Tethered
to a cord, Skip Kaltenheuser dives toward the sand and surf of Acapulco
Bay.
(Leonard
J. Hansen)
ACAPULCO, Mexico
"Why am I here?" reverberates through my mind
as I climb the final steps in a tower resembling a massive construction
crane.
Each upward step on the ladder makes Acapulco
Bay a little more startling, the huge beach umbrellas more like toadstools,
the sunbathers ever more like little Gumbies racing back from the waves.
I remember the respect taught me that morning
as the waves knocked me over and the tide swept me out from the beach until
I could swim to where boulders broke the current's power.
High above, two men wait to tie me to a long
cord and usher me off a narrow platform with the comforting words, "Don't
look down." But of course I look down with every step, logging the heights.
I had counted on the elevator to whisk me to the top with no time to rethink
the whim that had seized me. This was too much time to think.
I was sun-drenched to the point of feeling
light-headed. I reflect on the dues of age, of the onrush of a 49th birthday
that makes me Methuselah in a bungee realm frequented by young people not
yet privy to the vagaries of chance.
Stories have been told of lives imagined in
the moments before a scaffold opens. There is ample time to reflect.
Mostly, I reflect on fear.
When young and dumb, I tried to stare down
a fear of heights by hanging from a Kansas water tower by a few fingers,
before a wind gust told me not to press my luck. As I scale the ladders,
I yearn for that fear. It is simply defined.
It is not the fright that imprisoned my mind
for the year since a crescendo of seizures in my 18-month-old son prompted
a midnight ambulance. The CAT scan revealed a golf-ball-sized tumor gobbling
Jack's left frontal lobe. Behind Jack's handsome face was a black hole
that sucked in all the hopes and wishes people have for their children.
I am ashamed of that moment, when I gave my
son up for lost, amid thoughts of how to raise organ donation issues with
my wife.
The surgeon dared not cut far, for fear of
paralysis or other permanent deficits. Part of the unpredictable tumor
may have remained. Now, we keep vigil with quarterly MRIs. Every time they
draw near, time holds its breath.
News has been good. Defying odds, Jack's resilient
body beats back the threat without chemotherapy. Hope never wavers, but
I never loosen my grasp on that subtle yet constant fear. It drives me
up these ladders in search of a scare that I might embrace and overcome.
I want fear to wash over me without reservation. I am weary of the effort
of ignoring fear.
As I climb onto the platform, fear does not
disappoint. Every cell in my body is on high alert as an attendant ties
my feet together with a towel and fraps it with a rope connected to a clamp
on the end of the thick bungee cord that had been selected for my weight.
I could stand to drop some pounds, and, as
I stare out at Acapulco Bay, I am about to drop them all. The attendant
hooks a backup harness around my waist with detached professionalism, like
fastening a condemned man to a gurney.
This operation is run by the sister of the
New Zealander who more or less invented bungee jumping, a guy who once
slipped onto the Eiffel Tower for a clandestine jump. So she knows what
she is doing, right?
Right?
That comforting thought has not rounded my
cells, all of which are being forced to move toward the edge like sailors
walking the plank.
They frantically send chemical messages with
the query: "Just what do you think you're doing, mocking survival instincts?"
I light up with fear.
I angle for small talk: "You do this often?"
The men don't indulge it. They know better than to let a stall get going
on the gallows. Frankly, I am terrified. But I am more terrified of backing
out - not because of what strangers guzzling beers on the deck of a bar
below might think, but because of what I might think while climbing back
down all those ladders.
The man hooking me up asks whether I want
a "water touch" - enough length to touch the water below - and whether
I'm diving far out. Sure, on both counts - if I'm going out, I'm going
out in style. He calculates and lengthens the bungee accordingly. I peer
down at a small swimming pool, 20 feet deep at ground zero, more cushion
than the cliff divers who put Acapulco on the tourist map get.
The only steps I can take are small and comical,
like Chaplin's Little Tramp or a medieval geisha.
The bungee cord is made of the same elastic
that holds up underwear, only thousands of strands more. My thoughts turn
to the pairs of boxer shorts back home in my dresser that won't stay up.
The sage advice, "Don't look down," comes
from behind. More little steps, to the edge. My heart seems audible in
my ears. The executioner's firm hand against my back signals it is time.
Like a bullfrog goosed in a jumping contest,
my legs turn from jello to spring steel. I dive like Superman fleeing Kryptonite.
It's a better launch than my handler anticipated. Graceful, even. Few divers
actually go out as far as they think, knees often going weak.
Suddenly a small boy dives into the prohibited
area where I'm heading for my water touch. My voice finds the word "whoa!"
and I attempt a telekinetic slow-down as he swims off. Not to worry: I
went out so far that even with the additional length I was a foot short
of the water.
I could have used that stabilizing splash.
Now the bungee really takes hold, turning a graceful power dive into soap
on a rope. As what goes down must come up, what goes out must come back
- in my case, up over a faux rock cliff at the other end of the pool and
up over two lanes of traffic. I look across at the roof of a building I'm
flying at, and then down at a bus below me.
The rope suddenly goes slack and starts to
curl and loop. As I am again in free fall, it occurs to me that this is
a rope someone forgot to change after the 500-jump warranty expired, that
the brief epilogue "freak accident" will now forever be linked to my name.
The loops snap taut, and I'm once again winging
back past the pool toward the ocean, though not as far. After a few diminishing
recoils, I'm a mere pendulum swinging over the pool.
Note to the suicidal: Gravity rarely allows
second thoughts.
On a platform a few stories over the pool,
a young man reaches out with a long rod with a loop that I grasp. He pulls
me in like a mackerel.
Unfastened, my umbilical cord disappears like
a sky hook. I am subject again to the laws of gravity.
Margaritas at the evening reception can't
touch my still- pumping adrenaline.
I savor my fear.
Afterthought: This bungee was safe
enough, but I know life offers little in the way of comprehensive insurance.
As I write this in the middle of Washington, D.C., the quiet of the sunrise
is disturbed by an emergency vehicle.
Sirens now kindle a different set of fears
to manage, of flashbacks to nightmares that insistently remain.
I wish I could recommend the bungee catharsis
to those carrying the shock, and losses, of recent events, but it would
fall short.
-- Skip Kaltenheuser
