LIaDVp.26: Stan has a meltdown ... I have no more friends

Sept. 26, 2004

I watched some of Survivor the other night while I ate pizza in Prospect. It occurred to me, if all of these people are so isolated from civilization and hygiene and comfort and good food, why are they all shaved? Not necessarily the men, but the women, while bathing by the ocean and using the rough wet sand to scrub themselves clean, had clearly shaved legs and underarms. What the hell? They don't have blankets or food or even a flint to make fire, but they all shave?

Greg is one of the bellhops/front desk workers with me. He's pretty funny, and always seems to be hungover or sort of on something. Not in a sketchy way, but in a wacky fun young guy kind of way. He's going to Europe for a few months after this. He's worked at a couple of parks. His last day off he woke up and ate some mushrooms, drove to Bend for a concert and smoked some weed and drank some beer. He's hysterical to work with, muttering little things under his breath or between checkins. He seems to hate dealing with guests.

October 2, 2004

Well, I think I finally may have found that solitude I was looking for, as I have essentially no friends on the mountain. Most of them left as the season winds to a close. My last two, Dru and Stan, pretty much signed the divorce papers about 10 minutes ago when Dru came by to return some books I had loaned them and asked for a cup and a book I had borrowed. She barely spoke to me, and as I told Stan a few nights ago, I've been added to the list of people Stan has alienated on the mountain. I was pretty sure we were done for, but I guess I didn't anticipate being the one given the cold shoulder. I thought I'd at least be able to negotiate a civil relationship with Dru if not Stan. She seems to hate me more than he does, which is made even more funny by the fact that it was Dru and I screaming together at Stan the other night, telling him to come home, her trying to tackle him so he'd stop jumping in front of Tim's car. Me telling him that if he knows what's good for him, he'll go make amends with his wife. Her sobbing at him, asking why he acts like this. But like most abusive drunks, he's mastered the art of turning blame and guilt on others. Dru got the guilt, I got the blame. He barely escaped being escorted off of the mountain by security.

I guess I have to go back to Monday night, when were having our big boat ops send off party. We were spiking our Cokes with a liter of rum 80-year-old George had stashed in his room. Stan in retrospect, seemed to be taking more than his fair share, since he turned into his obnoxious, overbearing drunken self by like 8 p.m. By the end of our little gathering, he had smacked Jane's ass a few times, heckled Roger's appreciative speech and a few of its recipients, picked up and threw around Dana trying to get her to dance, knocked several drinks on the floor and George, and finally, his masterpiece, told the top two managers at the park that the company was basically shit as were they. Sexually harrassed the GM. Was a few words from being knocked out by the facilities manager. Dru was furious. Stan was like a zombie. Relentless, unshaken by anything she said.

So when Tim and I decided to go the nearby campground to continue the celebration (almost everyone else went home, uncomfortable), Tim laughed with Stan and said he didn't think it would be a good idea. Stan had work at 6 a.m. and if he showed up drunk after the night's disaster, he'd be canned for sure. Dru begged him, Tim and I reasoned with him, but he wouldn't let up. Every move we made he followed us, taunting and relentlessly asking for keys to my car.

We finally went out to Tim's car, and started to drive away and he jumped on the hood of the stationwagon and hung on. Tim slowly parked again and we got out and walked back to the room cursing him and telling him he'd be lucky if Dru didn't leave him. She was bawling in a pile on the sidewalk. Meanwhile Stan insisted this was all a matter of us being too uptight, too Puritan in our upbringings. "I love you Dru, but why won't you just let go?" Dru trying to convince herself that she wasn't crazy, that Stan was acting badly, and us assuring her that he was. This went on for some time in various form. Stan pounding on my door, pushing his way into my room. Yelling, yelling and more yelling. All of us threatening to wake up the manager on duty and have him taken into custody. Tim finally did. The manager woke up pissed and told him if he didn't go to bed he'd lose his job. Later as Tim and I drove to the campground, Stan was still waiting for us, and came chasing after, yelling and running in front of the car. We swerved to miss him and left.

But behold! At the campground, one of its residents pulled up late from work with Stan in the passenger seat. Jessica said she picked him up when she saw him hitchhiking on the side of the road, about 4 miles from the dorm. He had been running to the campground. He called me a conservative asshole, and I told him I didn't want to talk to him, not now, maybe not ever. Cory called the general manager out to the campground, but by the time she got there, Jessica had convinced Stan to leave with her.

And that's how I lost my best friends at the park. I have to say, it had been building for a while. Stan has a track record of losing control and pissing people off when drunk, then trying to blame it on the other: Tim in Prospect, his ex-friend gay James who Stan told to put on a dress and just be a woman, Brent when he came to visit and Stan told him he was going to "Jack off in his face," Rabbit, who Stan punched in the eye. And everytime, it was the other guy's fault. Stan was barely even drinking, he swore. Well now it happened to me, but I couldn't laugh it off this time. I couldn't watch Stan make his wife sob in the parking lot and then try to tell her it was her fault for being too uptight. I told them I wouldn't sit back and watch their divorce, and I meant it. And when it all comes down to it, I didn't do a thing to Stan, except that I wouldn't give him my car to take to the campground. I didn't tell management, or try to run him over, or watch as he got himself fired for sheer stupidity. Maybe as the season wound down, I overreacted, ready to shed my seasonal friends. I think I just finally lost patience. I probably would have come around if they would have come to me wanting to hash it out. I'm a pushover that way. But they wrote me off without a thought or even an attempt to talk about it. They've been doing this seasonal thing for a lot longer than I have, so I guess they've mastered the skill of severing ties with a temporary friend. I watched it happen to Stan and Dru and three other of their good friends on the mountain. Then me.

So now the boat people are gone, except for Stan and Dana (who I guess technically is my last friend on the hill) Jane just left. Tim's in Portland. Stefanie's gone. George's gone. Rabbit's gone. I get along with my new coworkers, so I could consider them friends if I didn't feel melodramatic. But such is the way with seasonal work: Winter comes, and the bonds you built, so you didn't feel alone, are no longer necessary, and they sort of slough off. Not unlike high school really. Or your freshman year of college. Or prison. The situation is so radical, so extremely unusual, that you form fast, powerful relationships to make it by. The friendships are vivid and strong and the experiences you share are outrageous and emotional. But they just can't really last that long. They run at top speed for too long and either just shut down or explode.