But now I see: the closest person does need the most. It seems natural for us to take care of Sage, even though all of us are hurting. And it’s not her fault. I think of my mom. She was the closest. I see a little more of what it might have been like, and a tiny space of forgiveness opens up inside me. Just a little crack, as thin as a sliver, so small, but enough for the light to get in.
“It’s basically all set up already,” Sage says as she gathers gear for me. “Everything you’ll need, a sleeping bag, the platform. I mean, I think it is. I don’t know if there was any damage done when . . .” She can’t finish that sentence.
“The climbers might’ve damaged the platform,” Nutmeg jumps in, saving Sage. “So we’re gonna send some scrap wood in your pack, in case you have to patch anything. There’s a hammer up there. Just try to reinforce it so it’s strong.”
“Fingers crossed the mobile phone’s okay,” Exile says. “If you can’t find it, let us know right away; someone will have to drive to the city and get one. That’s the most important thing; that’s how you’ll get the word out.”
“Get the word out about what?”
“About Aaron,” Nutmeg says. “And what happened yesterday.”
A fresh wave of panic prickles my skin. I didn’t realize I was supposed to talk to people. Not about that. The idea paralyzes me. “Wait—who am I calling? What am I supposed to say?”
“Aaron’ll have a list of numbers up there,” Exile says, and then stumbles. “I mean, there should be one that Aaron had.” Pain flashes across his pale face and he looks down. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Sage says, taking over. “All our contacts should be written down. Call Pacific Land Protection Council; they can help get the word out, and they’ll know how to deal with the media. Ask them for advice. It’s okay to tell them you don’t know how to do it all.”
I’m not used to asking strangers for help. But I guess if Aaron knew them, they’re not strangers.
“And then just start going down the list,” Nutmeg says. “Most of the other people on it are friends, organizers, other activists and stuff. Explain to them that Cascade is gonna pull out all the stops to get in here to log this week. They want that ‘accidental death’ ruling to stand—otherwise they could be charged, if someone wants to charge them—and if they level this forest, there won’t ever be any evidence to question whether it was an accident. If we can keep the space protected just a little longer, they can’t cut. So: everybody needs to come. We need an influx of people from everywhere. Seattle, Tacoma, Eugene, Portland, Humboldt—everyone who can should get here, now.”
“Okay.” I nod. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to that many people in my life. I have no idea whether I can do this. But I guess I have to try.
* * *
• • •
My bag is packed, my gear stashed in a milk crate, and they’ve got the ropes together. Nutmeg is about to help me get the harness on. Then the only thing left to do is climb.
Everyone keeps telling me it’ll be okay, even though we all know for damn sure it might not. I’m doing it, though. I have to. It’s the only thing I can do that’s good. And I have to do something good. I know what the alternative is. I’ve spent too long living there already.
But one more thing is nagging at me, and right before I put the harness on, I finally realize what it is: Jeff. Whoever he’s turned into, whatever he did, whatever he thinks of me now—whatever I think of him—I knew him once, really knew him. I have to say goodbye.
“Go fast,” Sage and Exile say. “We’ll wait here.” I can tell they’re nervous that something will happen to keep me from climbing: Jeff will talk me out of it or Cascade will show up, or cops. But they let me go.
“Hurry back, okay?” Nutmeg yells after me, and I holler back, “I will.”
I skid down the trail to the front lines, going as fast as I can. Twenty feet away and I can see them, still locked down, lying in a human chain across the road. As much as I can’t stand those guys, I’m proud of what they’re doing. It’s the right thing. And Jeff was the one who made it happen, even though it wasn’t his idea. Because he knew it needed to. He’s making the same choice I am. No matter what, at least we still have that in common.
When I get a little closer, they hear my footsteps, and they turn to look. “What are you doing here? What happened?” Jeff asks. I see worry in everyone’s eyes.
“Everyone’s okay,” I say. “Nobody’s hurt.” Shoulders relax back into the dirt. I come around in front of Jeff. “Can I talk to you?”
“What do you need?”
“I need to talk to you,” I say. “Can you unlock?”
He hesitates. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. It’ll leave a gap . . .”
“Jeff,” I say. “I’m going up in the tree. Right now.”
He stares at me, incredulous. “You’re going up?”
“I have to.” I nod, sober. “Walk with me?”
At first we don’t talk; neither of us knows what to say. Too much has happened, too many things we haven’t talked about. It’s hard to know where to start.
Finally he cuts the silence. “So, you’re going up.”
“Yeah.” I’m not sure what else to say. I just keep walking.
“How come?” He stuffs his fists into his pockets. His eyes are soft.
“Someone has to,” I tell him. “The blockade at the road isn’t enough to keep them from coming in. I mean,” I scramble, old habits dying hard, “not that it isn’t important.”
He looks at me, and I can tell he saw me scramble. He can see that thing I’m doing, that I’ve always done, making myself just a little smaller so that he won’t feel bad. He doesn’t say anything, but it passes between us.
“Why is it you?” he asks.
I don’t want to lie anymore. I told the truth last night, about Andy: the hardest thing, the most shameful thing, the thing I thought would always be a secret. And the world didn’t end. That pressure on the inside of my skin, all my stacked-up secrets, finally dissolved. I feel light now—scared, but strong.
I don’t want to go back to how I was.
“I have to,” I say.
He just looks at me, waiting for more. It’s opposite of how it used to be: now I’m the one who’s supposed to do the talking; he’s the one listening.
“Since Andy died—I don’t know . . .” I trail off.
It’s harder to tell Jeff. With Sage, it just came tumbling out. But he keeps looking at me. Waiting.
“I guess since then I’ve thought the world just sucked, that there was nothing I could do.”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding, brow furrowed, understanding.
“But now there’s something I can do. You know? I don’t know if it’ll work. It could be pointless. But I have to at least try.”
We walk for a minute, not talking.
“Are you scared?” he finally asks.
“Scared shitless.” I crack a smile.
“I probably would be too.”
“Are you kidding? You definitely would,” I rib him.
I worry for a second that I went too far, but then he smiles back.
“Yeah, for sure,” he admits.
There’s another silence, the air swelling up to full between us, and then he says, “It’s cool of you.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I’m serious. It’s super-brave. I don’t know if I could do it.” He looks at me, real respect in his eyes. Admiration, even.
I look back. “It’s just the right thing.”
“Lots of people feel that and they still don’t do it.”
I think I used to be that kind of person.
“Yeah.”
He’s quiet for a minute, walking. Then he asks, “Do you need anything?”
I used to need so many things from him.
I’m quiet for a minute too. “I think I’m good,” I say, and it’s the truth.
Finally he leans in, awkward, like he’s not sure whether to kiss me or shake my hand or pat me on the back. His shoulder brushes against me, clumsy, and I just grab him and give him a hug, a real one, not like things used to be, just what makes sense, in this one moment, now.
CHAPTER 22
I stand at the base of Legacy, harnessed in, ropes hung, knots tied. I watch myself do everything I watched Aaron do a week ago: check the knots, put the gloves on, stare up the trunk. He must have felt so tiny, seeing how far he had to scale, taller than a building, him a little dot at the bottom. Nutmeg shows me how to climb, slide the knot up, hook your foot in—how to stabilize the knot so I can dangle and rest when I need to.
“Make sure you take breaks if you get tired. It’s safer,” he says. I hug him and Exile goodbye, then Sage. Afterward she pulls back, her hands on my shoulders, and stares into my eyes. “I bet your brother would be proud.”
Thirty feet off the ground and my arms are shaking so much I can hardly hang on, let alone keep going. I can’t believe how hard it is. I’m afraid to let go, but my arms are giving out; I don’t have a choice. I steady the knot; then I unclench my hands.
At first I hold my breath, but the harness holds me and I dangle, swaying. I’m scared to look down, but I can’t help it. It’s far, far enough to make my head spin, but they’re down there, watching, and my harness holds, and after a minute I relax. When I do, the adrenaline clenched in my muscles floods through my veins. I climb again.
The branches get closer together as I go up and up and up, needles scratching my cheeks, face close to her trunk, nothing except me and the branches and the rope and the bark. The rest of the world falls away as I focus, sweat streaming into my eyes, every muscle working. When I stumble, there’s a branch there; when my hand slips, there’s a knot. Like something bigger than me, watching out for me. It almost feels like the tree’s listening to me, even though I know that’s impossible. Or maybe I’m listening to her.
By the time I’m almost at the platform, I feel like I know her as well as I’ve ever known a person. Like we’ve been through something together. I take one last break and wrap my arms around her trunk, resting on my harness, breathing in the smell of dirt and pine and sap.
Then I get ready for what’s next.
* * *
• • •
The platform is a mess. Aaron’s gear was tied in so it couldn’t fall, but it got knocked around bad. I feel like I’m on a TV show, or in a movie: This is a crime scene. Someone died.
You can see the outlines of what happened: there’s a big empty space where they were fighting, all Aaron’s stuff shoved to the sides. Buckets, milk crates, books, knocked over and tossed. One of the blue tarps hung above the platform is half torn down, flapping like an empty plastic bag in the wind. I see the concrete lockbox attached to the trunk, and I realize that’s the thing that Aaron was trying to lock to. When he unhooked his harness. When he fell. I don’t want to look at it. But I know I have to: I need to know how it works in case they send someone up here after me.
I drink some water from the jug that Exile and I sent up to him that afternoon, and then I start cleaning.
I’m not going to let this platform become what my mom made Andy’s room. I’m not leaving everything how it was to make sure I don’t dislodge a tiny fragment of his memory. Memory is a living thing, something that changes. Aaron would want me to keep it alive, not trap it in his stuff.
I wipe up spills, put food in one place, tools in another. I find the flashlight, and the phone, and the solar charger: they’re all here. Everything I touch, I think, He just touched this. Yesterday. Like some part of him is left on it, his fingerprints or breath. It’s so strange, how someone can be here, and then they’re gone. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.
I pour water on a rag and kneel to clean the platform floor. I’m scrubbing mud off the edges when I see the blood. And it hits me: he was hurt. Whatever happened up here, whether it was an accident or not—he was hurt. Before he fell, and during; the last thing his body felt was pain.
And that’s what makes me finally crack. Aaron would never hurt anything. He never even got mad. It’s just so fucking unfair.
It wells up in me, a hot mix of anger and sadness, and I punch the platform. It hurts my hand; the hurt feels good. I punch it again, and then again, and then I just start pounding, not caring that it shakes beneath me, not caring that I’ll have to fix it if it breaks. I just want something to hit. That platform becomes everything: the climbers who took Aaron, the car that took Andy, everyone who ever hated me at school. Andy’s friends after he died, all the guys who hit on me without caring who I was. My dad for leaving. My mom for leaving me. Myself. I pound till my fists hurt, till my shoulders move past achy to weak, till the mad drains away and all that’s left is tired. I lie there, spent, empty, and I say to the sky, Okay. I don’t know what else there is. Just fill me up.
* * *
• • •
When I wake up, the sun’s an hour lower in the sky. I sit up and rub my eyes and look around, and for the first time I see where I am. You can see for miles, forest carpeting the mountains, fields in the distance, clouds and sky. And here and there, dotting the sides of hills, bare and dry, are the clear-cuts. Brown patches in the midst of green, death in the middle of life. And not the good kind of death: not the kind that comes when it’s time, when you’ve lived out your life and you circle back. The kind that comes too early. From something that shouldn’t happen. Like a chain saw. Or a climber. Or a car. Like someone dying, and your life falling apart, and getting caught in the deep muck of darkness and despair. That’s why I’m up here. To fight that.
I plug the phone into the solar charger and I start calling. I do what Sage says, start with PLPC, even though I don’t feel qualified to talk to them. I do it anyway. It’s fine. They’ll send a press release out. They don’t bite. I don’t fuck up.
Late the next morning Sage and Exile come with a milk crate full of water and food. They holler; I look down and see them, two tiny dots on the ground. I can’t believe I’m so high up. “Lower the rope!” Sage yells. I do, and she hooks the crate on. “Now pull it up!” Hand over hand, I raise the crate up two hundred feet.
Inside is a jug of water, a box of food, and a note. Almost twenty new people last night and this morning! They heard from PLPC. We’re gonna try to surround the area as much as possible. There’s enough people here now that we actually have a chance. THANK YOU. Are you okay up there? Love, Sage.
I wish I was down there. I want to be with all those people, helping, instead of up here, alone with myself. I want to be with everyone, even the strangers, part of the world instead of scared of it. Up here, there’s only me and the quiet. It’s lonely. But it’s where I have to be. I rip a page from Aaron’s notebook. Yeah, I’m good.
* * *
• • •
After a while the calls get easier. I know what to say: I don’t have to think about it every time. You just tell the truth, over and over, until it doesn’t scare you anymore. Like splitting wood, or digging ditches: after a while you just know how to do it. Nobody taught me this. I taught myself.
I make coffee with the solar hot plate, eat from containers of dried fruit, climb up a couple branches when my muscles start cramping up. When I’m waiting between calls, I lean in close to Legacy, feeling her beside me, huge and majestic and alive. I watch squirrels hop on branches above me, birds build nests and carry food. Ferns sprout from moss on the crooks of the branches, and there is so much life here, in this one tiny place, and when I look out on the forest, the parts that aren’t cut, I see how much life there is everywhere, as long as we let it keep living. We all have empty spaces inside us. I have holes in me from Andy, from my dad, my mom, from Aaron now. It’s normal to try to
make them go away. That’s what I did forever: sex with Andy’s friends, getting high with Jeff, being pissed off at my mom. Everybody does it: we try to fill the holes inside us with cars and thoughts and toys and plastic stuff, things to control and things to buy, and that’s what kills things. If we would just let those empty spaces be, all this living air would rush into them. It’s all around us. I breathe in deep.
* * *
• • •
That night the wind whips the platform hard. In the forest the trees shelter you; in the city, walls do. Here, there’s nothing: besides the tarps rattling above my head, I’m completely exposed. I swear the winds are faster this high up. I huddle down in Aaron’s sleeping bag, wrapped in wool sweaters, still freezing. Legacy sways, sending me sliding on the platform until I shorten my rope and hook my harness in tighter, hugging her trunk. I hang on to her for dear life. My harness holds.
The next day there’s more people at the Free State, and more the next. Sometimes I can hear their voices drift up, laughter and singing and the sounds of hard work. Someone brings a dog; I hear it barking. I learn to hang on tight while I’m sleeping, keep myself warm, talk myself down when the winds get too high. And every day when the sun rises, I clean up the debris from the night before, stack and straighten everything before I make my Folgers instant, my own little morning ritual, like an adult.
Today I’m cleaning the platform, sun rising orange through a pink sky, when I realize this won’t be forever. Whether we win or we don’t, whatever happens, this will end. I won’t have a platform to clean, a sleeping bag to roll. I’ll have to make my coffee on the ground. It’ll feel good: running water, showers, towels, electricity at night. A bed. I can’t wait to sleep in a bed. But then I realize: I have no idea where that bed will be.
Legacy Page 17
