She called it the Devil’s Punchbowl – well, they did, the whole town
did, she just knew it, grew up with it. A basin of trees and rocks,
a gigantic precipice of cliff-face, falling directly into a quarry.
The trees surrounded the edges, sometimes growing outward diagonally, reaching
out like fingers grasping the dark. When I was a kid, my brother
and I would always imagine stuff like this while we were playing on rainy days.
“Can’t step on the floor,” he’d
instruct, authoritative. “You gotta jump from cushion to
cushion. The floor is a bottomless pit.” So then
I’d laugh and smile and jump, purposefully land just on the edge, lean a little
over the side for dramatic effect. Sometimes I’d pretend not to make
it so he could grab my hand, play hero. I’d grab his wrist and he’d
quote lines he’d heard from movies, stuff that would legitimately make your
eyes well up, if it weren’t all so absurd. Then he’d
pull me up, out of the carpet abyss, out of the
Devil’s Punchbowl.
Walking from the dirt parking lot,
eyeing the ground for any sort of safe pathway, a stretch without gnarled roots
to trip on, I tried to keep up with Nicole. She strode
ahead confidently, feet coming down like keystrokes, picking the right spot and
weight with which to step. She was wearing her tank-top
and jeans; she’d left her jacket in the car, even though I was shivering
through my own. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, thought about the possibility of
tripping on a protruding root, not being able to get my hands up to brace my
fall, then tugged them back out of the pockets, into the breeze.
I followed her to a giant, black, metal railing. The ledge
of the cliff was a good ten feet past, reflecting electric light off the rock
until the empty expanse. I couldn’t see over the edge from
here. I was relieved.
There was a gigantic fluorescent
light-up crucifix erected on the highest peak of the right side of the
semi-circled cliff. Right at the apex, someone decided a monstrous
cross, bathing everything in neon golden light, would be an appropriate fixture.
They probably put it up in effort to quell the intentions of anyone who showed
up with suicidal thoughts -- or libidinous thoughts, for that matter.
The artificial gold covered the railing, the gravel, the cigarette butts and bottles
strewn beneath. I stretched out my hands and leaned on the black guardrail, next to
Nicole. She was staring straight outwards and I could see the reflection of
the cross in her green eyes.
“Isn’t it so awesome?” she asked
without looking at me. “We used to come down here all the
time in first year, me and the girls from my floor. We’d drink,
smoke up, shout things to try to get an echo.” She had a
mischievous glint in her eye and smirk that made me think she didn’t always
come down here with just the girls. Eventually she turned that smile
towards me and grabbed my jacket sleeve. “C’mere.”
She threw one leg over the railing
and started to pivot on her ass – this big thick black wall was put in place in
case any drunk shmuck’s car started to careen off the highway, the cars that I
could still hear speeding by behind us.
“Oh no – no, no, no, no…” I started,
trying to laugh off her request, trying to keep it cool. “I can see
just fine, we’re just fine right here.”
“Jesus, Eric, come on, I do this all
the time! You’ve got to live a little -- we’re going to get you out of this rut
somehow.” She smiled and stepped to the other side of the railing, a million
miles away. “Come on, lets see if we can see the bottom – it’s so much better
in the natural moonlight, down low.”
I sighed and looked at her expecting
face, almost giddy at the prospect that she was forcing me out of my comfort zone. I started to lift one foot over the railing, just looking straight
down, focusing on my hands and their simple work.
My heart was thudding in my ears and I was petrified, but also embarrassed
because this does this all the time, and she’s in
control, and why am I so worried?
It became like when you’re in the
passenger seat next to a terrible driver who’s speeding and you
just sing along to the radio a little louder, grip the handle of the door a little tighter and
try not to pump your foot onto the
imaginary brake on the passenger side.
“We’ve
gotta get out of this place… if it's the last thing we ever do” I start singing under my breath, focusing on
the melody, smiling tightly to let her know I’m alright, as I reach out for her
hand. I shuffle along slowly, other hand low at my side, as though some
gust of wind or otherwise might suddenly come up behind me and knock me through
the air, toss us both off the safety of the cushions to the carpet below.
She stepped directly to the edge; I
dragged my sneakers over pebbles, ending up a good four feet behind her. There
was a growing pit in my stomach and I stared at the ground, trying not to
envision Nicole disappearing over the side. My head was trying to panic and I was trying to restrain the beast; my mind wanted to assess the situation and compile a list of contingencies, how
to respond if she fell, what to do first, what could be done? I just kept
humming and stood straight, a railway spike hammered firmly into
the rock beneath me. She glanced over the edge, leaning a tad too far, then
back around to me.
“You have to see it. C’mon, I’ll
hold you.”
“I’m twice your size!” I wanted it
to come across as playful, but my true emotions were showing through.
“Here. Sit down.” Nicole approached
and but her hands on my shoulders, squatting with me until we were flat on the
cold, hard rock. Never releasing me, she shimmied to about one foot from the
edge. She finally let go of my tense bicep and crossed her legs. She was so
close to me I could feel her heat, but we weren’t touching. “I think if I came
here wanting to kill myself, that would just make it worse” she said, gesturing
at the cross. “A buncha kids from my year came down here last summer and
managed to knock out most of the lights. Paper said it was some devil-worshipping cult – they were engineering students, so I guess they weren’t that
far off.” She smiled that perfect smile at me and the blend of fluorescent and
moon light ran diagonally down her face, showing me one eye, a few freckles.
She looked happy, but her next question was a surprise. “Do you ever think of killing yourself, Eric?”
I was somewhat taken aback, but I
did my best to act appalled. “Of course not! I mean, what would give you that
impression? I’m not that pathetic, am
I?” I was lying. She could tell.
“Oh gee, I don’t know, Eric:
mountains of prescription pills, a job you hate, long pregnant pauses in your
conversation, mulling around town in your black jacket like a goddamned haunting –
whatever would have given me that impression?” She reached out and playfully
mussed my hairdo. She’s eight years younger than me, yet I kept feeling like
her nerdy kid brother.
“The job isn’t really as bad as I make
it sound,” I began the defense. “I mean, I’m building up a pretty fulfilling
relationship with the photocopy machine. We get entire shifts alone together…
I’ve taken to reading Kierkegaard to her on slower days as she hums in appreciation."
“Wow, a relationship between you and
an inanimate object that can’t talk back? No wonder you’re happy.”
“Did you really bring me down here
just to bust my balls? I thought this was supposed to be a tranquil experience.” It was my
turn to flash a smile. I told myself I shouldn’t pursue this one, she’s too
young, she has too much going for her… but all I wanted to do was get her in my
arms.
She turned back to the bottomless
pit. “I don’t blame anyone who kills themselves. It isn’t their fault, all the
time. Usually we just don’t know if it’s going to get better, we just don’t
have enough.” I was going to respond, but she looked deep in it, and I kept my
mouth shut. “In the third grade we had a student teacher come in and give us a
little colour exercise with coffee filters. We each got a filter and an
eye-dropper, and the teacher came around to each desk with different solutions
of water and food colouring.
“So we would suck up some colour,
whichever we wanted, and drip them onto the centre of the filter, watch the
water claw its way towards the edge. Then we’d do another colour, and in the
end we got this little, damp, round rainbow.” She was fidgeting and picking at
the sole of her running shoe. I realized I had never seen her hesitant before.
“So anyhow, the teacher was trying to illustrate something about the
differences in colour, how some could fight closer to the edge than others,
blah blah blah… but all I remembered was being fascinated, watching each colour
ebb outwards, wondering when it would run out of steam. I do it all the time,
now; at restaurants I always dip my straw-wrapper into condensation… with my
coffee I stick the corner of the sugar cube in and watch it absorb all the
black. It’s become this stupid little habit of mine, like how some people peel
the labels of their beer bottles.” She knew that the story was sort of
pointless and I could tell that she was dancing around what she really wanted
to say. “So anyways,” she continued, “I guess that’s just how I see life,
sometimes. Sometimes we just don’t have enough to get all the way to the edge.
We give up and conk out somewhere along the way. And it isn’t necessarily our
fault.” I tried to smile meekly and I grabbed her hand. I didn’t know why such
a mundane memory suddenly had her choked up; the moonlight was glinting off of
her watering eyes to the point that they appeared silver, shimmering.
“My older brother killed himself,”
she finally let out. I squeezed her hand, tighter. “Everyone thinks it was an
accident, that he was just driving drunk, but I knew he was going to do it, I
saw it coming. I was little and I was scared and I didn’t know what to say, I
didn’t want to tell anyone and make him hate me.” She was vulnerable for all of
a moment, before wiping at her eyes and clearing her throat. Clearly embarrassed
about letting herself cry, she turned to me know, angry.
“So I know when people are thinking
about it, when they want to do it." Her eyes held mine steadfast longer than any had in ages. "So don’t fucking bullshit me.”
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