Jumping Page 16

  I don't know how much of that was written and how much he was just telling, but Lonnie is so pleased, I decide to let it go. This is the best he's done all year.

  But he's not finished. “The Void spoke to me.”

  No one says anything, wondering if he's joking.

  “The Void told me that there is no death. Life doesn't end. It just changes. And changes again. And again, more times than you can count. If we can believe that, we'll have no fear of jumping or of anything else. Life was always made for living, not dying,” he says.

  His eyes are shining as he looks up at me and says, “I may beat this thing yet.” Everyone laughs. He looks at them seriously for a moment. “After all, I'm not afraid of the Void anymore.” Then he moves back to his place on the blanket.

  Everyone waits for Donal now. He centers his journal on his lap and begins to read, without moving up to the front of the group. His thick curly auburn hair shines in the light as he bends his head to the journal in his lap. His large hands rest open on his knees.

  “I wish I had brought Brogan with me tonight, so he could jump into the Void.”

  Someone exclaims, “No!”

  “Brogan was always a jumper,” Donal says, with certainty, “from the time he was little. I remember when he was two and a half, he had a favorite little bench he kept in the living room, at the end of the couch. He would hold onto the arm of the couch as he climbed up on this bench that was maybe ten inches off the floor. He was about thirty-one inches tall then, so we're talking a third of his height. He would face forward, hold out his arms, airplane style, concentrate for a minute, and then jump. He'd land flat-footed, so pleased with himself he laughed out loud, and then he'd do it again. He'd do this over and over—I counted twenty-six times in a row once—before he'd get tired of it. He wasn't doing it for an audience. Usually there was no one in the room but him. I'd be in another room and hear him laugh, and I'd know what he was doing and come to spy on him. It made me laugh, too. I tried to ask him why he did it, and he'd just laugh and say, ‘It fun, Donal!’

  Donal looks up at us, love for his brother shining on his clear, honest face. “I loved the way he said my name. He made it sound like a foreign word.” He looks back down at his journal, turning the page.

  “When he was four, he would jump off the back fence, which was as tall as he was. By five, we couldn't keep him off the shed roof, easily twice as tall as he was. He still said he did it for the fun of it, and you'd hear him laugh as he did it. The sound of his laughing is one of the best sounds in the world; it makes everything seem perfect. Now he's six, and he's not jumping any more. He's not laughing any more, either. Oh, I know you'll all say, don't worry, Donal, he'll probably jump again, when he gets past this fear he has. Yeah, maybe. But I look around at the other six year olds, and they're not jumping either. They're racing each other or fighting or watching videos, like their big brothers. I don't want that for him. I want Brogan back. I want Brogan to jump. If that's gone, I don't know who he is. Maybe that's crazy. But I heard what you said about jumping.” He looks at me, accusingly, and then they all do.

  I look back, feeling a little hollow inside. Why do they think I have all the answers? Did I ever feel that way about my teachers? Maybe I did.

  “So, when I sat here tonight, my first time at the Void, I thought this is where I should bring Brogan. I could take him to the edge of the Void and show him he has nothing to be afraid of here. I could let the Void reintroduce him to the idea of jumping. I mean, Duncan Robert jumped and he survived. And he sounded like Brogan in that story—happy, at home in his own skin, glad for each day. I want that for Brogan. Does that make me a terrible person? I'd be willing to jump with him. I could even hold him when we jump.”

  He looks at me again, and I feel a little nauseous. I take a minute to breathe, trying to stop the picture in my head of a child jumping, and the feeling of being responsible for it.

  “Donal, I bet you were a lot like Brogan when you were his age. Look how you've turned out. Is that so bad? It looks pretty good to me. You've told an incredible story.”

  Donal slumps in his position on the ground now.

  “He's better than me. He's got more good.”

  I'm at a loss about what to say next, and suddenly I wish Babe was here. She'd know what to say. Somebody needs to say something to this dejected boy.

  Then a voice wafts out of the darkness.

  “That's how I feel about my brother.”

  Donal turns to look at Carrie Jean, and she moves to his blanket, putting an arm around him when she gets there, smiling at him. He leans against her, though he's easily twice her size, and cries softly, quietly. She just sits and lets him, without saying another word. Brothers are being comforted, I think. They're all getting and giving things they didn't get and give at other places and times, with other people, living and dead. I'm so moved, I hardly know what to think.

  The last writer has read. They pause, and it feels as if the night pauses with them. I look at them, sitting cross-legged on their blankets, some of them holding hands, leaning against each other. They've somehow all moved closer together. We all need a break, so I suggest that before we move on. They look at each other and laugh, stretching arms and legs and voices, chattering. They get up and move to ice chests and picnic baskets, distributing water bottles and thermoses with hot tea and coffee. They pass around bags of cookies and chips, really hungry suddenly, which is not at all unusual after an emotional purge, I know. It's as if we've literally cleared the way for food. I'm hungry and thirsty myself. And they'll soon be tired, too. So, I ask them to settle in with their food and drink, so that we can wrap things up quickly.

  I ask them my questions, and they talk. They had to come, they tell me—they were already disturbed by what's been happening at the Void. Coming is better than not coming. Lonnie says it's like hearing footsteps outside your door in the middle of the night—you want to open the door, to settle it one way or another, but you also want to get under your bed or put your head under the covers. Your heart pounds in your chest either way. The difference, you realize, is that part of you wants to be alive, to find out, and part of you wants to be dead, to never have to know. He wants to know.

  Monica explains her position. “It's like the time, a couple of years ago, when I witnessed a car wreck on the freeway, right in front of me. I mean, we're all doing at least 65 miles an hour, and a pick-up just nudges the Volkswagen Beetle next to it, as it tries to change lanes, and the next thing I know, the beetle is flipping over in mid-air, and I'm not knowing where it's going to land. All I can do is hit my brakes and try not to have to veer into anybody near me. All of us come to a stop, the Volkswagen is upside down, one lane over, the pick-up has finally fish-tailed to a stop. Cops come almost immediately, and one comes to my window to ask what I saw and who I am. Though nothing has happened to me, I don't have so much as a scratch on me, I'm upset enough that I can't remember my phone number or address. I'm doing good to remember my name. The cop reassures me that this is pretty common and not to worry, they have enough witnesses, and to call if I remember anything more. All I know is, I'm messed up in some way I can't lay hold of but is very real. That's how I feel tonight. The Void hasn't done anything to me, but the possibility of it doing something seems very real. Does that make any sense? I mean, it's not going to grab me, but it's like it has somehow.” Others nod. She adds, “That feeling stayed with me for a while after the wreck, and I think the Void feeling will, too.”

  Carrie Jean says, “At first, I couldn't help but wonder if my brother was in there, right? Like, is that what it's for? Is that where people go to die? Is it like the path to heaven or hell? But as I laid there in the grass, I suddenly knew that my brother had gone on, not down into some hole in the ground, that this Void wasn't like some mass grave that had my brother.” She gave a little laugh. “Doesn't that sound like a movie—The Void That Ate My Brother? But I just felt my brother's freedom, and it made me feel free, too.�
� She laughed again. “Does that make any sense? Probably not.”

  Much of the sadness has left her face. The smile that's forming there doesn't seem so foreign anymore.

  Donal says, “I thought I might feel the urge to jump, like it might be calling to me to jump. I've heard it has that power. But I ended up feeling pretty peaceful here. Like, it didn't want me, and maybe it even wished me well. It made me feel like everything's going to be all right, including my little brother. I know that doesn't make any sense!” More laughter. “The little twerp,” he says, also smiling. “Maybe I should bring him here.”

  “I thought I did jump!” said Nathan. “I wanted to imagine what falling into it would be like, and I just laid there on my blanket and closed my eyes and imagined it. And it was so real. I just ended up writing what I saw. You know, like you tell us to, with your Dragnet theory—‘just the facts, ma'am.’” I had to explain that reference to them, but now they like it.

  So, I ask them, “Is this your story of the Void, then? A happy, feel-good kind of place?”

  “I don't know. I still wonder why our town has one, and there isn't one anywhere else. I still wonder what it's here for. Maybe that's why no one talks about it—they don't know what it's here for. Why can't geology explain it? Or archaeology?” Kevin asks.

  “No money in it,” Lonnie says.

  “What do you mean, no money in it?”

  “No reason to spend money on it, to figure anything out. It can't make anybody any money.”

  “I think they tried, over the years,” Monica says. “They did some tests, like dropping ropes down, to find its bottom, like they did with Bottomless Lakes. And they couldn't find any bottom. I think they've tried to send spelunkers down, but they didn't see much point, since it seemed pretty featureless in there. Maybe they could do more, now, what with all the technology.”

  “Yeah, if there was money in it,” Lonnie adds.

  They laugh.

  “But why is everyone so afraid of it? Why weren't we allowed near it? Why'd they try to fill it in? Just because people might jump?” Monica asks.

  “Because somebody did jump,” Lonnie says. “I remember a story, a long time ago, from my cousin, who is part Algonquin and part Lakota. He said he knew there was somebody who jumped, over a lover's triangle or something. He said the older generation knows more than they're telling. They value their traditions more than they value people. And they try to blame everything that goes wrong on white interference, so you never know what really happened. But he said that's what doomed the Void.”

  Carrie Jean looks at Lonnie. “I've heard that story, too.” That troubled look has returned to her face. “Sometimes they even say that's where my mother jumped. But my Granny doesn't say, and I think if it was true, she would have told me.”

  The group gets quiet, thinking about this and staring towards the Void. It's time to wrap it up for the evening. It's class as usual next week, and they are to write in their journals in the meantime, look at their pictures, and see what more they might have to say about it all. They pack up, which takes several minutes, and move toward their cars, talking quietly as they go. I'm giving a couple of them rides, so I pack up, too. I'm thinking about the Void and its long history and how I'm about to become part of it. I know I can't tell them that, but I wish I could. I wonder if Babe is still up.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Babe Remembers

  IN THE WEEKS THAT follow our visit with Duncan Robert, I find myself inventing a kind of training for the jump, primarily to quell my anxiety at waiting for it. The jump isn't until May, when Spring Break is scheduled, but still, I try to eat healthier foods and exercise more, though I can't seem to quell my addiction to french fries. They're comfort food. The waitresses at Alpine Alley, my favorite café in town, say, “Well, we can fix you a grilled cheese,” when I ask about getting anything vegetarian.

  Under pressure from Henry, I finished the article within a week or two of the interview, and he published it as quickly as he could, so that it was out by mid-October. Of course he compressed and cut a good part of the life out of it, but the story line is still there, and the readers know Duncan Robert not only survived his jump into the Void, he survived what he ran into down there, too. I don't know what anyone really thinks of what he ran into because they're strangely afraid to talk to me about it. They say nothing unless pressed, and then they think what I want is a compliment. The best guess I can make is that they want to think I made it all up, like the old newspaper serials. After all, they haven't seen Duncan Robert.

  My anxiety drives me to walk in the early mornings, before the sun is up, so I can catch the sunrise, feeling as if the sun feeds me, too. Often my walks end at the Void. I can't say I plan it, but there and back is the equivalent of a good 10K, with a few gentle hills thrown in for added benefit. And it is the source of my anxiety. I find I have to keep moving, re-directing my attention away from the jump and back to more emotionally manageable things, or I tend to stop breathing and become catatonic, staring into space for long periods, a cup of cold tea halfway to my mouth or sweat pants half on or standing in the middle of a room holding an empty envelope. Sometimes I walk twice a day, sunset as well as sunrise. I think I'm trying to walk myself all the way into my decision to jump.

  Miles's work as an adjunct professor at the community college keeps him busy—the interminable prep for his classes and always the grading of papers—he keeps a stack in his car, on his desk, and beside his bed. They never seem to diminish. He teaches four classes in writing composition, even though three is considered a full load for a tenured person (who would also have grading help). He likes to give lots of assignments, too, to keep the students writing so much that they can put pen to paper with ease and produce a stream of words with a beginning, middle and end. I envy him his preoccupation with work, knowing there is solace in it for him.

  I, on the other hand, am in the worst possible place with work—in between things. I don't know when my next pay check is coming, I don't know what to prepare for, and I try not to think about the fact that I don't have any savings. But I am a writer, that is my craft, and this is one of the few ways I know of to try to make a living at it. I'm not cut out for teaching, like Miles. Watching him only confirms that. He has a seemingly endless supply of patience and a huge reserve of calm, with a mind able to hone the argument in a paper down to its core and know if it is good and why it is good. Or if it isn't good. He has a sure and stable confidence that doesn't second guess itself or let you do so either. I often feel like one more student in his presence, but do my level best to keep this hidden from him, usually through shameless posturing.

  Miles is a runner, another reason for me to get in shape. He and Duncan Robert often ran together, on the back roads, to stay in shape for backpacking and skiing. Even so, he's not without vices. He does smoke from time to time, still allowing himself a cigarette or two after dinner, only rarely three.

  “What makes a three-cigarette day?” I asked him once.

  “Student grades have gone out,” he said.

  I laughed.

  “I'm serious,” he said. “It can bring out the worst in them.”

  “Really?” I can't remember ever having argued with a teacher over a grade, figuring they knew what they were doing, generally speaking, and I deserved whatever they gave me.

  “Oh, it's really just a handful of them, but it's the same bad arguing tactics over and over.”

  He didn't elaborate, but I know he isn't an arguer. I imagine him calm and sure in the face of those entitled students.

  As a newspaper person, I don't argue, either, having learned the hard way that can shut down an interview quicker than most anything. Maybe that's why neither of us has argued about the jump. In that hotel room, after Duncan Robert told us the story of his jump and left us to go back to his world as he would now create it, we had looked at each other calmly and known that we would jump, no question about it.

  So maybe there was n
othing to argue about—no pros or cons, no cost-benefit analysis, no logic model. Not that we weren't scared; any normal people would be. But before we even heard from Duncan Robert, Miles had spent months after his jump learning everything he could about jumping and about Voids, trying to piece together the whys and wherefores of it all. And I've been building a background in it practically all my life. We've got a familiarity with the Void most people don't have, and we agree on what we know.

  Miles has the added experience of knowing a jumper. Duncan Robert is one of his two remaining family members, close as family can get. So close Duncan Robert could tell Miles he was going to jump, and Miles didn't try to stop him. This means Miles is following in a trusted family member's footsteps.

  What am I doing? I'm following a childhood call, a hunch, a feeling. Well, that's what makes a good newspaper person, and I'm being that, too. And who am I kidding? I can't not do it, no matter how it unsettles my days and my nights and my sense of who I am. I have the peace of knowing I'm doing it.

  Duncan Robert came back to talk about it, and for a few weeks I knew people in town talked about it, and the article brought some out-of-town visitors—the curious, the thrill seeking, the self-appointed overseers of such public happenings. While that brought some extra revenue for the local businesses that catered to the tourist trade, some people couldn't help but believe it was for the wrong reasons. Most town people believed they were being laughed at behind their backs, and they didn't like it.

  Meanwhile, Miles and I went on planning our jump. We need to prepare our loved ones, and we want to spare them as much shock and worry as we can. We need to tell them as early as possible, to give them time to ask all their questions and get as used to the idea as they can. It helps that we both have small families. Miles has one sister, and I have two, Marla and Kelly. None of our parents are alive, and we're not close to any extended family. Of course, for Silvia this will be the second jump of a close family member, so I wondered about her reaction. I still have a picture in my mind of her looking for comfort at the Void after Duncan Robert's jump, tossing flowers into the darkness, hoping somehow that he knew. But Miles has been to see her, and she seemed to have known before he did that he was going to do it.