by J. M. Newlin
How could I have not known? she thought as the throbbing between her legs subsided.
She hoped with all her heart that Ben felt the same way.
Chapter 6 – Daily Grind
‘Watch out below!’ screamed the foreman.
Bricks dropped off the scaffolding from on the building site.
They were constructing a 20 story office block, the area was always in need of office space as more and more businesses moved to this part of the city.
Ben was pushing a wheelbarrow of cement along a narrow wooden plank, the ground had been too muddied with rain for him to push it through the mud. He’d spent the best part of the morning struggling to do that, and after a couple of hours he constructed a thin wooden gangplank that would enable him to get the cement mix from one side of the site to the other.
It had been pouring with rain for the last couple of days and the ground resembled some kind of World War One battlefield, churned up mud with bricks and debris strewn across the place.
Organized chaos Ben liked to think of it.
This job had become available to him after leaving the army. It wasn’t the most glamorous of jobs in the world but Ben liked it.
He’d always loved physical work, hence he’d joined the Army, but now the next best thing was this.
It was surprisingly well paid as well, better paid than his position in the Army, even taking into account all the discounts the Army had given him with accommodation and food.
In fact, a number of his colleagues were ex-finance types who had lost their jobs after the 2008 recession. Having found themselves out of a job and without any experience in anything other than banking, they found themselves in manual labor jobs, pleasantly surprised that the pay they got for a tenth of the stress was nearly half as good as they got in banking.
For Ben this financed his expensive BASE jumping habit – it wasn’t cheap to jump off of objects, even if you weren’t paying for the jump directly you had all of the cost of gear, travel costs, and medical bills – an occupational hazard in this hobby.
In fact this was the perfect job for him. There were only a few parts of the world where BASE jumping was actually legal, Norway being one of them. For the most part, Ben’s habit required him to sneak around at night and jump from buildings and bridges illegally.
That actually played a huge part in the excitement for him and his fellow jumpers. Scouting around for suitable objects to jump from, working out the security guards patterns, sneaking into the object and the jumping from it – the illicitness excited him.
Of course, this came with the added consequence that they were often sought out by the police and/or security guards. If they got spotted they would either be caught on the object before they jumped or chased afterwards, which was difficult because when they landed they would be running away from their pursuers whilst carrying in the arms several square feet of fabric and lines from their canopies.
And if the police caught you they would confiscate your gear and fine you.
Thankfully, construction sites didn’t really care too much about their employees criminal record – suffice to say with the team Ben worked with, if they did care about records they wouldn’t have a team to work with.
They were all good guys, but they’d had their scrapes with the law – usually drunken fights on a Saturday night or other such ‘anti-social’ behavior.
Ben had been caught once a few weeks before his trip to Norway and it had cost him dearly as he had to pay a hefty fine plus buy a new rig as the police had confiscated it. Quite what they would do with a BASE jumping system he didn’t know, probably sell it on Ebay – the city’s police weren’t exactly the most upstanding police force in the country.
He and a friend had found a perfect high rise bar in the financial district – a bar that was on the 48th floor of the building with a roof top balcony for smokers to puff away on.
They’d spotted it the night before and had decided it looked pretty viable to jump from. At night there wasn’t too much traffic on the streets below and they’d chosen a week night where there wouldn’t too many people in the bar.
3 of them got into the car and drove the 30 minute journey to the bar. Only 2 of them would jump, Mike and Ben. The third, Jamie, would stay in the car as ground crew.
It was Jamie’s job to pick up the jumpers once they had landed and drive the car – a fast getaway was essential on an illegal jump like this and a getaway driver made it possible.
Jamie was a bit bummed not to be able to jump this object, especially considering once they did so they probably wouldn’t be able to jump it again as they staff would be on the lookout for any future jumpers.
But that’s the way it worked, he knew that the others would do the same for him on future jumps as they’d done for him before.
Slinging their gear bags over their shoulders and wearing jeans, trainers and jackets on the cold evening, they had walked the 300 meters from the car to the base of the tower, entering the lobby and into the lift that would take them up to the 48th floor.
Stepping out into the bar they looked around.
In the half-light they could see that there were two bar staff behind the bar and maybe 10 people sitting in various spots around the bar enjoying a drink.
Outside on the smoking patio there were 2 others having a quick smoke, sucking quickly on the butts of their cigarettes in order to finish their nicotine hit fast and get out of the cold.
They sat down at the bar and ordered a drink so as to not appear suspicious, and to wait and see what the winds were looking like.
The difficulty with jumping buildings in cities were that city streets acted as huge wind tunnels for any wind that was blowing, creating channels of turbulence and jets of wind that mixed with each other, creating drafts that could push a parachute into another building with potentially fatal consequences.
High winds were always a danger in a BASE jump, but more so in the city.
Ben sat in his seat, picking the label off the cold bottle whilst his partner in crime Mike went out onto the balcony to assess the winds and the exit point.
It was far too windy at that point, with winds gusting up to 10mph. At that speed they were in danger of not being able to control their canopies and being blown to where ever the wind wanted to take them – potentially even the building they had just jumped from.
If that happened they would most likely be killed. Their canopy would collapse as it hit the side of the building and the wind kept them pushed up against the building they would slide all the way down to the concrete below at an un-survivable speed. And even if the canopy managed to pull away from the side and re-inflate, the sudden forward surge that would happen because of that would send them slamming back into the building. In that case, either the impact with the building would kill them or the eventual impact of the floor below would.
Either way, it wouldn’t be a good ending.
They just had to sit there and wait for the wind to calm down, slowly drinking their beers and chatting away, trying to calm the tension and excitement.
Ben’s jumping buddy Mike couldn’t be even more the polar opposite of him, their only point in common being their BASE jumping habit.
Mike was a committed family man with a gorgeous wife and a newborn son. His wife was a BASE jumper as well but pregnancy had put an end to her jumping and the newfound responsibilities meant that Mike was likely to be hanging up his jumping boots soon as well. The dangers of BASE weren’t compatible with family life, the chance of death or serious injury were just too high for someone who had a child relying on them.
In all likelihood it would be Mike’s last BASE jump and they wanted it to be memorable.
Mike showed Ben photos of his son, Christopher, on his phone.’ Thank God he takes after his mother!’ Ben joked. ‘With your nose he would have been fucked!’
Mike laughed and nodded. ‘Yep, he’s handsome alright’
Ben felt a pang of jealousy for what
Mike had. He was madly in love with his wife and she with him, and now they had a beautiful baby.
He’d never given marriage or kids much thought, but now, looking at the photos of Mike’s baby, he wondered if he’d ever find a woman he could settle down with and start a family.
Probably not he thought. A semi-suicidal BASE jumping ex-soldier with re-occurring nightmares and flashbacks is not really the best of people to marry and start a family with.
And, in any case, his love life was pretty much non-existent. He’d fucked a few girls since coming back from Afghanistan, but nothing serious. He’d go on a few dates with them, sometimes sleep with them, but he found he didn’t really have much in common with these girls.
His lifestyle and his experiences in the war had seemed to have aged him prematurely. He couldn’t find himself interested in the petty bullshit that most people seemed to get embroiled in.
It all seemed so pointless and ridiculous. Celebrity gossip, film star scandals, politicians, which sports team had won, he didn’t give a fuck about all that. Not after what he had been through.
All the people around him with their little problems and ‘stress’. They didn’t know how lucky they were and what little stress they had. Stress, real stress, was having someone trying to kill you. Problems were trying to save the life of an 8 year old girl who had stepped on a landmine and lost her arms and legs.
He found it hard to connect with many people, except his BASE jumping friends and Sarah. They knew something about real pain, real loss and real life.
Mike popped outside to smoke a cigarette and to re-assess the wind. Ben scanned the bar and took a sip of his beer. They were the odd ones out in here, dressed in their jeans and jumpers.
Everyone else was dressed up for after work drinks, Ben guessed mainly city types, in their suits. Winding down from a long day’s work.
Well their evening was about to get a bit more exciting Ben thought and he grinned as he took another sip of his beer. The cool liquid went down easily as swallowed and thought about the upcoming jump.
He wasn’t even sure if it was going to be possible with the gusts of wind that had been blowing as they had first arrived in the bar.
As Ben looked up from the table he saw Mike coming back in and giving him a nod.
Go time.
Ben’s stomach lurched and his heart began to beat faster. Mike picked up his bag and walked to the toilets located by the entrance. Ben picked up his stash bag and followed him 30 seconds later.
Entering the toilets the two men had walked into the disabled toilets and pulled out their gear.
First went on the shin and knee protectors, followed by the elbow and forearm guards – all essential protection against the hard landing on the concrete streets below.
Next they put on their rigs, stepping their legs through the straps and hoisting the shoulder straps over their shoulders. This was always a small struggle as the leg straps were closed at all times. Right before a jump was never the time to undo the leg buckles and then re-close them – an oversight when re-threading them would lead you to fall out of the harness the second the canopy opened, with obvious consequences.
In the confined space of the toilets they tightened their leg straps and buckled their chest straps, checking 3-4 times that each strap was securely fashioned. Last on were the helmets, to protect them from any falls on the ground below. The bags in which they had carried their kit where neatly folded down and placed in their jackets as they had been specially designed to do.
Ben and Mike looked at each other and grinned.
‘Ready to go brother?!’
‘Fucking A, let’s do it!’
They quickly walked to the door and peeked outside, the coast was clear.
Hurrying quickly through the bar they passed the bar on the left hand side, hoping to avoid the gaze of the bar staff.
Out of the corner of his eye Ben saw one of the servers turn his head and look at them. He had known that they wouldn’t make it through the bar unseen, their goal was to get up onto the barrier around the balcony and make their jump before anyone intervened.
Pushing opening the glass door to the balcony Ben was hit by the cold air. Two girls were outside smoking a cigarette and they turned to look at Ben and Mike as they climbed onto the barrier to make their jump.
‘Oh my God, you’re crazy! Are you going to jump?’ asked one of the girls, a blonde wearing a black coat that highlighted her plunging neckline and clearly fake breasts.
‘Looks that way doesn’t it’ said Ben stating the obvious to the girl.
Ben was going first, so he quickly checked the bottom right of the container on his back to make sure that the soft handle for his throw out pilot chute was still there and hadn’t disappeared or moved position. He couldn’t afford to miss it, he only had a few seconds to find it once in freefall or it would be a sudden stop on the street below.
Got it, it was still in position and easily accessible. Ben, looked up to the horizon and shouted across to Mike.
‘Alright Mike, have a good jump! 3, 2, 1, see ya!’
And with that Ben pushed off from the ledge, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the horizon and his chest out and forward to ensure that he didn’t end up rotating forward into a dive and losing control of his fall.
In the still air at the beginning of a BASE jump a jumper has no control over their fall until they pick up speed and can fly their body like a bird.
That meant for Ben that the position he left the building in was the position he would stay in. The time that Ben would be in freefall for wasn’t enough for him to pick up airspeed and fly his body away from the building. If Ben exited the balcony in a bad position, he could tumble and fall into the building – a deadly mistake that would cost him his life.
Ben’s body position however was perfect as he pushed off from the ledge. If Ben could freeze frame any moment in his life, it would be the moment his feet left the edge.
Time seemed to slow down and, bizarrely enough, it was the moment of exit on each jump that he felt most peace in his entire life.
In that moment it felt like he had left himself behind on the exit point – that he had left all the bad things that had happened and everything he had become back on that place where he had just been standing.
He was no longer Ben, traumatized veteran and damaged man. He wasn’t anything in that moment. Everything melted away in the utter focus and concentration of that moment.
Ben felt his body accelerate downwards into the void as gravity did her work and propelled him at increasing speed toward the sidewalk 43 storeys below.
The lights of the city blinked at him as the wind began to howl in his ears. Ben whooped as he felt the wind push against his body from below, each second increasing in speed and strength.
Reaching back behind him with his right hand and placing his left hand and arm above his head to balance out his body position so he didn’t tumble, Ben grabbed the pilot chute’s toggle firmly in his hand and firmly whipped it out, throwing it into the slipstream before returning his hands to either side of his ears.
Ben felt the canopy come off his back and grabbed the two risers that connected him to the canopy in his hands. He looked up as the canopy quickly inflated and opened with a sharp crack.
No time to think, the ground was only a few hundred feet below and there were several obstacles to clear before he was safely on the ground.
He quickly grabbed the two steering toggles in his hands and started steering the canopy towards the getaway car parked on the corner. He thought he heard some screams behind him but he wasn’t sure and he didn’t have time to turn around and look behind him. He could only hope that Mike had made a safe jump and was now following him to the landing zone.
Passing overhead a tree, Ben slowly braked his canopy and alighted gently onto the road, 150 meters in front of a car. The car honked its horn and passed around him, the driver clearly annoyed that Ben had forced him to make a small turn.
Letting his canopy collapse to the ground in time to see Mike’s canopy descending down towards him. However something didn’t look good. Mike was conscious it seemed but his right leg was hanging at a funny angle.
Fuck thought Ben as he watched Mike come towards him.
‘My fucking leg’s broken’ Mike screamed out as he got closer to Ben.
‘Don’t put any weight on it Mike, land and roll on your other leg’
Ben watched as Mike flared his canopy, slowing himself down and angling his body to perform a parachute landing fall on his undamaged side.
THUMP
Mike collapsed to the ground and let out an agonized scream as he rolled over and his damaged limb impacted the hard tarmac.
Ben ran towards him, carrying his canopy in his hands.
‘Mike, stay still, stay still’ he shouted as he sprinted the 100 meters to his side.
He reached him as Mike rolled onto his back, his face contorted with agony and tears running down his cheeks and coming to a stop in his bushy beard.
‘Stay still Mike’ Ben repeated as he dumped his canopy on the floor beside him and bent down to examine the injury.
It didn’t look good. Ben could see the break that had bent the leg inwards from just below Mike’s knee. He suspected that Mike had impacted the building and pushed off with his leg.
Mike confirmed through gritted teeth. ‘She opened in a 180 towards the building’ he grunted.
‘Managed to push off with my feet but I hit with all my weight on this one and…. Fuckkkk!’ his sentence was cut off by his cry of pain.
Ben heard the squeal of tires behind him as Jamie revved the engine and came screaming up the road behind them to pick them up.
The car screeched to a halt behind them and Jamie jumped out to help get Mike into the car.
‘How bad?’ he asked
‘Pretty major break to his lower leg’
‘I’m not fucking surprised, I watched him bounce off that wall. You’re fucking lucky your canopy didn’t collapse Mike’ he said as he bent down to support Mike by his shoulders.’ Hang in there buddy, we’ll get you to the hospital now’
