24

You can fill in the rest.

When Daphne left, I got serious with the bottle. I quickly lost track of time as I attempted to numb my pain, just me and a night tormented by winged creatures fluttering through the trees, scratching and clawing. They were my sins, my past, all of me that was incomplete, now returned to haunt my present.

I picked up the phone to call Mary at least a dozen times before putting it down and grabbing the bottle instead. In my drunken state, I had a notion I should just tell her, and by telling her I would absolve myself, and by absolving myself, Mary would understand and absolve me too. It had been a mistake, a single moment of weakness. It didn’t change my love for her, and it wouldn’t change her love for me either.

Except, even in my drunken state, I didn’t really believe that.

I wasn’t exactly sure when or why it occurred to me to go to Backslide Gap. In truth it was an insidious thought, one that seemed to flash within my consciousness like lightning, sudden and fierce, but unlike lightning, the thought lingered.

Drinking more made the night go soft around me, like a quilt or a warm bath. Bourbon became some arcane form of magic, Goose my familiar, me the wizard of regret.

I thought again of Backslide Gap. Perhaps it was an indictment of my parents that the one place we played as kids more than any other was the suspension bridge that stretched across it. According my father, an authority on the area and the ceaseless folklore of its geography, Backslide Gap had earned its name when a couple of boys went feral and gave up on their Christian upbringing, choosing to embrace their natural, sinful selves. Maybe that was what drew us to the area. Here was the physical embodiment of what we were all a little too afraid to do, to become. The implicit danger of the place only added to the appeal. We could, in our imaginary games, feel those two boys’ fall from grace without actually possessing the courage to slide away ourselves.

The old bridge was made of ropes and wires and wooden planks that had nearly rotted away from years of rain and neglect. Not content with simply wading out onto the unstable bridge, we soon developed a way to take even greater risks. By carefully twisting the ropes around one ankle, we could dangle headfirst out into the open space, hands free and empty, supported by only the tension of the twisted rope. It was ridiculously foolish, but at one time or another, we all tried it, tempting fate, daring God to take us or to save us, wishing perhaps for some sign from that great “Provider” our parents were so obsessed with. After hanging for a while and realizing no sign was forthcoming, we’d begin what came to be known as the “swing.” Waving our arms to create some momentum, we’d eventually get our torso and hips involved until our bodies swung back and forth like one of those pendulums that never stops. When the momentum was finally great enough, we would be able to put our other foot on one of the wooden planks and reach for the opposite rope with both hands, stopping the momentum and snapping our trapped foot free. It was a neat trick, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember who’d been brave enough to do it for the first time, but by the time I was thirteen, it was a rite of passage, something that both my brother, Lester, and I did far too often. When I thought about it now, I wondered if it was possible we’d had some kind of death wish. It certainly would seem that way, but as I grew older and more reflective, I was more inclined to believe it was just the opposite. I believed we had a “life” wish, that it was only in experiencing such vicarious rebellion that we could truly know the potential of living a life without constraints or boundaries.

Maybe when Daddy had promised I’d die there one day, he’d just been speaking in metaphor after all. Maybe I didn’t believe him because I didn’t know how to hear him. The fall was just my life, the flames weren’t a literal hell but something worse, something I carried inside me, something I’d swallowed a long time ago and never been able to expel.

Goose jumped into the back of my truck, and I slid into the cab with two bottles in hand. There was a good chance I’d pass out before I even made it there, or maybe I’d run my truck off into some gully somewhere, sleep it off, wake up the next day and still be in hell. Or maybe I’d make it to the gap, maybe I’d hang off into the breach one last time, feeling possibility, feeling something. And after that … well, I wasn’t sure there would be an after that, and this knowledge did not bother me.

The truth was, I couldn’t imagine going on without Mary. She was my ledge, the one person I’d been able to grab to break the long fall.

I turned the key and the truck roared to life. Goose whined from the truck bed. I slid the gearshift into drive and started down the hill into a night lit by the fires of my past.

*   *   *

Backslide Gap was unchanged. All these years, it had just been sleeping, waiting for my return. The suspension bridge still held resolutely to the two sides of the gap, like a Band-Aid stretched across a wound it would never quite cover.

I ignored Goose’s whining and climbed out of the truck, leaving the keys inside. I walked on unsteady feet toward the bridge. It rocked gently, blown by the softest breeze. The light was fading, and what was left of it felt strained and empty somehow. Dusk had come again. It was always dusk here. Goose followed me, still whining, and somehow in my drunkenness I wondered at the loyalty and wisdom of dogs. He knew what was happening, and he’d be damned if he let me do it alone. I stopped and patted his head, murmuring that he was a good boy, but he couldn’t go out on the bridge with me.

He wagged his tail and whined again when I let go of him and turned to the bridge. I held the bottle of Wild Turkey in my left hand and used my right to grip the old double-braided rope that served as a guardrail on the bridge. I stepped forward into the gap and felt the bridge already trying to twist around on me. I was keenly aware of the imbalance of my body and the breeze blowing up out of the gorge. When I reached the middle of the suspension bridge, night had come, and I was as blind as Rufus. I knelt on shaky legs, put the bottle down on the wooden planks of the bridge, and stared off into the dark void.

I was afraid. Not of jumping and crushing my body against the bottom of the gap, but of falling and realizing too late that there was no bottom, that a man’s fall could last forever and redemption was just a whisper on a long forgotten wind.

I would let God decide. I let go of the rope and lay down on the wooden planks. Without holding on, any disturbance could cause me to pitch over the side and fall. I folded my hands across my chest and looked up at the stars, waiting for something—anything—to happen.