All This Life

by Joshua Mohr

IT DAWNS ON Noah911 right as he walks out onto the Golden Gate that this is a crime scene. This is where Tracey killed herself, yet you’d never know that. It is a bustling bridge, connecting people. Always connecting people.

  It’s also a nice day, clear skies, 68˚, no real wind, but nothing feels nice when a brother carts his share of the ashes.

  He carries Tracey like she’s a wounded dove.

  He wonders if anyone has liked his status.

  He retraces her steps, leaving the San Francisco side, walking by the tollbooths and onto the bridge. He moves slowly, a zombie of sorrow. It’s hard to block out TheGreatJake’s video, hard for him not to imagine the brass band strutting and playing their music right here. They stepped here. They breathed here. They were alive here, only days ago.

  The thing about that YouTube video is it’s the only memory that matters. Because it’s new. Because Noah911 had seen Tracey that day. Because he’d made her breakfast, written her a note: Make sure my sister eats this, okay? Because it makes him feel closer to her and because it’s the opposite of the ashes. It shows her whole, shows her smile. It’s a way to talk to Tracey. A cyber-séance. A Ouija board with comments.

  That video is his sister now. It is Noah911’s companion and he’ll watch it all day, every day, thankful that digital videos never get worn out, never fatigue or snap, never get grainy with age. She is perfectly preserved and pristine.

  An armful of ashes is the worst burden a brother can carry.

  But he has to retrace these steps, if he wants to end up in the exact spot she jumped.

  SHIT, SLEEP. HE’S sleeping. For how long? Paul doesn’t know. He looks at the laptop, teetering on his thighs. It says 11:04 AM. But that can’t help Paul, considering he doesn’t know when he nodded off.

  “Any news?” he calls over to the officer at the front desk, a different person, a man. This one seems even younger than the one who took the initial report in the parking lot. They must be coming straight out of high school. They are almost as young as Jake, charged with keeping up the world’s order. Paul knows it’s impossible. Order is a trick, a trap, a dupe. You think there’s order until your boy runs off.

  “What?” the officer asks.

  A coffee. A Red Bull. Paul needs something. He carries the laptop over to the front desk, sets it down. “Is there any new news?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you ask Esperanto?” Paul says, refreshing his feed, seeing that his son has been taking advantage of the cat’s nap, the mouse posting these two messages in the meantime:

  The first: I wonder how many of you would meet me at the Golden Gate Bridge? I have something up my sleeve that you won’t want to miss!

  The second: Meet me there in an hour for the finale!!!

  Paul doesn’t like the word finale. He detests it, sounds like a synonym for something final.

  No, he’ll never say that word, but why else go to the bridge, what would bring him back there? He has to save Jake from the edge. Because that’s exactly what Jake had said, right after the brass band leaped: I want to see over the edge. It was a sentence that floored Paul, took the wind right out of him, leaving only a vacuum of confusion before he gathered himself again: Here was his boy, his fourteen-year-old boy, and he saw things that he was too young to know about, should be shielded from these aspects of humanity, if that’s even the right word. Jake shouldn’t know about stuff like this, should be given a complete childhood. Plenty of years to try and process these atrocities, but not yet.

  “Is he at his desk?” Paul says, trying to move through the door to the precinct, but it’s locked.

  “You can’t go back there.”

  “Buzz me in.”

  Paul pounds on the door, says, “Esperanto!”

  “Step away from the door,” the officer says.

  Still pounding: “Esperanto! Esperanto!”

  The young officer hops on the phone, talking fast into it.

  Paul thrashes and screams, “Finale! He said finale! What does he mean?! What the fuck does he mean by that?!”

  SARA STOPS THE car in front of the address, turns off Google Maps. They sit there, idling. She feels compelled to say something—to reassure him, to let him know that whatever happens, she’s here. That was the thing that made her feel so comforted last night after the scary bath, being in bed with him, safe, and she wants to make him know that she’ll do the same.

  That’s what she wants to do, but it comes out like this: “Don’t get your hopes up. We don’t know that she still lives here.”

  Which is true, logical. But it belies her aims, and she tries to soften it. “No matter what, we’ll deal with it together, okay?”

  He nods, but Rodney is nervous. That’s easy to see. He never fidgets like this. He’s picking at one of his eyebrows, a tic Sara had never observed before, and if he keeps it up he’ll have a bald spot.

  She leans over and kisses him on the cheek. “Let’s go.”

  More nodding. Even a smile.

  And they are out of the car, on the sidewalk, up the front stairs. They knock on the door and a woman answers. It is not Kathleen. The woman’s face is totaled. A split red lip. Bright green and silvery swelling on her cheek, the color of trout scales.

  “Who are you?” she says.

  “Does Kathleen Curtis still live here?” Sara says.

  “I asked you a question,” the woman says.

  “We’re looking for Kathleen,” Sara says, “because she is his mom.”

  The woman looks at Rodney. “I saw a picture of you yesterday.”

  “Are you okay?” Sara asks.

  “I thought you were the cops. They’re on their way. He punched me. He took Kathleen.”

  “Who?” says Rodney.

  “Craigslist.”

  “You need to sit down,” Sara says. “Let me help you.”

  They both assist the woman to the couch. Sara sits next to her. Rodney stays standing, still picking at his eyebrow.

  “Go get some ice for her face, Rodney,” Sara says.

  But he doesn’t budge, saying, “Mom.”

  “He said he was taking her to the Golden Gate Bridge,” the woman says. “Then he knocked me out.”

  “When?” Rodney says.

  “Ten minutes ago. Fifteen? We’ll tell the police and they’ll handle it.”

  Rodney points to the door, says to Sara, “Now.”

  “You don’t want to wait for the cops?”

  “Now.”

  “They’ll be here soon,” says Sara.

  “Keys,” he says.

  “I’m coming too,” she says, then to the woman, “You stay here and talk to the police.”

  Sara and Rodney are almost out the front door when the woman calls from the couch, “Lab coat. He’s wearing a lab coat.”

  •••

  A FREE MAN travels wherever the wind blows him. On earth or the moon. On anywhere. Jake is almost out of life support. 2 percent battery left. Then no iPhone. Then he’ll really be in unchartered territory.

  It has to happen here. This is the only place to do a hard reset. This is the only place to give his fans what they want.

  Walk out to the middle.

  Imagine all those moon rocks crunching under his boots.

  Hear that heavy breathing in his helmet.

  He expected people to be flocking up to him, asking for autographs or inspirational quotes. He expected a mob of followers to lift him up, like a singer in a rock band, surfing the crowd to the middle of the bridge, basking in their electric affection.

  There are lots of people around him, moving from the Marin side to the Golden Gate. Tour buses drop off here, letting everyone with guidebooks and cameras loose to snap pictures. Even the bus Jake took for his lunar landing had foreigners on it. A couple, both attractive; Jake would totally watch their porn. They kissed and spoke Spanish loudly. Every other seat on the bus had been empty and Jake couldn’t sit still, constantly moving from one seat to another, to another, t
o another.

  And now the wait is over. His astronaut boots are on the bridge’s walkway, moving toward the center. Jake walks in the throng of tourists, knowing he’ll be recognized any second by a loving fan.

  He is important.

  He is viral.

  Imagine a time-lapse version of what awaits every earthling, the world continuing to test our wills, doing its best to demolish us, the fickle and sputtering world trying to take our dignities, our friends and families, our hopes and dreams, all the sadness swelling our internal temperatures and we get hotter and hotter until the whole world burns up. We both know this is the future, Albert, if they’re not saved from the heat of their despairs, which is why I’m almost there, to the bridge, the car will be parked in minutes, we will walk to the center, I will wait for your sign. I’m scouring the whole solar system for that sign. I’m hearing a constant spinning of a record in my head, the scratching of the needle on vinyl, it’s affecting my equilibrium some, not staggering but feeling sort of dizzy, which is the last way I want to feel while waiting on the portal to be opened. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in my head because Isaac Newton was wrong about there being three laws of motion. There are actually four, and the last one is this: Heroes are unstoppable forces.

  22.

  Someone’s filming this, thinks Noah911. Somebody’s capturing him with the ashes. There’s always a camera running somewhere on the Golden Gate.

  The clues for what he should do with the ashes are in TheGreatJake’s video: Tracey’s happy face, Tracey’s final steps, walking along, playing the song. She looks so relaxed.

  This is the place.

  It has to be.

  He lightly squeezes the Ziploc bag, like he and Tracey are holding hands.

  “Almost,” he says to her.

  SARA CAN’T DRIVE fast enough for Balloon Boy, who sits in the passenger seat, listening to the lady from Google Maps languidly dole out her directions, and he doesn’t appreciate her this time. Sure, as they first maneuvered around San Francisco he’d been impressed with her collected, poised presence, but he wishes she understood what was at stake. Balloon Boy wants her to be yelling directions, telling them to accelerate and never mind the rules of the road, drive with a sense of urgency. Do whatever they have to do to get to the Golden Gate quickly. Save your mom!

  His foot will slow him down at the bridge, but he’ll do his best to ignore the pain. And much like Mom’s old address could have been wrong, there’s a chance that the guy isn’t even taking her to the Golden Gate. They have to look there first, though. They have to see.

  “Scared,” he says to Sara as they drive.

  “She’s fine,” says Sara. “Don’t worry.”

  She has to say that, Balloon Boy knows. She’s comforting him. Under any other circumstances, he’d stand back and marvel at this—Sara treating him like it was the time before the thump-splat ouch—but today he can’t do anything except think about his mom.

  “FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS and you’ll be fine,” Wes says.

  “Grab your purse and act natural,” Wes says.

  He punches her in the stomach one more time. They’re both in the back seat of the parked car. They are in the lot next to the Golden Gate.

  He says, “I will really hurt you if you don’t do what I say, all right?”

  Kathleen nods, no air to talk. She can’t imagine what the word bravery even means. It’s not real. All those stories she’s heard over the years of people doing superhuman things in the face of adversity. They are fiction. He has the control and she is property. She is a mannequin he picked up at a garage sale.

  Wes exits the car and pulls her out and tells her to stay close. She isn’t on a leash, but that’s what it feels like. He tugs her along. He dictates pace. He asks her to smile, but it’s not really a question, not after all the times she’s been kicked and punched. Everything is an order when the consequences ache in her body.

  Kathleen is property and as long as she does what he says, this will be over soon.

  Wes guides her toward the bridge; they’re by the tollbooths. He takes a deep breath, has a coughing fit.

  “We’re running out of oxygen,” he says.

  PAUL AND ESPERANTO pull into the parking lot. Paul tries to banish any glimmers of the brass band. That morning, Jake changed somehow. He had always been a sensitive kid, but nothing like this. That was why Paul wouldn’t let his son look over the edge, peek over the side at the ocean. It was too much, too real, death didn’t deserve any time in his kid’s thoughts. He could do that later. Time for Jake’s own morning commutes. Time for Jake’s high school buddies to start having heart attacks. Time for midlife crises and divorce and cholesterol medication and baby aspirins and a desiccating sex drive. Time for Jake to loathe the boredom in his life. Time for him to wonder where all the excitement had gone. Time for him to pine for fantasy football.

  It’s occurring to Paul that the ennui running rampant through his life isn’t all bad. Boredom doesn’t have stink stuck all over it. No, it’s a good thing, in a way, because it means you’ve made it this far. You’re still here. And that makes him want it for his son. Hopefully he fares better than Paul, but at least let him make it to this. Don’t let there be any finale today on the bridge. Don’t rob Jake of the ravages of being forty, fifty, sixty. Let him hate his job and grieve all the compromises he made along the way. Let him bald and be doughy and overworked and overtired all the time because those are trophies. He’s persevered through the grueling, deranged, and often unfathomable EVERYTHING. Jake is alive.

  They’ve parked the unmarked cruiser and walk quickly onto the bridge from the Marin side. Paul asks, “What happens when we find him?”

  “There’s no script.”

  “What do you think he meant by finale?”

  “Put that out of your mind.”

  “I don’t think he’d ever hurt himself—”

  “Let’s not worry about that,” the detective says.

  AND IF THIS is one giant leap for Jake-kind, where will he land? Isn’t that a fair question? You leap, you land. That’s how it works. Or you don’t because he’s in space, in his own magnificent desolation, and gravity isn’t a factor here. He can leap and never feel the ground again. Never be burdened by forces that pull him back down.

  He’s surprised that none of his fans are here. He thought he’d be immediately recognized, thought that his followers would crawl from the computer and meet him here, in person. He thought they’d want to meet flesh-and-blood Jake. He thought they’d line up for his finale.

  He makes eye contact with lots of people, hoping they break into a smile and ask, “Are you TheGreatJake?” and he can nod yes, he is, and they can hug, take a selfie together. They’re the ones that followed him, not the other way around, so where is everyone? Why aren’t they here for him? Neil Armstrong would have been pissed if no one watched, if he went to all that trouble and no one turned on their televisions, if he endured all that danger for nothing.

  Jake knows that mothers will leave the country for any reason, just to be away from him. Knows that fathers can freeze up, like a program, staying stuck for the rest of their days. Jake knows that right now everything makes him mad and everything needs to be hit with his baseball bat and he knows he’s carrying the brass band with him and followers should show up when they say they will.

  He stops in the middle of the bridge and finally looks over the edge.

  •••

  OR WHAT ABOUT a drone strike? Something unmanned, unpiloted, a weapon streaking into your life, poised to deliver its deadly cargo, no matter what gets ruined. Who gets ruined. Without even contemplating the legacies, the impossible detritus of trying to inhabit a smashed existence.

  It’s a drone strike, this blame explosion. Noah911 is engulfed in guilt.

  This is the spot. He’s watched the video so many times that he’s sure this is the exact spot where the brass band jumped. He waits to feel close to Tracey, to feel her aura,
her ghost, her kiss, but that’s not happening. He’s here alone with his Ziploc bag. He’s here alone and there’s only one way to feel close to her again.

  Noah911 registers a kid standing nearby fiddling with his phone. Then Noah911 is right at the rail. In the middle of the bridge. Noah911 looks over the edge. Noah911 mutters more apologies, begs for mercy, clutches the Ziploc bag like it’s a Bible.

  THE CAR BARELY stops before Rodney jumps out, and Sara tries to keep up. They are in the parking lot next to the bridge, on the San Francisco side. Rodney tries to run, but he’s limping really badly, slowing down with each stride. His foot must be broken.

  “You . . . run,” he says.

  “What can I do?”

  “Run!”

  It’s comical to Sara: She shouldn’t be his proxy. She’s too small to do anything. But if she sees them, at least she will be there. Try and get a couple beefy guys to help her. She’ll figure it out. Whatever he wants. However she can assist. If Jumper Julie had the courage to walk this path and do what she did, then Sara can summon an unknown strength to help Rodney.

  “I’ll find her,” she says.

  •••

  NOAH911 PUSHES AGAINST the railing, at the edge, and he is crying. This is goodbye and he fingers the bag, traces its contours cautiously. He squeezes it, not with any anger but as a last way to show love. Noah911 ponders whether it was his mother or father who found his plate of leftovers in the kitchen after the funeral. Are they worried, wondering what he’s doing, or are they lost in the arts and crafts studio, pretending not to remember?

  He opens the Ziploc bag and shakes out the ashes. Her ashes. Tracey. He shakes her into the air, not seeing a drone strike but something with beauty to it. Tracey snakes from the Ziploc bag and for a moment the ashes circle and sit in the air like a swarm of bees.

  Noah911 gets one second with all of the ashes frozen in the air. Face to face with them. Her. His sister. One last look in each other’s eyes.

  Then they flutter off in every direction; she flutters off in every direction.