It was a September Saturday, an airfield in pristine farm-dotted northeast Maryland, just west of the Susquehanna River. I sat at a picnic table beneath a wooden pavilion enclosed on three sides. The fourth side opened to a lawn where, at any given point, single-engine airplanes either idled at a standstill, returned from the air, or left for takeoff with two anxious looking civilian skydivers and their professional guides. I was faced with a clipboard full of papers requiring initials and a signature. The red sheets and bold print in front of me outlined in painstaking legalese the agreement that the company with which I’d aligned myself on this sunny morning would bear no responsibility, financial or otherwise, should the scheduled skydive result in my injury or death. I hurried through the initialing, flipping pages, not wanting to spend more time than necessary verifying that my potential death would have no recourse.
After handing in my clipboard (while wearing a cloak of grim seriousness, not wanting to ruffle feathers by making “jokes” about the pending activity, fearful of being sent to the “troublemaker” line. (where the parachutes are made from lobster nets.)), I was weighed in, which along with making me feel like livestock, was a method used by the company for determining my assigned jump instructor. Minutes later my instructor, Jason, tall and skinny with blond ponytail, chin scruff, and double-take-worthy blue eyes, called me over from the open side of the pavilion. He had me step into a harness, which hugged my groin and strapped over my shoulders, and put me through the following training course:
Jason: You ever jumped before?
Me: No.
Jason: Okay, when we exit the plane you’re gonna put your head back, try to touch your heels to your butt, and hold your hands to the straps on your chest. When you feel me tap your shoulder, extend your hands above your head, keeping your elbows bent at right angles. If at any point you feel me tap your leg, your heels need to reach further back toward your butt. Keep your head back the entire time. Any questions?
Me: No.
My cool demeanor was a constructed façade. The reality of what I was about to do was setting in and my nerves edged toward a cliff, my stomach a hive of angry yellow-jackets. All exacerbated as we headed toward the plane, which looked about the size of a shoebox, and I was directed to the torn foam pad, my assigned seat beside the door. My back jammed into the plane’s control panel. I sat inches from the pilot. During takeoff, the plane wobbled across the grass runway, the pilot grabbed and moved my arm from where it rested to where he needed it, away from the risk of hitting the controls, choosing to make the move himself rather than direct me because, as he yelled above the engine noise: “EASIER THAN TRYING TO TELL YOU!”
On the climb to ten thousand feet, with the Susquehanna growing in distance yet getting bigger, eventually resembling an ocean, and the farm plots turning to uneven colored squares, and the temperature dropping from a balmy, early fall day to an icy chill that rippled my bare legs, and the nose of the plane foraging a path through wisps of cloud vapors flying past the windows, I distinctly remember thinking, “This is absolutely insane—the amount of distance between me and the ground. Am I fucking insane? Okay, me. Just get through this. Survive. And then never, ever, do this again. Ever”
At the thumbs up from the pilot, Jason yelled in my ear to turn around and face the front of the plane, sitting my knees on the foam pad. I then heard a series of clipping. I recognized this moment as me having to fully trust that he was indeed attaching himself to me correctly with the parachute, ignoring all my kindergarten lessons about not getting into cars with strangers to find dogs in exchange for Milk Duds. He announced that soon the door would slide open, and I’d have to reach my shaking right foot to the white metal bar jutted from the side of the plane, registering somewhere in the back of my brain, through a semi-translucent sea of clouds, the cornfield patches some unfathomable distance below. We’d then lean out together and be gone into the sky without stopping to think that maybe instead we should have stayed on land and went for pancakes and bacon drowned in maple syrup.
Another signal from the pilot and this happened. At that point, as they say, the training took over. The door slid open. The plane slowed reducing the engine noise. Air flew in like a whistling. Clouds moved by like someone released a dry ice machine. This was no time for hesitation. I didn’t want to be the guy in Jason’s stories for years to come who clung to the wing and cried, so I reached for the bar and screamed like a mental patient because it was all I could think to do. The wind ripped my hair and pulled my cheeks back and condensation filled my goggles. We tore through clouds at breakneck speed, not like losing your stomach since you have inertia from the plane, but moving through-galaxies-kind-of-fast, forward. And then, just like that, it was over. I felt a yanking on both shoulders as Jason pulled the parachute open slowing our descent. He pointed to the mini cars and trucks whizzing across the I-95 bridge and a local quarry while we drifted to earth like conquerors.
After landing, the adrenaline and cold temps coursed my blood and stayed on my skin for hours. Funny how the brain works. All I wanted next, from the safe firmness of solid ground, was to do it again.
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Tim Cyphers is a recent graduate (December 2016) of The Johns Hopkins University M.A. in Writing program with a concentration in Fiction. He is from and currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Photo Credit: Dirk Dreyer www.dreyerpictures.com
