I've been in this situation before. Mist stinging my face, slime teasing my feet, while I stand as both active participant and helpless spectator, holding a video camera in one hand and a throwbag in the other. The throwbag is merely a lump of limp, helpless rope and I know I am holding it as a Band-Aid against a guilty conscience. The video camera in my right hand represents the vanity, but will remain there only
as long as things go well. The real battle goes on inside my head.
It's arrogant of me to think the few words I now utter will make a difference. I speak them anyway, and at that moment, something selfish, something childish in me hopes he will ignore every word passing through my lips, and prove that this drop, just like all the others, can be run.
I am standing next to Tao Berman, waiting for the thumbs up from Erik Link who is filming for the next Twitch video. The mountain slab I stand on will push Tao to the next pool, 150 feet below, in a matter of seconds. Erik is still setting up his camera on his tripod. His face is tight, focused. His movements are swift and calculated. And still, the battle rages in my head. I poke my head out and down to inspect the sharded undercut rock extending from river left near the bottom. It sprawls a third of the way across with its pompous, angular edges. I look at Tao squeamishly. He is staring at me anxiously, waiting for the thumbs up. Just below the undercut rock, most of the creek spills into a sieve, compounded by a few logs poking upstream. Tao knows that in order to avoid a potentially fatal collision with the undercut, he must risk dropping into the sieve. In order to avoid the sieve, he must come within inches of the undercut, all of this while sliding down a fifty-degree slope, inches of water flirting with his strokes. Another glance at the undercut, 50 near-vertical feet below me, causes violent images to flash through my mind of what seems all but inevitable if I allow Tao to run this. But the decision isn't up to me. Erik holds up his hand to let me know he's almost ready, then he cleans the lens with a chamois, and points the camera into the sunlight. Tao is verbalizing his line. I begin to sense evidence of doubt in his words, but his confidence remains unscathed. Another violent image rapes my mind, and at that moment I blurt out, "Tao don't do it!" But the decision was chiseled into Tao's mind long before he picked up a paddle.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Erik's left thumb raise high in the blue sky. I look at Tao. He can't see it, so I know I have to relay the thumbs up. I have to tell him to go. He looks at me with a greedy smile. He can see the concern reflected in my face and in a clumsy attempt to console me, announces, "The problem is, Christian, I just don't have enough fear." At that, I turn on the video camera, push it against my eye. Tao is now a digital image interpreted through an electronic lens. There is a piece of sophisticated technology protecting me from reality, and with that protection I raise my thumb deliberately so both Erik and Tao can see it. Then he slides off.
As he accelerates, he slides further and further left, toward the undercut. The scratch of each desperate stroke is an exercise in futility. He is sliding closer and closer, then he vanishes from my lens. Immediately a nauseating web of remorse, regret and guilt slides through my brain. I want to push the camera lens away, to look and see if he is hurt. But that would be too real, so I hold it tight. And then like a sick joke, Tao's composed, graceful figure pops back into my view. He is left of the sieve, and sliding the last 90 feet is a piece of cake. I should be elated, relieved. But the thumping in my chest tells me I'm angry; angry that he would come so close to that undercut; angry that he would be content to miss the sieve by half a stroke. I look down at the camera case and realize I had dropped the throwbag. I can see Erik shaking his head and smiling. "Absolutely beautiful," he raves.
