Damien Galeone

As part of my family’s plan to keep my blood pressure at the near-explode level, one of them visits me from time to time. Now, I love my family and it’s always a great visit. But when family visits, I find that I end up doing things I wouldn’t normally do. And since I have a relationship with my comfort zone that doesn’t veer far from uterine it can be mildly trying. I knew this before my brother came to visit, and yet, like when one beer descends into two and then three and then six, I just let it happen.

And thus, it came to pass that on a Saturday morning in the earliest part of March I was standing at the base of a cable car on the outskirts of Salzburg looking up into an Alp. This is almost totally true. I was in Salzburg and at the basecamp of a cable car ride, but while I was looking up into an Alp, extreme fog meant I was looking at two cables disappearing into a cloud. I could nor for the life of me understand why they would run telephone wires in the same area as a cable car. I noted this aloud.  

“Look at those telephone wires. What are they doing there?” Subtext: what are they doing there in the place where a vast mechanism to carry a two-ton cable car and its inhabitants should be?

My brother was lost in his own curious horrification. So when he said “they just don’t look like enough to carry a cable car” he wasn’t answering me, he was saying the same thing in a different, equally horrific, way. Our realization was simultaneous and tumultuous. Those cables are carrying us up a mountain. Correction: not up a mountain, above a mountain.

My brother was adamant. He wanted to take a cable car into the Alps. He said, “We’re in the Alps, we have to do this.” My feelings on the subject were far less certain or rather, were certain, but in the opposite direction. I figured I had time to talk some sense to him, but had forgotten, and the next thing I knew I was in line for the cable car at 9:58 am and the cable car’s departure up was at 10:00 am. And then we left. Just like that.

We are with 10 other people – I counted people and calculated weight. They were all Asian and had smaller builds and it became radically clear very quickly that if anyone’s weight was going to disrupt this journey, it was going to by mine and my companions. Nevertheless, our travel partners didn’t seem in the slightest perturbed by events. Neither did the cable car operator.

He got on the cable car, sat in a little slot and pushed a button. The doors slid closed. Everything seemed professional. Once we were moving, he took out a book and started reading. I marvelled at this man’s opportunities for humor each day of his life. After he locks the door and we take off, what’s to stop him from taking out his phone and having a loud one-sided conversation about his colon cancer diagnosis or the stocks and shares that have rendered him broke as a joke, or the wife who is leaving him for the neighbor and taking the kids. What’s to stop him from making like how whole world just crashed around him and he has nothing to live for? I guess, integrity. But still.

It takes ten seconds for us to realize this was a mistake. This is pointed out by my brother (adamant about this trip) and it is seconded and then mentioned almost constantly by me. The trip takes 13 minutes. During this thirteen-minute-period we disappear into a cloud. When we come out of the cloud, we are charging towards a mountain.

It’s at this time that the creeping embers of my brain start remembering news reports of cable cars crashing into the earth and killing tens of people. While my brain validates these facts of awfulness, my brother tiptoes around the cable car as if its floor is made of eggs. Everyone else seems perfectly at ease. I’d hate them, but I’m feeling a goodwill-towards-man schtick that’ll hopefully improve my chances of getting into heaven if this thing goes sideways.

This goodwill thing gets put out to pasture when I begin reviewing all of the dumb things my brother has talked me into doing over the years. Late night drinks after day-long flights, pantless journeys around foreign towns, and many forays out of my comfort zone that I went on kicking and screaming. And now I’m in a box in the air in a cloud and it’s all his fault. Naturally, this is when I decide to murder him. There are too many witnesses around now and the hows and whens will come to me. For the time being, I simply fantasize about it to make my mind off my own impending death.

When we get to the top, I am elated. Yes, only half the trip is over, but I am on solid land and if Godzilla attacks now, I can hide in the little cafe. We are rewarded with the view of the inside of a cloud. A brief walk to the other side provides the same bowl of chowder. We get a Powerade. It’s up here on terra firma that I remember that during our trip I had begun plotting my brother’s murder. It was very clear how it would happen. We were on a cable car, soon to be on an Alp. It would be easy to negotiate. There’s nobody around. He got me into this mess.

On solid land and having fun taking pictures of the inside of a cloud, I reconsider. I’m not going to kill him. We’re having fun. I’m not very smart and I’m garbage under pressure, so I would almost certainly crack under interrogation and get caught. Plus, it would be a pain in the ass to explain things to my mother. I mean, the other siblings would totally get it, but my mom would be pissed. Plus, because of this debacle, lunch is on him and I don’t know his PIN number. No, in the end I decide not to murder my brother.

It occurs to me that I have to go back down. I get in line. This means thirteen more minutes up in the air. I begin planning my murder again. The Powerade is blue.