The Ledge

by Lesley Choyce

  “It’s not you. It’s me,” she said. “Give me some time,” she added.

  School days progressed sluggishly from one day to the next. Mr. Carlton had us reading and acting out this really long poem called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He said I did a good job of reading the parts about the sea and the waves and the monsters. I didn’t understand much of it, but I knew plenty about the sea, the waves and the monsters. My monster was the fear that had dogged me in almost everything I’d done since that day on the Ledge.

  Toward the end of one class, Mr. Carlton asked, “Why do you think the old mariner has to tell his story over and over?” And then he picked me to answer.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “He’s obsessed. He’s damaged from the experience.” I stalled after that. The words reverberated in my brain.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “He’s trying to make sense of his mistake—killing the bird, which then led his shipmates into hell. He’s trying to tell others not to do what he did.”

  “And that’s it?”

  No, there was more. But I sat silent and shook my head no. There was much more. But I didn’t want to say it out loud. The mariner was trying to heal himself.

  Chapter Eighteen

  And I probably would be like that damned sailor in the poem, telling my own tale of woe. If only I knew the whole story. As crazy as that sounds, it was about the most important thing in my life—except for getting my legs back, of course. I needed to know. I tried explaining this to my dad, but he just said, “Forget it. Move on. Don’t look back.”

  My mom was more sympathetic. “We just want what is best for you,” she said.

  I wanted to talk to Keira about it, but every time I texted her, she never responded.

  I kept bugging Ahmad for my test results, and he said they weren’t ready yet. My insurance coverage for the physiotherapy was running out, but Ahmad said it didn’t matter. I could continue for free. I did more than that. I started hanging out at his clinic most days after school. A lot of the exercises I could do on my own. Ocean was there every day too, working as a kind of assistant.

  One snowy afternoon when a client didn’t show up, Ahmad made a strong pot of coffee and the three of us hunkered down by the window to watch the snowflakes coming down. It was a wet snow, so it wasn’t really building up, but I really hated snow now. It made getting around so much more difficult for me.

  “Don’t hate the snow,” Ahmad told me. “It doesn’t hate you.”

  Ocean gently smacked his cousin on the shoulder. “Nick can hate the snow if he wants to. We all have to hate something.”

  Do we? I wondered. I was afraid to ask who or what O.C. hated. He’d lost his family. He’d lost his leg. He had a right to have a hate on for a lot of things. But, like me hating the snow, there probably wasn’t much he could do about it.

  “Have the dreams stopped?” Ahmad asked. “The dreams about the wave?”

  “No.”

  “Unfinished business?” O.C. asked.

  “Something like that,” I answered. I explained about going to see Arnie and how he wouldn’t talk.

  O.C. shifted in his seat and stretched out his artificial limb. He seemed suddenly animated. Something about the Wreck had touched a nerve. “He sounds like my grandfather,” he said. “When the war started, he trusted no one. He pushed everyone away, became mean and mistrustful, even of family and close friends. Do you know what made the Wreck like this?”

  I shrugged. “He’s a loner. Kept to himself too much. People started treating him like a weirdo, an outcast.”

  “I want to meet this man,” O.C. said.

  “Fat chance of that,” I said, but Ahmad was leaning into the conversation now.

  “You only tried once. We should try again. I’ll take you there. Ocean wants to meet your friend.”

  Friend wasn’t exactly the word I would use, and I was about to say no way. No way at all. But just then Ahmad’s phone rang, and when he hung up he said, “It’s a sign. My only other client has canceled for today. We can go.”

  “Go where?” I asked.

  “Go to meet this Arnold man. This Wreck you speak of.”

  O.C. was already on his feet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It seemed like a really bad idea, but as soon as we stepped outside, the snow stopped and the sun peeked through the dark, heavy clouds. I expected this second mission to be a complete failure, but the craving to know how I’d made it ashore was still gnawing at me. In the back of Ahmad’s van, I phoned Keira and was shocked when she answered right away. I told her what we were up to. “Do you want to come with us?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “I’d love to have another chance to have an old crazy man scream at me. I’ll meet you in front of the library.”

  “You sure?” I asked. But she had already hung up.

  The snow was melting on the road and sidewalks as we slowed to a stop in front of the library. Keira got in and sat down on the floor beside me, giving my hand a squeeze. I made the introductions as Ahmad drove on. O.C., of course, was riding shotgun.

  “This is like a pilgrimage,” Ahmad said.

  “A necessary pilgrimage,” O.C. added.

  The only problem was that Arnie’s camper wasn’t there. There was only an empty space in the middle of the stand of scrubby shore pines. Keira and O.C. went to investigate. Ahmad stayed in the van with me.

  “He’s gone,” Keira said when she returned. “There were more burn spots around there, like someone set fire to some old tires. A few trees were scorched as well. It looks like something bad happened.”

  “But look,” O.C. said, pointing to some rutted tire tracks left in the sand and snow.

  We followed the tire tracks a mile or so back toward town. They led down a paved side road to an abandoned military property where a radar station once stood. Sure enough, there was Arnie’s old camper van. It was just beyond a chain-link gate that had been smashed down. Just outside the gate were two cars, tucked into the trees like someone was trying to hide them.

  As O.C. and Keira hopped out of the van, I thought I heard glass breaking. Someone was shouting.

  “Let me go first to see what this is about,” Ahmad said, playing the I’m-the-adult card.

  “No,” said O.C.

  With Keira’s help, I was already lowering myself onto the slab of old concrete where the satellite dish had once stood. There was more shouting and more glass breaking. I recognized the manic screech of Arnie. “Leave me alone!” he shouted.

  Before anyone else moved, I toggled forward and wheeled ahead as fast as my machine would allow. The others were right with me.

  As we drew closer, I could see four young men, guys maybe just a few years older than me. I’d never seen them before, and it was clear they were up to no good. They’d smashed some bottles, and it looked like they had broken a side window on the camper.

  “Stop!” O.C. yelled.

  Arnie was standing in front of the door to his camper. He had a baseball bat in one hand and was holding it above his head. The four creeps who had been harassing him turned and stared at us. We kept moving forward.

  “What the hell?” one of them said. He was holding some kind of metal bar. Another of his buddies had a hammer.

  Ahmad spoke first. “Stop what you’re doing,” he said in that professional, formal way he had of speaking.

  Hammer tapped the head of his tool against his thigh. “Who the hell are you?”

  Ahmad didn’t answer. O.C. was about to launch himself at the guy, but his cousin held him back.

  “You okay?” I asked Arnie.

  “Do I look okay?” he snapped, shifting his bat to his other hand.

  “Leave him alone!” Keira shouted. We weren’t really getting anywhere.

  One of the guys laughed out loud, and another one snickered.

  “I’m calling the police,” Ahmad told them, taking out his cell phone.

  “No!” Arnie shouted now.
“Don’t call the police.”

  The creeps laughed. “Old man doesn’t want the cops involved.”

  Ahmad put his phone away.

  “That’s better,” Hammer said, staring at me now. He walked forward and tapped the side of my chair with his boot. Nothing hard, but intimidating. “I’m trying to figure out what this is all about,” he said. “I’m looking at a couple of uppity Arabs, a cripple in a wheelchair and a Halloween girl. Friends of yours, old man?” he asked Arnie.

  “I don’t know them,” he said. “Now leave me alone.”

  I almost thought Hammer was going to call it off, but his other buddies were getting restless. “Goon squad to the rescue,” one of them said and then took his metal bar and heaved it toward Arnie, missing him by about a foot but denting the metal side of the camper.

  Hammer moved a bit away from us and then heaved his weapon at the windshield of the camper. The safety glass held.

  Arnie just started swinging that bat wildly in the air, even though no one was near him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ahmad take his phone out again. But I knew that even with a 9-1-1 call, the cops couldn’t get here for a while. I inched forward, not knowing what I was going to do. Hammer turned and watched me approach, a big, ugly grin on his face.

  “Nick!” Keira yelled and ran toward me to cut me off.

  Hammer just kept on with that stupid smile as his three goons joined him. It was then that Arnie made his move. He rushed forward with his bat held high, screaming. Hammer turned quickly, ducked low and made a football tackle on the old guy, bringing him to the ground.

  Hammer grabbed the bat and raised it. Ahmad and Keira rushed to stop him but were cut off by two of Hammer’s friends. I saw O.C. arcing around them in an awkward run, but he tripped over something—at least, I thought he tripped. As soon as he was down, he started yanking on his leg, and then I saw the strangest thing. He pulled off his prosthesis, crawled over to Arnie and smacked Hammer hard on the head with his artificial leg.

  Hammer fell off Arnie as O.C. struggled to stand upright on his one good leg. The other goons just stood there, slack-jawed. Hammer was still holding Arnie’s bat. He lifted it as if he was ready to strike O.C., but he didn’t. He stared at O.C. wobbling on his one good leg, and then he looked at Keira and me. Ahmad slowly walked toward his cousin. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but he stopped when Hammer dropped the bat. “What a freak show,” the guy said. “What a goddamn freak show.”

  I heard a police siren in the distance. It was faint, very far away, but it was a most welcome sound.

  “Screw it,” Hammer said and turned to his buddies. “Enough fun for one day.” He nodded toward their cars, and they sauntered off as O.C. tried to help Arnie get back on his feet.

  “Now you did it,” Arnie said to Ahmad as he listened to the siren.

  “I did what I had to do,” Ahmad said.

  O.C. sat down on the ground and pulled up his pant leg. Arnie stared down at him as he fumbled with putting his leg back on.

  The siren was getting louder. Arnie had the look of a trapped animal. I rolled toward him and grabbed his sleeve. “Stay,” I said. “Please.”

  At first he pulled away, but then, for a full second, our eyes locked. I recognized the pure fear in them. Right then I knew I had seen it before, although only for the briefest instant. I remembered it like it was burned into my brain. I’d seen that look in the old man’s eyes when he grabbed me in the sea just as a massive pile of white water slammed into us both, pulling us under. I must have been conscious for a second or two on the surface before I blacked out again when we were pulled under. Arnie had been scared to death, but he’d had the guts, the skill and the determination to get me to shore. To save my sorry ass.

  Chapter Twenty

  When the lone patrol car arrived, a single uniformed officer got out and walked toward us.

  Keira came and stood beside Arnie and me as Ahmad explained what had just happened. He pointed to the camper’s broken window and battered sides and then at Arnie. I was still afraid Arnie was going to run, but Keira had her hand on his arm.

  Ahmad and the cop spoke for several minutes, and then the officer approached us.

  “You all right?” he asked Arnie.

  Arnie nodded, refusing to make eye contact.

  “He’s afraid you’re going to tell him he can’t stay here,” I said.

  The officer shook his head and asked Arnie, “You like it here?”

  “Not as good as my old home,” he said. “Can’t see the waves from here.”

  “Then you should be back there,” the officer said.

  “You’re not gonna tell me to leave?”

  “No. Hey, this is government land, and someone might chase you off from here, but back by the point you’re on private property. We heard from the owner a long time ago, a guy who lives in the city. He said he had no problem with you staying there. Go back and watch the waves.”

  The officer picked up his shoulder radio and called in to report that everything was okay. Then he hitched up his belt and looked at me. It took a second, but it sunk in. “You’re that kid who had the accident out here last fall, right?”

  I nodded. “Arnie was the one who got me ashore.”

  He smiled. “Damn. You were one lucky son of a bitch.” Then he rubbed his chin. “I saw you surfing once down by the pier. You were one damn fine surfer.”

  “Yeah. Was,” I said.

  “Take care,” he said. Then he reached in his wallet and took out a business card. He handed it to Arnie. “Call this guy in town and tell him I sent you. He’ll fix those windows for ya. No charge.”

  And then he was gone.

  There was an awkward silence after the police car pulled away. O.C. was having trouble adjusting his prosthesis, and Ahmad helped him get it right.

  “I guess we should go,” I said.

  “No,” Keira said. “We came here for a reason.” Turning to Arnie, she added, “Nick needs to know what happened that day.”

  Arnie looked confused at first. “This kid scared the shit out of me.” It was almost funny the way he said it.

  “Scared me too,” I said.

  Arnie scratched at the gray hairs on his chin. “I’ll make a fire first, and then I’ll spill the beans.”

  He got a small fire going with newspaper and twigs, then threw on kindling and branches that burned brightly in front of us. We sat down on some old milk crates he brought out of the camper, and he told us what happened.

  “I was watching the ocean like every other day. But this day was different. Big, mean, deadly waves. I’d gone surfing once on a day like that. Swore I’d never do it again. Did it that once because I was a young macho punk who thought I was immortal. But as you get older you learn that none of us are immortal. Stupid here didn’t know that yet, I guess.” He meant me, of course. The way he said it made Keira laugh.

  “So I see this kid with his brand-new wetsuit and shiny board come running past my camper and start paddling out to the Ledge. Just him. All alone. Like it was no big deal. I got out of the camper and yelled to him, but I guess he didn’t hear. He was determined, I could tell that.

  “I got my binoculars and walked up the headland a bit so I could keep an eye on him. My hope was he’d get knocked off his board on his first wave, wash straight in and that would be the end of that.

  “But no. Bozo here misses a couple of smaller waves and then starts paddling for one of the biggest, meanest waves to come barreling in here since god knows when. Worse yet, he catches the damn thing and makes the drop. Drops like a stone. Not a chance in hell he would be able to make the bottom turn.

  “By some sort of miracle, he’s still standing when he reaches the bottom of the wave, but now he has nowhere to go. The wave has reared up like a mountain over his head. I stopped breathing as I watched the massive lip of that thing come crashing down on him. Worse yet, I see the wave has sucked out over that big flat piece of rock on the bottom of the ocean, so t
here’s no way for him to dive deep and try to save himself.

  “When I saw him get hit by that lip right over the Ledge, I was sure he was dead. I said to myself that no way was I going to go out there. He got what he deserved. But when I saw his body come back up to the surface, his face down in the water, I couldn’t just stand there. When he got hit by a second wave that tossed him like a rag doll and pushed him down again, something snapped in me. Here was someone’s son who was going to die if I didn’t do something.” He let out a deep sigh. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. My wife died in a diving accident many years ago. I couldn’t save her.

  “It was like my legs just kind of took over. I ran to the beach. I didn’t have time to put on a wetsuit, and I didn’t think I’d be able to stay on my board with those bloody waves, so I swam. I’ve always been a good swimmer, but the currents were hellish. Dove under a couple of waves that kept pushing me to shore but then got caught in a rip current that took me right to him.

  “When I reached him, he was coughing up seawater and seemed to be conscious, but it didn’t last.”

  That had been my one moment of contact. Me, briefly awake, to see the stark fear in Arnie’s eyes.

  “I held on to him as we got hit by another wave that dragged us both under. He didn’t fight me. His body was limp, and I just held on. That wave pushed us out of the rip, but I had to swim on an angle toward shore to avoid the worst of the side currents. To be honest, I didn’t think we’d make it. I thought about letting him go a dozen times. I wasn’t even sure he was alive. You can’t tell if anyone is breathing in a seething ocean like that.

  “But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to let him go. Either we would both make it in or neither of us would.

  “And then finally I was dragging him like a dead seal up the beach. I waved to someone in a stopped car. The guy waved back, and he must have called for help, but he never came down to the beach. I did what I could—it’d been ages since I’d had any training in that sort of thing, but I gave it my best shot. He was breathing, but that was about it. I was shivering like crazy and still scared as shit. I don’t think I will ever forget what it was like in the water that day.”