All This Life (32 page)

“In 1,000 feet, your destination will be on the right,” says Google Maps.

HE'S UP FRONT
, muttering away while he drives, and Kathleen lies in the back seat. Too scared to talk. Too scared to be brave. Which embarrasses her. She's in danger. Wes could kill her, so why is she splattered on the seat back here, why is she following his instructions? Yes, he threw her against the wall after hitting Deb. Yes, she slid to the floor. Yes, he kicked her a few times.

“I know we need to keep her face clean,” Wes had said, talking to someone who wasn't there. “I won't hurt her face. We'll keep her face looking all right to travel outside.”

He's not talking to himself. He never was.

“Stand up,” Wes said in the hall, straightening out his lab coat. So she did. So he punched her in the stomach. “You do exactly as we say, okay?”

She couldn't answer.

“We are meeting Albert,” he said. “We are walking to the car now. Pick up your purse. Act natural.”

They were outside. She knew it was late morning. She knew mothers and children were at the playground across the street. She knew birds flew and trees had leaves and buses hiss and joggers run and the sky is made of chowder. There were other people around as they moved toward his car. Kathleen's survival instincts should have been going crazy; she should have been trying to save her life, but she let him lead her, tuck her into the back seat.

It was the booze, or the shame of relapse. It was seeing Deb unconscious, or the fresh memory of being punched and kicked. There was something keeping her docile. Kathleen had heard the
phrase
paralyzed by fear
but she never knew what it really meant until now. In this back seat, lying in the fetal position, feeling like property. He owns her. She is his. Kat can't move or talk. She can't cry. All she can picture is that techie's webbed feet, and what a stupid thing to remember, what a stupid way to spend these last minutes of her life.

IT DAWNS ON
Noah911 right as he walks out onto the Golden Gate that this is a crime scene. This is where Tracey killed herself, yet you'd never know that. It is a bustling bridge, connecting people. Always connecting people.

It's also a nice day, clear skies, 68˚, no real wind, but nothing feels nice when a brother carts his share of the ashes.

He carries Tracey like she's a wounded dove.

He wonders if anyone has liked his status.

He retraces her steps, leaving the San Francisco side, walking by the tollbooths and onto the bridge. He moves slowly, a zombie of sorrow. It's hard to block out TheGreatJake's video, hard for him not to imagine the brass band strutting and playing their music right here. They stepped here. They breathed here. They were alive here, only days ago.

The thing about that YouTube video is it's the only memory that matters. Because it's new. Because Noah911 had seen Tracey that day. Because he'd made her breakfast, written her a note:
Make sure my sister eats this, okay?
Because it makes him feel closer to her and because it's the opposite of the ashes. It shows her whole, shows her smile. It's a way to talk to Tracey. A cyber-séance. A Ouija board with comments.

That video is his sister now. It is Noah911's companion and he'll watch it all day, every day, thankful that digital videos never get worn out, never fatigue or snap, never get grainy with age. She is perfectly preserved and pristine.

An armful of ashes is the worst burden a brother can carry.

But he has to retrace these steps, if he wants to end up in the exact spot she jumped.

SHIT, SLEEP. HE'S
sleeping. For how long? Paul doesn't know. He looks at the laptop, teetering on his thighs. It says 11:04
AM
. But that can't help Paul, considering he doesn't know when he nodded off.

“Any news?” he calls over to the officer at the front desk, a different person, a man. This one seems even younger than the one who took the initial report in the parking lot. They must be coming straight out of high school. They are almost as young as Jake, charged with keeping up the world's order. Paul knows it's impossible. Order is a trick, a trap, a dupe. You think there's order until your boy runs off.

“What?” the officer asks.

A coffee. A Red Bull. Paul needs something. He carries the laptop over to the front desk, sets it down. “Is there any new news?”

“I don't know.”

“Can you ask Esperanto?” Paul says, refreshing his feed, seeing that his son has been taking advantage of the cat's nap, the mouse posting these two messages in the meantime:

The first:
I wonder how many of you would meet me at the Golden Gate Bridge? I have something up my sleeve that you won't want to miss!

The second:
Meet me there in an hour for the finale!!!

Paul doesn't like the word
finale
. He detests it, sounds like a synonym for something final.

No, he'll never say
that
word, but why else go to the bridge, what would bring him back there? He has to save Jake from the edge. Because that's exactly what Jake had said, right after the brass band leaped:
I want to see over the edge.
It was a sentence that floored Paul, took the wind right out of him, leaving only a vacuum of confusion before he gathered himself again: Here was his boy, his fourteen-year-old boy, and he saw things that he was too young to
know about, should be shielded from these aspects of humanity, if that's even the right word. Jake shouldn't know about stuff like this, should be given a complete childhood. Plenty of years to try and process these atrocities, but not yet.

“Is he at his desk?” Paul says, trying to move through the door to the precinct, but it's locked.

“You can't go back there.”

“Buzz me in.”

Paul pounds on the door, says, “Esperanto!”

“Step away from the door,” the officer says.

Still pounding: “Esperanto! Esperanto!”

The young officer hops on the phone, talking fast into it.

Paul thrashes and screams, “Finale! He said finale! What does he mean?! What the fuck does he mean by that?!”

SARA STOPS THE
car in front of the address, turns off Google Maps. They sit there, idling. She feels compelled to say something—to reassure him, to let him know that whatever happens, she's here. That was the thing that made her feel so comforted last night after the scary bath, being in bed with him, safe, and she wants to make him know that she'll do the same.

That's what she wants to do, but it comes out like this: “Don't get your hopes up. We don't know that she still lives here.”

Which is true, logical. But it belies her aims, and she tries to soften it. “No matter what, we'll deal with it together, okay?”

He nods, but Rodney is nervous. That's easy to see. He never fidgets like this. He's picking at one of his eyebrows, a tic Sara had never observed before, and if he keeps it up he'll have a bald spot.

She leans over and kisses him on the cheek. “Let's go.”

More nodding. Even a smile.

And they are out of the car, on the sidewalk, up the front stairs. They knock on the door and a woman answers. It is not Kathleen.
The woman's face is totaled. A split red lip. Bright green and silvery swelling on her cheek, the color of trout scales.

“Who are you?” she says.

“Does Kathleen Curtis still live here?” Sara says.

“I asked you a question,” the woman says.

“We're looking for Kathleen,” Sara says, “because she is his mom.”

The woman looks at Rodney. “I saw a picture of you yesterday.”

“Are you okay?” Sara asks.

“I thought you were the cops. They're on their way. He punched me. He took Kathleen.”

“Who?” says Rodney.

“Craigslist.”

“You need to sit down,” Sara says. “Let me help you.”

They both assist the woman to the couch. Sara sits next to her. Rodney stays standing, still picking at his eyebrow.

“Go get some ice for her face, Rodney,” Sara says.

But he doesn't budge, saying, “Mom.”

“He said he was taking her to the Golden Gate Bridge,” the woman says. “Then he knocked me out.”

“When?” Rodney says.

“Ten minutes ago. Fifteen? We'll tell the police and they'll handle it.”

Rodney points to the door, says to Sara, “Now.”

“You don't want to wait for the cops?”

“Now.”

“They'll be here soon,” says Sara.

“Keys,” he says.

“I'm coming too,” she says, then to the woman, “You stay here and talk to the police.”

Sara and Rodney are almost out the front door when the woman calls from the couch, “Lab coat. He's wearing a lab coat.”

•
  
•
  
•

A FREE MAN
travels wherever the wind blows him. On earth or the moon. On anywhere. Jake is almost out of life support. 2 percent battery left. Then no iPhone. Then he'll really be in unchartered territory.

It has to happen here. This is the only place to do a hard reset. This is the only place to give his fans what they want.

Walk out to the middle.

Imagine all those moon rocks crunching under his boots.

Hear that heavy breathing in his helmet.

He expected people to be flocking up to him, asking for autographs or inspirational quotes. He expected a mob of followers to lift him up, like a singer in a rock band, surfing the crowd to the middle of the bridge, basking in their electric affection.

There are lots of people around him, moving from the Marin side to the Golden Gate. Tour buses drop off here, letting everyone with guidebooks and cameras loose to snap pictures. Even the bus Jake took for his lunar landing had foreigners on it. A couple, both attractive; Jake would totally watch their porn. They kissed and spoke Spanish loudly. Every other seat on the bus had been empty and Jake couldn't sit still, constantly moving from one seat to another, to another, to another.

And now the wait is over. His astronaut boots are on the bridge's walkway, moving toward the center. Jake walks in the throng of tourists, knowing he'll be recognized any second by a loving fan.

He is important.

He is viral.

Imagine a time-lapse version of what awaits every earthling, the world continuing to test our wills, doing its best to demolish us, the fickle and sputtering world trying to take our dignities, our friends and families, our hopes and dreams, all the sadness swelling our internal temperatures and we get hotter and hotter until the whole world burns up. We both know this is the future, Albert, if they're not saved from the heat of their despairs, which is why I'm almost there, to the bridge, the car will be parked in minutes, we will walk to the center, I will wait for your sign. I'm scouring the whole solar system for that sign. I'm hearing a constant spinning of a record in my head, the scratching of the needle on vinyl, it's affecting my equilibrium some, not staggering but feeling sort of dizzy, which is the last way I want to feel while waiting on the portal to be opened. It doesn't matter what's going on in my head because Isaac Newton was wrong about there being three laws of motion. There are actually four, and the last one is this: Heroes are unstoppable forces.

22.

S
omeone's filming this
, thinks Noah911. Somebody's capturing him with the ashes. There's always a camera running somewhere on the Golden Gate.

The clues for what he should do with the ashes are in TheGreatJake's video: Tracey's happy face, Tracey's final steps, walking along, playing the song. She looks so relaxed.

This is the place.

It has to be.

He lightly squeezes the Ziploc bag, like he and Tracey are holding hands.

“Almost,” he says to her.

SARA CAN'T DRIVE
fast enough for Balloon Boy, who sits in the passenger seat, listening to the lady from Google Maps languidly dole out her directions, and he doesn't appreciate her this time. Sure, as they first maneuvered around San Francisco he'd been impressed with her collected, poised presence, but he wishes she understood
what was at stake. Balloon Boy wants her to be yelling directions, telling them to accelerate and never mind the rules of the road, drive with a sense of urgency. Do whatever they have to do to get to the Golden Gate quickly. Save your mom!

His foot will slow him down at the bridge, but he'll do his best to ignore the pain. And much like Mom's old address could have been wrong, there's a chance that the guy isn't even taking her to the Golden Gate. They have to look there first, though. They have to see.

“Scared,” he says to Sara as they drive.

“She's fine,” says Sara. “Don't worry.”