John Kenney - Talk to Me

He was about to turn the phone off when Claire called.

“Claire,” he said. Flat. Dead.

“Ted,” she said.

Her voice was urgent, pained. He could picture her. Standing at the kitchen sink, looking out at the backyard, at the garden. The wisteria and pachysandra, the hydrangea and the Japanese maples, and his favorite, the boxwoods, so elegant, so English garden. He knew the names. He pretended he didn’t. But he knew. It had mattered to her, so he learned them. He thought it was their joke. He thought she knew.

“Did she call?” Claire asked.

“No.”

“She was going to call.”

And say what? he wondered.

“Ted, I’m so sorry,” she said. She felt it had happened to her, too. To the both of them. She was apologizing for the failure of their marriage, for their failure, perhaps, as parents. Ted drove largely unaware he was driving. He drove and listened to his own heavy breathing.

“I didn’t clear out my stuff,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“From the house. I forgot. I just… left. This morning. I’m sorry.”

Claire’s face contorted. The pain of it for him. He sounded odd.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

Neither knew what to say now.

“Claire?”

“Yes.”

He couldn’t quite get it out. He decided against asking it.

“Was I that bad?” he asked.

She was standing at the sink. She was looking out the window at the garden. At the pack-a-lunch-sandwich. That’s what he called the pachysandra. He’d never learn. She had a lump in her throat. She closed her eyes. She looked up. She said nothing.

Franny sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her phone. She had eleven voicemail messages, twenty-three texts, and thirty-one emails. The story, on the scheisse website. It made no sense. It wasn’t possible. She texted Henke.

WTF!!!

She stared at her phone, waiting for his reply. It came quickly.

Isn’t it wonderful?!

He missed the exit from Route 27. He missed the exit to connect to the Long Island Expressway, the highway back to the city. So he drove down 27, half watching the road, half in a daze. He felt he should get to the network. When things happened like this in his life that’s where he went. But he had nowhere to be.

He slowed the car, as he was driving too fast. He wanted to stop, to pull over to the side of the road for a bit. He saw the sign a few miles outside of the town of Shirley, just past Center Moriches. A billboard with a woman’s face. She was wearing goggles, her eyes wide with joy, her mouth open, gleaming teeth. She looked so happy and alive. He’s happy.

JUMP-START YOUR LIFE! the headline read. LONG ISLAND SKYDIVING CENTER. EXIT 58N. DON’T BE AFRAID TO FLY!

The day was so beautiful. The sky so blue. The photographers would be waiting for him at the apartment. The phone wasn’t going to stop ringing. The stories were going to keep coming. It wasn’t going to end.

He got off at exit 58N and pulled the car to the side of the road. He sat for a while and listened to the engine cooling, ticking. Thermal expansion. Static clicking. Murray had written a piece about car engines. He saw a sign. Same one as on the highway. Parachuting. The idea came to him so clearly. Here was the answer. Yes. Maybe it was a good day to jump-start his life.

You needed a reservation to jump out of a plane. He didn’t just sit around waiting for people to drop in. That’s what Raymond had said to Ted when he walked into what looked like an old garage. It had the pleasant smell of old wood and motor oil. It reminded Ted of so many garages in Pawtucket. An American flag hung on one wall. Above a cluttered desk, on which sat a rotary-dial phone, photos of previous jumpers. Dozens of them, along with letters and printed emails saying what a great time they’d had. Near them, an aged photo of a young, fit man in an army uniform, a young Raymond, Ted guessed.

“Have a seat,” Raymond said, his back to Ted. Raymond was rooting around in the filing cabinets, taking out forms like he was mad at them.

“Wasn’t even supposed to come in today,” he muttered to himself. “Forgot a present I bought for my wife’s birthday. Big dinner at the house later.”

He slammed a filing cabinet drawer closed.

“Have to charge you a supplement,” Raymond said, Ted finding the word choice curious. “Got to call my pilot. Lives in Greenport. Going to take him a bit to get here.”

“No problem,” Ted had said.

“Ever jumped before?” Raymond asked.

“No.”

“Any special occasion? Birthday? Anniversary?”

“No. I just saw your sign.”

Raymond turned and looked at Ted.

“Have we met? You look familiar.”

“I just have one of those faces.”

It was only after Ted had filled out the extensive paperwork, signed the waivers, and handed over his license that Raymond realized who Ted was.

“Sonuvabitch!” he said, smiling. “I sure as hell knew you looked familiar. I’ve watched you a million times. Real nice to meet you.”

They shook hands. “Christ. Wait till I tell my wife. She’s been watching you for an age.”

Ted forced a smile.

“You doing a story or something?” Raymond asked, still shaking Ted’s hand.

“No. Just… you know… saw the sign.”

“How do you like that? Ted Grayson at my place.”

They practiced on the ground, falling, rolling. Raymond set up two sawhorses and put a sheet of plywood over them. They practiced jumping from this.

“You hit the ground hard. A lot harder than you think. The jumping isn’t the dangerous part. Any dodo can fall out of a plane. Can you land without breaking a bone?”

He told Ted about his time in the army, his experience at jump school, the jumps he’d made, how much he loved the military, how it taught him how to be a man. Should be compulsory, Raymond said.

“These kids today. Christ, I don’t want to sound like an old man, but they’re like babies, Ted. Hell, if these so-called millenniums or whatever the hell they’re called stormed the beach at Normandy they’d have complained about the sand and where were the artisanal muffins.”

The pilot arrived, a grumpy fortyish man with a dense beard named Alvin. As he readied the plane, Raymond led Ted back into the garage and gave him a flight suit, Ted needing a toilet before putting it on, a body-shaking fear suddenly coming over him. Raymond fitted Ted with a helmet, explained how each had a GoPro on top, how Raymond would send Ted a video.

“Hell, you’ll have it by the time you’re back in Manhattan. With music and everything. I edit the goddamned thing myself, Ted. On an Apple Mac. How do you like that?”

The three of them boarded the small plane, a 1982 Cessna T303 Crusader, according to Raymond. Miracle it still flew, he said, cackling, as Alvin pulled the stick back and launched them up over the airstrip. The smell inside the plane of metal and motor oil and old leather. They banked left, out over the ocean, the empty beaches of eastern Long Island, climbing, higher, the noise of the engine drowning out Raymond’s incessant talking, a distant boat below, Ted remembering Franny’s words from the story.

It’s not self-pity. That’s not what drives a person to do this. It’s pain. Too much pain. The absence of any hope that this feeling will change.

An unfamiliar calm came over him. Everything seemed to slow down. The sound seemed to go away, the engine noise and wind muted. He felt drowsy. He wanted to give in to it.

In the book, Harold only draws one-half of the mountain. He gets to the top and there isn’t any other side of the mountain. He was falling, in thin air . He smiled at the memory. He smiled at the view of the water below. At the blue, blue sky. At the sight of Raymond chewing a Slim Jim.