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Boy Wonder (Cont.)


	Roger at eighteen months (James Smolka)

ROGER'S TURNS, like all true athleticism, look ludicrously simple. When he's on his board he is relaxed, his hands loose, the fingertips slightly curled. As the turn initiates, his knees bend slightly and he seems to hang over the snow, a marionette suspended by invisible wires of speed and centripetal force. Watching him, you're struck less by his speed than by the stillness that lies at the center of each turn. Riding a rail, the coaches call it, because that's exactly what it is—locating an invisible curve of steel beneath the snow and following where it leads.



	In the Sierra, age six (James Smolka)

"It's not something you can teach; it's something he was born with," says Trevor Brown. "When he turns he doesn't let it break loose, he doesn't skid or scrub, he just...he just"—Brown searches unsuccessfully for a less corny word—"carves."

Roger has come up with a theory of why he is so good at snowboarding. He thinks there might be a part of him that's like a robot, that behaves as if it were programmed, generating tricks and turns as his other self pushes the buttons.

"Something in my mind tells me to do these things," he says. "It's not me, it's my body, seriously. My body just does it. It's weird—it, like, commands me, almost.



	Sporting a mohawk at seven (James Smolka)

"It's hard to explain," he continues. "Maybe what my birth mom did, you know, making me drug-exposed, maybe it makes me better and maybe it doesn't. I mean, maybe what she did deformed me in a way—or maybe it deformed me in a good way. I'll never know—and I never want to know."

Roger says that a few times—that he never wants to know about his past. But even so, he often ends up talking about it, about his birth mother. It becomes clear that his mind is circling this subject as it circles everything.

"Sometimes I try to imagine what she looks like," he says. "Mom says she looks like her, but taller. I dunno. I have three other brothers and sisters. They're older, and I guess I look like them."

He fusses with his belt, jamming the tail into his pocket, pulling it out.

"I sometimes talk to my sister, on the phone. She wants to snowboard, too—they live a couple towns over, I think. With my grandma.

"I talked to her a few times. Not in real life, but on the phone. She's, like, really nice. She's interested in talking to me, which is really good."

He shakes his head.

"It's weird," he says. "It's all really weird."

Roger knows about methamphetamine. He knows it's a problem around Placerville and other places—he's heard about the labs in the woods, about people being afraid to camp down by the Cosumnes River, and he's seen the skinny, intense people walking around town. Knowing helps, but it creates tangly questions: Why did my mom do drugs when she was pregnant? What did it feel like? Why couldn't she quit? Didn't she love me?

"We tell him that drugs mess people up," Terrie says. "They might not be bad people, but when they do those kinds of things you don't want to be around them."

"He always says, 'Tell me the truth,'" says Dave. "He doesn't want any B.S."

"The truth is, these pills are part of his life forever," Terrie says. "What his mother did changed him, period, and he has to know that. He has to know the story behind everything. So we tell him."

When Roger asks why Terrie couldn't have any more kids after Dustin, he hears the story about the ovarian cyst and the emergency hysterectomy. When Roger asks about his birth father, he hears the story about the drug smuggler who went to prison. When Roger asks about Terrie's childhood, he hears about a teenager who found out that the man she'd been calling Dad for 16 years wasn't her actual father, and he hears his mother's fierce voice say, "You're not going to have any surprises like that."

So Roger listens to the stories and his mind keeps churning, pushing for more, and eventually Terrie and Dave are left with the last story, the only story that means anything. They tell him about the baby in the hospital, the unlucky boy whose hipbones stuck out. They tell him about the little kid who could hit people between the eyes with a baseball, whose mother took him to a mountain one day and then turned to see him flying down it. They tell him the story and Roger listens and tries to feel his way along.

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