Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

We had gone maybe ten to fifteen feet on our hands and knees and I was actually doing alright, of course I think a big piece to that puzzle were the ‘mother’s little helpers’ that John had placed in my lunch.

Right up until John told me it was ‘wiggle time.’

“It gets fun now!” John shouted.

“I don’t think my idea of fun equals the same thing as yours, Trip.”

“You do know I was being sarcastic don’t you?”

“I didn’t, and that’s a damn shame considering I’m the self-appointed king of it.”

“You don’t need to put your hands over your head yet. Soon though,” he said as I heard him pulling away.

I traveled another couple of feet, I felt like I was on the inside of a bottle and now I was coming up to the bottleneck. The circumference of the hole I was about to ‘wriggle’ through seemed to halve itself. Valium-induced state of calm or not, my phobia was threatening to break through the chemical-induced calmness, with a vengeance.

I would have had great difficulty fitting a sheet of paper on either side of my shoulders. I was already beginning to rub off a fair amount of the animal fat. The rope pulled taut as I was frozen at the mouth. My hand was on my carabiner, I still had time. I could back up and return to the relative spaciousness of the small cavern. A putrid of zombies (seemed like a good name for a pack of them) was a far better option than slow suffocation by tons of dirt.

“You coming?” John asked as he pulled on our connection.

“I was thinking about going back and making some cookies.” It was all I could think to say.

“There’s cookies?” John asked.

I thought I could hear him coming back. “No, just fucking around. I’m coming, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t mess around with cookies,” John mumbled as our connection again got tight. He started to drag me, and if I didn’t drop down, I was going to bang my forehead on a low hanging rock.

My shoulders were beginning to scrape, I could feel the friction begin to tear into me. When I took particularly big intakes of air because I didn’t feel like I was getting enough my chest would also rub against the rocks.

“Man this is harder than I remember,” John said up ahead of me.

“Everything alright?” I asked cautiously.

“Whoa who was that, man?” John asked. I could tell that he turned his head because some light from the small headlamp he was wearing was shining on a small curve up ahead.

“It’s me, John,” I told him in a near falsetto voice, trying my best to not succumb to my fear.

“I don’t know no Mejon? What are you doing down here?” he asked me.

“This is sarcasm right? Because I’m already almost freaking out, Trip.”

“Are you from the government? Because I have my medicinal marijuana card. I’m allowed to have up to forty-five plants. No wait maybe that’s only supposed to be three. Now I’m still working on getting my Medicinal LSD card, but that should be happening soon, I put a petition in to the governor.”

John’s delusions were going to send me right over the edge—at least I wouldn’t have far to fall. That was of very little solace.

“John the Tripper, I am not with the government, I’m Michael Talbot, remember? We’ve been together for like two days now.” I said in short, staccato bursts of speech.

I didn’t hear anything for long moments except the sound of dripping water off in the distance. “You the dude with the rocking poncho?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s me, man. They call me Poncho Via.”

“Weird name, what’re you doing here?”

“Waiting in line for Dead tickets, John.” I couldn’t help it; sarcasm is my last line of defense in stressful situations.

“You got your wrist strap?”

“I do I’ll show it to you when we get out of here.”

“Okay,” he answered, and then started moving forward again.

I began to crawl as fast as I could to try and keep up so that he would not question the drag on his momentum again. I needed to be out of this particular experience.

John didn’t say anything or give any type of warning as I came up on another shrinking of the tunnel. Although to call it more than a gopher hole at the moment was a stretch. There was still a couple of feet of slack in the rope, but a decision was fast approaching. I felt that to do anything that would distract from John’s task at hand would be detrimental to my rapidly fracturing psyche. I placed my hands inside the hole ahead of my body, and with my feet paddling like a landlocked fish, I wedged myself tightly in the opening. I tried to gain purchase with my hands; but where they were in front of me I had no leverage to use. I tried to hook my feet around something…anything…to pull myself back. It was useless, and worse yet, I was beginning to feel hopeless.

The rope pulled tight, first against my chest, then it pulled up on my chin and across the left side of my face. It felt like it was digging in for the long haul. I tried to move my head off to the side, but there just wasn’t enough room. I strained my neck muscles to keep my head as high as possible so the rope wouldn’t abrade against my eye. I could hear John’s labored breathing as he was trying to pull me through. My senses were so torqued up that I could hear the rope as it was stretched and minute tears began to form. I was certain the line was going to snap and I would be ‘the one that got away.’

Then it did tear but not the rope, my shirt at the shoulders tore—as did my skin. At least seven layers of skin in depth, because I could feel blood start to run down my shoulder and back in small rivulets. Tears of pain were beginning to form in the corners of my eyes as John strained to pull me free. The pain was excruciating, I felt like I was melding with the rock to become some new igneous-tissue hybrid.

“Ahhhh!!!” John screamed. It mirrored my own reaction perfectly. We were past the widest part in my shoulders, but we were far from through. John was pulling for all he was worth. His aggressive spelunking was shaking small rocks free from their moorings, and with a slight decline behind him, the only way they were going was towards me. From this angle, they looked like boulders. I moved my hands so they angled like a bulldozer blade in an attempt to stop them from smacking into my face. They were easily big enough to cause some damage and possibly break a few teeth if they caught me in the mouth.

“Shouldn’t have eaten that lunch,” John strained to say.

I had to imagine he was talking about me, but there still was a significant possibility he had completely forgotten I was behind him. I would be up shit creek if he undid his harness and just kept going. Between the lard, sweat, blood, and John’s extreme exertions, I finally came free like a long awaited turd from a constipated man’s ass. Graphic and gross I know, but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t exactly what went through my mind. I was exhausted and I hadn’t done much more than worry about what was happening.

After some labored breathing, John finally asked me how I was doing.

“Not so good,” was my honest response.

“Got about another twenty feet to go from where you’re at.”

“Any chance you’re definition of feet is somewhat shorter than the American standard?”

“That’s kind of funny. Was that supposed to be?”

“That was the intention.”

“Don’t lose your bracelet or you have no proof how long you’ve been in line. That happened to me once, but my friend Scooter was able to get me a ticket.”

For a moment I was too wrapped up in my neurosis to grasp what the hell he was talking about, then it dawned on me he was referencing my earlier sarcastic comment. That’d teach me for being a wise-ass. “How you doing, Trip?”