Buzz Off!
By MICHAEL ISRAELSON

Swimming with a pack of sharks, tumbling from the summit of the Matterhorn, rescuing a boy from the clutches of the last grizzly in Colorado. My explanations for how I tore my ACL bear no ties to reality. The truth is far less exciting. I've had my fair share of slopestyle face plants, bump ejections, pillow drops gone horribly wrong—by 180 degrees or so—and yet prior to this year, invincibility was still an ideal to which I clung. My insides would heal forever.

Bees.

"Walk it off, Izzy." They were there hiking in Chautauqua with me when I landed on my knee. I felt the pop and my friends laughed, thinking I was putting them on. Now I remember the pain as it shot through my leg. It wasn't what they said, nor was there an audible "pop," just a buzzing. White pain, brain on fire, fear, instant anxiety, verbal exfoliation.

Bees.

The MRI. Distract yourself. Think back to school. Magnetic forces aligning. Purely scientific. Block out the annoying noise coming through the ear cups. It's OK, the MRI will show that between my femur and tibia is a mass of indestructible tissue on par with moly-infused iron.

Bees.

Whistler. Tahoe. Jackson. Each year we trek to some altar of skiing lore. Last year was to Little Cottonwood Canyon in the midst of a 120-inch week. This year was to be a pond-skip to the heart of the Alps, but my injury has rechristened the epic journey described early on as "Cham '06" to "Revenge of Chamo-knee '07." One more year. As I reflect on last year's holy road to Alta, road signs surface in my brain. I see nothing but hives.

Bees.

The nest outside of the office, the hive in our chimney, one in the bird feeder. The yellow jacket that kicked me when I was down, stinging me pell-mell in the roof of my goddam mouth on a single-track trip to Aspen. Buzzing on the Monkey Traverse as late as September. The insurance salesman sending me a box with—guess what, Mike?—a stuffed wasp. On the TV I hear a voice: "Wondering what all the buzz is about?" No. Go screw yourself. Take your damned striped buddies with you.

Bees.

The October classic features the forlorn Astros, a team referred to by those on the idiot box as "killer bees." Lost in my appraisal of this nonsense is the buzzing of a coming scalpel, iodine, sevofluorane, marcaine, oxycodone, propofol, stool softener, wings.

Bees.

David comes down the mountain, full of piss and vinegar and that goofy grin that he sports when Grand County turns white, gearing up for a pre-rando fest in the Berthoud Pass back-woods. "Have you noticed all of the bees? I just read in the Farmer's Almanac that bees mean an epic ski season ahead!"

Goddammed bees (and David).

Post-op: sitting in the recovery room three flights above the OR, I see cards, faces, smiles, hope—and I know that all is well. I was warned about tinnitus, the medical term for buzzing in the ears brought on by certain medications. But in the corner, circling the floral display—a bouquet meant to bring calm and good health—is my winter nemesis.

Buzz off.


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