Spread Your Wings and Break Your Neck

TW: Suicidal themes.

We crossed the state border right at sunrise. It was nearly the summer solstice. A rare crack of dawn thunderstorm was blowing across the bare mountains and high plains. We pulled over on the side of the interstate and got out to recharge our batteries in the static air. Huge dendrites of electricity spread from the sky to the ground lighting up the open landscape. We offered up high fives, hollers, and laughs to the lightning gods, then slammed the car doors, cranked the stereo, and zoomed on. 

Our 1 AM departure was born from our desperation for this adventure. Work day fatigue and unpreparedness be damned. We couldn't wait another minute. We couldn't sleep. It was our first chance as 'adults.'

We made it a bit past Salt Lake City before our energy levels were dangerously low. One minute we were careening down another mountain pass shout-singing Tom Petty’s “Free Falling,” and the next we were shuffling away from our parked car at a rest area off into the red clay and sage with our sleeping pads tucked under our arms to stretch out on some open ground. The sun was coming straight down on the baked ground. We rolled around on the uncomfortable dirt, swatting flies and ants, our shirts wrapped around our faces. We tried it for an hour, wanting sleep to come, and feeling tormented by the heat and insects. 

“I’m not getting any rest,” I told Theo.

“Yep. None.” He sat upright in agreement, fed up. “Let’s keep driving.” 

We put some Visine in our tired eyes and pushed on. 

Closer to night, we rolled our sleeping bags out on a sliver of lawn on the outskirts of a small town.

We awoke at first light to the familiar, summer sound of hissing and gurgling water. We tried to ignore it, but the sounds evolved into the chic-chic-chicking sprinklers. Shots of water swept over us. We stumbled to the car and loaded up.

Finally, we arrived at Arches National Park!

We stopped at every pullout to compose photographs. 

The red landscape swallowed us. We wandered out into it.

Visiting National Parks with my family was always the closest thing I had to church, though there was never an explicit spiritual worldview that went along with it. Perhaps it was more like the closest thing our family had to going to a family cemetery, since our clans had moved around generation after generation and were buried in different lands unknown. As a family, we went to experience wonder at nature’s beauty, but I was also taught to mourn it, to mourn the landscape I was immersed in. Ecology lessons always boiled down to humanity’s devastating impacts over the past few centuries. There was always a sense of looming extinction. In that gloom, we were taught no optimism for rebirth or regeneration, just sadness for humanity's colossal hubris.

Now I was interpreting it on my own terms.

We marveled at the geology before us. The immensity of time on display was overwhelming. And this was simply Earth time. Rock wearing away particle by particle with wave after wave of light, air, and water. Time etching phenomenal scenes in perpetual flux, yet giving a distinct impression of finality. An arch carved seems a goal met, and we had to remind ourselves that “art is not eternal.” These monuments are only here temporarily, and then make way. We are lucky to glimpse what is, let us imagine what has and will be. Music is movement is motion is time.

We stumbled upon petroglyphs left by ancient humans, and a wall carved by wind into hundreds of holes that modern humans had filled with little stacks of pebbles. We kept the general direction of the road under tabs and found our way back to the trailhead with time. We camped by a big, brown river, and bullfrogs bellowed around us. The bullfrogs were a wild surprise. Everything was ripe. 

“Onward to California!” We chanted. Keep the momentum. We are all clocks racing towards: your choice.

We drove from Arches on through Capitol Reef National Park, stopping at as many pull-outs to sight see, to swim in high desert creeks, and to scamper as we could. We were going to continue on, excited about the ocean and surfing, but we noticed the car was running hot. We pulled over. The radiator cracked and we were losing coolant.

“Well balls,” I croaked, “this will be a headache.”

We kicked about the car and pulled out the road atlas to see what our options were.

We refilled the radiator with water for a quick limp down the road.

We made it to a tiny town called Bicknell and found the only mechanic. He gave the car a look-see and decided the radiator could not be mended and would need to be replaced. We’d have a couple days to spend in Bicknell. 

We weren’t sure how bummed to be. It wasn’t a planned stop, but the area was beautiful. I was a little worried about the money, but I didn’t like to think about things like that in a reality embracing manner - better as a background feeling. We opted for a forty dollar motel room, since we had nowhere to lock our stuff up with the car at the shop. 

“Let’s get drunk tonight,” I suggested. 

At home I had friends I called to get booze. That clearly wasn’t possible now. I hung around the liquor store parking lot and approached the few "rule-breaking" looking people I saw going in. The first two attempts went poorly. The third attempt worked. The guy eyed me up, then shrugged and took my money. We threw the beer in a backpack and wandered out of town on a dirt road then up a desert bluff to drink in the dry countryside. 

Red-cliffed plateaus surrounded the town. Sparse sage and short pines dotted the land. After tromping for a spell, we spotted a tree fort nailed into a scrubby pine tree about ten feet off the ground. It was obvious, even from afar, in the scant cover. A perfect find! We lugged our beer up the tree. It was fun to drink beer up high, to have big views of our surroundings, and to pee out of the fort when the time came. 

Theo had only imbibed a dozen times maybe. I’d been present for most of them. He showed his alcohol quickly. I liked that about drinking though. I didn’t see a point in trying to act sober when you were drinking. I wanted to get weird, get goofy, get wound up, get emotional.

Theo was upset with his family. His parents were strange. His father was cold. He was conservative in his manner and his philosophy. He had high expectations and gave little praise. He was a pathologist, and matter-of-factly told me he “cut up dead people” for a living. His mother was mild and quiet. She deferred to his father under all circumstances. She was a stay-at-home mom. The house ran on obedience.

“I just can’t see how the hell they ended up as they are. How they see things. They’re already so antiquated. And rigid too. They're cold. Cruel even.” He felt it was a big task to reconcile himself, them, and the rest of the world. It was too big a task. 

Our perch was unbeatable. We had lucked into a good evening. The air was hot, the view shimmered, and we had beer. The red cliffs changed colors like embers flickering in a bed of coals as the sun lowered in the sky. 

We were drinking fast. A light hot wind stirred our tree. 

“I don’t want to be like them.” Theo shook his head. “It’s so hard to bite my tongue on every opinion. I get dragged through dinner table conversation after dinner table conversation, expected to listen to and affirm and adopt their opinions. Why would they want me to be them when they’re not happy? I want to yell: ‘Look at how you are! How you feel! Try something else!’ But they seem to think they’re doing it all right and everyone else is fucking it up for them.”

“My parents would never admit they have no idea what they’re doing in this world.” I agreed.

Theo sighed. “I’d like to scare them somehow, if I could," he said. "Wake them up. Shift their perspective. Or I’d like to just not have to deal with them. Not have to perform for them. I can’t wait to move away for college, it’s going to save my life.”

“Spread your wings,” I joked, gesturing to the open landscape splayed beneath our perch. 

“And break my neck,” he said dourly, then laughed. 

“You don’t have to keep them, you know.” I stared at Theo like I knew everything.

“Whaddaya mean?” He leaned in for another beer. 

“Family is just an idea – a construct. There is nothing actually tying you together, binding you. You don’t have to see them ever again, you don’t even have to like them.”

“Well I’m supposed to love them,” he said with disgust.

“Well, yeah, you love them,” I shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he winced, “I think I hate them.” 

“Yeah, if they were anyone else, you’d hate them.” I said.

“Good god I’d hate them.” Theo squished another empty can. 

We continued on for hours. We howled. We sang. We cried. We shouted. We peed out of the fort laughing and swaying. We hung out in our tree fort ‘til all of the stars were out, then tumbled out of it in the crisp dark.

Another day died on the vine while we waited for the car.

I was restless. Hunger pangs ran through me - I wanted something from this trip - so did Theo. I wanted something from my life; I demanded it without knowing what it was. I wanted to fill the vacuum in my chest.

We checked on the car in the afternoon. It was all stitched up with a new radiator. I paid up reluctantly.

We boogied out of town, back on the road to California. We skateboarded around at a school that evening when we could drive no more. After it got dark, we climbed on to the building and slept on the roof. With the kids out for the summer, we could roll bags out under the night sky.

We charged on first thing in the morning. We were back in high gear. Time enough to smell the flowers, once per flower, then back in the car and let’s go! 

We made a stop in Las Vegas in the late evening. Being that we were both barely eighteen, and both broke, we couldn’t really do much in the way of typical Las Vegas attractions. But our curiosity about the place got the best of us. Neither of us had ever been there. We found a parking garage for the car and left it to wander the lit up strip on foot.

Our plan was to smoke a cigarette in front of the Bellagio’s huge fountains, imitating the final scene from a heist movie we’d enjoyed. That’d be our fun. We found the Bellagio Hotel and stood at the fence, leaning on the rail. Twenty minutes went by. Nothing happened. It was about 10:30 at night.

“Maybe they go off on the hour?” Theo speculated.

“Let me get one of those cigarettes now anyway.” I asked him. We were sharing packs, neither of us being full-time smokers. I lit it up and we waited some more. They were always less satisfying than I anticipated.

“Sure is bright.” We were eyeing the cityscape and watching the people walk by.

“Yeah, I feel like a Christmas tree ornament. What a weird place. What a weird world.” I was halfway disgusted, halfway amazed. It shouldn’t exist. It can’t exist indefinitely.

“It’s hard to believe people actually live here - like all the time. Can you imagine waking up to this every day?” Theo was overwhelmed too.

11:00 pm rolled by. The fountain was completely still.

“What the fuck?” I complained.

We stood around for another ten minutes because we had no other plan for our stop. A trio of high-heeled, mini-skirted, tube-topped, made-up women went by. They may have been working. They eyed us skeptically. One called out, “Look! Choir boys!” and they all cracked up.

“What the fuck?” I asked again of Theo. I was appalled. I felt like a freshmen in high school again.

A fellow walked by us for a second time, passing in the opposite direction. “The fountains stop at 10:00 pm," he said as he walked by.

“Well,” Theo nodded, “that makes sense.”

“Ugh. Let’s get the hell out of Las Vegas.”

“Done. I give up on trying to understand the 'adult' world."

We went back to the parking garage to find the car.

We started battling our way towards the interstate. Traffic and pedestrians streamed around us everywhere. Theo studied the map and gave me directions. We made slow progress through a few intersections, then hit a stand still. We were engrossed in sharing our impressions of the city, and didn’t realize for a few minutes that traffic was completely shut down.

“Now what?” I asked, craning my head around to try to see what the holdup was. The light about a block up was green, but no one was moving. I noticed cop lights in the middle of the intersection.

People were starting to honk. I rolled the window down to re-awaken my senses. A helicopter's thwacking rose from the city's din. I put my head out to see it. It was a police helicopter. We were right under the Stratosphere, a giant, futuristic-Eiffel-Tower-esque building. Near the top of the tower was a roller coaster thrill ride, which was itself another smaller tower protruding out at a slight angle from a high up saucer like deck. The helicopter was shining a spotlight on the ride tower. A person was climbing it.

“Whoa, Theo, there is a person way up there on the outside of the Stratosphere. Look! Look!” I urged him. “In the spotlight! What’s he doing?!”

“Yikes.” Theo uttered in a low voice. He was squished up against the dash, his nose close to the windshield.

The person reached the top of the ride tower. Somehow they were able to stand balanced at the top. The spotlight engulfed the person, baptizing them in light. They brought their arms straight out and tilted their head back and slowly turned a circle, balanced on who knows what. They looked suspended in air, or even to be rising into the spotlight, pulled up by invisible strings tied to their chin and chest. It reminded me of a stained glass scene in a cathedral, way up.

The person jumped. Or they sort of fell, back first, through the air, flipping over. I could hear Theo inhale through his teeth. My stomach clenched and I felt sick. I wanted to look away. They were coming down really close to us. We were going to see them hit the ground right near us. Theo groaned.

The person fell and we held our breath. He was plummeting. Then a big white thing climbed up his back and neck and leapt upward. It puffed up and found its shape and rigidity as a paraglider. His freefall snapped and he pendulumed back and forth as the wing caught and he started to steer it down.

“Jesus!” Theo whisper shouted, moving at the dash to keep the jumper in view.

“Jesus Christ! I thought he was killing himself,” I said. My face was all scrunched up in an anxious feeling, bordering on crying.

“Here he comes!” Theo shouted, and we both moved inside the car to keep the person in sight. He crossed over the four lane street to Theo’s side and came down in a parking lot. He hit the asphalt in full sprint, throwing off the chest harness that connected him to the paraglider as soon as he touched down. A half-dozen or so police were sprinting at the person like special teams on a kick return. The jumper was fast, they all disappeared down an alleyway behind a building.

“Wow! That was not what I expected. That was crazy.” I was stunned. “I am so glad.” I stumbled for words. “I am so glad that that was awesome.” I was still looking for the group of runners, twisted around in my seat.

“Yeah, that was a ride watching that! Like he escaped a suicide!” Theo sat back finally.

Traffic started to move again. The helicopter hovered over the direction the person had run in. The spotlight was sweeping back and forth.

“He must still be evading them!” we mused.

We crawled forward. Finally, we made the interstate. The helicopter was still sweeping.

We cheered.

“Go, dude, go!" "Pull one over on them!" "Escape!" "Get away!" "Jump and keep running!”