Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

With a single stroke, I hammered off one corner of the slab. A spark flickered, and the triangular cut dropped to the floor and bounded under the sofa. The muscles in my arms felt weak; the

strike, which by no means had been forceful, reverberated through the marrow in my bones. I laughed.

2

I WAS TWENTY-SIX AND ON MY HONEYMOON WITH

Hannah in San Juan when I met Andrew Trumbauer. It was our third day on the beach, and Hannah and I had just finished snorkeling and were laid out on towels in the sand when Andrew came out of the sea. I paid him no attention at first, but as he drew nearer, I saw something akin to a skeletal smile break across his face, causing the corners of his mouth to push his cheeks into sharp points. There was something radiant about him, a confidence in his walk. He headed directly for us.

“Holy shit,” said Hannah. I thought I could see this strange man mouthing the same words at the same time, as if Hannah were providing the soundtrack of his voice. “I don’t believe it.”

Andrew’s shadow fell across us, and he dripped water on my legs. He carried a mesh bag of dog biscuits used to feed the fish when snorkeling, and I couldn’t turn away from his grin. His teeth looked preternaturally bright.

“Andrew!” Hannah shouted, bouncing off the towel and into his arms. She was laughing hysterically as she kissed him quickly on the cheek—a jab, really—and beamed over at me. “This is totally insane!”

“Indeed,” I commented, not knowing what I was required to say. “My head is spinning.”

“Andrew, this is Tim, my boyfriend.”

“Husband,” I corrected.

“Oh!” She laughed. She looked so beautiful and dark. It was before she cut her hair short, so she was very feminine. “Oh, God, we were just married a few days ago. I’m still not straight with anything.”

“I’m Andrew Trumbauer,” he said, grinning an awkward grin and driving his knees into the sand so he could shake my hand. His pale chest glistened. A string of cobalt-colored lapis hung around his neck.

“Tim Overleigh.”

“Andrew and I went to college together,” said Hannah.

“Good old JMU. I was the loser friend all the pretty girls took pity on,” Andrew said, still grinning.

“Not all of them,” said Hannah. “Most hated you.”

And then Andrew did something that caused my testicles to crawl up into the cavity of my pelvis: he winked at me.

“So true,” he said. “Most everyone hated me.”

Later that night we all had drinks together at a local dive, and Andrew waited for Hannah to stagger off to the restroom before practically crawling into my ear and whispering, “I’ve got something I want you to try.”

“What’s that?” I was expecting him to offer to sell me weed, speed, pain pills—whatever the going pharmaceutical trend on the island.

“Flying,” he said, which only reinforced my expectation. “You up for flying?”

“Sorry to break it to you,” I said, “but I’ve flown before.”

“Yeah?”

“All through college and every once in a blue moon on weekends.” I lifted my drink and nodded at him from across the table. “Alcohol’s been my airplane for the past year or so.”

Andrew laughed, and I immediately doubted its authenticity. It was too brash, sounded too forced. He was shirtless across from me at the table, his skin sunburned and painful to look at, the twin pink discs of his nipples resembling engorged pimples.

I went on, “And Hannah, of course, doesn’t necessarily appreciate—”

“I was asking you. Not Hannah.”

“No thanks.”

“Think about it. You’re in good shape.” As he said this, he

seemed to appraise me.

Not knowing what being in good shape had to do with shooting a few lines of coke or whatever, I could only laugh with some discomfort and wait for Hannah to return from the restroom.

That night, after a huge dinner and slow, lethargic lovemaking, Hannah and I fell asleep in each other’s arms. The windows of our small grotto opened on the water, and I woke when the sounds of distant quarreling echoed up from the beach. I listened for a very long time, staring at the darkened ceiling, while I rubbed my foot against Hannah’s.

“Hmm,” she muttered. I couldn’t tell if she was awake or not.

I leaned over and kissed her cheek, brushed her hair off her face.

She smiled faintly without opening her eyes.

“I’m going out for a ride,” I said.

“Hmm.”

Outside, as I had done for the past three nights, I rolled a bicycle from the grotto shed and led it across the property to the roadside. The resort grounds were fastidiously maintained and accommodating; the streets beyond were dark and winding, where fast cars with missing headlamps sped, their radios blasting, and chickens loitered in squalid, feathered heaps in the culverts. On foot, I would have been concerned traversing the unlit byways of the island, certain that I’d run into unsavory characters up to no good. On bicycle, however, I blew by the hordes of shifty-eyed locals and was able to avoid the few automobiles whose drivers found it amusing to attempt to run me off the road—a dangerous scenario given “off the road” would mean plummeting nearly fifty yards over an embankment to wooded forests or rock quarries below.

I rode now on the snaking, single-lane roadway that wound up the mountainous terrain. The moon was fat and blue, so close I could nearly count the individual craters on its surface. My heart rate rose, and I could feel the sweat breaking out on my forehead and across my back. One mile, two miles, three—straight to the top of the world.

From this vantage, I could see one full side of the city, including the lights of the cruise ships docked at the harbor. I hopped off the bike and set it down in the reeds. It was impossible to gauge my height, what with the darkness fooling with my perception, but I knew I was high. Even my breathing, which I’d maintained at a regular pace while riding, was a bit labored at this altitude, although I wondered if that was only in my head. I could faintly hear calypso music and beyond that the squawking of phantom chickens.

Through a line of dense trees, I spotted dim lights issuing from the windows of clapboard houses along the cusp of the cliff face. Still somewhat unsure of myself, I stepped through the trees into a clearing. The closest house—a hovel, really, like something you’d see in one of those commercials where they ask for money while showing kids with no shoes muddle through sewage—was fronted by a screened-in porch. Large flaps of screen had been torn away and hung down like triangular wedges of pizza, and small birds darted in and out of the openings. Tallow light spilled from a single lamp beside the doorway. I heard the sizzle-pop of an electric bug-zapper firing somewhere nearby.

I sat on the porch steps and wiped the sweat from my brow. In front of me, my shadow stretched out along the brown grass, framed in a glow of dancing yellow light. Around me, the stalks of candles flickered. Many unlit candles littered the ground. Some even protruded from the mouths of discarded liquor bottles, and others were clustered together in clay pots. I retrieved a waxy yellow candle from one of the pots and held it above the flame of another until it grew malleable and dripped melted wax onto the grass. I proceeded to mold it into a sphere and elongate the sphere into a slight oval. My thumbs created the impression of eye sockets. With one fingernail, I carved out a mouth, then formed the fullness of a pair of lips around it. I don’t know how long I sat there sculpting before I heard the door open behind me.

“Well,” said Andrew, “you showed up after all.”