The Ascent(15)

“Hey.” I held up one hand—a traffic cop stopping a line of cars. “Listen, man, I—”

“This is your one chance not to fail yourself,” Andrew said.

And for whatever reason, that resonated with me. Don’t fail yourself, I thought, stripping out of my clothes. Don’t walk away from this chance.

It was stupid. Perched birdlike on the crest of the cliff, the cool night breeze stimulating my naked flesh, I took a deep breath, and as one single thought blazed like a neon sign outside a speakeasy—You’re going to make your wife a widow on her honeymoon—I pushed off the ground and let the air cradle me and carry me swiftly to the sea.

Hours later, just before the sun rose, I snuck inside our small rented grotto and slipped beneath the sheets next to Hannah. She sighed and rolled over, draping a warm arm across my chest.

I stared at the ceiling, mottled with incoming daylight, listening to my heart throb in my chest. Wired, I could not close my eyes.

“Where’ve you been?” Hannah whispered, still half asleep. Her voice startled me.

“I met up with your friend Andrew.” I couldn’t help but grin. “He took me flying.”

I felt her smile as she pressed her lips against my ear. “Oh, the cliff-diving thing.”

The remainder of our honeymoon was punctuated by intervals spent with Andrew. He took us to various hole-in-the-wall bars, the best places for drinks on the whole island. The drinks were all heavy with rum and decorated with slices of rubbery fruit.

“Do you think they call these drinks cocktails because all the fruit hanging over the lip of the glass looks like the feathered tail of a rooster?” Hannah said at one point.

We dream-waltzed through lush lands, past fenced-in yards populated by suicidal-looking chickens and land crabs captive in pens, which ate nothing but grain in order to cleanse the badness from their noncomplex systems before becoming meals. In parts, it was a city of somnambulists: the shambling, drunken-eyed swivel of puppet necks outside every whitewashed tavern with pictures of naked young girls pinned above the bar showing gap-toothed smiles. Saw-toothed, spade-shaped flora waved at us at every turn. The skeletons of rusted automobiles snared in mountainous ruts, the green veiling of trees, fences of fronds, and all the wet and dark places that smelled of some indeterminate amphibious odor.

On our last full night in San Juan, after a bout of acrobatic lovemaking, I left Hannah curled up in bed and met Andrew at one of his favorite bars by the bay. A number of empty glasses stood before him on the bar, and when he turned to look at me, his eyes were like the headlamps of an eighteen-wheeler.

“It’s your last night, Overleigh.” A tannin-hued hand clamped down on my shoulder. The glow of the gas lamps prompted shadows to caper across his face. “Tonight will be the flight of all flights.”

We’d spent every evening jumping blindly from cliffs along the bay. This night, however, we taxied across the island, the looming silhouette of the Sierra de Luquillo now at our backs, and were dropped off at a slope of beach covered in dark, reflective stones. To our left,a sheer cliff, black as a thousand midnights and like the rampart of a castillo, rose into the night sky.

As the taxi lumbered away through the brush, I gazed at the wall of rock. “Where’s the path to get up there?”

“There is no path. We climb.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s impossible.”

“Nothing,” Andrew said, removing his sneakers, “is impossible.”

I took several steps backward, still staring at the vertical face of the cliff, until my feet were lapped by the surf.

“Take your shoes off,” Andrew said. “It’ll be easier to dig into the rock. Besides, there’s too much moss on these stones. The soles of your sneakers would slip right off.”

“You’re out of your mind—do you know that?” But I was already following Andrew’s lead, pulling off my shoes and tossing them farther up the beach and out of reach of the surf. “We’re both gonna die here tonight.”

“No.” Andrew stood beside the face of the cliff, his hands planted on his hips, looking straight up. His white linen shirt was unbuttoned and billowed in the cool breeze. “Not tonight.”

The climb began slow and arduous. There was little talk, as much of our concentration was limited to the climb. Finding hand-and footholds was tough at first—the niches were either too small or the protruding fingers of stone too thick—but I soon got the hang of it. Halfway up the face of the cliff, I could feel the muscles straining at the back of my legs, my heart galloping at a steady pace, and the ebb and flow of my breath coming in syncopated rhythm.

Only once did I pause to glance over my shoulder, and that was when I nearly lost it. The world tilted to one side, and the tremendous expanse of water, black like velvet covered in glittering jewels, seemed to rush up and claim me. My muscles tensed.

An instant later, Andrew’s fingers wrapped around my wrist. “Don’t look down.”

“Yeah.” I directed my eyes back against the wall of rock. Closed them briefly to recalibrate. Opened them.

“Never look down. Come on.”

He ascended steadily and I followed, shinnying ratlike up the vertical face. Still, the top seemed very far away.

“She’s a good girl,” Andrew said as I came up beside him. “You’re a lucky guy.”