All This Life (33 page)

She has to say that, Balloon Boy knows. She's comforting him. Under any other circumstances, he'd stand back and marvel at this—Sara treating him like it was the time before the thump-splat ouch—but today he can't do anything except think about his mom.

“FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS
and you'll be fine,” Wes says.

“Grab your purse and act natural,” Wes says.

He punches her in the stomach one more time. They're both in the back seat of the parked car. They are in the lot next to the Golden Gate.

He says, “I will really hurt you if you don't do what I say, all right?”

Kathleen nods, no air to talk. She can't imagine what the word
bravery
even means. It's not real. All those stories she's heard over the years of people doing superhuman things in the face of adversity. They are fiction. He has the control and she is property. She is a mannequin he picked up at a garage sale.

Wes exits the car and pulls her out and tells her to stay close. She isn't on a leash, but that's what it feels like. He tugs her along. He dictates pace. He asks her to smile, but it's not really a question, not after all the times she's been kicked and punched. Everything is an order when the consequences ache in her body.

Kathleen is property and as long as she does what he says, this will be over soon.

Wes guides her toward the bridge; they're by the tollbooths. He takes a deep breath, has a coughing fit.

“We're running out of oxygen,” he says.

PAUL AND ESPERANTO
pull into the parking lot. Paul tries to banish any glimmers of the brass band. That morning, Jake changed somehow. He had always been a sensitive kid, but nothing like this. That was why Paul wouldn't let his son look over the edge, peek over the side at the ocean. It was too much, too real, death didn't deserve any time in his kid's thoughts. He could do that later. Time for Jake's own morning commutes. Time for Jake's high school buddies to start having heart attacks. Time for midlife crises and divorce and cholesterol medication and baby aspirins and a desiccating sex drive. Time for Jake to loathe the boredom in his life. Time for him to wonder where all the excitement had gone. Time for him to pine for fantasy football.

It's occurring to Paul that the ennui running rampant through his life isn't all bad. Boredom doesn't have stink stuck all over it. No, it's a good thing, in a way, because it means you've made it this far. You're still here. And that makes him want it for his son. Hopefully he fares better than Paul, but at least let him make it to this. Don't let there be any finale today on the bridge. Don't rob Jake of the ravages of being forty, fifty, sixty. Let him hate his job and grieve all the compromises he made along the way. Let him bald and be doughy and overworked and overtired all the time because those are trophies. He's persevered through the grueling, deranged, and often unfathomable EVERYTHING. Jake is alive.

They've parked the unmarked cruiser and walk quickly onto the bridge from the Marin side. Paul asks, “What happens when we find him?”

“There's no script.”

“What do you think he meant by
finale
?”

“Put that out of your mind.”

“I don't think he'd ever hurt himself—”

“Let's not worry about that,” the detective says.

AND IF THIS
is one giant leap for Jake-kind, where will he land? Isn't that a fair question? You leap, you land. That's how it works. Or you don't because he's in space, in his own magnificent desolation, and gravity isn't a factor here. He can leap and never feel the ground again. Never be burdened by forces that pull him back down.

He's surprised that none of his fans are here. He thought he'd be immediately recognized, thought that his followers would crawl from the computer and meet him here, in person. He thought they'd want to meet flesh-and-blood Jake. He thought they'd line up for his finale.

He makes eye contact with lots of people, hoping they break into a smile and ask, “Are you TheGreatJake?” and he can nod yes, he is, and they can hug, take a selfie together. They're the ones that followed him, not the other way around, so where is everyone? Why aren't they here for him? Neil Armstrong would have been pissed if no one watched, if he went to all that trouble and no one turned on their televisions, if he endured all that danger for nothing.

Jake knows that mothers will leave the country for any reason, just to be away from him. Knows that fathers can freeze up, like a program, staying stuck for the rest of their days. Jake knows that right now everything makes him mad and everything needs to be hit with his baseball bat and he knows he's carrying the brass band with him and followers should show up when they say they will.

He stops in the middle of the bridge and finally looks over the edge.

•
  
•
  
•

OR WHAT ABOUT
a drone strike? Something unmanned, unpiloted, a weapon streaking into your life, poised to deliver its deadly cargo, no matter what gets ruined. Who gets ruined. Without even contemplating the legacies, the impossible detritus of trying to inhabit a smashed existence.

It's a drone strike, this blame explosion. Noah911 is engulfed in guilt.

This is the spot. He's watched the video so many times that he's sure this is the exact spot where the brass band jumped. He waits to feel close to Tracey, to feel her aura, her ghost, her kiss, but that's not happening. He's here alone with his Ziploc bag. He's here alone and there's only one way to feel close to her again.

Noah911 registers a kid standing nearby fiddling with his phone. Then Noah911 is right at the rail. In the middle of the bridge. Noah911 looks over the edge. Noah911 mutters more apologies, begs for mercy, clutches the Ziploc bag like it's a Bible.

THE CAR BARELY
stops before Rodney jumps out, and Sara tries to keep up. They are in the parking lot next to the bridge, on the San Francisco side. Rodney tries to run, but he's limping really badly, slowing down with each stride. His foot must be broken.

“You . . . run,” he says.

“What can I do?”

“Run!”

It's comical to Sara: She shouldn't be his proxy. She's too small to do anything. But if she sees them, at least she will be there. Try and get a couple beefy guys to help her. She'll figure it out. Whatever he wants. However she can assist. If Jumper Julie had the courage to walk this path and do what she did, then Sara can summon an unknown strength to help Rodney.

“I'll find her,” she says.

•
  
•
  
•

NOAH911 PUSHES AGAINST
the railing, at the edge, and he is crying. This is goodbye and he fingers the bag, traces its contours cautiously. He squeezes it, not with any anger but as a last way to show love. Noah911 ponders whether it was his mother or father who found his plate of leftovers in the kitchen after the funeral. Are they worried, wondering what he's doing, or are they lost in the arts and crafts studio, pretending not to remember?

He opens the Ziploc bag and shakes out the ashes. Her ashes. Tracey. He shakes her into the air, not seeing a drone strike but something with beauty to it. Tracey snakes from the Ziploc bag and for a moment the ashes circle and sit in the air like a swarm of bees.

Noah911 gets one second with all of the ashes frozen in the air. Face to face with them. Her. His sister. One last look in each other's eyes.

Then they flutter off in every direction; she flutters off in every direction.

Noah911 was wrong before about needing that YouTube clip. This is better. This is what he needs, the memory of watching her cremains drift in the sky. She's not that video. She doesn't come to life with the click of play. She doesn't die at the end. YouTube has nothing to do with his sister. She is a mosaic now, living in his heart, each tile a memory that if he stands back and examines their configuration, he sees Tracey.

He puts the Ziploc bag in his pocket and turns to walk away.

It's poetic, Albert, I'll give you that, it makes sense to trigger me with the scattering of ashes since our mission is to keep the world uncremated, and once I see the man throw the ashes up into the wind, I know I need to move to that precise spot. It's where the portal will open, this woman will move away from this world and once she's gone, you will materialize. I'm so curious to see what you'll look like. I'm excited to shake your hand. This woman doesn't seem to know what's coming, she moves next to me, clutching her purse. I steer her with a hand on her forearm, but she's not squawking or fighting me at all and the greenhouse gas of human sadness is almost over.

I'm so curious to see what you'll look like.

23.

T
here's the issue of Jake's bit rate. How many bits of his pathos can be processed per second. How it can be compressed to travel faster. How he is inflamed with anger and betrayal, how he feels so dumb for expecting to see a congregation of his followers. They said they'd be here. They told him that. They promised. But the only guy standing at the railing holds some dusty bag and he is crying and Jake wants his people, his friends. He hates being lied to and he's stupid for thinking his followers were real. They were like him, sitting in front of their computer or phone, and they never wanted to meet the real Jake. They don't care. He's alone and he's so tired of believing and being let down. He just wants one follower to show, one real breathing human to care.

All these compressed emotions and he needs to express them, needs to jettison some of the spam coursing through him, delete it, throw it away. How can he get rid of all the noise?

Jake needs a multimedia projection of his sadness, including audio and video, meaning motor control, meaning breathing, meaning facial expressions, meaning talking, meaning corresponding body language, then he needs to make sure his veins—those Ethernet
cables under his skin—are capable of transferring all that data quickly enough.

Like how an HD DVD has 29.4 Mbit/s. That would be ideal.

Because now there is one follower standing in front of him: his dad. Jake needs to interact with his dad, seeing as how Paul screams at him, “What are you doing?”

Jake keeps near the edge.

“Will you step away from the railing?” a guy says, someone even fatter than his dad, someone in a cheap suit.

“Are you another therapist?” Jake says.

“I'm a police officer.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“The opposite,” Esperanto says.

Jake pauses, wondering what exactly is the opposite of trouble. Pleasure? Happiness? Peace? Siri would know.

“Stay away from me,” says Jake. “I have to do something.”

“LET'S STOP,” SAYS
Wes.

There are so many people around them that Kathleen can't figure out why she's not screaming. Someone would help. That's what happens. People help each other. Get out one syllable, one simple noise. Yell like Felix did over the phone. Talk like Rodney. Choke out any sound.

Instead, she does as she's told, stopping.

“Your hand,” he says.

“Huh?”

Finally, she makes a noise. That wasn't so hard. Make another. Make the same. Do it louder. Save your life.

“Give me your hand,” says Wes.

•
  
•
  
•

THIS IS WORSE
than falling off the balloon because at least Rodney did that to himself. This is his mom. This is his mom who needs his help but his foot can't go more than a mile per hour and he's embarrassed and she needs him and he's letting her down and he's trying, Mom, he's trying his best, he trudges on with his broken foot, every now and again he tries to run but the pain is too much.

Balloon Boy is a bone, and a bone is a bomb, and its ignition in his foot blasts through him, up his leg like a chimney, ringing through his chest cavity, blazing in his guts.

THE TILE FROM
his memory mosaic that speaks to Noah as he's walking away on the bridge, toward San Francisco, is this: Way back during her junior year in high school, Tracey sits in the driver's seat of her new car. Taking it out for the first time. By herself. She'd gone out with Noah and she'd gone around the block with their parents, but this was her first time navigating the streets alone. Responsible for herself. She has a huge smile on her face. Both hands on the wheel. The light blue polish on her nails is chipped, but she grips that wheel, ready to hit the open road.

There's his sister sitting in her car and smiling.

Noah and their parents watch her drive off.

SARA SPOTS KATHLEEN
Curtis. There's a moment of second-guessing. But it's her. Sara's sure. Sara saw Kathleen every day for years, and Kathleen looks pretty much the same.

Sara spots Kathleen standing at the railing holding hands with the guy in the lab coat.