FOUR-SECOND SUPERMAN
C. EUGENE DEROSIER
The clock on the dashboard displayed 1:04am. Thin Lizzy played on the radio at a nearly inaudible level. I didn’t pay any mind to the music. Instead, I found myself staring out of the windshield of my parked car. A quarter-mile away, the colossal bridge towered over the surrounding landscape. I took a deep breath and stepped out of my car.
Clouds rolled in towards the bay at a lazy pace. The late-August air still clung to the warmth of the day before. I walked to the front of my car and sat on the hood. The nighttime traffic was sparse, leaving an unusual calm hovering over the usually chaotic roadway. None of the other drivers seemed to mind me parked on the shoulder of the highway. It was San Francisco in the 80’s. Everyone was running on Zim’s burgers and cocaine in those days, and as it goes, there were other more important things to worry about.
From my breast pocket, I pulled out a soft pack of Winston’s. I examined the red packaging, looked inside, and counted, one… two… three… four. Number three spoke to me. I placed the cigarette between my lips and struck a match.
For quite some time, I avoided looking at the ominous glow of the bridge. Overhead, the clouds began to thin, revealing a haunting night sky. The stars seemed to dangle in the air like Christmas lights. I looked off to my left. My heart felt heavy as I looked upon the city
skyline.
The bridge reminded me of the movie Herbie Rides Again. I saw it a few years prior with my friend Jayson. When I squinted my eyes, I could picture that little silver Beetle with the iconic ‘53’ painted on its sides. I imagined Herbie driving up a few days prior, honking his horn (in that over-the-top Disney way he does), and driving out onto the rail to prevent what occurred. Maybe Herbie could have lifted my friend Jayson from the fog. God, if only some of that movie magic could find its way to folks in the real world. If only.
For a while, I began to ponder my place in the Universe—this God-forsaken rock I call home—the many ways in which human beings rob one another of anything resembling joy, and what the hell I’m even here for. Mostly, I thought about Jayson. I wondered if he looked down at me from the heavens above. For all I knew, my friend was now some sort of ethereal cosmonaut, bound for some place just south of Orion (I imagined him saying, “there sure are a lot of pretty gals here”). A little part of me wished I was there with him.
Gazing at the stars gave me an eerie sense of vertigo. The more I looked at those far-away worlds, the more I began to realize something quite odd—I wasn’t looking up at them, I was looking down at them. I began to feel their pull. I pictured dropping from the earth and falling into the cold darkness of outer space. Thank God for gravity. Still, there was a part of me that wished for our little-blue-planet to loosen its grip on me. Would it be liberating or lonely to no longer be tied to the only place we’ve ever known? I wondered what it would be like to float away like a leaf in the wind.
The heat from my last cigarette reached my fingertips. The empty pack rested on the hood beside me, which gave me great disappointment. I took one last drag of my cigarette, hopped off the hood, and threw the stub onto the pavement. With a little nicotine-fueled courage, I walked over toward the bridge.
Sometimes in life, you find yourself in a sort of daze. Life feels distant, surreal. It’s like your soul is a million-miles away and you’re left alone in a hollow shell. No matter how hard you try, you come up with zero answers. This was one of those moments. Even though the night sky was clear, I could feel the San Francisco fog. It was ghostly, completely unseen, but its presence was known. It coiled itself around me, serpent-like. My chest felt heavy and compressed, leaving me short of breath. This sickening feeling amplified as I stood on the bridge staring at a display of flowers on the sidewalk in front of me. Above the flowers was a shoddy-looking cardboard cross, mounted to the rusty-orange railing. I felt like vomiting.
Soon, the fog had lifted. My mind began to clear. All at once, I felt myself becoming fully aware of my surroundings. My legs began to quiver when I realized how high I was above the water. I took hold of the railing and leaned over the edge. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the image of Jayson’s body plummeting towards the murky depths of the bay below. For a second, I wondered what it would be like to hit the surface of the water at such a high rate of speed.
“It’s a long way down, mister.” A voice yelled out from the other side of the bridge. I turned to see an old man crossing the roadway towards me, dodging several cars along the way.
“Sure is,” I yelled back.
The old man stopped a few feet short of me. He held his callused hands in front of him, as if he were ready to grab me if I fell.
“Four seconds,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Four seconds. That’s how long you would be in the air if you fell from this height.”
“Four seconds,” I said, echoing the urgency in his voice.
I felt a phantom pain in my right thigh.
It was the Summer of ’71.
For nearly an hour, I sulked behind a creaky-old cottonwood. I felt fear. I didn’t know how badly I had hurt my friend. Not only that, I was seething with anger. I unbuckled my jeans and slid them down part way. On my right thigh I noticed several large welts. Around the edges of each welt was a thick ring of red, like a terrible sunburn. In the middle of each welt, where each impact was centered, my skin was already bruised, black and blue.
An hour before, my friend Jayson— in his sick sort of way—thought it would be funny to blast me a few times with his new BB-gun. I, of course, was completely oblivious to his plan. After I beat him at a game of Horse, he decided to enact his revenge. I put the basketball in the garage and went out in the yard looking for him. He was nowhere to be found. I walked around to the rear of the house where the shed lay.
“Jayson, where did you go?” I scanned the edge of the forest, half-expecting him to jump out at me. “C’mon, man. Maybe if you weren’t such a terrible shot you’d have won the game.”
I heard a faint whistle in the air. Instantly, a sharp pain in my leg caused me to fall over.
“Gotcha, fucker!” Jayson yelled, jumping out from behind the shed. He gripped his Crosman 500 like he was an infantryman running up the flanks of Hamburger Hill. Without hesitation, he ran over to me, aimed his gun at my leg, and fired three more rounds.
“Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you?” I fought like hell to keep from crying. My right leg began to throb. “Seriously, man. That wasn’t cool.”
“I had orders you Commie-swine,” Jayson said with a thick accent. He flashed me a devilish look as he raised his BB- gun again. Helpless, I stared up at his gap-toothed grin and freckly cheeks. He pointed the gun down at the leg he had just assaulted. He pulled the trigger.
I saw red. Jumping to my feet, easily overtook him. I ripped the Crosman 500 from his hands. Holding the gun like a spear, I pitched it through the air into a thicket of blackberry bushes. Jayson ran over to try and retrieve it.
“Christ, Mickey. It’ll take me all day to fish that thing out of these stickers,” he said.
“Yeah? Well, maybe you should’ve thought of that before you shot me in the friggin’ leg.” I felt myself begin to calm down. “Your old man’s been watching the ‘Nam footage, hasn’t he?”
“Hell, you know he has,” Jayson said with pride. “Walter Cron-Shite’s coverage been keepin’ him buzzed.”
“I swear man, if that war doesn’t end soon, you’ll be over there in a few years burnin’ half that goddamn jungle down.” I looked at Jayson and felt a twinge of pity.
“Maybe so. Daddy says the war will be over real soon, though. Daddy says they ain’t got nothin’ on our troops.” Jayson spoke with authority. “Daddy says they’re holed up in the ground like a bunch of gophers. Daddy says Uncle Sam bringin’ the heat.”
“They’re people too, you know,” I said.
Turning my back on Jayson, I began limping toward the house. I heard him wrestling with the shrubs hopelessly in search of his gun. Before I reached the edge of the yard, I felt a dull thud in the middle of my back. I turned, and noticed a blackberry lying half-smashed on the ground. I picked it up and threw it in his direction.
“Nice try, turdface. You’re not going to hurt me with no goddamn blackberry.”
“C’mon, Mick. I’m just havin’ a little fun. What’re you gonna go hide in the house and call your mama now.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“Oh, c’mon. You don’t want her to think you’re some kind of little pussy, do ya’?”
“Jayson, that’s enough,” I said. Once again, I turned away and walked toward the house, my right leg dragging behind me. I heard him call out from behind me.
“You’s just a big, fat, Commie-lover. I wipe my ass with scum like you.”
“What the hell did you just say?” I felt the anger rise again.
“You heard me. Mickey Rollins ain’t nothing but a freedom-hating, Commie- lover. Daddy says your folks’s are a couple of flimsy-spined Demmy-Crats.” Jayson said, chuckling as though he had come up with a clever joke.
Once again, Jayson Morris caused me to reach my boiling point. I stuck my boot in the ground and sprinted towards him. He must have been a little surprised by my actions because he did nothing to get out of my way. I lowered my shoulder and hit him full-force in the chest. His frail body bounced off of mine and fell backwards into the base of a cedar tree. I heard a hollow conk.
Jayson sat slumped over. I felt stunned. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I kneeled next to him and looked him over. His eyes were clenched shut, his head rested against his right shoulder. I placed a hand on his chest, which still had a very slight rise and fall. I took my hand and reached behind his head where he had collided with the tree. I felt a wet spot in the middle of his skull. Pulling my hand away, I stared at a thick smear of red on my palm.
“I’m so sorry, buddy,” I whispered to him, as tears rolled down my cheeks. He didn’t respond. I stood up and ran into the forest.
Behind that creaky-old cottonwood, I went through a gamut of emotions. I was afraid Jayson would never wake up. Yet, I felt anger at his lashing out at me. It was unfair what he did. In the primal-ape part of my brain, I even felt a little justified. Mostly, I just sat and cried. I wished the whole thing had never happened; I wished that Jayson hadn’t shot me in the leg, and called me and my family names; I wished I didn’t push him into that tree.
Not knowing if anyone would hear, or even care, I said a little prayer.
“God, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to do what I did. Please forgive Jayson. He doesn’t mean what he says or what he does, either. His dad beats him silly, and his mom died a long time ago. I suppose he acts the way he does in order to cover up some hidden pain. Deep down we both know he’s got a good heart. I don’t blame him. He’s my best friend, my only friend, and I love him like he’s my own brother.” I cried and held my face in the palm of my hands.
I continued, “Above all else: please bless all the people fighting in Vietnam. ALL the people. Our side and their side. Please bring an end to this war, and all wars to come. We are just a bunch of sorry-ass apes running around scared. We don’t know any better, kinda like me and Jayson. Maybe someday we’ll understand a little more about what we are. Maybe someday we will have all the answers we seek. Until then, I hope you guide all those young soldiers back home. Come to think of it, maybe we are all just trying to get back home...”
I looked up at the canopy of trees which swayed gently in the breeze. Soft- white clouds rolled high above, as birds chirped serenely. I closed my eyes and said, “Amen.”
Suddenly, I heard branches snapping off to my right. I peeked around the tree trunk and spotted Jayson’s dad, Glenn. Behind him, I saw Jayson walking with a sad look on his face, a white towel held against the back of his head.
“Well, there you are you little shit,” Glenn said.
“Sir, I’m really sorry. When I saw that Jayson was hurt, I got really scared and I ran.”
“It appears that way. Next time one of you gets hurt, come in the house and get me. I don’t want any more of this pussy-ass, running-away-stuff. Ya’ hear?” Glenn turned towards Jayson. “See boy, he didn’t get eaten by no motherfucking cougar. Now, let’s all go back to the house so I can finish my goddamn supper. But first, you,” he pointed down at me as he spoke, “you are going to get that gun out of those stickers, ya’ hear?” Glenn spat a thick-brown wad of tobacco onto the ground in front of my feet.
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling myself blush.
On the way back to the house, I walked beside Jayson. At one point, I turned to him and whispered, “I’m sorry, buddy.”
He said, “I know, me too, Mick.” Then, he spoke really low so his father wouldn’t hear him. “Someday, Mickey.Someday, I will fly away from here. I’m gonna fly away from here like Superman.”
“I bet you will, buddy.”
That day, in the summer of 1971, was a turning point. Jayson and I remained friends, however, a rift began to form between us. Sometimes as friends grow older, they grow apart. Unfortunately, Jayson and I were no exception to the rule. As the years went by, we saw less and less of one another; though, we did our best to remain friends. I made other friends along the way too, but I never really connected with anyone else like Jayson. It’s fucking hard finding people you connect with deeper than the surface level, and this becomes increasingly more apparent as you get older. For some reason, Jayson and I really connected, if only for a little while. The sad fact remains: Jayson was troubled, and he became ever more so as we got older.
After graduation day in 1979, Jayson packed his bags and moved out west. He finally had enough of his dad’s bullshit. There’s only so many punches you can take before you throw the towel. The last time I saw Jayson, he had hair down to his shoulders and wanted to be an actor. He tried Hollywood and eventually made his way up the Bay Area. His movie-star dream never materialized, but he did find love. Eventually, his relationship—like most things in his life—ended in a bad way. His girlfriend took off with some Berkeley-brat and never said goodbye.
Jayson sent me a letter a few months before he passed. Apparently, he lucked out and found a roommate with a rent- controlled apartment in Oakland, someplace by Lake Merritt. He and his roommate Petey—a maintenance man for BART— seemed to be doing okay for themselves. Jayson got by working on sailboats on Alameda.
The night he died, Jayson bought some crack from a guy down near Jack London Square, and took it back to his apartment where he sniffed a few too many rails. Petey tried to calm him down, but Jayson was all gacked-out and paranoid. About a quarter to midnight, Jayson left their apartment and hopped into a cab. Police found him two days later lying dead and bloated on the shore of the bay, the water-damaged picture of his ex-girlfriend still rested in his pocket. When the Police questioned Petey, he mentioned Jayson said something about ‘flying’ before he left the apartment.
“Where’s your head, son?” The voice of the old man snapped me out of my trance. Once again, I became aware of the bridge.
“In the past. Say, old-timer, why are you walking out here on the bridge so late?”
“Not sure. Sometimes an old guy like me finds himself heading in directions he can’t remember heading in. I’m glad I ran into you, though. You weren’t thinking about jumping, were you?”
“No.” I looked down at the flowers and the cardboard cross. “This is for my friend. His name was Jayson.”
“Oh, I’m very sorry, young man. Did he leave a note?”
“No, I’m out here tonight trying to figure it all out. I keep picturing him when we were little kids. If we had known then how everything would turn out...” My voice trailed off as I stared at the pavement in front of me. My eyes began to blur with heavy tears. “He got all messed up on drugs and lost his way. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell he was thinking. I wasn’t around. Maybe if I had been a better friend...”
“Now, don’t you go blaming yourself for this. I may be an old geezer, but I know a thing or two about this life. For all we know, we will never understand what motivates people to do such things. I mean, there is a billion different reasons, but they never make sense when they happen. So, don’t feel like this is in any way your fault. Listen— no amount of woulda-coulda-shouldas are going to bring back your friend.”
The old man became wide-eyed and lucid. Something about him seemed to glow.
He continued on, “those of us on this side of the spiritual plane are left to carry the burden of pain from everyone we lose. It isn’t always right, but sometimes we have to face life’s horrors with a brave face. Son, having a friend end their own life leaves us with an unsolvable equation. I’m telling you, don’t go wasting the rest of your life trying to add up all the ones and zeroes. You won’t get anywhere. If I do know one thing for certain, it’s that there is a reason for everything. And I mean everything. There isn’t anything trivial in this world. Someday, when you’re getting up there in age like me, you’re going to be able to trace a line back through your life and connect all the dots. The book of life has already been written, we’re just living through the pages.”
“And you think all of that is true?”
“You’re damn right I do.”
I stood next to the old man for a while. We didn’t say anything. Crazy or not, I felt comforted with him by my side.
A few minutes passed before he spoke again, “Son, can I ask if they ever found him? His body, I mean.”
“Yeah, he washed up somewhere along Bonita Cove.” I pointed in the direction I thought he ended up.
“Bonita Cove...now I remember. I was walking towards Bonita Cove to visit the lighthouse. I was going to meet a friend of mine there tomorrow. Rumor has it, Humphrey the Whale is headed this way. We’re going to try and get a good look at
him.”
“I think I saw something about that on the news. If I may ask, couldn’t your trip wait until the morning?”
“It could have. But at my age, you don’t always get to wait until morning. You gotta keep moving to keep living.” He looked me over, his eyes turning sad.
“Son, I’m very sorry you lost your friend. Even though he’s gone from this world, he’s still out there somewhere. Most importantly, the memory of him is still alive in your heart. As long as you keep his memory alive, he won’t ever die.”
“Thanks, old man,” I said.
The man turned away from me, walked a few paces down the sidewalk, stopped, and turned to say, “You know son, your friend did get to fly.”
“Yeah...like a four-second Superman.”
“No, son. He’s still flying.” I glanced down at the memorial display for the last time. Something made me laugh when I looked at the shoddy cardboard cross. That must be Petey’s handywork, I thought to myself. I processed the last thing the old man said to me. Something about those words echoed in my head. I wished to thank him again for being so kind, before he walked out of earshot. I turned in his direction and he was gone.
Clouds rolled in towards the bay at a lazy pace. The late-August air still clung to the warmth of the day before. I walked to the front of my car and sat on the hood. The nighttime traffic was sparse, leaving an unusual calm hovering over the usually chaotic roadway. None of the other drivers seemed to mind me parked on the shoulder of the highway. It was San Francisco in the 80’s. Everyone was running on Zim’s burgers and cocaine in those days, and as it goes, there were other more important things to worry about.
From my breast pocket, I pulled out a soft pack of Winston’s. I examined the red packaging, looked inside, and counted, one… two… three… four. Number three spoke to me. I placed the cigarette between my lips and struck a match.
For quite some time, I avoided looking at the ominous glow of the bridge. Overhead, the clouds began to thin, revealing a haunting night sky. The stars seemed to dangle in the air like Christmas lights. I looked off to my left. My heart felt heavy as I looked upon the city
skyline.
The bridge reminded me of the movie Herbie Rides Again. I saw it a few years prior with my friend Jayson. When I squinted my eyes, I could picture that little silver Beetle with the iconic ‘53’ painted on its sides. I imagined Herbie driving up a few days prior, honking his horn (in that over-the-top Disney way he does), and driving out onto the rail to prevent what occurred. Maybe Herbie could have lifted my friend Jayson from the fog. God, if only some of that movie magic could find its way to folks in the real world. If only.
For a while, I began to ponder my place in the Universe—this God-forsaken rock I call home—the many ways in which human beings rob one another of anything resembling joy, and what the hell I’m even here for. Mostly, I thought about Jayson. I wondered if he looked down at me from the heavens above. For all I knew, my friend was now some sort of ethereal cosmonaut, bound for some place just south of Orion (I imagined him saying, “there sure are a lot of pretty gals here”). A little part of me wished I was there with him.
Gazing at the stars gave me an eerie sense of vertigo. The more I looked at those far-away worlds, the more I began to realize something quite odd—I wasn’t looking up at them, I was looking down at them. I began to feel their pull. I pictured dropping from the earth and falling into the cold darkness of outer space. Thank God for gravity. Still, there was a part of me that wished for our little-blue-planet to loosen its grip on me. Would it be liberating or lonely to no longer be tied to the only place we’ve ever known? I wondered what it would be like to float away like a leaf in the wind.
The heat from my last cigarette reached my fingertips. The empty pack rested on the hood beside me, which gave me great disappointment. I took one last drag of my cigarette, hopped off the hood, and threw the stub onto the pavement. With a little nicotine-fueled courage, I walked over toward the bridge.
Sometimes in life, you find yourself in a sort of daze. Life feels distant, surreal. It’s like your soul is a million-miles away and you’re left alone in a hollow shell. No matter how hard you try, you come up with zero answers. This was one of those moments. Even though the night sky was clear, I could feel the San Francisco fog. It was ghostly, completely unseen, but its presence was known. It coiled itself around me, serpent-like. My chest felt heavy and compressed, leaving me short of breath. This sickening feeling amplified as I stood on the bridge staring at a display of flowers on the sidewalk in front of me. Above the flowers was a shoddy-looking cardboard cross, mounted to the rusty-orange railing. I felt like vomiting.
Soon, the fog had lifted. My mind began to clear. All at once, I felt myself becoming fully aware of my surroundings. My legs began to quiver when I realized how high I was above the water. I took hold of the railing and leaned over the edge. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the image of Jayson’s body plummeting towards the murky depths of the bay below. For a second, I wondered what it would be like to hit the surface of the water at such a high rate of speed.
“It’s a long way down, mister.” A voice yelled out from the other side of the bridge. I turned to see an old man crossing the roadway towards me, dodging several cars along the way.
“Sure is,” I yelled back.
The old man stopped a few feet short of me. He held his callused hands in front of him, as if he were ready to grab me if I fell.
“Four seconds,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Four seconds. That’s how long you would be in the air if you fell from this height.”
“Four seconds,” I said, echoing the urgency in his voice.
I felt a phantom pain in my right thigh.
It was the Summer of ’71.
For nearly an hour, I sulked behind a creaky-old cottonwood. I felt fear. I didn’t know how badly I had hurt my friend. Not only that, I was seething with anger. I unbuckled my jeans and slid them down part way. On my right thigh I noticed several large welts. Around the edges of each welt was a thick ring of red, like a terrible sunburn. In the middle of each welt, where each impact was centered, my skin was already bruised, black and blue.
An hour before, my friend Jayson— in his sick sort of way—thought it would be funny to blast me a few times with his new BB-gun. I, of course, was completely oblivious to his plan. After I beat him at a game of Horse, he decided to enact his revenge. I put the basketball in the garage and went out in the yard looking for him. He was nowhere to be found. I walked around to the rear of the house where the shed lay.
“Jayson, where did you go?” I scanned the edge of the forest, half-expecting him to jump out at me. “C’mon, man. Maybe if you weren’t such a terrible shot you’d have won the game.”
I heard a faint whistle in the air. Instantly, a sharp pain in my leg caused me to fall over.
“Gotcha, fucker!” Jayson yelled, jumping out from behind the shed. He gripped his Crosman 500 like he was an infantryman running up the flanks of Hamburger Hill. Without hesitation, he ran over to me, aimed his gun at my leg, and fired three more rounds.
“Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you?” I fought like hell to keep from crying. My right leg began to throb. “Seriously, man. That wasn’t cool.”
“I had orders you Commie-swine,” Jayson said with a thick accent. He flashed me a devilish look as he raised his BB- gun again. Helpless, I stared up at his gap-toothed grin and freckly cheeks. He pointed the gun down at the leg he had just assaulted. He pulled the trigger.
I saw red. Jumping to my feet, easily overtook him. I ripped the Crosman 500 from his hands. Holding the gun like a spear, I pitched it through the air into a thicket of blackberry bushes. Jayson ran over to try and retrieve it.
“Christ, Mickey. It’ll take me all day to fish that thing out of these stickers,” he said.
“Yeah? Well, maybe you should’ve thought of that before you shot me in the friggin’ leg.” I felt myself begin to calm down. “Your old man’s been watching the ‘Nam footage, hasn’t he?”
“Hell, you know he has,” Jayson said with pride. “Walter Cron-Shite’s coverage been keepin’ him buzzed.”
“I swear man, if that war doesn’t end soon, you’ll be over there in a few years burnin’ half that goddamn jungle down.” I looked at Jayson and felt a twinge of pity.
“Maybe so. Daddy says the war will be over real soon, though. Daddy says they ain’t got nothin’ on our troops.” Jayson spoke with authority. “Daddy says they’re holed up in the ground like a bunch of gophers. Daddy says Uncle Sam bringin’ the heat.”
“They’re people too, you know,” I said.
Turning my back on Jayson, I began limping toward the house. I heard him wrestling with the shrubs hopelessly in search of his gun. Before I reached the edge of the yard, I felt a dull thud in the middle of my back. I turned, and noticed a blackberry lying half-smashed on the ground. I picked it up and threw it in his direction.
“Nice try, turdface. You’re not going to hurt me with no goddamn blackberry.”
“C’mon, Mick. I’m just havin’ a little fun. What’re you gonna go hide in the house and call your mama now.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“Oh, c’mon. You don’t want her to think you’re some kind of little pussy, do ya’?”
“Jayson, that’s enough,” I said. Once again, I turned away and walked toward the house, my right leg dragging behind me. I heard him call out from behind me.
“You’s just a big, fat, Commie-lover. I wipe my ass with scum like you.”
“What the hell did you just say?” I felt the anger rise again.
“You heard me. Mickey Rollins ain’t nothing but a freedom-hating, Commie- lover. Daddy says your folks’s are a couple of flimsy-spined Demmy-Crats.” Jayson said, chuckling as though he had come up with a clever joke.
Once again, Jayson Morris caused me to reach my boiling point. I stuck my boot in the ground and sprinted towards him. He must have been a little surprised by my actions because he did nothing to get out of my way. I lowered my shoulder and hit him full-force in the chest. His frail body bounced off of mine and fell backwards into the base of a cedar tree. I heard a hollow conk.
Jayson sat slumped over. I felt stunned. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I kneeled next to him and looked him over. His eyes were clenched shut, his head rested against his right shoulder. I placed a hand on his chest, which still had a very slight rise and fall. I took my hand and reached behind his head where he had collided with the tree. I felt a wet spot in the middle of his skull. Pulling my hand away, I stared at a thick smear of red on my palm.
“I’m so sorry, buddy,” I whispered to him, as tears rolled down my cheeks. He didn’t respond. I stood up and ran into the forest.
Behind that creaky-old cottonwood, I went through a gamut of emotions. I was afraid Jayson would never wake up. Yet, I felt anger at his lashing out at me. It was unfair what he did. In the primal-ape part of my brain, I even felt a little justified. Mostly, I just sat and cried. I wished the whole thing had never happened; I wished that Jayson hadn’t shot me in the leg, and called me and my family names; I wished I didn’t push him into that tree.
Not knowing if anyone would hear, or even care, I said a little prayer.
“God, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to do what I did. Please forgive Jayson. He doesn’t mean what he says or what he does, either. His dad beats him silly, and his mom died a long time ago. I suppose he acts the way he does in order to cover up some hidden pain. Deep down we both know he’s got a good heart. I don’t blame him. He’s my best friend, my only friend, and I love him like he’s my own brother.” I cried and held my face in the palm of my hands.
I continued, “Above all else: please bless all the people fighting in Vietnam. ALL the people. Our side and their side. Please bring an end to this war, and all wars to come. We are just a bunch of sorry-ass apes running around scared. We don’t know any better, kinda like me and Jayson. Maybe someday we’ll understand a little more about what we are. Maybe someday we will have all the answers we seek. Until then, I hope you guide all those young soldiers back home. Come to think of it, maybe we are all just trying to get back home...”
I looked up at the canopy of trees which swayed gently in the breeze. Soft- white clouds rolled high above, as birds chirped serenely. I closed my eyes and said, “Amen.”
Suddenly, I heard branches snapping off to my right. I peeked around the tree trunk and spotted Jayson’s dad, Glenn. Behind him, I saw Jayson walking with a sad look on his face, a white towel held against the back of his head.
“Well, there you are you little shit,” Glenn said.
“Sir, I’m really sorry. When I saw that Jayson was hurt, I got really scared and I ran.”
“It appears that way. Next time one of you gets hurt, come in the house and get me. I don’t want any more of this pussy-ass, running-away-stuff. Ya’ hear?” Glenn turned towards Jayson. “See boy, he didn’t get eaten by no motherfucking cougar. Now, let’s all go back to the house so I can finish my goddamn supper. But first, you,” he pointed down at me as he spoke, “you are going to get that gun out of those stickers, ya’ hear?” Glenn spat a thick-brown wad of tobacco onto the ground in front of my feet.
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling myself blush.
On the way back to the house, I walked beside Jayson. At one point, I turned to him and whispered, “I’m sorry, buddy.”
He said, “I know, me too, Mick.” Then, he spoke really low so his father wouldn’t hear him. “Someday, Mickey.Someday, I will fly away from here. I’m gonna fly away from here like Superman.”
“I bet you will, buddy.”
That day, in the summer of 1971, was a turning point. Jayson and I remained friends, however, a rift began to form between us. Sometimes as friends grow older, they grow apart. Unfortunately, Jayson and I were no exception to the rule. As the years went by, we saw less and less of one another; though, we did our best to remain friends. I made other friends along the way too, but I never really connected with anyone else like Jayson. It’s fucking hard finding people you connect with deeper than the surface level, and this becomes increasingly more apparent as you get older. For some reason, Jayson and I really connected, if only for a little while. The sad fact remains: Jayson was troubled, and he became ever more so as we got older.
After graduation day in 1979, Jayson packed his bags and moved out west. He finally had enough of his dad’s bullshit. There’s only so many punches you can take before you throw the towel. The last time I saw Jayson, he had hair down to his shoulders and wanted to be an actor. He tried Hollywood and eventually made his way up the Bay Area. His movie-star dream never materialized, but he did find love. Eventually, his relationship—like most things in his life—ended in a bad way. His girlfriend took off with some Berkeley-brat and never said goodbye.
Jayson sent me a letter a few months before he passed. Apparently, he lucked out and found a roommate with a rent- controlled apartment in Oakland, someplace by Lake Merritt. He and his roommate Petey—a maintenance man for BART— seemed to be doing okay for themselves. Jayson got by working on sailboats on Alameda.
The night he died, Jayson bought some crack from a guy down near Jack London Square, and took it back to his apartment where he sniffed a few too many rails. Petey tried to calm him down, but Jayson was all gacked-out and paranoid. About a quarter to midnight, Jayson left their apartment and hopped into a cab. Police found him two days later lying dead and bloated on the shore of the bay, the water-damaged picture of his ex-girlfriend still rested in his pocket. When the Police questioned Petey, he mentioned Jayson said something about ‘flying’ before he left the apartment.
“Where’s your head, son?” The voice of the old man snapped me out of my trance. Once again, I became aware of the bridge.
“In the past. Say, old-timer, why are you walking out here on the bridge so late?”
“Not sure. Sometimes an old guy like me finds himself heading in directions he can’t remember heading in. I’m glad I ran into you, though. You weren’t thinking about jumping, were you?”
“No.” I looked down at the flowers and the cardboard cross. “This is for my friend. His name was Jayson.”
“Oh, I’m very sorry, young man. Did he leave a note?”
“No, I’m out here tonight trying to figure it all out. I keep picturing him when we were little kids. If we had known then how everything would turn out...” My voice trailed off as I stared at the pavement in front of me. My eyes began to blur with heavy tears. “He got all messed up on drugs and lost his way. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell he was thinking. I wasn’t around. Maybe if I had been a better friend...”
“Now, don’t you go blaming yourself for this. I may be an old geezer, but I know a thing or two about this life. For all we know, we will never understand what motivates people to do such things. I mean, there is a billion different reasons, but they never make sense when they happen. So, don’t feel like this is in any way your fault. Listen— no amount of woulda-coulda-shouldas are going to bring back your friend.”
The old man became wide-eyed and lucid. Something about him seemed to glow.
He continued on, “those of us on this side of the spiritual plane are left to carry the burden of pain from everyone we lose. It isn’t always right, but sometimes we have to face life’s horrors with a brave face. Son, having a friend end their own life leaves us with an unsolvable equation. I’m telling you, don’t go wasting the rest of your life trying to add up all the ones and zeroes. You won’t get anywhere. If I do know one thing for certain, it’s that there is a reason for everything. And I mean everything. There isn’t anything trivial in this world. Someday, when you’re getting up there in age like me, you’re going to be able to trace a line back through your life and connect all the dots. The book of life has already been written, we’re just living through the pages.”
“And you think all of that is true?”
“You’re damn right I do.”
I stood next to the old man for a while. We didn’t say anything. Crazy or not, I felt comforted with him by my side.
A few minutes passed before he spoke again, “Son, can I ask if they ever found him? His body, I mean.”
“Yeah, he washed up somewhere along Bonita Cove.” I pointed in the direction I thought he ended up.
“Bonita Cove...now I remember. I was walking towards Bonita Cove to visit the lighthouse. I was going to meet a friend of mine there tomorrow. Rumor has it, Humphrey the Whale is headed this way. We’re going to try and get a good look at
him.”
“I think I saw something about that on the news. If I may ask, couldn’t your trip wait until the morning?”
“It could have. But at my age, you don’t always get to wait until morning. You gotta keep moving to keep living.” He looked me over, his eyes turning sad.
“Son, I’m very sorry you lost your friend. Even though he’s gone from this world, he’s still out there somewhere. Most importantly, the memory of him is still alive in your heart. As long as you keep his memory alive, he won’t ever die.”
“Thanks, old man,” I said.
The man turned away from me, walked a few paces down the sidewalk, stopped, and turned to say, “You know son, your friend did get to fly.”
“Yeah...like a four-second Superman.”
“No, son. He’s still flying.” I glanced down at the memorial display for the last time. Something made me laugh when I looked at the shoddy cardboard cross. That must be Petey’s handywork, I thought to myself. I processed the last thing the old man said to me. Something about those words echoed in my head. I wished to thank him again for being so kind, before he walked out of earshot. I turned in his direction and he was gone.