Love in the Present Tense (18 page)

When I woke up the following morning, Leonard was not in his bedroom. I looked for him everywhere. Even outside.

I asked Moon Pie's opinion. Out loud.

I said, “Moon Pie. Where did Leonard go?”

The dog was lying sprawled on the floor at the foot of my loft ladder. On the sound of Leonard's name, he looked up into the loft.

“Thank you,” I said. “You're very helpful.”

I climbed back upstairs to find Leonard asleep on the floor beside my bed.

He looked uncomfortable, so I lifted him and laid him out on the bed. Amazingly, he drooped in my arms and did not wake up.

For three nights running, Leonard slept on the floor beside my bed, or on the couch at the end of the loft, or on the foot of the bed like a faithful dog. He never volunteered why, and I asked no questions.

On the fourth night Barb came to see me, and we had to slip downstairs to Leonard's room and make love on his floor with the door locked.

It was a hot summer night, and the only air-conditioning was upstairs in the loft. Leonard didn't mind the heat, but he hated artificially refrigerated air.

As Barb and I lay quietly together afterward, with me in that rare topside position, I realized that I had broken quite a sweat with my exertion. I felt a drop of perspiration roll off the end of my nose and watched it land on her collarbone in the half-darkness.

“He's admitting that he needs you,” she said.

It was the first word spoken about Leonard, or anything else for that matter, since she'd arrived earlier that night.

It was out of left field, a continuation of nothing, a finish to a conversation never begun, and yet it fit right in, as if it had been expected, and I was not at all surprised to hear it.

“I know,” I said.

“You should be flattered.”

“I am,” I said.

LEONARD,
age
18:
don't you dare

At first I was cruising close to the edge of the cliff. Not all that high, either. Not that much higher than the cliff I launched from.

I knew I should nose up and try to get some altitude, but I just kept doing this. It was something like being a coward and taking too many risks, all at the same time. Flying close to the cliff made me feel like I could land any time. And I could. Potentially. It also made me feel like I could crash. And I could.

Then I saw it again, that one big star, right in front of me. Hanging over the ocean.

It might have been an illusion, but this is what I saw: There was a piece of light from that star, and it was reaching out to me. The wind made my eyes tear up, and the more I squinted through the tears the more the light from that star strobed out in my direction. Reaching for me. And I felt like if I could just go a little bit faster, I could warp out to it somehow, and me and that light, we could meet in the middle somewhere, together. Don't know where, though. But Pearl would be there, even more than she is now, and it would be home.

I thought, what are you made of, Leonard? Whose son are you?

And I made a sharp turn out to sea.

The wind is strong in my eyes, I have those wind tears again, and I look at that star, waiting for it to reach for me again. Waiting for it to strobe out and take me home. But it's just sitting there, and the moon with the ring of light doesn't look like a destination anymore. It looks like a big stop sign.

And the ocean looks a long way down.

If that star is saying anything at all to me, it's nothing welcoming. If it's saying anything, it's saying, don't you dare.

Don't you dare throw your life away.

That's how I know I'm really close this time, and it jolts me. It jolts me hard and I get scared. I forget how much I've been wanting this and I start to feel like anybody else. Like I just want to live. That's all.

If Pearl is anywhere, she's in that star, or in the moon with the halo. Or more likely both. And she wants like hell for me to get back. And because I never knew that before, that's how I know I'm close this time.

It jolts me, and I turn hard. Way too hard. And I'm still much closer to the cliff than I ever could have imagined. It felt like I'd been flying out to sea—toward that star—forever. But time played a little trick on me. The cliff is not that far away.

I dip down and head for the cliff but it's coming on too fast and I try to pull up but I pull way too hard and I stall. Because I was jolted. And I try to recover from the stall the way I learned but there's no room. It takes room to recover. And I don't have it. All I have is a big jut of cliff coming at me fast.

I know there's maybe something to do, but what is it?

There's no time to think.

The nose of the glider hits first, and hard. I want it to cushion me but it's too light and soft. I feel and hear the crunch of it, feel the aluminum pipes give way. The whole glider gives and bends and collapses and I swing forward in the harness and meet the cliff halfway and it smacks me in the head and the chest and the knee and then I'm falling. There's a spinning motion to the falling because the glider is so bent.

There are either rocks or ocean below, waiting to meet up with me, which is an ugly thing either way. So while I'm spinning it hits me—in that sudden abbreviated way that things hit when you wouldn't think there'd be time for any of that—what an ironic moment this is to realize that I want to live.

Rocks. It's rocks.

And a kind of shocked blackness that takes me away.

Sometime after I land—how long I don't know—I open my eyes and see the stars and the cliff up above me, blurred and muddied by the fact that I've knocked out my contacts.

Then my field of vision all goes black again.

And I think I'm blind. I think I've undone all Mitch did for me, torn my retinas or somehow knocked away all that good work and I'll never see again. I'm still trying to breathe. I think I broke some ribs and I know for damn sure I broke my leg and I still need to breathe. But it's all black with no air and then I go dizzy a moment and open my eyes and see muddy stars again.

And I realize I was passing out, not going blind, and I manage to pull in some air, but my ribs are cracked or broken and it hurts like hell.

But I'm alive, and I can see.

Moon Pie is on the cliff up above me. I can't see him, but I can hear him barking. Good boy, I think. Bark. Call attention. But it's one or two or three in the morning and I know there's nobody's attention to call.

So I lie on the rocks and breathe.

I have blood in my mouth. I touch the spot on my head. The spot I hit when I collided with the cliff edge. My hand comes away bloody. There's a lot of blood. I'm surprised how much. Then there's another place on the back of my head that I hit coming down on the rocks. My leg hurts so bad and I try to lift my head to look at it but something goes wrong.

Then I open my eyes, I don't know how much later, and I'm just seeing where I am again, and I remember wanting to look down at my leg, but I'm not sure what happened with that.

Moon Pie is still barking and I'm taking little shallow breaths because it hurts. I look up and Pearl is sitting on the rocks looking down at me.

I'm pretty sure, even now while it's happening, that she's not. Only she is. I mean, I really smacked my head. Pearl doesn't go places in her body, not anymore, but I smacked my head so hard and that's how I see her.

“Pearl,” I say. “I missed you so much.”

“Leonard,” she says. “Don't get me wrong, because you know I love you and all. But that was really, really stupid.”

She's just the age she was when I saw her last, about eighteen, and her hair is freshly combed, like a black waterfall. The wind is up on the ocean tonight and it blows hard across us, but her hair doesn't move. It doesn't blow. That's how I know she's not there, really. Except to the extent that she is.

“Why?” I say. “Why is it stupid?”

“Because you have a life,” she says. “If you didn't, you'd deal with that. But you do. So don't waste it.”

“I just wanted to be close to you,” I say.

And then it hits me, in my delirium, that I'm repeating a conversation I had with Mitch when he tried to be blind for a day to feel closer to me. But I'm repeating it with the roles reversed.

“Voluntary death is never going to catch on,” I say out loud. “It's just not something you'd choose for yourself.”

I
say that. So I'm saying both sides now. I'm saying the Pearl things, too. And then I open my eyes and Pearl is gone.

Or was never there.

I take little shallow breaths and lift my head to look down at my leg and it's crooked. I think I still hurt but it's getting harder to tell. I lay my head down again and close my eyes and I know things about myself I never knew before.

I know that I'm just a human guy, like everybody. I'm not some ethereal spirit who can magically transcend this life thing and go where I belong. I belong right here with all the other humans, and the only reason I ever thought otherwise is because Pearl is dead and I wanted her back.

The tide is coming in now.

A wave of it washes up onto the rocks and it's shockingly cold, like being thrown into ice water. It hurts my ribs and my leg and I yell out loud, and Moon Pie barks more desperately.

I have to find a way to crawl up the rocks and get out of this. Because it's cold.

But then a few waves later I realize it's worse than that. It's going to pick me up and dash me against the rocks and jostle my broken bones.

Just as I think that, it does.

It only moves me about one rock over and sets me down. There's some pain, but now the coldness of the water is making me numb.

I don't realize the real potential of the situation until the biggest one yet washes over me, slaps me up against the face of the cliff, and then pulls me out to sea. I grab at rocks, but their faces are slippery and the pull is so strong. I try to swim, to fight against it, but my ribs are broken and I've hit my head so hard and the ocean is stronger.

I reach for what might be the last rock, but my hands slide away and I'm sucked out toward the sea.

And I think, that's it. I just found out how badly I want to live and now I've lost the battle.

My eyes break the surface, and I open them and see Pearl again. Sitting on the rocks at the water's edge. She doesn't look worried or upset. I'm about to raise my hand to wave good-bye when something stops me.

My harness.

The twisted, crashed glider has wedged itself firmly between two rocks. And I'm strapped to it, attached by this harness. The harness wins. The ocean loses. It pulls and pulls and recedes, and I wait for the glider to come loose, but it never does. It holds me. Then another big wave washes me up onto the rocks, jarring my broken bones. I try to grab for the glider, but I miss. And I have to do it all over again.

Again the glider holds.

Again I open my eyes and see Pearl sitting watching me. And I realize that the tide is just beginning to come in. It's hours until morning. The battles I fought against these two waves will be a small part of a very long war. I realize if I want my life I'm going to have to put up a hell of a fight.

A wave crashes me against the rocks again. I grab an aluminum strut on the glider, wrap my arm around it, and hold on like I've never held on to anything before.

Pearl is still sitting—or not sitting as the case may be—just off my left elbow.

She says, “Do you think I wanted to die?”

“No,” I say. “I think you wanted to stay with me.”

“Damn right,” she says. “I had no choice. You have a choice.”

“I don't want to die either.”

“Could've fooled me.”

“I don't want to die now.”

“Good,” she says. “'Bout time.”

The waves are coming up higher now, and I'm so sure that each one is going to lift and unstick the glider and wash the wreck—and me—out to sea.

But I'm still holding on.

“You're my son,” she says. “So you're strong.”

I'm numb from the cold, and my whole body feels achy. I don't really want to talk, but it's Pearl, and she might not be around to talk to later. And besides, if I don't talk, I'll give up.

“Did you fight?” I ask.

Pearl says, “No.”

“So why do I have to?”

“Because your dignity is not at stake,” she says. “To keep your own life you give away anything in the world except your own dignity. That's the only thing you've got that's worth dying for. Now shut up and hold on,” she says.

When I open my eyes again, she's gone.

I'm alone out here. I can't even hear Moon Pie barking.

I worry that I'm going to pass out and I'm worried about my sanity. Because of the way time stretches out. So I decide to sing. Or, I don't know, maybe I don't decide exactly. Maybe I just start. Funny thing is, I'm singing that song Pearl used to sing with me at bedtime. I wish Pearl was here to sing with me, but I can't honestly say I think she is.

Then after a while I just can't sing anymore.

I notice that I'm less in my body than I used to be. I can see me down there on the rocks, holding that glider. Not far down. But still. I worry what it means when I get outside of myself like that.

Then a few minutes or an hour later—I'm not able to figure time anymore—a big wave comes in and floats the glider and I can feel it lift up and I can hear the little scrape as it unsticks itself from between the rocks. Then the wave rushes out again and takes us. I'm back inside myself now. I'm hoping that's a good sign.

“I really tried,” I say to Pearl in my head, but I know she's not there anymore. Worse yet, I know she never was. I mean, not like that. I still believe I saw her in a candle flame and a sparrow but I don't believe she sat on the rocks and talked to me.

I feel like I'm tumbling under the surface of the water, bubbling along, and I can only hold my breath just so much longer. Then my face breaks the surface, and I'm out beyond the waves. And the war seems to be over. I've probably lost, but at least the war is over. It's strangely calm. Instead of the battering there's just a rocking swell.

I feel like I could pass out now and rest.

I can't decide if the glider will make me more likely to wash out to sea or to wash up onto the beach. But I figure I should decide soon, because I'm going to pass out. I have to take my best shot.

I unbuckle my harness. I've decided I'm going to try to swim to shore.

I don't feel cold now. I feel strangely warm and without pain. Very calm.

I take one good, brisk stroke, and I find the pain again. It capsizes me. Comes up through the numbness and I struggle and almost sink, and then I hold very still and wait for it to subside again.

I call out to Pearl one more time in my head.

I look at the moon and it all goes black and stays that way.