minutes getting to the top, but coming

(03:49):
down mountain to myself will be a wild joy ride.
To hell with those a holes, They're not skers, just
a bunch of posers, spoiled rich kids living on daddy's
doll He heads for the high speed quad that goes
from base to summit in a flash, but halfway to
the chair, a lift operator he knows tells him sorry,

(04:12):
Jake closed a couple minutes ago, wins way too stiff
at the top, Jake nods, thinks about calling it a day.
There's always tomorrow, but He can't just walk back into
the bar now, not after rousing the boys, so he
decides to ride the Lower Glade lift to the top
of Sidewinder, and if the Everest chair is open, he'll

(04:33):
ride that to the summit. If not, he'll take an
easy cruise down through the trees down to the lodge
and be back on his bar stool in fifteen minutes.
No line at the Lower Glade lift. He pushes up
to the loading ramp and says hey to the operator,
a young kid. He doesn't recognize. Everest still open, he asks,

(04:56):
as the chair lifts him off his feet and into
the air. Don't know, the kid replies, red eyed and wary.
The kid has smoked enough durban cush on his shift
to stone a two thousand pound rhino. By morning, he
won't remember anything or anyone. The chair sweeps up the
mountain through a cut in the tall, snow strewn evergreens.

(05:21):
Not too bad in the glade. Out of the wind,
not too bad at all, cold, but not bitter. Jake
shoves his poles under his thighs and pounds his gloves
together to make some warmth. Through the trees. He can
see Sidewinder to his right and camels hump off to
the left. Not many skiers on either run, just a
few diehards. Everybody's inside, getting warm and blitzed and hoping

(05:45):
to score little in life as delightful as sex with
a stranger. After a long, hard day of downhill half
a mile up the glade, another piece of this perfect
storm begins to fall into place when the lift operator
at the bottom of everest chair slips and grabs a

(06:06):
frayed cable, cutting a deep, bloody gash in the palm
of his hand. Christy shouts, Holy Mother of Jesus. The
gash is a long, wide, bloody river running from his
wrist to the base of his middle finger. Definitely going
to need some medical attention. He thinks what he should do,

(06:26):
decides to get the hell off the mountain pronto, like now.
He wraps the wound in a reasonably clean cloth and
walkie talkies. The operator at the top of the lift
explains what happened, says he's skiing down to get some help. Hey, hey,
wait a second, asked the operator at the summit. Yet,
is anybody left on the chair? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(06:47):
two guys together about be about maybe halfway up now,
another few minutes, you'll see him. Yeah, can you wait
until they get here? Dude, just just hang on and
then we'll close the lift. Blood seeps through the cloth.
The mother's really starting to hurt. A bit of panic
might be setting in. Ah. I don't know, man, I
don't know. I don't know, mutters the injured operator. But then, yeah, okay, sure, sure,

(07:12):
I'll wait. Sure guess, Okay, okay. Don't let anybody else on, dude, Okay,
you hear me. Don't let anybody else on. Send him
down sidewinder, no one else to the summit. Too damn
cold up here, and too damn windy. Ah I got it, man,
I got it. Let's go Roger, That says the summit operator.
This is his ninth season on the mountain. He's a

(07:35):
good soul, a very conscientious guy, but he also has
an extremely hot date this evening in like an hour.
He operates the ski lift for three reasons, money free
skiing and ready access to chicks on vacation. The Everest
chair closes at four pm. It's a slow, two person

(07:59):
twelve minute ride, which means at four to twelve the
last skier should be off the lift. He typically lets
it run until four to twenty or so, just to
be safe. But today, just this once, what with the
knucklehead at the bottom, injured and scared, Maybe he'll shut
her down a little early. Once he gets this deuce unloaded,

(08:21):
then he'll bomb down the mountain, get showered and shaved,
and let the good times roll. He definitely anticipates getting
some action tonight. Well down below, the gash screams and
pulsates and bleeds like a gutted calf. The injured lift
operator wraps more cloth around his hand, pulls on his

(08:44):
glove than his other glove than his hat. Three minutes
slowly pass, four minutes. That deuce has gotta be at
the top by now, gotta be. No one else is coming.
It's too late and too goddamn cold. Screw it, he
yells out loud. I'm out of here before I bleed
to death. He steps into his backcountry burden, secures the binding,

(09:05):
and takes off down the mountain like a man running
from death. This perfect storm increasing in intensity, He's into
his fifth or sixth turn before remembering he didn't hang
the clothes sign across the entrance to the lift, and
half a minute later, Jake reaches the top of the

(09:27):
Lower Glade lift. He pushes forward, steps off the chair,
and slides down the shallow exit ramp. Not a soul around,
dead quiet in the glade. It has started to snow lightly,
a fine powder. The sky's low and dark. Gonna be
a nice dump. Yeah, gonna be a nice dump. Excellent

(09:48):
powder skiing in the morning. He decides to skip the
summit and just take an easy cruise down sidewinder, in
and out of the trees. It's too damn cold top
pretty reasonable here, protected by the evergreens, but he knows
halfway up the everest chair, when you pull clear of

(10:08):
the tree line, the wind will roar and the cold
will bite. It'll be insanely cold up there, and who
needs that misery. Although it's only four or five minutes
from the tree line to the summit, he can handle
four or five minutes. Hell, hell, yes, he can definitely can.
For the sheer exhilaration of having Everest, Ajax and sidewinder

(10:32):
all to himself, five or six minutes of pure high
speed bliss, he skis over to the lift. While at
the summit, the deuce approaches the unloading ramp. The operator
watches them come all day long. He sits and watches
the skiers ride up the mountain, unload, look around at

(10:55):
the majestic mountains, and then slide back down. It's an
absurd to say nothing of costly ritual, but a ritual
upon which he has built his philosophy and his lifestyle.
He gives a little wave as the deuce unloads and
skis off. He walk. He talks the guy at the
bottom of the lift. No response, asshole, Come in, asshole,

(11:18):
Come in, asshole, Come in Jesus. The dude's flowing. The
coop must have headed down to medical. He decides to
give it five more minutes, then shut her down, make
the run to the lodge and get this Fiona party
started a little early. Jake looks around for the operator,
calls out nothing, no one, but the chair is still

(11:41):
running and it's not quite four o'clock yet, can't be
more than ten of five of it the latest? Fuck it,
He says, Come on, man, let's just do it, and
he side shuffles on to the ramp and waits for
the next chair to sweep him off his feet. That happens
just a few seconds later, and then he's on his

(12:03):
way to the summit to the summit to make the
last run of the day. At the summit, the operator
doesn't wait five minutes or six minutes. He waits a
full seven minutes, and then he trains his binoculars on
the double chairs slowly making their way up the high

(12:24):
steep part of the mountain. The cables run well over
one hundred feet off the ground. Once the chairs clear
the tree line, highest part of any lift on the mountain,
scary high. Those chairs are way the hell up there,
high above the receding tree tops. The operator sees the
empty chairs swaying in the hard northerly wind. The chairs

(12:48):
are empty, all of them, not a skier in sight.
He throws the switch, gears grind, and the chair lift stops.
A nano second after the operator lowers his binoculars and
throws that switch, one last ski lift rider emerges from

(13:10):
the trees and steals himself from the cold, windy ride
to the summit. But then suddenly the lift stops dead
in its tracks. The chair rocks wildly from side to side,
and the cable's yo yo up and down, but the
chair does not move, does not move at all, does

(13:32):
not move Jake even one inch closer to the summit.
The chair sways in the wind, while the snow falls
faster and the temperature drops, while Jake's buddies party hardy
at the tech billionaire's multi million dollar ski lodge, while
the dude with the nasty, bloody gash on his palm

(13:53):
is rushed to the local hospital where the resident on
duty sews him up with twenty two fine, tight stitches,
while the typically conscientious summit operator skis full tilt to
the base, punches the time clock, and scadaddles nothing but
carnal thoughts in his simple primate brain. The wind blows

(14:17):
and the snow falls, and the temperature's plummet throughout the
evening and well into the night. Not until morning does
someone finally ask has anybody seen Jake? Thanks for listening

(14:42):
to this original audio presentation of the last Run, narrated
by the author. If you enjoyed today's story, please take
a few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast,
and go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional
information about the author and to view his extensive canon.

(15:06):
The ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pliglisi and
Josh Kilani and is part of the Elvis Duran podcast
Network in partnership with iHeart Productions. Until next time, this
is Bill Simpson, your ten minute storyteller,