The Tragic Age

by Stephen Metcalfe

  As we head toward the S-turn that curves through downtown San Diego, a screaming dragon plummets down out of the night sky, its claws extended to scoop us up. It barely misses.

  And then, its wings and tail flashing, its engines roaring and its landing gear down, the plane passes over the highway and continues down into the bright game board strips that are the airfields and Midway District of San Diego.

  A plane could take you anywhere. A plane could take you nowhere.

  We’re doing over a hundred miles an hour as we move into the downtown curve and the Mercedes begins to understeer. We’re going too fast for the tires to fully grip the road, and instead of turning, we drift across three lanes before the car regains traction.

  My stomach is under the wheels.

  The big Mercedes slows just enough for us to make it safely through the bottom of the S, and as we move into the top of the curve, Twom punches it again.

  The second patrol car enters onto the highway at Pershing Drive. We go past it as if it’s standing still.

  As we approach the Coronado Bridge south of downtown, the night takes on a gray quality. It’s as if fog or mist has rolled into the harbor from the sea, surrounding the bridge, creating diffuse gray halos around its lights.

  Gray is the color of mourning.

  The Coronado Bridge is a prestressed concrete and steel box girder bridge that connects San Diego to Coronado Island. It is two miles long. At its highest point it is two hundred feet above the water. The Coronado Bridge is the third deadliest suicide bridge in the United States, obviously used by people who wish to go to heaven confident of their footing.

  This is what we do.

  Twom looks at me in the rearview mirror. I nod. He looks at Deliza who looks at me and then looks back at Twom.

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  Twom yanks the wheel of the Mercedes and we cross three lanes of the highway just in time to take exit 14A to Interstate 75. The bridge is deserted of cars. Twom takes the center lane and we climb.

  Some say death by bridge is an impulsive act. Some, that it’s premeditated. After all, there’s always time to turn back.

  “Do it,” I say.

  Twom hesitates.

  “Do it, baby,” says Deliza. She looks excited again.

  Twom yanks the wheel. We skid, regain traction. We cross the two outer lanes, accelerating. We don’t so much crash through the outside barrier as cartwheel up and over it. I see the airbags bang brutally into Twom and Deliza. The car falls, flipping, and now, through the spiderwebbed windshield, I can see what’s below. It doesn’t look like water. It doesn’t look like anything. We’re falling into darkness.

  68

  Oneirophrenia Rant no. 1

  This is the problem. You can be going along. You think you have it under control. Something happens. It’s not necessarily your fault. Or maybe it is. Regardless, you try and deal with it. You have no choice. You’re now on a trip you didn’t ask for. Rapids ahead. Logs and rocks in the water.

  Providence.

  And how you deal with the logs and rapids is supposed to say a lot about your character. If you’re strong of character, you’ll probably come out okay at the end. Shaken but not stirred. And if you are of weak character, well, that’s okay too. In fact, it’s totally the point. The trip is supposed to be a character builder. It’s a test—yes!—and even if you fail, you’re going to be all the wiser for it. Better off for the experience. That is, of course, unless you’re so weak of character, you fall overboard, hit your head on a rock, and an alligator and a school of rabid fish consume you and you die or, at the very least, end up drinking paint thinner on the streets screaming at imaginary strangers. In which case, all the character building is null and void. Hey, but it sure was a heck of a good learning experience.

  Oneirophrenia Rant no. 2

  What totally sucks even worse is when you’re on this stupid journey of so-called enlightenment and you don’t even know you are. You’re completely in the dark about it. You were going along, doing the best you could, only all the moves you made were absolutely wrong. And because you made them, this happened and then that happened and now, suddenly, here you are, screwed beyond all recognition. And nobody warned you. Not your parents or relatives or teachers or advisers or friends, if you had any. How could they? They were in the dark too, dealing with their own character-building journeys. You were supposed to figure it out all by yourself. And guess what? Now that maybe you finally have, now that you sort of get it just a little bit, it’s too late to do anything about it. No going back. Inevitable events.

  Oneirophrenia Rant no. 3

  I swear, if alien ants came to earth, they’d look around at the lack of planning and foresight and the poverty and the greed and selfishness and the ignorance and the intolerance and the overall wasted opportunity that, other than the occasional rare glimmer of light, is the basic human condition, and they’d say, Whoa! Whose great idea was this? Unless, of course, they just shook their heads and said, Oh, well, looks like life to me! In which case, the universe really is a botched job.

  And whose fault is that?

  69

  We’re well south of the bridge at National Avenue when the third patrol car comes up the adjacent ramp onto the 5 at speed and falls in beside us. It’s like having a ghost at your shoulder. Looking over, the cop studies us. It’s hard to tell how old he is. He raises a small microphone and I watch as he calmly talks to someone. I hope he’s telling them that we’re just kids. Just stupid kids who have made a mistake. Don’t blame us. It’s not our fault, really. It’s this age we’re at.

  The tragic age.

  70

  It’s almost two in the morning when we come off exit 1A, the last U.S. exit before the San Ysidro border crossing and yet Camino de la Plaza is as bright and crowded and noisy as a carnival. It is bumper to bumper with cruising cars and the sidewalks overflow with people.

  We turn left off the exit, nose our way into traffic, and with Twom leaning on the horn the whole way, crawl east on de la Plaza.

  Latinas dressed to the nines walk up to low-riding cars driven by guys with shaved, tattooed heads. Peruvian wind instruments compete with Mexican mariachi. There are vendors selling tacos de cabeza, which are corn tortillas filled with cow’s cheek, and there are old women selling Virgen de Guadalupe medallions and papier-mâché monkeys on surfboards.

  It’s insane.

  We’re going nowhere and so we turn right into the first of the large pay parking lots.

  The lot is filled with cars and despite the hour—or maybe because of it—seriously drunk Avenida Revolución barhoppers are coming back across the pedestrian border bridge. Most of them are the same grunions from the Pacific Northwest that have been washing up on local beaches—college students on spring break. They stagger down the stairs into the lot, spreading out, trying to find their rides. They move in loud, rowdy, scrambled groups, some so dazed and shitfaced you wonder how any of them will make it home alive.

  We pass someone bent over between cars, puking his or her guts out onto the pavement. We pass two blowsy guys supporting a disheveled girl who can barely walk. One of the guys has his hand cupped on the girl’s big, saggy boob. They stagger into the driving lane and Twom swerves, barely misses them. The girl falls down. One of the guys yells something drunk and unintelligible.

  “Slow down,” I say. Twom ignores me and leans on the horn. A group of young men shout at us, swearing, as they leap to get out of the way. One of them pounds on the trunk of the Mercedes as we pass. Twom speeds up.

  “Slow down,” I say again.

  This is the moment when the pickup truck with the huge tires and oversized suspension backs out of its parking place. The chassis of the truck is just high enough to clear the hood of the Mercedes and we plow into the truck bed. As the windshield crushes in, Twom throws an arm in front of Deliza, holding her back. My seat belt and shoulder strap lock, the force of the collision knocking the wind out of me. Twom is no
t wearing either one and he slams forward into the steering wheel. I hear his single, choked cry and then he falls back, writhing.

  “Baby!” Deliza cries out. “Guapo, you okay?” She quickly unbuckles her seat belt and turns to him. Twom wordlessly shakes his head. His chin has hit the top of the steering wheel and blood streams from a split. A deep uhhhhuhhuhhh is his only sound.

  Somehow Twom manages to open the side door. He falls out onto the pavement. He climbs unsteadily to his feet. He is hunched and his arms are across his chest as if he is trying to hold himself together. I get out of the car.

  This time I will act.

  The first moron who gets out the truck’s cab wears a folded-brim straw cowboy hat, pointy lizard boots, and a cut-off sleeveless flannel shirt. The second moron wears a backward baseball cap and a wifebeater undershirt. Both look like they flex their biceps for a living. The driver drops from the cab down onto the hood of the Mercedes and then to the ground, while his buddy comes around the other side.

  “Hey shitwad, are you fucking crazy—!”

  “What the fuck, you dick suck!”

  There are parodies of people like this everywhere. No wonder other people get killed.

  This time I will help.

  I can’t seem to move. Spectators, curious and smelling a fight, are closing in as Twom turns back into the Mercedes and with his right hand reaches under the seat. When he comes back out, he’s holding the gun. Twom doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. Arms raised as if to ward off bullets, the two men are already retreating.

  “No problems, hey—it’s cool! We’re cool!”

  They back into a parked automobile. With nowhere else to go, Dick Suck spins and goes around it. The driver, cowboy boots slipping, bolts and runs. Spectators back away. I hear somebody call out. “He’s got a gun, dawg, shit, he’s got a gun!”

  Twom’s entire body sags. He lowers his bloody chin toward his chest as if trying to take the pressure off the broken sternum. He totters as if dizzy. Startled, he turns and raises the pistol at Deliza as she comes around the Mercedes. If she so much as flinches, I don’t see it.

  “It’s all right, baby. We walk from here.”

  It’s all Twom can do to nod. She moves to him. Twom gasps in pain as she puts her arm around him. He looks toward me. Blood drips from his chin onto Deliza’s cheek.

  “You coming, Billy?”

  I shake my head.

  “Brothers?” he says.

  I make sure I say it loud enough so that he’ll hear me. “Always,” I say.

  Twom holds out his free hand, the left one, palm up. I tap it with my own. They turn away. Twom cries out in pain, just once, and then begins to laugh.

  “What’s funny, baby?” I hear Deliza say.

  “I’m not gonna make it,” I hear Twom say. As if it’s the most hilarious thing in the world.

  “Yes you are,” says Deliza. “I got you, guapo, I got you.”

  They begin to walk.

  I hear the sounds of sirens. As I turn away, squeezing between the two closest cars, I see the police cars turn off Camino de la Plaza and come down toward the lot.

  There are buses parked over by the west fence. People are boarding. I have no idea where they’re going, but wherever it is, it’s better than here. I start toward them.

  I’ve crossed two lanes when I hear the single whoop of a siren. I turn back to see one of the police cars, lights flashing, moving slowly down the lane toward the smashed Mercedes. There are people in the way and a loudspeaker squawks, asking them to move aside.

  I climb up on the hood of a car. I need to know.

  I can see Twom and Deliza walking east toward the stairs that lead to the pedestrian bridge. Twom is leaning on Deliza for support. I see a group of rowdy alpha boys approaching them.

  “Yo, babe! Who’s the crip?”

  I see Twom raise his right arm, the hand that holds the gun. The morons shout and scatter to get out of the way. Twom and Deliza continue on, both of them going faster now. I actually think for a moment that they might make it. Up and across the bridge and they’re home. Deliza has people there.

  “That way! They went that way! Down there!”

  I turn to see the driver of the monster truck, waving at the police car, gesturing down toward the bridge. Back at the gate, sirens whoop again, and I see one police car drive left toward the north perimeter of the lot as the other races toward the south.

  The policemen near the Mercedes have gotten out of the car and are moving at a fast trot toward the pedestrian bridge. I jump off the car hood and run in the same direction. There’s nothing I can do, nothing I can fix, but I have to try.

  All events are influenced by creative acts of the soul.

  I push through and into and around groups of people. That they don’t know what’s happening not even one hundred yards away, that they’re so drunk and oblivious, makes me crazy.

  “Move!” I scream. “Get out of the way!”

  They yell back at me and curse me and push at me as if I’m the one in their way.

  “Stop! Right there!”

  It’s the sound of a police bullhorn. Again I scramble up on the hood of a car and move up onto the roof. One cruiser is nearing the pedestrian bridge, the other, coming from the south side, is blocked by cars trying to exit the lot. Twom and Deliza have stopped.

  “No farther! We know who you are!”

  “No you don’t!” I scream. “How can you? None of us do!”

  “Hey, get off my car, you sketchy asshole!” I look down at two drunk girls. Fat and skinny. Wobbly and wobblier.

  “Put the weapon down and lie down on the ground,” says the bullhorn. “I repeat, put the weapon down!”

  “I said get off my car, creepo!” Wobbly grabs at my feet and I kick at her and miss. “Ow,” squeaks Wobblier as Wobbly nonetheless sinks like a deflating bubble to the ground.

  I look back to see Twom hugging Deliza fiercely. I see him push her in the direction of the bridge. She resists and tries to hold on to him. He pushes her again, pushes her so that she falls back and down. She calls his name as he turns back toward the approaching uniforms.

  “Put the weapon down, this is your final warning!”

  “Make me!” Twom shouts. And then he’s running toward them, running fast as only Twom can run, as if the broken bone and the blood on his face don’t exist. He has the gun raised and he’s firing without aim, the sound of the shots surprisingly soft pops in the night, and in my mind’s eye I can see that the flower tattoos that sleeve his forearm, flowers that are the symbols of youth, life, and victory over death, have faded in the bright lights of the parking lot to lifeless gray and black.

  The policemen go to their knees as a windshield bursts to the side of them and perhaps it’s fear or perhaps it’s training and probably it’s both but they return fire. Twom is hit mid-stride. In a single instant, he goes from balanced gait to spastic puppet steps, his legs no longer working properly as if he doesn’t own them anymore.

  Point of fact.

  A pilot, caught in a death spiral, never knows he’s falling to his death until he hits the ground. Which means he never knows at all.

  I hear Deliza wail. I see her get to her feet and run toward Twom’s body. Just like in front of High School High, she never stops screaming. Maybe this time she thinks screaming will wake the dead. She tries to pull Twom up, pull him to his feet. She might as well try to lift a sack of wet flour. When she sees the cops approaching, she tries to find the gun. They’re on her as she grabs it. They pin her down onto the pavement as she tries to shoot them, shoot herself, shoot anyone and anything, screaming all the time. Screaming. Screaming.

  I want to go to sleep.

  The next moment I’m on the cement. Wobbly and Wobblier have gotten into their car, and as they back out of the parking spot, I’ve fallen off the roof onto the hood of the car and then off the hood onto the ground. My hands and knees are bleeding but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything.<
br />
  I get up and, mask firmly in place, begin walking slowly in the direction of the passenger bridge. I have nothing better to do now.

  “That guy! He’s one of them!”

  I walk faster.

  “There! That punk right there!”

  Several officers look up.

  “Him with the face!” someone shouts.

  I keep going. Up ahead, the two officers by the parked car start forward to intercept me.

  “Sir, you need to stop!”

  I pretend I don’t hear them. I pretend they’re talking to anybody but me.

  “Kid! Stop and put your hands on the nearest car!”

  I turn and run for the south fence. It’s ridiculous. I’m running toward Mexico. But all I can do is run.

  It starts now.

  Beneath the cacophony of bullhorn, sirens, and voices I hear the sound of someone or something falling. Which is no sound at all. And so I give it one. I give it the sound of drums.

  A guy grabs for me and tries to stop me. I tear away from him but it slows me down. I clamber up and over a car. I look back. The policemen chasing me are getting closer.

  As the drumsticks beat out a jagged rhythm on the rack toms, someone or something is falling.

  I get to the fence. I leap up and begin to climb. The razor wire slashes my fingers and punctures my palms.

  The tonal register of the toms is falling.

  Someone grabs my legs. I kick at him but he’s too strong. He holds on. And then other hands grab me.

  I hear escalating rim shots falling on a hollow snare.

  My hands and arms are cut to shreds as they pull me screaming and struggling off the fence.

  Twom’s body is on the ground.

  The tenor of the drums deepens as the jagged single rolls move to the first floor tom—

  Deliza is sobbing.

  —fall to the second—

  Ephraim is laughing.

  —finish on the third.

  As the police surround me, holding me down, which is stupid because there’s no longer any reason to, I finally hear what I’ve been waiting for. It sounds like the deep, muffled thud of a bass drum.