The Unwilling(4)

“I think you’re a rock star.”

“McCartney or Jagger?”

Chance offered up a devil’s grin. “That depends on if you jump or dive.”

I looked away from my friend, and thought about hitting wrong at seventy miles an hour. Beneath me, people began to chant.

“Dive, dive, dive…”

When my brother did it, it was a swan dive drawn against a high, pale sky, and I see it still in my dreams: the way he rose and hung, and then the long fall—no breath in my lungs—and how his hands came together an instant before he struck. Only three of us were there to see it, but word of it spread.

Robert French made the dive off Devil’s Ledge …

Did you hear?

Can you believe it?

At the time, the world record cliff dive was only fifteen feet higher, some guy in Argentina. But this was Charlotte, North Carolina, a little place in 1967. That was five years ago, but on that day in this little city, my oldest brother became a god. People asked him why he did it and how and a thousand other questions, but only four of us knew the truth that mattered, and I dream of that part, too: the way light hit his face when it broke from the water, the eyes that looked brighter and more alive. Let the Vietcong touch that, he’d said; and that was the thing only a few of us knew.

Robert was going to Vietnam.

“I’m going to do it,” I said.

“Bullshit.”

“This time it happens.”

“Go on, then.”

“Becky Collins, right?”

“She’ll love you forever.”

I’d pictured the dive a thousand times, and it felt a lot like this: the wind in my face, the smell of heat and dust and distant rain. I rose to my toes, arms spread. “Give me a three count.”

“Wait. What?”

“No talking, all right? This is hard enough as it is.”

“Dude…”

“What?” I didn’t look away from the drop.

“Dude. Seriously…”

Something in his voice was strange to me: a note of doubt or panic or fear. “What’s the problem, Chance? We’re here, right? Two weeks ’til graduation.”

“Just jump, dude. Make it a jump.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“You know you can’t actually do it, right? You can’t make that dive.” Chance looked embarrassed, turning his hands to show the palms. “I mean … come on. There’s a pattern, right? You talk about it. You stand there. You never actually dive.”

“But you egg me on. You tell me to do it.”

“Because I’ve never once thought you were stupid enough to actually dive. It’s thirteen stories.”

“You think I’m afraid?”

“No.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I think your brother’s dead whether you do it or not.”

The color drained from my face.

Chance didn’t care. “Robert is gone, man. He won’t see the dive or pat you on the back or say, Welcome to the club. He’ll still be underground in that cemetery you hate. He’ll still be a dead hero, and you’ll still be a kid in high school.”

Chance was earnest and worried—a strange combination. I looked away as catcalls rose up the cliff, and someone far below yelled, Do it, you pussy! I found Becky Collins, a slash of brown and white. She was shading her eyes; she wasn’t yelling. “You think I’d die if I did it?”

“I know you would.”

“Robert lived.”

“Hand of God, Gibby. One in a million.”

I watched Becky, thinking of God and luck and my dead brother. The Marine Corps said he took one in the heart, and that it killed him before he felt a thing. A painless death, they said, but I didn’t buy it. “Two years ago I said I’d make the dive. I told everyone down there I’d do it.”

“You mean that everyone?” Chance pointed at the water, where even more kids were yelling up the cliff’s face. “You mean Bill Murphy, who told Becky to her face that you were a loser because your mom won’t let you play football anymore? You mean his lame-ass brother? Fuck that guy, too. He blew spitballs at the back of your head for pretty much all of seventh grade. What about Jessica Parker or Diane Fairway? I asked them both out, and they laughed at me. They’re not keen on you, either, by the way. They say you’re too quiet and that you’re distant and that you look too much like your dead brother. Listen, Gibs, you don’t owe anyone down there a damn thing. That crowd there, those people…” He pointed down. “Empty heads and bullshit and vanity. They don’t know you or want to know you. Maybe three are worth a crap, and they’re the only ones not yelling at you to kill yourself.”

I leaned out; saw jocks and stoners and pretty girls in mirrored shades. Most were laughing or smiling or yelling at me.

Do it …

Dive …

Dive, you chickenshit motherfucker …

They’d rafted up for the best view: a jigsaw of rubber and smooth skin and bits of bikini that looked like colored sails. I listened for a moment more, then studied the sky, the jagged rock, the far, familiar water. Last, I looked at Becky Collins, who, with a single friend, floated apart from the others. She was unmoving, one hand at her mouth, the other pressed across the heart. “You know something,” I said. “I think maybe you’re right.”