Deep South Water Scrambling

Dodging rocks and river monsters in Chattanooga

I pay my bill at the trendy North Shore Grille and walk out into the muggy night. My shirt is instantly soaked, and I can feel beads of sweat forming on my sloper-blistered fingertips. The oppressive summer heat has made climbing all but impossible in Chattanooga, and it’s making me a little loco.

Not as loco as some of my friends, though. There on the sidewalk, hands behind his back, chin out, is my climber friend Lee Means, taunting a big, heavily muscled man. “C’mon, hit me,” says Lee with a boozy Southern drawl. The guy looks down at his bulging, tattooed forearms and suddenly unloads a powerful hook. Lee’s nose explodes like a piñata, and he stumbles back into a crowd of shocked onlookers.

As if returning to the base of a sketchy boulder problem that has pitched him off into sharp talus, Lee slowly approaches and asks for another. The man obliges immediately with a whirlwind of kicks and punches, taking the beat-down into the middle of a busy intersection.

I see a rusty pick-up truck careening toward the drunken duo grappling on the pavement, and frantically flag it to a halt before it adds to the carnage. The greasy-looking, longhaired driver smiles at me through a thick handlebar mustache. I hurl myself at the tattooed man and knock him off Lee, who is now curled up in a fetal position. The man gets up and hisses at me, “A’ma trained assassin! A’ma trained assassin. I could kill ya!”

“Look man, I have no problem with you,” I reason with him. “We have no problem with you. I respect soldiers.” He looks down at the bloody mess he’s created, sneers at me, and walks away.

I hoist Lee to his feet and suggest we leave immediately. He cracks his neck to the side and spits blood on the ground. Then he wrests free from my grip and sprints towards the assassin. A tremendous leap sets him up for a spectacular flying punch. Both men slam into the sidewalk just as police sirens sound. Moments later, the cityscape is pulsating with red and blue light.

I head over to Lee’s house, grab his longboard, and cruise the deserted streets toward downtown to post bail. The county jail glows a dingy yellow under the sodium-vapor security lights, and when I enter I see a haggard-looking, heavyset clerk behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass.

“Name?” she asks without looking up.

“Means, first name Lee,” I say. She checks Lee’s file on an ancient gray PC monitor. “Nope. Can’t let him out t’night. He’s one of them drunk fi ghtin’ boys. No sir, he’ll be here all night till he sober up some an’ calm down.”

Outside, I hop back on Lee’s board. The pavement feels smooth under the urethane wheels, and a faint glow in the east signals the beginning of a new day. A big advertisement for Rock City Gardens reminds me that I have a climbing shoot scheduled this morning, so I book it over to my car, grab my camera gear, and head out to Walnut Street Bridge.