Joshua Mohr - All This Life

And now the wait is over. His astronaut boots are on the bridge’s walkway, moving toward the center. Jake walks in the throng of tourists, knowing he’ll be recognized any second by a loving fan.

He is important.

He is viral.

Imagine a time-lapse version of what awaits every earthling, the world continuing to test our wills, doing its best to demolish us, the fickle and sputtering world trying to take our dignities, our friends and families, our hopes and dreams, all the sadness swelling our internal temperatures and we get hotter and hotter until the whole world burns up. We both know this is the future, Albert, if they’re not saved from the heat of their despairs, which is why I’m almost there, to the bridge, the car will be parked in minutes, we will walk to the center, I will wait for your sign. I’m scouring the whole solar system for that sign. I’m hearing a constant spinning of a record in my head, the scratching of the needle on vinyl, it’s affecting my equilibrium some, not staggering but feeling sort of dizzy, which is the last way I want to feel while waiting on the portal to be opened. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in my head because Isaac Newton was wrong about there being three laws of motion. There are actually four, and the last one is this: Heroes are unstoppable forces.

S omeone’s filming this , thinks Noah911. Somebody’s capturing him with the ashes. There’s always a camera running somewhere on the Golden Gate.

The clues for what he should do with the ashes are in TheGreatJake’s video: Tracey’s happy face, Tracey’s final steps, walking along, playing the song. She looks so relaxed.

This is the place.

It has to be.

He lightly squeezes the Ziploc bag, like he and Tracey are holding hands.

“Almost,” he says to her.

SARA CAN’T DRIVEfast enough for Balloon Boy, who sits in the passenger seat, listening to the lady from Google Maps languidly dole out her directions, and he doesn’t appreciate her this time. Sure, as they first maneuvered around San Francisco he’d been impressed with her collected, poised presence, but he wishes she understood what was at stake. Balloon Boy wants her to be yelling directions, telling them to accelerate and never mind the rules of the road, drive with a sense of urgency. Do whatever they have to do to get to the Golden Gate quickly. Save your mom!

His foot will slow him down at the bridge, but he’ll do his best to ignore the pain. And much like Mom’s old address could have been wrong, there’s a chance that the guy isn’t even taking her to the Golden Gate. They have to look there first, though. They have to see.

“Scared,” he says to Sara as they drive.

“She’s fine,” says Sara. “Don’t worry.”

She has to say that, Balloon Boy knows. She’s comforting him. Under any other circumstances, he’d stand back and marvel at this — Sara treating him like it was the time before the thump-splat ouch — but today he can’t do anything except think about his mom.

“FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONSand you’ll be fine,” Wes says.

“Grab your purse and act natural,” Wes says.

He punches her in the stomach one more time. They’re both in the back seat of the parked car. They are in the lot next to the Golden Gate.

He says, “I will really hurt you if you don’t do what I say, all right?”

Kathleen nods, no air to talk. She can’t imagine what the word bravery even means. It’s not real. All those stories she’s heard over the years of people doing superhuman things in the face of adversity. They are fiction. He has the control and she is property. She is a mannequin he picked up at a garage sale.

Wes exits the car and pulls her out and tells her to stay close. She isn’t on a leash, but that’s what it feels like. He tugs her along. He dictates pace. He asks her to smile, but it’s not really a question, not after all the times she’s been kicked and punched. Everything is an order when the consequences ache in her body.

Kathleen is property and as long as she does what he says, this will be over soon.

Wes guides her toward the bridge; they’re by the tollbooths. He takes a deep breath, has a coughing fit.

“We’re running out of oxygen,” he says.

PAUL AND ESPERANTOpull into the parking lot. Paul tries to banish any glimmers of the brass band. That morning, Jake changed somehow. He had always been a sensitive kid, but nothing like this. That was why Paul wouldn’t let his son look over the edge, peek over the side at the ocean. It was too much, too real, death didn’t deserve any time in his kid’s thoughts. He could do that later. Time for Jake’s own morning commutes. Time for Jake’s high school buddies to start having heart attacks. Time for midlife crises and divorce and cholesterol medication and baby aspirins and a desiccating sex drive. Time for Jake to loathe the boredom in his life. Time for him to wonder where all the excitement had gone. Time for him to pine for fantasy football.

It’s occurring to Paul that the ennui running rampant through his life isn’t all bad. Boredom doesn’t have stink stuck all over it. No, it’s a good thing, in a way, because it means you’ve made it this far. You’re still here. And that makes him want it for his son. Hopefully he fares better than Paul, but at least let him make it to this. Don’t let there be any finale today on the bridge. Don’t rob Jake of the ravages of being forty, fifty, sixty. Let him hate his job and grieve all the compromises he made along the way. Let him bald and be doughy and overworked and overtired all the time because those are trophies. He’s persevered through the grueling, deranged, and often unfathomable EVERYTHING. Jake is alive.

They’ve parked the unmarked cruiser and walk quickly onto the bridge from the Marin side. Paul asks, “What happens when we find him?”

“There’s no script.”

“What do you think he meant by finale ?”

“Put that out of your mind.”

“I don’t think he’d ever hurt himself—”

“Let’s not worry about that,” the detective says.

AND IF THISis one giant leap for Jake-kind, where will he land? Isn’t that a fair question? You leap, you land. That’s how it works. Or you don’t because he’s in space, in his own magnificent desolation, and gravity isn’t a factor here. He can leap and never feel the ground again. Never be burdened by forces that pull him back down.

He’s surprised that none of his fans are here. He thought he’d be immediately recognized, thought that his followers would crawl from the computer and meet him here, in person. He thought they’d want to meet flesh-and-blood Jake. He thought they’d line up for his finale.

He makes eye contact with lots of people, hoping they break into a smile and ask, “Are you TheGreatJake?” and he can nod yes, he is, and they can hug, take a selfie together. They’re the ones that followed him, not the other way around, so where is everyone? Why aren’t they here for him? Neil Armstrong would have been pissed if no one watched, if he went to all that trouble and no one turned on their televisions, if he endured all that danger for nothing.

Jake knows that mothers will leave the country for any reason, just to be away from him. Knows that fathers can freeze up, like a program, staying stuck for the rest of their days. Jake knows that right now everything makes him mad and everything needs to be hit with his baseball bat and he knows he’s carrying the brass band with him and followers should show up when they say they will.

He stops in the middle of the bridge and finally looks over the edge.