The Whitewater World Needs More JDs

"Wars come and go, but my soldiers stay eternal."

-Tupac Shakur

-1-

The best people I’ve met, with one or two civilian exceptions, are river guides. And also, without question, the worst people I’ve met are river guides. 

Over the course of my journey around the West, I’ve fallen into both categories. I like to tell myself that I can mostly be grouped in the former, but, depending on the year and my state of mind, it’s up for debate.

The majority of my life, and especially my time as a guide, has been ruled by impulse and indulgence. 

There’s a lot of horsepower inside my skull, but not the kind that’s steered me down many meaningful roads. 

Since the onset of puberty, I’ve been periodically prone to rabid, baboon-like impulses— some of which have led to tremendous adventures, interpersonal enmeshments, hilarity, insanity and orgasms. But more often than not, they’ve produced colossal headaches, instability and avoidable bouts of mayhem in my life. 

These urges have manifested themselves and taken shape in a multitude of ways. Some good, some bad. A few entertaining, but most, exhausting. 

Wake up, hollow out dozens of pineapples, then invite a multitude of strangers over for a Piña Colada–only  party on a random Sunday.

Give my entire paycheck to a struggling single mom. 

Take a homeless alcoholic to a coworker’s dinner party. 

Set a sack of hundred-dollar bills on fire. 

Apply to and train for the Coast Guard’s helicopter-deployed rescue swimmer team. 

Drink twenty beers, eat enough molly to euthanize a rhinoceros and make love to a chick who was convinced she was a conduit for some Pagan goddess.

Steal my brother’s ‘67 Camaro for joy rides at age 14. 

Quit my job to serve as chauffeur, tour guide, personal chef, bodyguard and therapist for two platinum blondes on a 9-day road trip from Utah to the world’s largest lesbian festival. 

Sleep with a tiny town sheriff’s ex-wife. 

Make a career in the entertainment business, work alongside my comedy idols, then abruptly quit to move into a tent in Montana. 

Get more than halfway through writing a book manuscript, and throw it away. 

Twice. 

No, three times.

Some of these things I’ve done, while a few, thankfully and regrettably, have remained nothing more than internal fireworks and fantasies. 

I’ve always had a primal desire to create excitement. If I couldn’t, then chaos would do. 

Something, anything, to make life a little more exhilarating, vibrant, palate pleasing or intense– to make it anything other than the ho-hum horseshit it most often is. 

If I had fuck-you money, I’d mount a dinosaur skull in the entryway of my home, dress like Jack Sparrow, eat ice cream and lobster for breakfast, bathe in Pappy Van Winkle whiskey and regularly discharge firearms in inappropriate places. 

I think a lot of river guides have a similar brand of internal coding. It’s a need to scream, and sometimes, bite. 

But even amongst our legion of loonies, there are those who break the mold. We have a few in our ranks who are more even-keeled, well-measured, capable, intelligent and equipped to deal with the challenges that come part-and-parcel with existence— especially in our butthole-puckering and mind-melting way of life. 

When considering the chaotic and explosive nature of the whitewater world, I’ve often wondered if there’s some unseen source of power that has kept us from complete collapse. Because somehow, despite logic and odds, the circus still makes it to showtime at the start of every summer.  

If such a force does exist, I believe it’s made manifest in guides like my buddy JD.

Even in a society of outcasts, freaks, madmen, and feral women, there are outliers.

Amongst the broken toys, mental and emotional stalwarts do exist— the ones who are of clear sight and mind. Without them, the rest of us would be fucked. 

Professional boaters are like macaroni art. Messy, and necessitating a lot of glue to be made presentable. 

The JDs of the river world are a powerful adhesive for us— the kind that seals the cracks and gaps in a person. 

Despite the strength he’s gifted so many guides, he’s always been scrawny. An athlete for sure, but built like a man who’s never consumed a carbohydrate. He’s svelte and slight of frame— a smaller fella who might measure 5’7 (if he’s in heels). 

If you know him, his physical stature doesn’t really make sense, ‘cause the kid’s packin’ a howitzer for a heart. 

But right now, JD’s body is being ravaged by a bullshit disease, and it makes me want to stick my face in a furnace. 

Because, at the risk of sounding cliché, it shouldn’t be happening to him. It should be happening to a guy like me. 

I do everything in my power to avoid doctors. Recently, I fractured my knuckle trying to break down a door to flatline a drunk who’d put my dog in danger, and every time I flex my fingers I’m in pain. But I still won’t talk to anyone with a degree on their wall. 

I don’t like medical settings, and can’t absorb any talk of scans, test results, diseases, or diagnoses. All that shit gives me extreme anxiety. 

So, despite the hours JD’s spent explaining it to me, I can’t accurately describe his condition, other than to say that his pancreas is close to dead, and the outlook is bleak.

And it doesn’t make sense, because he’s among the best humans I know— river guide or otherwise. 

JD has a habit of showing up when people need him most. My first introduction was no different. 

We didn’t meet on the water, but instead, during my first high country winter. I’d just finished my second season as a river guide. Despite having never put planks on my feet, I decided to give the whole ski bum thing a go. Very quickly though, I got a dose of reality, and a ski town baptism-by-fire. 

After dropping thousands on a place to live, I totaled my van driving a one-night-stand home.  Then the dog decided to French-kiss a jug of antifreeze, landing me with a $4,000 vet bill. Shortly after that, I had to quit my job as a dog sledding guide to support a manager who was being harassed. 

Roughly a month into my first ski town stint, I was jobless, friendless and my bank account had been obliterated before I’d even had a chance to purchase a pass. 

Out of desperation, I took a job answering phones and booking trips for a snowmobiling operation. I picked up a second gig too, as a bouncer at one of the rowdiest bars in town. I’d drink whiskey and beat the teeth out of tourists until four am, then drive to the office. Once there, the dog would get fed and taken for a quick walk in the snow, before we huddled together and tried to sleep in the back of my ‘92 Ford Explorer. 

I’d get two hours of shuteye, then spend 10 hours rotting under fluorescent lights, telling entitled Texans over the phone that no, we couldn’t accommodate a 16-person snowmobile excursion on twelve hours’ notice—nor would we ask our guides to do a synchronized song and dance for one of their dumb kids’ birthdays. I came to hate the Lone Star State, life, and myself. 

In the rare moments when I was home and had time to look in the mirror, all I saw was a loser. 

JD didn’t though. 

The snowmobile guides would pass through the office multiple times a day to pick up their trip tickets and meet the guests. Most of them had been in the mountains a long time— hardcore skiers, boaters, and all-around outdoor athletes. They had steezy gear and did cool shit in their off time. 

To almost all of them, I was nothing more than an office bitch— an East Coast clown who had moved to a ski town, but didn’t have the money to ski. 

More often than not I was disregarded or outright ignored. But not when JD came to pick up his trip tickets. 

Each time, he made a point to stick his head through the window and ask how I was doing. I like to think his little feet were dangling off the floor when he propped himself up to do so. 

Sometimes, if the boss wasn’t around, he’d tell me to keep my head up. To keep working hard. On occasion, he’d make a joke. And whether it was good or bad, it always made me laugh and feel good. It made me feel seen too. 

I often speak in woo-woo terms when it comes to river guides. During pillow talk, I’ve told many civilian lovers that they’re never gonna understand my reverence for professional boaters who operate by an old school dirtbag ethos. 

Once, a hippie chick asked me why. 

I explained to her that I view my river family like members of The Avengers— supreme beings with super powers mere mortals can’t comprehend, nor feel, unless they’ve held a paddle in their hand and tasted the camaraderie that comes with. 

Among JD’s many superpowers is sight. He possesses a unique brand of x-ray vision, one which sees right through what people say about you, and whatever horseshit you might dangle off your own nose, down to the core of who you really are. He then treats you accordingly. 

While the other snowmobile guides may have seen a numbnuts, dumbass, or delusional doofus, JD saw a person who was working themselves to the bone to try and make a mountain town dream work. And he treated me as such. 

Though it was minimal, he chose to show me a measure of compassion and care— an occasional mosquito buzzin’ around my ear to remind me I mattered, and it might all work out. I didn’t know him well then, but looking back, that modicum of support kept me going.  

I didn’t take his powers seriously at the time though. Until we got on the water together, I only saw an overly-nice, kinda nerdy kid. 

By chance, we both went on to work for the same rafting outfitter the following summer. He’d already logged multiple seasons on that particular river— one which boasts one of the most technically challenging, high-consequence, Class IV sections of whitewater in North America. 

It was quickly made apparent that he was much more than the dork with a friendly disposition. 

He was a bona fide, badass boater, and a committed outdoorsman— what a guide is supposed to be. My first trip down that Class IV section was in a boat he steered, and we moved through every mile flawlessly.

At the time, I was much less prickly than I am now. 

I was a third-year guide, who, a couple years earlier, had been blessed with two rock solid whitewater mentors. They impressed upon me the importance of showing up to the put-in with enthusiasm, a positive attitude, and a willingness to submit to the expertise of the older, more experienced guides.

When JD took me on the river that day, I was a gleeful little sponge, whose only concern was becoming the best boater I could be. But still, I felt like a Jersey dickhead wholly outta place in the high country. I wanted to be a big water boater more than anything, but didn’t necessarily believe that I could. 

I asked a lot of dumb questions on the water. 

When I’m anxious about something, or hesitant to give myself credit, I talk a million miles a minute. I verbally excavate the minds of people I believe to be above me, in hopes of digging up some reassurance. That day was no different, and I’m sure the sounds coming out of my face were migraine-inducing. 

But JD took it all in stride. As my mouth kicked into overdrive, he answered every question patiently, and broke things down into a digestible form for me— all while moving our boat as if it were an extension of his body. In the last mile or so, he let me take over, occasionally correcting my lines, encouraging me, and making it clear that he had no doubt I would one day guide commercial trips on that section. 

The friendly little nerd had mutated into a stout river guide before my eyes—JD was a boater to admire and look up to— someone who navigated highly technical whitewater with surgical precision. And also, believed in me.

Once the snowmelt really kicked off that summer, the water level rose at a startling rate, and stayed up. It was high-octane, stomach-curdling boating every day, all the way through late July. 

I was terrified, but also enthralled.  

The company JD and I worked for was like the rafting equivalent of an NBA All-Star game. Too many battle-tested, elite boaters to count. When a rafting outfitter’s roster is top-heavy like that, it trickles down and makes everyone on the payroll better. 

I pelted the silverbacks with questions and did ride-alongs whenever I wasn’t working, following them like a stray dog, drooling and determined to learn the intricacies of reading the river. 

I lusted after the secrets of whitewater like a crackhead craves the pipe. But the brain I liked to pick most belonged to JD. 

Though the silverbacks had more years on the water than him, few were willing to give as much time, nor could they make a young guide feel as confident and capable as he.

Over the course of many fireside conversations, whether explaining how to use a particular lateral wave to push my boat into position for a more technical maneuver downstream, or how to be more efficient with my paddle commands, JD had a way of making me feel as if I was on his level— like an equal. Though that certainly wasn’t true, it felt really fuckin’ good. 

More impactful than our dissections of the river though, were the multitude of ways in which JD told me I belonged, and assured me I had earned a place in the family. After I’d passed my certification run, he gave me a big hug in the locker room and said “I’m glad you’re one of us.”

I’ll never be able to illustrate on a page what that meant to me— a manchild who, even now at age 33, still grapples with having grown up in a broken home. 

Whitewater forges sacred bonds between guides. It’s something I first recognized on a river in Montana, a feeling civilians will never be able to fully comprehend, and a euphoric state that felt most potent to me during that summer in Colorado— alongside JD and a litany of other big-hearted boaters. I smiled more often than not, and like to think that I was mostly fun to be around.

I had no reason to ever question my place in the world again. I partied, for sure. You’re not a real guide if you don’t. 

But my main focus was the water— being the best guide I could be, mastering the intricacies of paddling technical stretches, and one day owning the distinction of being a Class V, silverback boater. 

There was no other dream to be had. 

I only dumped one swimmer into the drink that season, in large part due to what I learned under JD’s tutelage. Prior to our meeting, I’d been a muscle boater, one who’d relied on strength to make maneuvers. But in watching JD on our trips together, I began to try and apply his style. 

He moved with precision, and worked with the water rather than against it. There were no wasted strokes when he was on the river. JD didn’t dodge rocks, but rather, danced with them. The river was his mistress, and he threaded her many needles with style and sniper-like accuracy.  

I never got to his level. But his encouragement, and the ways in which he expressed what he saw in me, made me believe that I wasn’t just some Jersey dildo who’d wedged himself into the wrong hole. 

I was indeed a boater, and my dream could be real.

But over the course of the past month, as I’ve peeled off tens of thousands of words worth of writing, and spent time sitting with JD in his sickened state, I’ve realized that our first summer together may have been the last time I was in a mountain town for the right reasons. 

-2-

At the end of that season, my plan had been to give ski bummin’ another shot, head back to the place where I’d taken my first ski town shellacking, and work alongside JD for the winter. 

But, days after our end-of-season party, I got a call that my old man was sick, and the prognosis wasn’t very good. So I shut the dream down and gave up the chance to work with JD in order to head back East. 

I’d go on to spend eight months locked in my parent’s house, serving as a caregiver for a 240-lb, cancer stricken, partially paralyzed, mentally ill man. 

Dad wasn’t always a good person. My intention in coming home was to shield my family from his shrapnel, but over the course of that process, it wasn’t just the dying that suffered. We all got our insides ripped out and set aflame. 

When you change another person’s diapers and wash their shit off your hands every day, it leaves a dark mark on your heart and mind. But when that same person regularly says and does vile things to you and the people you love most, all while you’re tending to him as if he were a toddler— like a fish knife, that fillets away the goodness you might see in the world. 

But Dad, his care regimen, and the darkness he laid on us wasn’t the hardest part. Being locked in the same building, staring at the same walls when I woke up every two hours to carry him to the bathroom, and never getting to see any of my river relatives that I’d come to rely on— that part sucked most.

I took breaks only to put myself through intense workouts, go fishing, or sit in the driveway late at night talking to boaters on the phone. A lot of them helped, but few made an impact like JD. 

When I reached a point where I was determined to die before the old man had a chance to go first, JD was able to dissect and explain my emotions, just as effectively as he had the more technical aspects of boating. He told me where to call for forward strokes, back-paddle, or just eddy out for a moment; when to brace, lean in or highside in my mind. 

I broke down in a heap of tears and Miller High Life one night, screaming to him that I wasn’t doing enough to keep my mother and brother’s heads above water. 

He told me to shut the fuck up— that despite the rocks I was bumping into along the way, I was still moving downstream. 

The takeout was just a few miles ahead, and the entirety of my second family had my back. Their heads were on a swivel, patiently waiting to see my boat make its way ‘round the bend. 

My hell reached its resolution when both the old man and a stranger I’d tried to save from a car wreck died in my arms over the course of a day and a half. That’s when JD and the rest of the river folk called me back home. 

But when I returned to the water, I was a different guy. 

Gone was the goofy, grinning Jersey dildo with big water dreams and a positive outlook on life, committed to being the best boater and friend I could be. Life became about the careful avoidance and numbing of pain. 

I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder and a bullwhip for a tongue. When pressed, pushed, depressed, anxious, upset or made to feel caged by circumstance, I can be a verbal assassin, a brutish, unvarnished asshole— and a generally nasty person to be around. 

The aftereffects of those deaths only inflamed and emboldened those parts of me. And yet, JD still chose to employ his superpower of sight, and only see the guy that was buried beneath all that pain. 

I mostly kept a lid on my demons during that first season back. I was much less committed to the water though, and much more concerned with the party. 

I ran clean and efficient trips. But off the river, I was like a drunken gorilla, who’d been abusing crack cocaine and anabolic steroids for years— an uncontainable force of appetite, anger and lust, who had to dip his finger and taste every indulgence made available through the unrestrained freedom of the raft guide lifestyle. 

It was fun as fuck. I laughed through most of it, and JD giggled as he watched my runaway train leave the station each day. I’d been through enough, and needed it.

We had a mostly good crew of guides that year. 

More often than not, on the water and off, we ran in a massive mob. And almost always, it felt like we were a cluster of antennas tuned to the same radio frequency. 

That’s the best part of rafting— the moments when it feels as if you’re not just coworkers sitting in the same space together, but have somehow coalesced into a single, fucked-up, slightly off-kilter consciousness that spits nothing but love. 

When a company has that kind of mentality, when there are guides like JD to look to, no one ever feels alone. That’s river magic.

A series of financial setbacks forced me to go back to working as a bouncer in the same ski town where I’d first met JD. 

Once there, once the party on the river was over, and I didn’t have him or my guide family around me to force warmness on my soul, I quickly realized that I hadn’t come back to Colorado on my own. I’d brought two ghosts with me— my dad and the woman I’d tried to save. 

I had an apartment above the bar, where I worked ‘til 4 am. On nights when I didn’t meet a woman who was keen to come home with me, I’d usually stay up ‘til way past sunrise, doing preposterous amounts of cocaine alone. 

I didn’t snort that much ‘cause I enjoyed it. I was just too scared to sleep. In my dreams, both my dad and that woman would make an appearance. Every night, they told me I’d never win, and hadn’t done enough— for either of them, or anyone else I loved. 

JD called me in the midst of one of those benders. I did my best to try and play it straight, but I still remember hearing in his voice that he noticed something off in mine. 

Despite a packed schedule, he said he’d be by in the morning to pick me up for breakfast. I reluctantly agreed, because I normally liked to sleep between 8 am and 2 pm— once I’d put my body through enough of a beating to collapse and not remember my dreams. 

As I stumbled into his truck, it was clear that JD’s x-ray vision was still functioning. Despite telling him nothing which would indicate it, he knew I hadn’t slept in two days. 

Before our food had been dropped on the table, JD told me I needed to stop. I needed to get back to being me. I was loved by a lot of boaters, but this wasn’t the person they’d all first made a space for in their hearts. Outside of my dad and that woman, a lot of other painful shit had happened that year too, and JD made it clear that he understood. But it was time to get a handle on it. 

I told him I was on the way there, and that I’d have a grip on everything soon.

Of course I wasn’t. And I didn’t. 

I mostly got the coke and booze down to a minimum in the ensuing years. When I returned to the water for my final season, I brought a girl with me, and those two ghosts were buckled up in the backseat too. 

After an injury on the river, they multiplied in size and force, many times over. Their voices now boomed, not just in my dreams, but my waking life too. 

Skiing recklessly and paddling big water had proven to be the only methods by which I could quiet their noise. After getting hurt, my income was cut in half, the river was taken from me, and they became my constant companions. 

Outside of the dreams, I’d experience random flashbacks. For a moment, I’d see blood or shit on my hands while washing them in the morning. I’d wake up to the sound of hospital machines. If I was on the highway and brake lights abruptly flashed in front of me, for a moment I’d see that woman flying through the air again. It was torture, and I turned to the bottle.

But believe it or not, polishing off 750 milliliters of Jameson before 3 PM doesn’t quiet your internal noise. It just makes it louder when you finally wake and desperately stick your face under the faucet. 

Eventually, the girl I’d brought with me, who had assured me a thousand times over that I needn’t face the flashbacks alone, and she’d be there through it all, called it quits. I felt thoroughly split open and exposed. Then JD helped weld me back together. 

His superpower of sight often puts him in positions where he feels compelled to demand accountability from those he cares about most, because he sees what we could be and should be. 

Captain America has his shield, and Thor swings a hammer. Though he’s scrawny, JD wields the truth, and he’ll beat you into submission with it if necessary. 

He cornered me outside my van one evening. We both sat on the porch I’d built out of pallet wood, and he began:

I’d experienced a ton of nasty, heart-busting, brutal and traumatic shit in a compressed period of time— more than most could stomach over multiple years and stay standing. However, I was still standing. And as far as JD was concerned, yeah— I wasn’t enough. But the fact that I had remained on my feet confirmed for him that I had the strength to be. 

By then, I’d proven myself as a competent Class IV guide on the section JD had taken me down years earlier. But he didn’t give a fuck about my ability as a boater. He cared about what I could give him and the rest of our river family as a person. 

I chewed my tongue and tried to pretend I wasn’t half-drunk, as JD let me know that he and the boaters who knew me best, saw a leader, a set of shoulders that could raise them up when they needed it, and a stone wall they could lean on if that ever became necessary too. Furthermore, with my writing, I had a chance to give our subculture, and mountain towns in general, a voice— a real one that wasn’t the watered down, carefully curated bullshit that’s usually sprayed on the pages of most outdoor publications. He and others wanted that. 

But I was actively choosing not to do or be any of those things, and JD was tired of it.  

My ex didn’t matter. She’d never been all the way in on me anyway, and was just another sad song to sing while spittin’ whiskey through my whiskers. But my second family always had, and they weren’t getting what they deserved in return. There was someone underneath the rage and the pain that I needed to provide with air to breathe— if not for myself, then for them.

Coming out of a mouth like his, it all hit like a steel-toed boot to the lip. He stared at me with ice cold eyes until I set my beer down on the porch. 

I stared back, let a few tears fly, made a lot of promises to JD, then decided to dry out and heal. 

-3-

It’s been a little over 2 years since that night outside my van. And for the most part, I’ve had my shit together. At the very least, I’ve been slightly more stable, and there have been almost no flashbacks. 

Almost. 

After getting cleaned up at the tail end of that raft season, I moved to California and started writing at a ferocious pace.

Once I’d made the decision to commit, members of the publishing industry quickly expressed interest in a book project— one whose central thesis revolved around the truth of mountain town existence, told through my own fuck-ups, missteps, mistakes and indulgences over 8 years. I shut down this website to focus exclusively on that. 

After every marathon writing session, I’d give JD a ring back in Colorado. We’d spend hours dissecting and tightening every paragraph— just as we had when he was helping me refine my skills on the water. 

He helped me clean a lot of rage off the page and make the stories of our subculture sing. Hearing him laugh or groan at some of my more graphic anecdotes encouraged me to paddle harder, and push the pen every day. 

At a certain point though, we reached an impasse. I didn’t have an ending, other than to say that I’d given up on the mountain town dream,was now cosplaying as a surfer, and hadn’t finished what I’d started as a skier or boater. 

With that in mind, JD advised me to tell the publishing people that I was hitting pause, and to come home to the high country. 

One more ride on the mountain town merry-go-round. 

Around October of last year I landed in the place where I’m now writing this— a quieter mountain town, with more rednecks than dirtbags, but a local ski hill that gets pounded with snow most winters. It was different from any of the other spots where I’d set up shop in the past, but felt like it might be my final destination at elevation. JD was stoked for me. 

As I was getting settled in, he was just coming off his latest gnarly, international boating excursion. Still though, he made time to talk about what I should be aiming for, how I could hit the target, and what he saw in the future if I pulled it all off.

Over the course of one of our many rambling chats, I told him I was committed to hitting 120 days on the hill. He loved it, but made one request to ensure that I continued on the upward trajectory he’d been pushing me toward for so long. Keep the focus on skiing and writing. Not partying and getting laid. 

I gave him my word, but would go on to only make good on a quarter of that promise. 

I launched like a rocket at the start of the season, and notched day after day of consecutive skiing. When long-time locals bitched that the snow totals paled in comparison to years past, I scoffed. The inches didn’t matter. I was stacking days and finally making a reality of the ski bum dream that had been shattered the winter I’d met JD. 

Some days on the ski hill were long, and some were short, but they grew in number at a ridiculously satisfying rate. Somewhere along the way though, I lost touch with JD. 

Turns out half-assing two jobs, inhaling PBR and giving a shit about nothing but skiing is hard work. Quite time consuming, too. 

Add a situationship to the mix, and suddenly there’s no minutes left to do laundry, clean the house, get your overdue taxes in order, write something of substance, make good on promises made, be an adult in any sense, or worst of all, check in on a friend who’s always checked in on you. 

That’s the lie I liked to tell myself at least. 

I’ve done the math, and now know that JD must’ve been saddled with his diagnosis around the time I’d hit Day 50 on skis. But he didn’t let me know. 

That’s the thing about him. He’ll willingly step beneath the weight of your problems without having been asked, so you needn’t shoulder the load alone.

Where he’s stout on the water, he’s even more stout of heart and mind. Always, if given the choice, he carries his challenges on his own— a person whose mainframe is wired to give, but rarely ever take. 

But I hadn’t even called and given him a chance to receive something from me.

I was too busy getting drunk, both literally and figuratively, on finally being a real ski bum. 

A standard day started by waking up, brushing beer off my breath, then stumbling through a brief and nauseous dog walk. After the beast had shit in front of the neighbor’s porch, I’d pick my baselayers and bibs off the floor, then hammer the thirty minute drive up the hill. Once there, I’d peel off a few reckless runs, stop in my buddy’s stash spot for a hit of peppermint schnapps, then rip hard and loose through the trees a few times. 

Eventually, my waist warm with liquor and the demons having been skied out of my skull, I’d meet the lady for a few runs. Usually we’d end up at the lodge for two or three Coors, then both wholeheartedly agree that, yes, it only made sense to head back into town and drink dessert at the pub.

Once on our stools, each with a pint of PBR in hand, I’d cough up stories of rivers, mountain towns, and raft guides past. She’d indulge me, and I’d indulge myself by ordering a shot of tequila.

Better make it two. No, three. Ok fine, four. 

As JD has been apt to point out, I’ve always suffered from a debilitating case of The One Mores. 

I’d scarf down tacos, then she’d sometimes be kind enough to drive me to the sushi spot. There, for some reason, she’d willingly watch me morph into a garbage disposal and consume dinner number two. 

That was usually followed by raucous sex, and what I’m sure was a supremely romantic experience for her— laying on the couch, listening to me drunkenly yammer on and on about what I could do and who I would be, just as soon as I got through my first real ski bum winter.

Funny how we expect people, friends or otherwise, to fall in love with our potential, instead of who we are in the moment. 

Rarely though, does the person we’ve promised them show up and make their way to the table.

My time on the mountain was a repetitive high, and also, a reminder of what having a pure pursuit outside felt like. Though many days were a wash due to vicious hangovers contracted during late nights tending bar, it was the closest I’ve come to replicating the feeling of purpose I’d had while learning the nuances of technical whitewater from JD. 

A real mountain towner I might again be. 

In the lady, I’d found the first set of arms in which I felt at ease since the break up JD had helped me through two years prior. No romantic partner has ever treated me better nor cared for me more. She is, without question, the best woman I’ve met in the West— a person so selfless she’d made a career out of helping others. 

And yet still, I wouldn’t go all in on her. I’d convinced myself that my mental plate was too full, even though I hadn’t made any legitimate attempt at clearing it. 

Lingering still, was a job unfinished. I’d written in spurts, but not anything of substance, nor a word worthy of forwarding to JD, much less editors I’d worked with in the past. 

Worse though, was a nagging fear each day that there was a chance the flashbacks might return. What if, at the end of the season, when there was no more skiing to quiet my morning mind, I reverted to who I’d been after my injury on the river? My liver was already primed for it anyway. 

Surely, if that happened, she’d see who I was, and pull the same exit maneuver the last chick had. And then, without question, an even more violent hammer blow would hit, when JD got word that I’d gone back to the guy he’d wasted so much energy trying to help me erase. 

Had I simply picked up the phone and called him though, I know he would’ve made me see, as he had a thousand times in the past, and put the slowly rising fear at ease. 

Or, if I kept my yap shut long enough, I would’ve gotten a grasp on what he was grappling with. 

It’s my hope that if that call had happened, I would have had the presence of mind to realize that all of my irrational anxieties paled in comparison to the fact that my friend’s pancreas was fuckin’ failing.

That call never happened though. 

Instead, I focused on the days. All that mattered were the days. Once I hit 120, I’d call JD. Then, at least, I’d have one data point to justify the investment he’d made in me; to confirm that what he’d seen in my soul was at least partly real and I could deliver on promises made. 

I often grunted and grumbled while riding shotgun in the lady’s car each morning, my mind hyperfixated on how I could crank out some writing to share with JD too. Little bits and pieces made their way to the page, and the days kept stacking. 

90

94

101

105 

107 

And then around 117 or so, the phone rang. 

But it wasn’t JD. 

On the other end was news that a different boater, one who was just as important to me as he, had drowned on a burly stretch of whitewater up north.

-4-

My buddy Rescue was a stout boater, a relentless friend, and had a heart as big as a house. Had you earned it, you were always welcome to let yourself through the front door and stay for a while. 

He, like JD, was one of the people instrumental in stitching me back together after the summer during which I’d ripped in half. 

When I got the call that he’d drowned trying to help others in a moment of tragedy, I hit the floor and vomited repeatedly. 

Once my insides were empty and I could take more than a few breaths without screaming, I called the lady and asked her to come over. My only hope was that she’d hold me, but when she wanted to know what else I needed, I asked for Jameson too. 

With tears and Rescue’s favorite brand of booze dripping off my beard, I spent hours sputtering about who he’d been, what he’d done for me and so many others, and how many promises I’d made to him too— all of which would remain forever unfulfilled. 

Her presence and words softened the blow. I’m still grateful for it. But as I finally started to fall asleep in her arms, I felt a familiar flicker in the back of my skull— and an internal projector clicked on. 

Thanks to a misreading of my home mountain’s calendar, and one particularly barbaric hangover, I didn’t make it to 120 days. My final tally was 119. Fell just short. Kinda my thing. 

Ski season ended, but the party I swore would conclude along with it only intensified. However, it was no longer about a celebration of stoke or a toast to the lustful escape I found in the lady. 

It was about dulling noise that had returned in the wake of Rescue’s death. Whenever it swelled, whiskey always tasted much sweeter. I was half in the bag when word of JD reached me next. 

Through the raft guide grapevine, I heard a hundred different things. Immune disorder. Maybe cancer. A pancreas problem. The only facts made clear were that he was essentially bedridden and could die. 

I tried to call him again and again, but never got through. Neither could most of our other friends. Not knowing the exact parameters of his situation and unable to even hear his voice— it only intensified the symptoms that had returned with Rescue’s passing. I like to think I kept it under wraps, but I was in a constant state of panic. 

Whether with friends, the lady, or alone, I drank and bristled. If someone like JD could be stricken down, then the world was fucked, and there was no reason for me to try and stay afloat too. 

On the way to work one afternoon, an ambulance with blaring sirens whizzed past, and I had to wrench my truck to the side of the road. I cut the engine and cried in silence— because for a moment, I was back on a Jersey street, looking into that woman’s eyes as she begged me not to let her die. 

After having to nix a lease, I was on the verge of being homeless too. While the lady tirelessly helped me pack, I’d periodically lock myself in the bathroom for long stretches of time. I claimed bouts of diarrhea for an excuse, but really, I was trying to silently puke through panic attacks so she didn’t see the real me. 

When we hung out at her house, I always liked to have a lil nip of Jameson before bed. But over the course of those weeks, I started to get visits in my sleep again, and the nips turned to slugs. When I closed my eyes, I’d see Rescue’s body getting winched out of a river. Or my old man. Or the lady that’d been mutilated in front of me on the street. They all came with the same message— I hadn’t done enough. 

I started getting out of bed four or five times a night. I’d take a pull from the liquor stashed atop her fridge, in hopes it would generate dreams that contained nothing but blackness. 

One night when she was asleep, I came back from a silent cry in the bathroom and a deep swallow of some awful tequila. Seated on the edge of the bed, I just watched her breath rise and fall for a moment. 

One of my favorite things about the lady had been her uncanny ability to keep herself above the surface through seas of chaos. But with my pain building at the rate it was, I knew I was about to drag her into the deep— something I promised JD I’d never do again. 

Just as I had stacked days on the hill, I was now stacking up people I’d claimed to love, only to let them down. It was clear that she was next in line. 

My breaking point came after another phone call— one which suggested a suicide might be coming in my circle. 

The night of that call I furiously folded myself into a bottle of tequila and a bag of mushrooms. It was a vicious bender, and I only remember around two minutes of it. Thankfully, the lady wasn’t around to see, and I don’t have the footage stored in my mind. 

But when I woke the next morning I was done. No more living in nightmares, nor failing to deliver. 

I wrote about the night with JD on my pallet porch for a few hours. About how he’d told me my pain might be potent, but it wasn’t an excuse to not make good on who I should be. 

I needed to shut everything down. 

I sat with the lady and told her I needed to step away from us. 

I wouldn’t watch her go above and beyond for me anymore. Not when I wasn’t capable of returning the favor in kind. I was on a road back to where I’d been two years prior, and I couldn’t allow her to get caught in the line of fire. I’d promised too many people and myself I’d never be that guy again. 

Seated on her deck at that moment, I realized that the last time I’d felt that much pain while looking into another’s eyes and apologizing, was when that woman had died in my arms on the street. 

And then I kicked off a total reset. 

In the aftermath of that conversation, I spent a lot of hours wondering what JD would’ve thought of the moves I’d made.

One afternoon, I agonized over whether he was still bedridden, how much longer he’d be alive, and if he’d ever meet the fully-embodied version of the guy he always told me I could be. 

That’s when my phone buzzed, and the scrawny fucker finally got a hold of me. 

-5-

Resets aren’t easy. 

It hurts to make lists of your shortcomings and try to measure the weight of your soul when you know you’ve been fucking up. It burns. 

But when you realize you’ve been less than what you could be, it’s what you have to do. If not for yourself, then for the people who love you and whom you claim to love in turn. 

You pick every piece of flesh from the bone if need be. Then you build back the muscle, layer by layer, until you’ve accumulated the strength necessary to lift yourself and carry the weight of the investments that have been made in you. 

When I got my own reset underway, I communicated sparingly with JD. Word through the raft guide grapevine was that some of his strength had returned, and he was getting up out of bed again. I had time to lose my shell and molt into the person he deserved to see when we finally reunited. 

Once I felt I was close to being the stone wall he’d told me I could be that night on my porch, I made the drive to talk to him on his. 

But before my boot hit the first stair up to where he was seated, tears began to swell in my eyes. 

Even in the darkness, with a shadow draped across his face, I could see that my scrawny friend had gotten scrawnier. 

I summoned the strength to hurl an insulting vulgarity his way. He giggled, returned one in kind, and we embraced. I shuddered as I felt my old friend’s bones for the first time in years, and we sat to chat. 

He wanted to know what was up with me before we talked about anything else. 

Classic JD— even in his darkest hour, more concerned with his people than himself. 

I stuttered through the story of my spring, explaining to him that I’d almost returned to the demons he’d rescued me from years prior. But I’d beat them back on my own this time. 

Since managing to find some peace of mind and solid ground to stand on again, I told him how I was working my tail off, trying to start businesses for rich folks, trying to patch things up with the lady, and trying to appease my current employers, but hitting roadblocks on each of those avenues. 

JD said he was proud of me— proud that I was taking my bar brawler mentality and applying it to life. That was the guy he knew. 

But he was also annoyed. I was wasting time and precious energy driving down the roads I’d described, and trying to take those who were making it clear they weren’t as invested as me along for the ride. Every minute spent trying to prove myself, as an entrepreneur, lover or otherwise, was time away from the keyboard. 

I was a writer. Period, stop. 

I winced. Always the truth with this fucking kid. 

Squirming, I shifted the conversation away from myself. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on with his condition, and felt a tinge of nausea as he began. 

During the medical terminology bit, I blacked out, only registering that his pancreas was actively dying. During the months when I couldn’t reach him, he had been bedridden, rapidly losing weight and close to death. The medications doctors had prescribed weren’t helping as much as he had hoped, and his body had started devouring itself. He’d almost given up. 

But summoning what little strength he’d had left, he put his brilliant talent for analysis to work. 

Through the use of internet forums, AI, and dozens of hours of research, he’d figured out a way to supplement his medication with certain enzymes and oils, and developed a meticulous, albeit miserable, diet plan. With time, he was able to exit bed for more extended periods and return himself to a modest baseline. 

There my friend was again, seeing the big picture of a problem, and finding the right route–just as he always had through highly technical whitewater. 

When I asked how it felt to function just a bit more normally, he admitted that he was partly miserable. 

The regimen he’d developed to stay alive was tedious and time consuming. He had to eat the exact same things every day, and supplement at the same times. Were his calculations off by a gram, a calorie or an hour, he’d be in extreme gastrointestinal pain, and then be chained to the toilet or bed for days. 

That’s when our talk reached its darkest point. 

As things stood in that moment, the only way his life could ever return to normalcy was through a transplant. And he couldn’t get on the list. 

A rage I hadn’t felt in years started to climb its way up my windpipe. That’s when I got up and started to pace up and down his porch. It’s what I do when I’m overwhelmed or angry. Stalk around, grunt and growl. 

I knew what it felt like to be locked in the same house for months, and to only see darkness, even when the sun made its way through the windows each morning. 

In the past, I’ve fixed problems for my friends with the threat of my fists, elbows and forehead. But there was nothing and no one I could smash to help JD. Even if I did strangle one of his doctors with a stethoscope, it wouldn’t give him back his quality of life. 

When I could breathe again, I returned to my seat. It was then that I saw tears in his eyes for the first time, and begged him: what could I do? 

Without hesitation, he answered. 

Write. 

For years, he said, our entire network of friends had been waiting to see fresh writing from me make it into the world. And considering his condition, his patience had run out, just as it had when I’d been a whiskey goblin two years prior. 

He wanted me to ditch all the business bullshit and work one or two days a week at best. I had a shit ton of money saved and it was time to go all in— if for nothing else than to give him a way to read and connect with his chosen tribe while marooned at his parents’ home.

He wanted me pitching magazines and finishing the book. This website needed to return too. No more fear of how it might be received. 

If I didn’t fear street fights in real life, then I had no excuse to fear any of the flames my words might ignite. The Dirt Lot had to come back completely uncensored— with heart, blood and bite on every page. And in a few month’s time, after he’d gathered more bits of strength, I had to commit to helping him write a book about his own life too. 

At my best, he said, when I spoke or wrote with clarity and intention, I had the ability to galvanize and motivate. With that in mind, he made a second request. 

Though his physical pain, the fatigue, and the grappling with mortality were hard, they weren’t the most difficult part of his ordeal. And to be fair, the regimen he’d developed could keep him alive for a few years, though they’d be spent locked away in his home prison. 

What was hurting JD most, what he desperately craved a reprieve from, was the isolation his condition had forced upon him. 

Earlier, I described the good kind of river guides as supreme beings. Just as  Superman derives his power from the sun, they get theirs from the company of their comrades. JD needed a jolt. 

All he wanted was time with certain members of our fucked up little family, so as to feel a bit of peace, and receive an influx of strength. 

Through shaky tears, I told him to consider it all done. From that point forward he’d never feel alone again. And just as he had helped me walk through my own darkness in years prior, he could count on me to walk with him through his. 

I gave JD my word that I’d make the three hour drive to see him every week if I could. Worst case, I’d be there every other. And whenever I made the drive, I’d bring another raft guide with me. 

Shortly thereafter, we embraced for a long while, and then I got back on the road. 

I pulled off at a remote campsite, yanked an old rake out of my truck bed, and snapped it over my knee. I then sat in the front seat for a few hours, muttering to myself and plotting. 

-6-

The best boaters I know operate by a dirtbag ethos of old. 

I first learned it from two purebreds on a Montana river eight years ago, and have carried it as gospel ever since. 

It’s a credo I believe should be carved into stone and mounted above the entryway of every boathouse around the country— one which says “I’ve got your back, and you’ve got mine.”

That sentiment was originally meant to be applied on the water. But for those who cement a place in this subculture through good intentions, hard work and a pure heart— it means they needn’t ever feel alone again. 

You enter this world, you spend time on the water and beside the bonfire with the other broken toys— you take on an obligation to stitch things back together when one of your brethren begins to burst at the seams— just as JD has done for me many times over. 

In each other, we boaters find a home. And though it might not be a physical structure, just like any other, it needs protecting. 

That’s all I could think about in the days following my visit with JD, as I lit up the phone lines and contacted every dirtbag I could think of that had ever connected with him. It was time to rally the river trash. 

If you earn it, after slipping into the dirtbag fringe, you’re gifted with a spiderweb of friends— one which stretches to every corner of the West, and sometimes the Southeast too. 

Our bonds are one of the few things on Earth which time can’t erode or break down to dust. 

Row the Middle Fork with someone once, don’t talk to them for five years, then give them a ring out of the blue. You’ll find that sense of connection you’d felt with them for a week, a half decade prior— it still lingers. 

That was made clear when I put out a call to action for JD, and dirtbags rallied from across the country. 

Texts and FaceTimes came through. 

Vulgar memes were forwarded, as well as extremely inappropriate anatomical photos. 

Reconnections occurred, and long conversations around his parents’ kitchen island took place too. 

A party was organized, one which brought two dozen river folk back together again, all in the spirit of uniting for one of our stalwarts. 

The stress of putting on that event, cooking for two dozen Carhartt-clad animals and grappling with what might lie ahead for JD led me to snap.

However, my stress pales in comparison to what JD experienced. Having not left the house for months, being slammed with that much stimulation was supremely fatiguing. I could see the physical shock to his system, but also a warm flicker in his steely eyes again. It was a complete overload— something doctors would’ve never prescribed, but he needed. 

My friend got to be around his kin, to laugh at our drunken stupidity, and absorb the electric warmth that courses through boaters when they lock eyes after too long a time apart. When we spoke on the phone the next morning, I could hear and recognize in his voice how overjoyed he was— just as he’d recognized how far down I was during the coke-bender call years earlier.

JD’s spirit had returned. 

Since that night on the porch, many dirtbags have made their way to him, whether over the phone or in person at his parents’ home. Each time we talk to rehash a visit, I hear his voice get just a little bit lighter. 

I owe a massive debt to JD, and am past due payment. The past few weeks, as our network of miscreants have rallied, it’s felt as if I’ve started to make a dent. 

It’s better than any high I’ve ever gotten from a woman, bottle, or bag. 

I think most people, myself included, are less than what we could be or should be. It takes someone who’s an exception to that, like JD, to make us see it. 

I’ve spent a lot of time on the road the past month or so, getting to and from his parents’ home. 

I’ve been smiling during most of those hours behind the wheel, feeling better than I have in a half decade. 

Maybe that’s why he’s so prone to helping his friends. It feels really fucking good. 

But the other day, while in an area without service, I got into deep thought.

I thought about how JD’s a farmer in a way— he harvests the good from his people. 

I thought about the long stretches of life in which I’ve blasted my neurons apart, and he still chose to see something of value in my mind. 

I thought about the many instances in which I fell short, but JD was still kind enough to offer a hand, and raise me to his level. 

After all that thinking, I realized I was wrong. I had thought I was the one helping him. But, in keeping with tradition, even while riddled with sickness, he’s been the one helping me. 

That’s what JD does. 

He takes what he gleans through his superpower of sight, and injects it into your head. If your brain accepts the dose and absorbs his vision; if you commit wholeheartedly to be what he sees— life gets better. 

In keeping with his requests, this website has officially returned to full operation. 

JD’s first language is truth. I can’t make promises in regard to the volume of content I put out, but I can guarantee that every word will be printed in his native tongue. 

His sickness and his words have forced me to take stock— to run through myself with a fine-tooth comb. In the interest of making good on the promise I made to him that night on the porch, I have been pounding words onto the page. 

As a result, opportunities have come to me as a writer that I’ve been chasing for a decade— the kind he’s always hoped for me. 

Those opportunities haven’t come as a result of self-motivation. They’re a byproduct of the standard he’s set when it comes to love, whether he realizes it or not. 

If I’ve learned anything from watching JD battle his condition, it’s this: 

When you’ve told someone you love them, if you want that statement to be believed, you don’t get to be too busy. Ever. 

You grab that person, you hit the gas, you go, and you get where you’re supposed to be going— together. 

None of the other bullshit matters. 

I like to think I’ve hit the gas lately, both with my writing and the rallying of our raft guide family.

And yet, there’s still more work to be done. 

JD’s spirits are much higher and his smile wider.

But his pancreas is still dying. 

There are a few tests left to do, but otherwise, options look limited. 

That being said, if hope peeks around the corner at a moment’s notice, myself and the rest of the river family want JD to have the ability to jump and go— without he or his family having to worry about the financial strain.  

With that thought in mind, we’ve organized a GoFundMe. You can find the link at the bottom of this page. 

If you’re a boater who doesn’t know him, I ask you to recognize something regardless. 

This battle is not just JD’s. It’s yours and mine. 

Without his kind, our world and the beautiful bonds that come with— they don’t exist. 

River guides and mountain towners speak in lofty tones— throwing around words such as “love”, “community” and “family”, like Dum-Dum lollipops from a parade float. Though the intent of that sentiment is noble, without action put behind those words, they mean dick. So give a dollar. 

Clearly, there’s a lot of things I don’t like about myself. Chief among them are the ways in which I’ve failed to be what I should be for the people who have loved and cared for me. 

JD’s one of those folks. 

Though his situation seems bleak and hope feels fleeting, I’m not watching the world through dark-tinted glasses, puking through panic attacks, or drinking someone else’s liquor stash to keep the dead from visiting me in my dreams anymore.

I’m working. 

Because his situation is an opportunity for myself, and many other river guides who have leaned on him, to deliver a return on investment, and be who we’re supposed to be.  

The whitewater world is better when we have more JDs, and I refuse to believe that I won’t see my scrawny friend at the back of a boat again.