Risky Business

The word mansion comes from the Latin root mansionem, "a staying or a remaining," from the stem manere, "to stay." Definitions of mansion include: a large and imposing house. synonyms: an intimidating residence

One foot in front of the other, we rambled our way over loose stones and strong roots, following the worn path. Our feet stepped in the same spots as those before us, where time had allowed primitive stairs to form in the large, soft boulders.  The forest smelled sweet and piney, and our breath was becoming labored.  The trail was steep and skinny, the branches overhead reached out to each other, forming a tunnel of green that we weaved our way through. I wondered how many people had come up this trail. How many feet have walked this path, how many eyes have seen these trees? How many wanderers have these trees seen?  The leaves were dense with sweat, hanging heavy from the summer humidity that never fails to miss an August here in Mansion, Massachusetts.   

The Outlook Trail is the most popular trail in Mansion, traversed mostly by Appalachian Trail hikers looking to go downtown with intentions to restock supplies, and spoken of locally in superstitious warnings and cautious tales. 

Each step brought us closer to the top, our quads burning in response to the steep terrain.  About a quarter mile from the highest peak on the range, we reached the junction where the trail forks and The Outlook Trail meets the A.T. A mature ash tree stood in front of us with three messages.  Two skinny wooden trailhead signs, carved with the two trails’ names: The Outlook Trail and The Appalachian Trail. One blue arrow pointing down the path, one blue arrow pointing up the path.  

The third message on the ash tree was a square foot by foot piece of wood that was nailed to the tree. Painted on the board was a simple map, black lines on white background, bits of the white paint flaking on the edges.  The black line indicated to follow this “junction” more like a “hairpin turn” and bear right. To the right, the A.T.  To the left, two trees with a rope between them and a trail in the center that was so grown in, you could easily mistake it for an unpopular deer run, or just nothing at all. A small wooden sign hung in the center of the rope; a message carved in the center of the wood:

                                                NOT THIS WAY

                                           DANGEROUS SLOPE

         

            If we were strangers to the area, we would follow the blue arrows on the sign, pointing to the trail, clearly marked. But we were there to not follow the directions. We were there to, for the first time in my 18 years of living in Mansion, go under the rope, and go to The Look Out.   

About thirty steps past the rope, the thick brown forest floor gave way to soft white sand.  You might think that someone put the sand here, a Park Ranger or someone like that; it all looked so out of place. Magical, even. But, if you know the area, you know that Mansion’s soil bed is concentrated with limestone and a thick vein of the precious mineral used to be mined here, in a quarry on the ridge opposite of The Look Out.  A limestone lined bed that is dry and dusty when the summers are thirsty and full of a turquoise and white creamy water when the skies cry.   

The dusty sand that lines the veins gets carried in the wind across the valley, settling on the boulders at The Look Out, making them slippery to climb and shifting soil bed making the boulders themselves unstable, giving way at any time, sinking in their softness.  

In 1994, Drew Carowski climbed up to The Look Out with his friends the night before his high school graduation and he jumped off the edge. They never found his body. No one knew why he did it. They all said he had big plans in life.  In 1996, a young female A.T. hiker was taking a photo of The Look Out and slipped on the dust; they never found her body.  She was never identified.  In 2002, a father was leaning over the edge, the fine powder underneath his feet slowly giving slide.  His four-year-old daughter left alone on the cliff, waiting for him. He was never found. 

They put that sign up closing the trail in early 2000s. There was an article in the local newspaper to encourage your children to not explore up there and warning that a fine would be given to anyone trespassing. I knew there were more stories like Drew’s, folks that had been known to disappear up there, but we had been hearing cautionary tales our entire lives, and at this point I needed to see it all for myself. I knew there were a lot of kids who had been there and in fact, not plummeted to their mysterious disappearance from Mansion, Mass.  

Anna, leading the way ahead of me, had in fact, been there three times before this. She knew the way, and she had survived.  

I could see a small bit of sky peeking through the trees just beyond Anna, a bright glimpse of the view. I bent down and moved forward, pine needles scratching my back as I passed through an overgrown tunnel of low hanging hemlocks.  

The pines opened and we were there. 

Rocks perched on larger rocks, boulders on top of boulders, perfectly balanced and surely not budging.  There had to be three dozen stones each the size of a large SUV, all eroded on their once sharp edges, worn by time. Soft on the corners but still intimidating.  

We looked out at the view. We could see the entire town of Mansion. 

We could see all the streets that we drove daily; the grocery store; the post office; and the old mining mill. We could see the small hospital where we were born; the elementary school that we became friends in.  We saw the high school where we both set track records and the old baseball field where we fought over a boy. The steeple of the church where both of our parents got married, and where we would marry, in the center of it all. 

We could see the bank where both of our moms worked; where we would likely be taking jobs after our summer internships ended there. We could see the VFW that both of our dads belonged to.  We would have our babies in that same hospital. We would send our kids to the schools that we had went to. We would store our precious savings in the same safe deposit boxes that our grandmothers had their savings bonds in.  We could see the cemetery where we would be buried. Next to the family that lived there before us and died before us.  

We could see our entire lives, all in one view. All this life in this tiny little valley.  

We could see everything before us: our past and our future. In one scene. In one view. 

I turned to Anna and said, “Nothing bad ever really happens here.”

Anna turned to me and replied, “Nothing ever happens here.”

I felt a horrible feeling in my chest.  An immediate pressure to want to escape.  Escape from what? Nothing bad ever happens here. The pressure intensified.  I wanted to get out. I wanted to run. I wanted to save myself from dying up there on the ledge.

  Was it worth the risk? The view wasn’t even that great. It all suddenly seemed so small. It seemed scary. Scary to think that you could slip so quickly, and no one might ever find you. Scarier to think that you can live in Mansion your whole life and nothing bad ever happens.  Nothing ever happens. 

You’re born, you go to school, you buy a house on the hill, you go to work in the valley, you die on the hill, you’re buried on the hill. 

A tiny, limiting, little mansion.   

And then, I jumped.