The Fall Line

by Mark T Sullivan

  “I decide that the ideas of Page for today are timid,” Inez said. “So we introduce this thing artificial to make it … wild.”

  Page threw his hands up. “The Palisades and the Main Line Pocket are some of the hairiest jumps in the country. A couple of the lines we plan to ski will have us dropping for sixty, maybe seventy feet. How much wilder does it get?”

  “Ahh, before this is all done, you will know,” Inez said. “Last night I talk with a local cameraman who says every filmmaker has the shots of the cliffs with the jumpers.”

  “It’s redundant,” The Wave agreed.

  “So what’s this artificial thing?” Farrell asked.

  From her pocket she pulled three black scarves. “Blindfolds,” Inez said. With those words her eyelids drooped, her jaw relaxed, and her thighs parted.

  The space in Farrell’s stomach grew three times. He fought the urge to sit down quick. His arms became heavy and the air about him turned misty as if the cloud of the morning had turned to an opium fog. He smiled dreamily.

  “No fucking way am I jumping blind,” Page said. “Forget about it. Not going to happen.”

  “Do not be the fool,” Inez snapped. “We use the blindfolds as you approach your position. Like this, you do not know which jump you take before you go over the edge.”

  “You could hurt them bad,” Ann protested.

  “Many are hurt crossing the street,” Inez said. “This, the jump, is their skill, to soar like the bird through the air.”

  “I still don’t see the point,” Ann replied.

  “They have no time to think,” Inez said. “They must go on instinct, what is absolutely basic about them. And you and I, we capture it on film. That’s what I chase! What is raw!”

  Tony put his hand on Ann’s shoulder. “You might capture more than you imagine.”

  “Vraiment, I hope it,” Inez said.

  “I don’t know,” Page said, shaking his head.

  “Already I am approached by five more skiers here who wish to take your place,” Inez said.

  “I’ll go,” Farrell heard himself say.

  They all turned to him. The Wave ran his fingers through his dreadlocks. “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap …”

  Inez ran to Farrell and hugged him. “I knew you would be the first, so brave.” She broke away. “You others, do you let him go alone or do I find new skiers?”

  Page rubbed the heel of his hand against his thigh for several seconds, then said. “Okay, he makes it, I’ll do it, too.”

  “Wave?” Inez asked.

  He nodded, but he wasn’t happy.

  A half hour later, Page, The Wave, and Farrell stood below the Palisades, examining the chutes they’d jump while Inez, Ann, and Tony set up their cameras. The three men would not look at each other.

  “What’s gotten into you, old one?” The Wave asked.

  “I just don’t see what the big deal is,” Farrell said. “People say we go through life blind as it is. She just wants to test the idea.”

  “You bucking for a white cane with a red tip, too?” Page asked.

  Farrell shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m scared, mon,” The Wave said. “I never done any shit like this. Bitch is out of her mind.”

  “She’s trying to break you, see what you’re made of,” Farrell said.

  Page nodded. “It’s a fucking strange thought, but I think Collins is right. Don’t think. Just go.”

  They all stood in silence for a minute. Farrell said, “Tell us how to make it, Page.”

  Page took a deep breath, then pointed up to his left. “The National Chute is that crack there on the right. It’s not a bad draw. You’ll know it because the entrance is real wide.”

  Farrell closed his eyes to imagine it, but all he saw was black.

  “That other spit of snow up there that looks like a garden hose is the Main Chute,” Page continued. “There’s brown rock at the top, a lot of iron in it, I think. It’s about ten feet wide at the entrance. But right after you drop in, you’ll see a kink of stone. Get your feet up fast or you’ll hit it and pitch out. There’s nothing for at least fifty feet to stop you. Next to it, the Extra Chute, about the same. Probably a little easier.”

  “Jesus Christ,” The Wave whined.

  Farrell couldn’t bring himself to look at the kid. “What’s that last thing on the right there?” he asked Page.

  “The Chimney,” Page said. “Worst one. I don’t think even she would put us up there blind. The top’s called the smokestack: only five feet wide, high rock walls on either side.”

  “Claustrophobia,” The Wave said.

  “Three or four seconds locked in a cage,” Page agreed. “By the time the walls come in around you where you can’t turn, you’ll be going so fast that you’ll just kind of glide away from the earth. Stay cool if it happens. Aim true and suck the rest of it.”

  “Seventy feet?” Farrell asked.

  “I said it was the worst,” Page said.

  There was a minor argument between Inez and the ski patrolmen assigned to the crew, which was resolved when the men understood that none of the skiers would go in absolutely blind; they’d be free of the black scarves ten feet before they entered the chutes. Inez had her camera running as the blindfolds went on, which Farrell didn’t notice until the last second.

  “Hey, I said no pictures!” he said and turned his back to her.

  “I think perhaps we can renegotiate,” Inez said. “My mystery man. My so-brave man. On this point we talk tonight, no?”

  The scarf descended over his eyes, Farrell rested his hand on Tony’s shoulder and shuffled forward on his skis toward the lift. Behind him he could hear Page and The Wave. It was a fifteen-minute ride to the top. Tony tried to talk to him several times, but Farrell told him he needed to think. In the darkness his mind wandered.

  Gabriel had phoned a week after Farrell returned from Mexico and told him he’d be taking a flight out of Tijuana in early January to meet the customers. The meeting point: unknown. The pilot knew the way. Farrell spent hours alone in his office at work going over the data to support his ideas, but the more he worked at it, the more he became unsure of himself. A tremor took hold in his left hand, imperceptible at first, growing stronger by midmonth; and it was a noticeable palsy two days before Christmas when Lena came home red-eyed to tell him how she’d taken care of a baby that day that had screamed for hours. Farrell tried to turn the conversation, to try to assure himself that he had no part in the agony of those babies; that he was like a contractor to a bomb manufacturer: he supplied parts and services, not at fault for the carnage the product wrought. He was not the bombadier, he was not the pusher.

  Christmas Eve morning he awoke to the sharp staccato whacking of the palm fronds on their window, a sound that told him the wind was surging out of the north.

  He slipped out of bed quietly and got his tanks and wet suit and fins. He left a note on the kitchen table, then walked the two blocks to the beach. Wading into the gray churning water, the heady pickle barrel scent of early winter ocean surged around him. Over his head, the sky oscillated in shades of purple, charcoal, and magenta. He put the regulator in his mouth and rolled backward, rejoicing at the bite of the frigid December water.

  Precious little light penetrated the surface. Farrell switched on his flashlight. The beam cut into the murkiness for five feet, ten in places, but the light was diffused, blurred by millions of bubbles and particles stirred up by the storm. The sand swirled around him. It beat against the glass of his face mask as steady as the snow in a freak blizzard; he inched his way forward, shutting his eyes every few moments to keep from becoming hypnotized by the steady current of grain that rushed at him.

  The underwater sand storm suddenly changed directions and ran sideways. A current grabbed his body. He thought of Gabriel’s customers and Lena’s babies. He let the current draw him down. Icy threads o
f water seeped into the gaps between his wet suit and his skin. He shivered and twitched at the sting. He looked at his depth gauge on his wrist: thirty feet, now thirty-five, forty …

  Enough, Farrell thought. He kicked to break himself free of the tide. He only succeeded in turning himself sideways in the current; he plunged deeper. At forty-five feet the storm disappeared, but unseen fingers grabbed at his legs and twisted them. He stopped, his upper body buffeted by the stiff flow; his lower body immobilized. Farrell twisted the flashlight down to see he was hopelessly tangled in a kelp bed. He tried to calm himself, to think straight, but the current was like a lasso that roped him and dragged him behind some phantom horse. He had a knife strapped to his ankle, somewhere below the wavering green mess that held him. He bent himself in two to reach it, but when he tried to use the flashlight to tear some of the seaweed aside, it slipped from his hands and drifted off, leaving him in the ink.

  Farrell knew he had twelve minutes of air left in his tank; he’d gone into the sea with just half the cylinder filled. Every second became precious. Again he doubled himself against the current to dig at the tentacles gripping the outside of his legs. Some of the rubbery branches tore away like wet spinach. Some cracked and broke. Most of them held true. His glove slipped and slithered against the mat of hair that held him under.

  He had no idea how long he fought. There was just a moment in that darkness when he understood he wouldn’t free himself that way. He stopped to let the current swing him to and fro. He listened to the pop and hiss of his regulator. He gulped and allowed himself the thought that he was over. He shook himself in anger; if he believed he was gone, he was gone. Instead, he concentrated on the way his legs moved in the tide. And after a while he noticed that his legs could move together, but not apart. He bent double a third time, reaching down into the space next to his legs to tear at the tangle near his ankles. Leaves ripped free, then two branches. His fingers scrapped at the nylon strap that held the knife to his ankle. Another minute and he had the sheath turned around and the blunt end of the knife in his hand. He slashed at the kelp, not caring if he cut himself, too. Farrell got his right leg out first. The current grabbed it and split him like a ballet dancer on point. He strained forward to his left leg and took one great swipe, which set him free; he rushed out with the current.

  Farrell fought against it with every bit of his strength, swimming what he thought was sideways, instead of up. As suddenly as he had entered it, the lasso broke. The phantom horse trotted on toward Hawaii. He kicked unsteadily to the surface, breaching into the rainstorm 200 yards from shore with only ninety seconds of air left.

  It was a slow, awkward swim to the beach. He stroked, thinking how great it would be to take a hot shower and climb back into bed with his wife.

  When he stood up in the surf, he noticed an eight-inch flap of wet suit hanging from his leg. Blood trickling out. He took off his flippers and looked up to see Lena standing on a bench above the sand. She wore a rain slicker over her nightgown. He smiled, waved, and tugged the tank and vest from his back.

  Lena strode down the sand across a mound of kelp thrown up by the storm. She slapped him across the lips. “You selfish, un-thinking bastard,” she yelled. She turned and ran away crying.

  “Get ready to get off,” Tony said, breaking Farrell from his memories. The dreamy, floating state he’d been in before the ride was gone. Now he felt open, raw. It was what Inez wanted. What he wanted was to hear Inez’s voice, to feel the fog come up around him again, washing away thought. He fantasized about her, about the way she thought up these crazy ideas. He realized she was like Gabriel; she had no limits and that soothed and stung him at the same time.

  When Tony had tied the black scarf across his face, Farrell noticed almost immediately that the rest of his senses became heightened; he had heard each creak and whir in the chairlift; he had smelled Tony’s stale cigarette odor; and now he sensed the spring snow softening under his ski boots as they climbed.

  In the darkness, the image of Lena stomping away from the beach played over and over in his mind. He remembered wanting to run after her, to tell her how confused he was; he looked forward to the trip south, and yet, he dreaded it more than anything he’d ever had to do.

  “Hopeless,” Farrell said out loud when they had reached the top.

  “What’s that?” Tony asked.

  “I’m hopeless,” Farrell mumbled.

  “Don’t think like that,” Tony said. “You got to be clear now.”

  Farrell laughed at the idea. “How can you be clear when you can’t see?”

  “You can back out of this, you know,” Tony said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Farrell said.

  “It all matters,” Tony said. “The rastaman is over there, shaking like a leaf. You?”

  “I’m trying not to think, okay?” Farrell said, rubbing at a tight spot in his thigh muscle. “Easier that way.”

  “Fine, fine,” Tony said. “But I’m telling them to pull your blinds a good fifteen feet back. She’ll never notice and I’m not going to be responsible for you going over the front in the black.”

  “That will help,” Farrell said.

  “Your skis are in front of you,” a deep male voice said. It wasn’t Tony. “Step down.”

  The heavy thud of the binding pulled him in tight against the skis. Poles were put in his hands and straps wrapped around his wrists.

  “Your boots feel okay?”

  “Yeah,” Farrell said. He thought of Lena and the chill that had separated them on Christmas. He shivered.

  “Everybody ready?” Tony’s voice called from off to Farrell’s right.

  “Ready,” the voice said.

  “Old one!” The Wave yelled from far off to his left. “Be cool. Ski straight!”

  Farrell nodded, his breath coming in rapid shallow bursts. His heart pounded. His entire body quaked. “Okay, okay,” he chattered. “Let’s do this thing!”

  “And Action!” Tony bellowed.

  Farrell leaned forward on his poles and pushed away, felt his head tug back and then light flooded in. “Oh shit!” he screamed as the skis dropped forward and down.

  Farrell threw his hands after gravity, seeing in the first dots of coherent vision a line of brown rocks in front of him: Main Chute! He yanked his feet upward and fell, a meteor at dusk, out and over the rim, still half-blinded by the light, burning past the sharp limb of a bush that clung stubbornly to the cliff wall. A high-pitched flute note stung his ears.

  He was vaguely aware of the rocks rushing by and the snow racing toward him. He wondered if the bottom would ever come and if he’d be able to handle the speed of the landing. “Son of a …!”

  His moaning growl was cut short as his right ski struck hard spring snow. His head snapped back and he almost blacked out, but held on. Farrell gasped at the velocity—sixty-five, now seventy miles an hour—and the way his jaw rat-tatted like a jackhammer on the frozen terrain underneath him.

  Suddenly Inez and her camera were there in a pit in the snow.

  Inez pumped her hand as he barreled by. “Magnifique!” she cried.

  Farrell got himself stopped thirty yards beyond her, then his legs went to rubber and he collapsed into the snow. His stomach ached hollow from the sudden loss of adrenaline. He felt ill, something that never happened after such a thrilling ride.

  It took a full four minutes before he got his breath back, got himself out of his bindings, and stood. He scanned the ridge, looking for The Wave, then saw him, poised on his snowboard above the National Chute with another man in blue standing behind him. Ann had lashed herself to a rock several feet down into the chute so she could catch him as he blew by her. Across the ridge, Tony had sprawled himself flat so he could film The Wave dead on.

  “Thank God,” Farrell said to himself. “The kid’s got the easiest way down.”

  Inez dropped her hand. The man behind The Wave gave him a shove. The black scarf fluttered. The Wave rolled over the lip and
rocketed straight down and out into the air. He cast his left hand forward as if he were trying to feel his way to the ground through the brilliant sun. Farrell sucked in air; he could feel his jump all over again. The rastaman reached too far forward with his hand, which caused his tip to drop just before landing. The Wave flipped once, twice, and a third time; then stood up shaking and raised his hands over his snowy dreadlocks and screamed: “I’m a Stevie Wonder Snowboarder!”

  The Wave kicked the board into motion again, and made faltering, erratic arcs down to where Farrell stood.

  “Stoked jump, mon!” The Wave said. “I never been so close to shitting them in my life! I mean I was pissed when she thought it up, but what a goddamned feeling, like …”

  Farrell grinned thinking about the jump, then suddenly frowned. The nausea returned. “There’s Page,” he said.

  Page stood stiff on the very edge of the snow line above the Extra Chute, unaware of the cliff and rock below him. Tony was crouched at his feet with his camera ready. Without warning, he put the camera down and grabbed his radio.

  “What’s she doing?” The Wave asked.

  Inez was crouched in the snow pit talking into her radio. The April sun, which grew stronger by the minute, illuminated her and cast a pleasing shadow of her body far out in front of her camera. What got to Farrell was the fact that, while her jaw worked furiously, the rest of her features were devoid of tension; even her hands were open, loose.

  “She’s moving him,” The Wave said.

  Tony and one of the patrolmen helped Page shuffle back from the edge and up the hill.

  “Sonofabitch,” Farrell said. “She’s putting him on the Chimney.”

  Tony held the radio up to Page, who listened then pushed it away and made as if he was going to strip off the black scarf.

  “He’s backing out,” The Wave said.

  “What’d she say?” Farrell said.

  “Don’t know, mon. Only she and the cameras got the talkies this time. Said she thought too many people would confuse the issue. But she hit him with something, sure as I’m standing here. For Christ’s sake! Doesn’t she understand this is for real?”