As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth (7 page)

T
he ticket agent listened to Ry’s story.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s a good one. Creative. But with a lot of realistic details.”

“I didn’t make it up,” said Ry. “It’s what happened.”

The agent looked at Beth. With interest.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“A friend,” she said. “Actually, we just met this morning. But we’re already good friends. He’s telling the truth. Can’t you just, like, switch his ticket on your computer from August whenever to sometime this week?”

Beth was a warm and vibrant and infectious person, though
infectious
is a weird word when you think about it. Ry could tell the agent liked her, too. This made him hopeful.

The agent smiled. But it was not the smile of yes, all right, okay. It was the smile that went along with, “I’d
like to help you. I really would. But I can only give him a ticket if you’re such good friends that you want to pay for it.”

“He already paid for a ticket,” persisted Beth. “He just wants to switch it.”

“He has no ID,” said the agent. “What happens when someone named Ry—what is it? Wilco? Whitcomb? Wooster?—shows up in August and his ticket has been canceled?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”

The only thing he was sorry about, Ry could tell, was disappointing Beth.

“Okay,” said Beth, sweetly crestfallen. “Well…we might be back later.”

“I hope so,” said the agent.

“Prick,” muttered Beth as they walked out the door of the station.

“There really wasn’t anything he could do,” said Ry.

“I like you, Ry,” said Beth. “You’re a good egg.”

“Thanks,” said Ry. He wanted to say something nice back, but he couldn’t decide what.

Leaving Amtrakland, they passed a fountain, splashing the granite pant legs of the statue of some historic guy. It looked like he had gone wading.

R
y shinnied his way out along the limb to the place where he would tie the rope. It was the only limb that remained on this side of the tree. One by one, section by section, they had brought down the limbs below this one. First they harnessed them with ropes, then they chopped them, then the chunks fell, more or less, right where Del wanted them to fall. Arvin chopped them into smaller chunks, and Ry and Beth carried them to the back of Pete’s pickup.

They were taking the tree down because it was dying, and big heavy parts of it were hanging over two houses and a garage. The idea was to get it down before those parts fell off and knocked holes through someone’s roof. And to not drop parts of it on someone’s roof while they were getting it down. So far, so good. It was work, but
it was also a game. A large game. Del was the only one who completely understood the rules. The others sort of understood. Ry got that there were rules, and he saw that there was a logic to them, but he could see that it would take a while to really get the hang of it. Still, after watching Pete crawl out on a few limbs, he thought he’d like to try. So Del hooked him up and explained what he was supposed to do. Which was to creep out onto this limb with a coil of rope hooked to his waist.

He couldn’t help noticing how high up in the air he was. Higher than the roofs of any nearby houses. His knees were bent and his feet were hooked onto the limb behind him, his thighs clamped in a vise-grip around it. Like a witch riding a broomstick. Except not moving forward as fast. Like a cross between a witch and a caterpillar. He looked into the eyes of a hawk as it soared past. His coworkers moved around like ants, far below. Okay, not ants. But chipmunks. It was pretty far down.

He focused again on the limb ahead of him. The texture of the bark. Inching forward, he reached his spot. Now he was supposed to tie the knot. Except that to tie the knot, he would have to let go of the limb with his hands, and he found himself suddenly unable to do that.

It was the height. If he were only a few feet off the
ground, in this exact same position, he wouldn’t even think about falling. He hadn’t thought about it out on the other limbs. But I’m not only a few feet off the ground, he thought. It seemed certain that the instant he let go, he would topple over and go into free fall, meeting the ground with a breath-robbing, crunchy-gooey, heavy thud. He could imagine the thud. In reality, he probably wouldn’t hear the thud. He would be unconscious. If he was lucky.

He decided to do as much of the operation as he could one-handed, so he could hold on with the other hand. Holding on with his left, he took the coil of rope with his right. He found the end of it and let the middle fall. Don’t think about it. Think about the knot.

Ry managed most of the knot with the heels of his hands resting on the limb. When he had to lift a hand away, he made sure the other hand was holding on. He was giving the knot one last quick tug when a loud crack split the air. It was a semi-distant crack; he didn’t think it had anything to do with him, though it startled him and he was already wobbly. He had both hands on the limb again, a safer feeling.

But then the limb shuddered and gave way beneath him.

Ry fell with the limb, clutching it as if it could save him. Together they fell, fell, fell. Passing before life’s
eyes, because life was standing as still as a statue; it was Ry that was moving. Moving too fast. Moving down. Picking up speed.

And then he stopped.

With a jolt and a rebound, he was suddenly suspended in midair by the harness Del had made him wear. Oh, yeah! he thought. The harness! He dangled twenty feet or so above the ground. This was an estimate, based on how, as Pete and Arvin trotted over, they looked. Bigger than ants or chipmunks, but not as big as he wanted them to look, which would be actual size. Was it panic he saw on their upturned faces, or just interest? It was hard to tell from here. Through the jumble of blood crashing in his ears and his heart thumping, he heard Del’s unflustered voice, off to the left somewhere, say “Oops.”

Looking over, Ry saw him scamper across a roof.

“Hang on,” Del called out. Ry hung on.

But now that it was detached from its tree, the tree limb was heavy, and its dead weight wanted only to crash down onto the ground. He could feel the death-grip of his knees and thighs loosening. He was going to drop it. And Pete and Arvin were directly below him, as if they meant to catch him. They were in the perfect position to be wiped out by the falling limb.

“Watch out!” Ry bellowed. “I have to let go. It’s going to fall. MOVE!”

Pete and Arvin grasped the imminent threat and scattered.

Ry let go. The limb fell the rest of the way. It bounced once or twice, then lay still. Hanging in space, Ry looked down at it. Then around him, at the empty air. Farther off, he saw the gutter running along the roof edge of a two-story house, at eye level.

He hung there diagonally, balancing himself by holding fast to the ropes he was suspended by. One was tied to another tree. The other went to the remaining limb of the tree they were removing. He hoped that whatever had happened to his limb wouldn’t happen to that one, too.

In an unwelcome surprise development, Ry was suddenly aware that he needed to pee. He would have to block it out. Mind over matter. Easier said than done.

Del had reached the roof edge closest to where the other rope was tied. He paused for a bare microsecond to lay out his path, his plan. Then, in one fluid movement, he lowered himself to a porch railing, reached out for a limb, hoisted himself onto another limb, took a couple of quick steps, and dropped nimbly into position within the
V of the bifurcating trunk, where he began to work the rope he had tied there.

As if he did this every day.

Maybe he did.

Ry watched in admiration. How did he do that? He felt again the extremity of his situation and murmured, “Hurry, Del.” And, “Hurry faster.” Glancing back down into the yard and its surroundings, he scouted for a place to go, once he landed.

He felt a movement, felt himself drop a half foot, felt his self-control struggle to recover. Del had dismantled the knot. The rope was wrapped twice around the tree, which Del was using as a pulley. His muscles and tendons bulged as he released the rope, hand over hand, a little bit at a time. He must be strong, Ry thought. I couldn’t do that. But he thought he would like to be able to.

Each release of rope brought Ry that much closer to earth. Each downward jolt brought his bladder that much closer to eruption. He was almost down. His toes touched the ground. And his heels. He readied himself to dash to the spot he had chosen, a nook nestled between a fence, a bush, a storage hut, and a garbage container. He unclipped the harness, and it fell to his ankles. Beth rushed over in concern.

“Are you all right?” she asked. She put her arm around Ry’s back and with her other hand clasped the arm closest to her, in the way a big sister or a mother or an aunt would. Still, Ry felt his face grow warm.

“I’m okay,” he said.

Arvin and Pete had rushed over, too.

“Excuse me,” Ry said. “I’ll be right back.” It was amazing how your brain could fill up so full of what was happening right now that it could forget all about what had happened thirty seconds ago.

W
hen Lloyd opened his eyes again, Peg licked his face. She had crawled down into the hole with him and lay close against his side, waiting for him to awaken. Olie, up on the rim, was watching something with great interest, his ears at full attention, his head shifting abruptly from side to side.

It took a few minutes for Lloyd to recollect what had happened and where he was, and another few minutes for him to decide that he’d better try to sit up. Crawling up out of the hole was not impossible, but it was awkward and tricky. There was nothing solid to grab onto, and with every other step the ground seemed to collapse into hidden, bottomless pockets.

Once he made it onto solid ground, he wanted to get clear of the treacherous field. But looking around, he
saw an unbroken perimeter of maple and aspen saplings growing in tall thickets. He could not tell where they had entered. The angle of the sun told him only that time had passed. Which way was which? Then his eyes fell again on the pile of rocks and the partial foundation. He tried to recall where he was standing when he first saw them, and he went and stood in that position, not trusting the ground to stay where it was when he stepped on it. His head throbbed when he moved. The bump on the back of it was tender to the touch. Making an about-face, he tentatively headed into the trees.

Olie and Peg differed on where to go next. They wandered in opposite directions to the ends of their leashes and looked back at him. This way. No, this way. Lloyd knew the path could not be far off. He just couldn’t see it. He racked his brain for some landmark he might have noticed that morning. All he came up with was twittering birds and squirrels. And then he saw what seemed to him a small miracle. A human head was bobbing along. He shouted.