Kelsey flopped down on the sofa opposite Pete and Shireen. They
looked completely at ease in each other's arms. Kelsey repressed a
keen lance of pain as he remembered Lara, her awful motorcycle wreck,
and the reason he had thrown himself into jumping with such abandon.
It was hardest at moments like this, when he saw couples like Shireen
and Pete. After Lara's funeral, Kelsey had stayed in his room for a
month, in and out of sleep and alternating periods of depression and
denial. In freefall, it was impossible to think or feel about
anything but the present.
"Sufferin' succotash," Kelsey thought to himself, imitating
Sylvester the Cat. He could always get a smile picturing Sylvester's
slobbery expression of dismay. Sufferin' succotash.
Kelsey felt like succotash.
Pete unlocked his gaze from the video screen and his arm from
around Shireen. Sitting up, he yelled, "Kel! 'Bout time you dragged
your mangy butt in here. If you fill the slot, we've got a load!"
Kelsey's attention returned to the room.
"Who's on it?", he asked. Kelsey hoped Chris and Bobert were
around. They were great jumpers and a dive with them was always a
good time. "Chris and Peaker" said Peter. "And me and my honey, too."
Gazing fondly at Shireen. Pain shot through Kelsey's heart.
He smiled. "Dave got the 206 ready?" It was really a perfunctory
question. The club's plane was always ready to go.
"Yo! Let's go! Gear up!" whooped Pete. "Skydive!"
Pete and Shireen were already hopping for their gear. Kelsey
zipped open his pack, dumped it out in a corner of the floor, and
began to pull on his jump suit. His rig, a custom Vector V5, came
next. Kelsey tightened the leg straps, threaded the chest strap
through the altimeter mount, and made it secure. He carefully zeroed
the altimeter to the field elevation and pressure. Goggles, gloves,
and a quick check of the calibration of his AAD.
Green for go. "Sufferin' succotash," thought Kelsey to himself.
Right as rain. Showtime.
Kelsey stepped out the club's side door in his equipment. Pete,
Shireen and the others were standing in a circle planning the dive.
Bobert had somehow managed to weasel on to the load. A six-way.
"Come on! Come on!" Called Pete. "You snooze, you lose, buddy!"
Kelsey smiled. Everyone knew Kelsey never missed out on a load by
dawdling.
Kelsey joined the circle. Chris and Peaker wanted to do a star,
followed by a donut flake, and then a zipper. That sounded good to
Kelsey. He didn't like backins much, and three points was a good,
casual dive.
"Breakoff at thirty-five hundred" said Pete. "Let's go!"
Kelsey and the others hiked over to the plane, a Cessna 206 that
Dave, the pilot, already had running. Shielding his face from the
prop wash, Kelsey climbed in and took his position against the far
wall in front of Peaker, pressing his pack as far back as possible
between Peaker's legs. It was common skydiver lore that the art of
jump plane loading had originated in a school of sardines. Kelsey
could have fit a bit tighter, but not closer. Peaker was on the hefty
side, with very thick thighs.
Kelsey helped roll down the door, and settled in as the plane
taxied to runway 34. Dave was an old hand at jump piloting, and
wasted no time getting the 206 airborne. Kelsey already had his ear
plugs in; a 206 was loud and could do a good job of rattling the ear
drums. The Turners Falls airport fell away below, replaced by the
beautiful vista of the Pioneer Valley and the Connecticut River.
Kelsey closed his eyes, lulled by the drone of the engine.
It would be about twenty minutes to jump run.
Alone with his thoughts, Kelsey let his mind wander. When it
veered too close to Lara, he forced himself to concentrate on the
engine sound and the chilly fingers of wind fluting in past the
Velcro that held the canvas jump door shut. Star, donut, zipper.
Sufferin' succotash. Sufferin' succotash.
As their altimeters read within a thousand feet of exit altitude,
the skydivers began clambering to their knees. Kelsey kept an eye out
the window, and when Dave turned onto jump run, signaled the others.
Thumbs up. Chris and Peaker began to roll up the door, securing it
with another strap of Velcro.
Chris was spotting. His head craned out the door into the wind
blast as he sought a straight-down perspective from the airplane. Ten
seconds short of the spot, he yelled "Cut!", and climbed out, his toe
tips in the lip of the door and his hands on the gripper handle above
and outside. Pete and Shireen followed, hanging face-in like Chris.
Kelsey, Peaker and Bobert pressed out tightly against them "Ready,"
yelled Peter, "set, go!" The group of jumpers spilled out in a tight
mass.
The first point was easy: a star, the most basic of formations.
Peter and Shireen were already lying side by side in freefall,
holding hands and facing Kelsey and Peaker. Chris flew into his slot
beside Shireen, taking her left hand in his right. Kelsey flew to
Chris, grasped Chris' free hand in his right. Bobert and then Peaker
closed the circle, filling in between Peter and Kelsey.
The six of them lay in stable freefall, bellies to earth, hands
linked in a circle. Peaker, as last in, gave a nod. At his signal,
the jumpers broke grips and hovered for an instant in place before
dipping a shoulder just slightly to turn in place. As each jumper
pivoted clockwise he was able to grip the cuff of the forward man's
left leg in his left hand. The formation built smoothly, though
Bobert floated a bit. Donut flake.
All eyes were toward the center. Peaker again keyed the next point
with a nod. Again the jumpers broke grips and transitioned to two
parallel lines facing the horizon. Hands of the left line linked with
hands of the right. A perfect zipper.
Kelsey checked his altimeter. They still had almost five thousand
feet. They held the zipper for a few seconds, exultant. Then, just
above thirty-five hundred feet, each jumper wheeled outwards, folded
arms back delta fashion, and extended legs in a hard track away from
the others. Kelsey felt his speed increase as the track decreased his
body's surface area to the relative wind. His altimeter wound faster
toward two thousand feet.
Just before he flared into normal body position to slow for his
opening, Kelsey saw something. It was a jumper. But it couldn't be!
The figure was at least five hundred feet below. Kelsey's heart
leaped. No one should be that low without an open canopy. In shock,
he almost missed his opening altitude. Another five hundred feet and
his AAD would have fired, popping his quick-opening reserve. The
shock of such an opening at terminal velocity could herniate a disc.
Kelsey cursed himself as his main canopy flowered open. Though he
searched the skies below, the figure seemed to have vanished like a
ghost.
"Sufferin' succotash," Kelsey said with feeling. The cartoon
expression no longer sounded ridiculous to him. It came out unbidden.
Kelsey quickly looked up at his just-opened canopy, reached up,
unstowed the brake lines, and veered in a sharp arc toward the
landing zone. Colorful canopies dotted the sky. His friends converged
gracefully on the target. Kelsey's touchdown was soft, like stepping
off a curb. He hit the ground running, turned and watched his canopy
lose air. Pete was calling to him.
"Hey Kel," he joked, "looks like you went a bit low, buddy."
Kelsey was in a state of unreality, not sure he had seen the phantom
skydiver. He joined the other jumpers heading for their ride.
The 206 taxied opposite them on the grass beside the runway. The
prop was still generating a stiff wind as the jumpers, struggling to
contain their flapping canopies, bombed in through the same door
they'd jumped from a few minutes ago. With everyone in, Dave gunned
the engine and the 206 rolled back toward the clubhouse.
The atmosphere in the plane, as always after a jump, was jubilant.
Chris was giving Peaker a hard time about being last in. Shireen and
Pete were laughing about their momentary loss of grips, quickly
reacquired. No one was cutting Bobert any slack about the way he'd
almost floated out of his slot on thedonut transition. Kelsey was
uncharacteristically quiet and subdued.
The plane rolled up to the clubhouse. Jumpers and wildly colorful
parachute fabric tumbled out. It was a race for the packing area to
see who would get to pack in the shade. Bobert won the race and threw
his rig down in the shade of the largest maple.
Kelsey settled for a spot in the sun, though close enough to the
clubhouse door to duck inside for a cold drink. The club fridge, as
always, was filled with soda and beer. No one would touch the beer
until the last load of the day was up. That was too bad, because
Kelsey really wanted one now. But the day was young. There were still
jumps to be made.
Coming back into focus, Kelsey began methodically to repack his
rig. First straightening the lines to rule out entanglements, Kelsey
next carefully flaked each cell of the canopy, wrapped the tail
around the rolled nose, and threw the now highly-organized pile of
fabric down on the blue plastic packing mat. From there, it was a
simple matter to tunnel the canopy into a tall, slim package and fold
the result into the deployment bag. The closing pin on the pilot
chute bridle went through the closing loop, and the pilotchute folded
into a Spandex pouch on the right leg strap. Kelsey routed the
bridle, closed the main opening flap, and velcroed the riser covers
shut. He checked the AAD calibration. The rig was ready to jump
again.
Bobert, as usual, had beat everyone packing. Kelsey watched as
Bobert made haste, trying not to look too obvious, up to the manifest
clipboard to be sure of a slot on the next load. Kelsey put his name
on the list right behind Bobert's. They needn't have hurried; no
other jumpers had signed the clipboard. The others were straggling
in, taking their time but still heading directly for the manifest.
Kelsey sat in the "living room," as they called their sofa lounge,
where someone had put a movie called "Fandango" on the VCR. His
favorite scene was on, in which a nonjumper, trying to prove his
manhood to his college buddies, was taking a first jump course. The
scene was a ramshackle desert airport. The "course" was conducted by
an ex-hippie instructor who was several cards short of a full deck.
As always, Kelsey got a kick out of watching the first jump course in
the film. It taught virtually everything wrong. The poor sucker even
missed the mattress jumping from the mockup of the plane. The
instructor, whose name was Truman Sparks, was about two decades
removed from his glory days. "Oh, wow," he said. He said it a lot.
Someone was calling Kelsey's name. It was Chris. Another load was
planned. Kelsey hurried into his gear and dashed out to meet the
plane. A quick plan, then in. Soon they were aloft again.
Kelsey's mind drifted on the way up to altitude. He was thinking
about Truman Sparks, the hapless novice, and of the last jump. Whom
had he seen? There had been only six of them on the load. No one else
should have been in the sky. It must have been an illusion, he
decided.
Jump run. Climbout completed, the group of jumpers waited for the
key. Ready, set, go! In freefall again.
The first point, another star, built rapidly. Peaker had sat this
load out, and a relatively low-time jumper had filled his slot. The
jumper, Mitch, was inexpert. As the formation broke for transition to
the second point, he began sinking away from the others. Kelsey
groaned. That meant the end of their planned dive. They were still at
eight thousand feet, but already Bobert and Chris were tracking away
for some freestyle practice. Kelsey turned and began tracking away as
well.
Starting from eight thousand feet, Kelsey's track had plenty of
time to pick up speed. He arrowed his body as straight as possible,
his legs ramrod straight, and tipped forward into a needle dive. The
hands of his altimeter unwound rapidly. The features of his face were
deformed by one hundred eighty miles per hour of relative wind. And
then he saw the figure again.
It was much clearer this time and much closer, off to the side but
less than one hundred feet below. It looked like a woman. He didn't
recognize the rig or jumpsuit. Whoever it was had not been on the
plane with them.
A quick look at his altimeter. Five thousand feet. Kelsey held his
track, angled it downward a bit more. He wanted to get closer. His
speed increased perceptibly. He was closing on the figure. She looked
up at him. It was Lara's face.
Kelsey's heart, which had been beating nearly two hundred times
per minute, nearly stopped in his chest. Lara turned her face away
again.
An insistent beeping in his left ear warned him of pull time.
Kelsey reflexively threw out his pilot chute, and his canopy
blossomed from its deployment bag. He hung under canopy at 1500 feet,
his heart now very much alive again. Kelsey was wildly craning his
neck out, upward, searching for another body in freefall or the sign
of an open canopy. There was nothing.
Kelsey's mind was in a turmoil. He steered his canopy with violent
jerks of the control toggles, landing sloppily and hard. He'd opened
low again, so his teammates were still descending from above.
As he gathered his canopy fabric into an armload-sized ball,
Kelsey still searched the sky. Five, and only five, canopies. He sat
down in the dirt, trembling.
Chris was the first to land, swooping in to a light touchdown
about ten feet to Kelsey's right. Quickly collapsing his chute, Chris
stepped over.
"Kelsey! Are you okay? You had a hard landing, pal. What's up?"
Kelsey sat and shivered. "I think I blacked out," was all he could
manage. A blackout was the worst thing that could happen in freefall.
Chris was immediately dead serious.
"Blacked out?" Chris kneeled and put an arm on Kelsey's shoulder.
"That's it for you for today, Kel. Head for the clubhouse, crack open
a beer, and rest. I'll want to hear more about this tonight."
Chris helped Kelsey up and over toward the plane, waiting for them
just off the target area. The others were concerned, but Kelsey
didn't feel like talking. Chris made some quiet explanations and the
others left him alone. The plane was quiet as it taxied back to the
clubhouse.
The jumpers spilled out, but Kelsey kept his position behind the
pilot's seat. He told Chris he'd sit here for just a few minutes to
collect himself. Chris nodded, then left.
Sitting in the 206, with his bunched-up canopy in his lap, Kelsey
tried thinking about what he had seen. It had been Lara. It had been
Lara to the life. But Lara was dead and buried. It could not have
been she.
But it had been she. He had seen her red hair, her wry smile. He
had looked in her eyes. It had been Lara.
After a while Kelsey knew he had suffered a hallucination. Nothing
else was possible. Still shaken, he crawled from the plane and
entered the clubhouse, dropping his gear by the door. "Fandango" had
ended, and a couple of novice jumpers were watching one of Pete's
air-to-air video clips. Kelsey opened the
fridge, snagged a beer, and collapsed on the nearest couch. He
poured about half the bottle down his throat. He looked over at the
TV. The jumpers in the tape, a competition team, were superb, and
Kelsey began to lose himself in the kaleidoscopic precision of their
transitions.
Several beers later, Kelsey was half-dozing on the couch. It was
nearly sunset, and most jumpers had packed it in for the day. One
last load was up, an accelerated freefall student with two
instructors. The student, as most students did, had waited all day to
get his chance in the air. His first jump would be a night jump if
they didn't get to altitude pretty quickly. Chris and Bobert were the
instructors.
Kelsey suddenly felt that he needed to go. Peaker had left an hour
ago, and Pete and Shireen had disappeared somewhere together. There
was really no one for Kelsey to say goodbye to as he walked alone
through the dust to the parking lot and his car.
That night Kelsey had vivid dreams. He dreamed of Lara, of her
smile, of her perfect nude body spasming in ecstasy beneath him on
the beach last summer, the waves lapping at their toes. When he woke,
hung over, in the morning, his pillow was wet with tears.
Sufferin' succotash. Indeed.
Kelsey's week at work passed in a dreamlike detachment. He worked
mechanically, by rote. He functioned. He didn't know if he would be
back at the drop zone this weekend. He was focused on getting through
the week.
The following Saturday dawned clear, warm and dry, and looking at
the morning, Kelsey felt strongly that the drop zone was where he
wanted to be. There was no place he'd rather be, in fact. He gathered
his gear, loaded his car, and drove. The drop zone was a half hour
away.
He pulled into the lot about ten-thirty. Prime time. Kelsey
shagged his gear into the clubhouse, and ran into Chris in the
lounge.
Chris looked at Kelsey searchingly. "What's the story, Kel?", he
asked. "You had all of us worried last week. Have you seen a doctor?"
Kelsey sat down on the sofa opposite Chris. The lounge was
otherwise empty. Pete, Shireen and Peaker were outside playing hacky
sack. The sunlight was clear, the morning still cool. Kelsey looked
Chris in the eyes.
"I was depressed last week, I think," he said, slowly. "I had a
hallucination."Kelsey shifted uneasily in his seat. "I thought I saw
Lara in freefall."
Chris remained silent for a time, looking hard at Kelsey. He
nodded finally, and looked down. Everyone in the club knew Lara's
story, and most were careful about bringing it up around him. Lara
and Kelsey had been very close, almost from the time they met at the
DZ. She had been there for a lark, out for a day's ride on her cycle,
a 450 Suzuki, and stopped to watch the colorful canopies drift to
earth. She had started questioning Kelsey, and the rest was
inevitable. She became a regular feature at the DZ with Kelsey,
hanging in through long, boring summer days while Kelsey and his pals
plummeted through the blue. Kelsey had finally talked her into
considering a first-jump course. She had been riding her Suzuki on
the way to her first day's training when she hit an oil slick
rounding the final curve to the airport. Her helmet strap had broken,
and she had sustained massive head injuries. She had been brain dead
on arrival at the hospital.
A rising gorge of misery choked Kelsey's throat. He couldn't say
any more to Chris. Chris finally stood up. On his way out the door,
he put one hand on Kelsey's shoulder.
"Kel? You all right about jumping today?" Kelsey swallowed, looked
Chris in the eye, nodded. Chris went out into the packing area.
The hacky sack game was ending. Everyone was limber and ready to
skydive. Kelsey walked over to the manifest and saw one name on the
list. Bobert's. Kelsey wrote his own name underneath. Then he went
outside to talk to Dave, the pilot.
Dave was checking the oil in the 206, a scrutinizing look on his
face, and the dipstick and a rag in his hands.
"Yo, Dave," said Kel. "Up for a high one today, pal?"
Dave screwed the dipstick in and grinned. "Sure, Kel," he said. "A
little freestyle today?" Freestyle was a coming trend in skydiving,
elaborate solo acrobatics and dance maneuvers. Kel had some good
experience with these, but had never worked on them enough to reach
competition level. He preferred relative work, or flying relative to
other jumpers in formation. This morning, though, he had a different
idea.
Kel agreed with Dave that after dropping a four-way, they'd go up
to fourteen thousand feet. That altitude was good for seventy seconds
of freefall, and seventy seconds was plenty of time to do some
serious solo work. Kel thought he'd try a Daffy, followed by a
standup, then a twirly bird. He went inside to get his rig. Bobert,
Peaker, Shireen and Pete were standing at the manifest.
"Kel!", said Pete, looking at the manifest. "Says here you're
doing a solo. Are you OK with that? I mean, last week . . ." Kelsey
cut him off.
"I'm fine, Pete." Kelsey managed a confident smile. "Just a little
freestyle.
Besides," he said, "if I spaz out there'll be no one's dive to
screw up but mine." Pete smiled, then asked seriously, "Are you
really okay, man?" He and Peaker were looking at Kelsey closely.
"Never better," said Kelsey. He knew what he was doing.
"Okay!" said Pete. "Let's go dirt dive, guys." They stepped
outside into the packing area. Pete had a dive diagramed on a scrap
of paper.
Kelsey took his place in the 206. His back resting against the
rear of the pilot's seat, he closed his eyes. A flood of questions
passed through his mind. He put them aside, intent on enjoying the
dive.
Dave entered the plane with his customary how-DEE!, buckled his
belt, and began the engine start checklist. Bobert, Peaker, Shireen
and Pete tumbled into the plane full of mirth and mutual teasings.
They bantered among each other as Dave started the engine and began
the taxi roll. Kelsey, on his own dive, was not included. That suited
him; he needed to think.
As the plane climbed into the summer morning, Kelsey closed his
eyes, tuning out everything but the engine drone. A fierce longing, a
sense of pain and loss, nearly overwhelmed him. For a moment he
considered riding the plane down instead of jumping, but only for a
moment. There was nothing he needed more than a jump now.
At nine thousand feet, Peaker rolled up the door and stuck out his
head to spot. In a few moments the group had climbed out, gone
through their count, and left. When they let go, they disappeared
like so many feathers in a gale. Out of sight in an instant.
Dave turned around and spoke to Kelsey over the engine noise.
"Okay," he yelled, "Fourteen thousand aggles coming up!" Aggles were
AGL's, or feet Above Ground Level. Kelsey checked his straps, and
compared his altimeter with the plane's, remembering to subtract the
field elevation.
From fourteen thousand feet, the features of the Valley were
indistinct. It was even tough to make out Mount Sugarloaf, which
reached only 1800 aggles. Nothing on the ground looked too
significant from nearly three miles of altitude. Kelsey remembered
the saying that in order to love one's world, one must keep one's
distance.
The 206 turned on to jump run at just above fourteen thousand feet
and leveled out. Spotting from this height was tricky, but Kelsey was
a pro. About three hundred yards beyond the target, the right spot
for today's winds, Kelsey yelled "Cut!", and bombed out the door.
The air at fourteen thousand feet was thin, and cold. Technically
he shouldn't be this high without oxygen. Though it had been 75
degrees on the ground, it was below freezing at this level. Kelsey
felt like a snowflake, light in the breeze, precise, sharp. Without a
conscious decision, he entered an extreme track.
As his air speed climbed from 120 toward 180 mph, his eyes
searched the hemisphere. There was no sign of the figure. Then,
suddenly, he saw her, off to the left and a thousand feet below.
Kelsey experienced an extreme series of emotions. A yearning arose
in his chest like none he had ever known. Unconsciously, he steepened
his track. Lara, if it were she, grew nearer. Eleven thousand feet.
Almost a minute of time left.
Hurtling from above, at least 60 mph faster than Lara in his dive,
Kelsey rapidly closed the distance between them. A maniacal focus
like none he could recall overcame him. He would catch her. He could
see red curls poking out from under the leather jump hat.
Kelsey flared out of his dive, and his increased surface area
acted as a speed brake. He was almost on Lara's level, and he could
see her looking up at him. It was Lara. It was. Kelsey flew closer
with practiced, precise skill. Lara was looking at him. She spoke,
but Kelsey heard no words in the roar of freefall. He was five feet
away. She was real. But Lara looked subtly wrong. It was more than
the pressure of the wind on her face. Her skin was stretched tight.
Her flesh was cracked. Lara's face was a Death's head, a skull- shape
with deep hollows in the eye sockets. Her smile, which had seemed
beckoning, was a rictus. But strangely, this face seemed sympathetic,
careworn; as Kelsey was careworn. Tired, but promising of rest. There
was nothing evil or monstrous about it. As Kelsey looked into Lara's
eyes, he began to understand and accept what she was telling him. As
Kelsey began to understand, Lara's features softened and shone with
all the loveliness she had had in life.
Kelsey snapped back to reality just in time to see that he was
low-- very low. His hand was a blur streaking for his reserve handle.
The earth was coming up very fast. "Sufferin'. .
Succotash.
* * *
Anacon, one of the lesser Angels of Death, who really was of no
determinate gender, smiled and shrugged off its mortal disguise.
Another troubled soul at rest. All of them were accepting in the end,
even grateful, as Anacon had sensed this one had been. People
demonized death, but the only demons, Anacon knew, were of Man's
making.
A clear white being of amorphous form, Anacon flared, then
resolved into the ether.
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