The Ascent (4 page)

Tonight, as expected, the bar was only mildly populated. I nearly collapsed on the closest barstool and, leaning my crutches against the wall, let out a hefty sigh.

The bartender was a nice enough kid named Ricky Carrolton. His face seemed to light up when he saw me. “Been gone so long, I was beginning to think you jumped off the Bay Bridge.”

Something about his comment bothered me. “Downtown’s more crowded than usual,” I said quickly, trying not to let my discomfort show. “What’s the deal?”

“Regatta race starts tomorrow morning. Didn’t you read today’s paper?”

“I only get the Sunday paper.”

“We’ve even been getting some of the stragglers all the way down here.” As Ricky spoke, he fixed me a whiskey sour. “Out-of-towners, most of them. All the hotels are busting at the seams. Good for business, though, I guess.”

“How’s Brom?”

Ricky set the drink down in front of me. “Laid up with the gout.” He nodded toward my crutches. “When are you gonna get off those? You seem to be moving around better.”

“I’m biding my time.”

“Doc keeps giving you pain meds as long as you’re a cripple, huh?” Ricky said, laughing. “I dig it.”

A hand fell on my shoulder.

I turned, expecting to see someone I knew, but this man was a stranger to me. Perhaps one of the out-of-towners Ricky had just spoken of.

“Your name Timothy Overleigh?” the man asked. He wasa large, barrel-chested behemoth, with grizzled white tufts of hair spooling out from beneath his mesh cap and pepper-colored beard stubble covering the undulations of his thick, rolling neck.

“Who wants to know?” I retorted.

The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward a darkened corner of the tavern. “Guy in the back,” he said, turning his rheumy eyes from me so he could scan the collection of liquor bottles that climbed the wall behind the bar.

I peered across the room and could make out the shape of a man seated by himself in a corner booth. The lighting was too poor, however, to get a good look at his face.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “He say his name? It’s a bit of a hike for a guy on crutches, particularly when he’s not comfortable with the idea of leaving his drink behind.”

“Didn’t say no name,” grumbled the man, who sat two stools down and lit a cigarette.

Over the past several weeks, I’d become rather adept at using one crutch. I did this now, holding my drink in my free hand, and made my way to the darkened corner.

As I approached, the man’s features seemed to materialize out of the gloom. He was a good-looking guy, in a somewhat ordinary sort of way, with high, almost feminine cheekbones and a small slash for a mouth. His eyes were large, deeply set, and black like a bird’s. He had long black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

He lit a cigarette and grinned with just one corner of his mouth. Then I recognized him—not fully enough to recall who he was but enough to know I had seen that grin before.

“It
is
you,” he said, the cadence of his voice equivalent to a low, breathy gasp. “I looked up and thought, shit, that’s Tim Overleigh sitting over there, his leg all fucked up. And I was right.”

“Holy shit,” I uttered, realizing who he was.

“Holy shit, indeed,” said Andrew Trumbauer, his one-sidedgrin widening.

In disbelief, I mumbled, “Last time I saw you—”We almost died,” he finished.

3

I FIRST MET ANDREW TRUMBAUER IN A WHOLE

other life. I can still picture him coming out of the ocean and strutting toward Hannah and me, this strange creature whose skin is so pale it is nearly transparent. His scarecrow-thin body beaded with seawater, his bare feet dotted with white sand. That grin overtakes one corner of his mouth, cocking it upward into an almost comical gesture of aloofness, and he raises a mesh bag of dog biscuits. He’s got a pair of goggles around his neck, the band pulled so tight it appears to be choking him, and he is so horridly, morbidly pale I imagine I can see his skin start to sizzle and turn pink, then deepen to red as he approaches from the other side of the beach.

4

I SAT DOWN IN THE BOOTH ACROSS FROM ANDREW.

still somewhat shaken.

“You remember, don’t you, Overleigh?” he said, his voice remaining low and breathy. The way the shadows played off his face, he was a patchwork of dark hollows and blaring white flesh. My name sounded comfortable coming out of his mouth, too, as if no time had passed between us. “How we almost died?”

“Of course.” The words were automatic—I had no idea what he was talking about. It occurred to me that the last time I saw Andrew Trumbauer was at Hannah’s funeral three years ago.

“That was something,” Andrew muttered, blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling.

“No, wait,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

Andrew frowned. It was a grotesque gesture, his face too thin to accommodate it properly. Instead, the corners of his mouth seemed to sink to twin points, and his chin wrinkled into a walnut. “You don’t remember?”

“No, I have no—”

Then it all came rushing back to me: leaving the funeral service in the gray, rain-soaked afternoon, Andrew behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat, Andrew turning at the last minute as the power line snapped, spitting fire as it whipped the ground, the car nearly running over the downed line …

“The power line,” I said, my voice distant. I’d almost forgotten about it, the other events of that horrible day overshadowing all else.

Andrew leaned back in his seat, a look of satisfaction overtaking that vague little frown of his. Something glittered in his eyes that caused me to turn my gaze down at my drink.

“I’m sorry,” he said after the silence between us grew too long. “That was a shitty thing to bring up right off the bat like that.”

“It’s okay.”

“You look good,” he said.

I smirked. “Liar. I know I look like shit.”

“What happened to your leg?”

I told him about the caving accident and admitted that it had been foolish to undertake such an excursion alone. “The bone came right up through the skin. I was a mess. I’m just lucky a car happened to stop after I made it out to the highway. Was probably the only car around for miles.”

“Talk about luck,” Andrew said, although he didn’t seem too impressed.

“Six months later,” I went on, “and I’ve learned my lesson. For the time being.”

“Thing about lessons,” Andrew said, “is that there’s always a new

one to learn.”

I bummed one of his cigarettes and said, “What the hell are you doing out here, anyway, man?”

“Regatta race.”

“You’re in it? Get the fuck outta here. You have a boat?”

“Not my boat. I’m one of the crew.”

“You can sail?” But I knew this was a stupid question. Andrew Trumbauer was one of those guys who did everything from hiking the Grand Canyon to rafting down the goddamn Nile.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten involved in the race yourself,” he said, thankfully ignoring my question. “You live down here, don’t you? You’re an adventurer at heart. Doesn’t take those crutches and a busted leg for me to see that—I
know
you. And you’ve never sailed the Regatta?”

I shrugged. “Been a busy few years.”

“That’s a sad excuse. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”

I considered this. After Hannah’s death and the disappearance of my artistic talent, I’d submerged myself in the world of extreme sports—skydiving, spelunking, white-water rafting. But I knew nothing I said could compete with anything Andrew had done. So I said, “I once ran out to get my mail in the middle of a downpour without my rain slicker. It was risky, I know, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.”

Andrew smiled. This time the expression looked more human. “You still sculpting?”

“Actually, no. I gave it up.”

“You make it sound like you just quit smoking.”

“No, I still do that from time to time.”

Andrew’s smile died. “Wait—you’re serious, aren’t you?”

“As a heart attack.”

“Jesus, man, why? You were brilliant.”

“It’s … it’s a lot of mitigating factors. Complicated bullshit.”

“Life is full of complicated bullshit. Yours is no different than anyone else’s.”

I felt my heart flutter. For some stupid reason, I said, “I see Hannah.”

Andrew stared at me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable. “What are you talking about?”

“Forget it.” I waved a hand at him.

“Tell me.”

I sighed, watching a group of older men shoot darts. After what felt like an eternity, I said, “You’ll think I’m crazy, but I believe she’s been haunting me.”

“How’s that?”

“I first saw her that night in the cave.” I explained how I’d gotten free of the cave and found the highway, following what I thought was Hannah’s ghost. I didn’t know if I expected Andrew to laugh or clap me on the shoulder and tell me I needed psychiatric help, but he did neither; he merely watched my lips move while I talked and never interrupted. “After that, I kept seeing her in my apartment. Out of the corner of my eye. But every time I turn to look, it’s a coatrack or a pile of clothes. And every time I flip the lights on, she vanishes.” Once again, I waved a hand at him. It seemed a sane gesture, one I was required to do in relaying such a bizarre story. “It’s stupid, I know. But it’s been bothering me.”

“Why?” said Andrew.

I didn’t know quite what he meant. “Because it’s fucking unnatural.”

“No.” He fluttered some fingers before his face. “I mean, why is she coming to you now? She’s been dead for three years.”

“Never mind,” I said. “It’s all in my head. I’m dealing with a lot of shit about her death.”

“Maybe it’s a warning. Like she’s trying to tell you something from beyond the grave.”

“Or maybe it’s that I’ve been spending too much time alone with my thoughts.”

“And back in the cave?” he said, cocking one eyebrow.

“Back in the cave I was in agony, and I was nearly hypothermicand dehydrated and whatever else you can imagine. I could have imagined I’d been rescued by Bigfoot, and it would have seemed perfectly natural at the time.”

Andrew sighed and rubbed at his upper lip with an index finger. His eyes never left mine. “You’re such a realist. You remember all that crazy shit we used to do?”

I nodded. I remembered it well.

“Realism will be your downfall.”

I snorted and said, “That makes no fucking sense.”

“Everything makes sense. Listen,” he said. His voice had adopted a less breathy tone. “I believe in fate. And I believe fate had me run into you here tonight.”

“Why would fate go through the trouble?”

“So I could apologize.”

His words surprised me. “Apologize for what?”

“For all the time we lost after Hannah’s death. For disappearing for three years. And for siding with her in the separation.”

I glanced away and watched the smoke coil up from the tip of my cigarette. “It was only fair. You were Hannah’s friend, too. And I was an asshole. I was fully to blame for the split.”

For whatever reason, I waited for Andrew to tell me that wasn’t the case, that both Hannah and I were equally to blame, but he didn’t. If he had, it would have been a lie. Hannah leaving me was
my
fault, not ours.

“Have you ever heard of the Canyon of Souls?” he asked. It was like something straight out of an old movie—particularly the way he leaned over the table and whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone. “Have you?”

“No.”

“It’s a canyon, an ice canyon, slick like a buffed flume, that runs under the earth, and no one on this planet has ever been able to successfully traverse it from one end to the other. Hell, no one’s ever even
seen
it.
No one
, Tim.”

I felt a frozen finger touch the base of my spine. Suddenly I was no longer sitting here in the bar; I was back in my apartment, watching the molten shadows shift in the darkness from across the room. I was back in the caves, too, with my leg all fucked up and the stink of my own inevitable death filling my nostrils. I thought of Hannah’s hand coming down through the opening in the cave’s low ceiling, hoisting me up. Of Hannah’s visage appearing through the desert trees, beckoning me toward a road I could not see …

“No one,” I heard myself echo.

“I’ve done a lot of shit. I’ve been all over the world. Look at this.” He rolled up one sleeve and revealed a puckered, shiny panel of flesh along his forearm, roughly the diameter of a tennis ball. “You know what did that? You have any idea?”

“No idea.”

“Bull’s horn. Gored in the streets of Pamplona. Shit, I’ve eaten the hearts from live snakes in Vietnam while drinking shots of bile. I’ve seen the wildest sex acts you could image in the remotest parts of the world—shit with donkeys and mules and some unbelievable thing called the ‘elusive transplant.’ That stuff’s old for me now. I’m going big-time.” He winked, and I thought I could hear his eyelid snap. “I’m going to touch the other side.”

I surprised myself by laughing. “That’s cool. Seriously.”

“I’ve got everything set,” he said, leaning back against the red vinyl cushion of the booth. “I want you to come with me.”

For some reason, I had been expecting this. “You’re crazy. You’ve always been crazy. I can’t compete with that.”

“What’s the matter? You broke your leg so now you’ve given up on life? That’s disgusting. Hannah would be disgusted with you.”

The mention of her name stung me. “I’m in a different place now.”

“What were you doing in that cave by yourself?”

It was the same question Marta had asked me earlier. However, this time I found it much harder to avoid giving an answer. “I wasn’t

thinking. It was stupid.” I chewed ravenously at my lower lip. “Where is this Canyon of Souls, anyway?” “Nepal,” he said. “The Himalayas.” I brayed laughter. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.” “The whole thing will take a month. You’re experienced—you’ve been ice climbing, and you’re familiar and comfortable with the equipment.”

“I’ve got a busted leg.”

“Fuck that,” said Andrew. It was his turn to laugh. “It’s not until next year.”