The Long Journey to Jake Palmer

by James L. Rubart

  He held up a photo, walked back and forth in front of the six of them, then smacked it three times with the back of his hand. “Whadda you see? Huh? Huh?”

  “Sand,” Andrew said as he tried to stifle a laugh.

  “Nothing else?”

  Peter and Jake peered closer, then shook their heads and fought back a smile.

  The man smacked the photo again. “I can’t see anything else either, and that’s how it’s going to look once you’re out on the dune, but let me assure you, you’re looking at a ridge with a six-foot drop-off in the middle of this picture.”

  Jake leaned even closer, and as he studied the photo, a razor-thin line in the center of the picture came into focus. “I can see it now.”

  “Exactly my point.” Rock Face held the photo two inches from his face. “Once you focus and get up close, real close, you’ll see the break. But you won’t spot these till you’re right on top of ’em, which means turning or stopping is a serious challenge. Keep your eyes open and the speed down and you’ll be fine.”

  “Third rule.” The man held up three fingers. “Have fun.”

  Jake smirked at Ari. Have fun? He didn’t see that requirement coming from Mr. Personality. But Jake definitely intended to take Rock Face’s advice.

  After they all settled onto their machines, Susie leaned over and whispered in Jake’s ear as she glanced at his legs. “You’re not going to do something stupid out there, are you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you remember the time when we were kids and you jumped your bike over—”

  “Yes, Mom. I remember, thanks. And yes, I’ll be careful out there.”

  Susie slapped him hard on the shoulder as Jake laughed and tried to avoid a second strike.

  For the next forty minutes they soared over the dunes. Jake kept an eye on Ari for the first ten minutes or so, but it was obvious whatever fear she carried from her early teens evaporated the instant she got out on the sand.

  Jake brought his ATV to a stop somewhere near the center of the vast track of sand and let the joy of the moment fill him. No, he wasn’t on a mountain cliff five hundred feet above a raging river, or burning up his lungs racing along a back road trying to beat his personal record in an Ironman, but he was outdoors, feeling the wind whipping against his body, riding the adrenaline shot of being alive.

  A moment later, Peter and Andrew pulled up next to him. Peter gave him the same look he’d given hundreds of times over the course of their friendship, but never since the incident. It was a look of challenge, a look that shouted the games were about to begin.

  “Wanna have some fun with Andrew and me?”

  “Without question.”

  “See that flag out there about a quarter mile away? There and back. Don’t worry about the blind drops. I’ve checked it out twice, and as long as we stay within fifteen feet on either side of us, straight to the flag and back, we’ll be slick. All fine and flat.”

  “Good,” Jake said. “I’m not thinking rolling one of these would be any fun for body or wallet.”

  “Agreed,” Andrew said.

  “Losers buy the winner dinner?” Peter grinned.

  “Deal,” Jake and Andrew said.

  “We go on three.” Peter held up three fingers. “One. Two. Three!”

  Jake gunned his engine, and his ATV shot forward on just his two back wheels. “Whooo-hoooo!”

  A second later the front tires of his machine thumped back onto the sand and Jake leaned forward, low in his seat. The less wind resistance, the better. He would win this thing. He glanced to his right. Peter was a foot ahead of him, Andrew a foot behind.

  For the next quarter mile the lead shifted back and forth every few seconds. Jake couldn’t hear Peter’s and Andrew’s laughter over his own and the roar of the ATVs, but he knew they had to be busting a gut. This was too fun. And far too long in coming.

  The flag loomed ahead and Jake maneuvered his ATV to the right. He wanted to attack the corner from a wider angle. All three of them tore into the corner less than a foot apart. The temptation was to throttle back in order to stay tight on the curve and not roll the ATV, but that would slow his machine enough for Peter to increase his lead to a point where Jake couldn’t catch him on the return trip.

  As he veered to his left, Jake leaned his body out over his machine to fight the centrifugal force. He wouldn’t be able to pass Peter on the inside—he was too smart to let Jake take that path—but Jake was counting on Peter to play it safe. He did. Yes.

  Jake shot ahead. Once he straightened out, he pointed at Peter, then to the ground. Laughter poured out of him as the rush of victory filled his mind. Stupid to get this worked up about winning a race around a flag on ATVs, but it wasn’t the winning that mattered. Pushing himself did. It was the competition. Seeing if he could do better than he expected himself to do in a way that satisfied him like nothing else, a world he hadn’t feasted on for over a year and a half.

  Maybe he couldn’t push his body any longer, but he could push this machine, and push his brain to find the fastest way out and back.

  Jake glanced back. Peter was gaining. How? He outweighed Jake by at least thirty pounds, and the machines were the same. Nah, not the same, there wasn’t any rule that the shop had to tune these things identically. Simple answer. Peter’s was faster. But that didn’t mean he would win.

  Jake squinted at the hill of sand rising up ahead of them. It had slowed all three of them down on the way out, and he wasn’t going to let it do the same thing to him on the way back. He veered slightly to his right hoping Peter and Andrew wouldn’t follow. This race would come down to inches, and riding the flatter ground around the rise would provide the margin of victory Jake needed.

  Jake glanced to his left. Yes! Peter and Andrew were heading up the rise. Already he was ahead. By the time they came down the other side, he would be ten or fifteen yards ahead. Jake flattened himself as much as possible and kept his throttle wide open. The thrill of triumph started to rise and lift his spirit to a place it had not been in an age. Then the ground dropped out from under him.

  Without warning, the sand under his tires disappeared, and he shot out into the air as a truck-sized stone landed in his stomach. Time seemed to crawl forward like a slug as the front of his ATV tilted forward and Jake rose in his seat. But he wasn’t sitting any longer. His hands still gripped the handlebars, but his body was now above the ATV and splayed out behind it, like one of those crazy motocross kids doing Superman stunts on their nitro-powered dirt bikes.

  Then the seconds seemed to speed up and the front of the ATV smashed into the sand. Jake flipped over the top of the machine, his feet now straight up in the air. The momentum of his body ripped the handlebars from his hands. He twisted and from the corner of his eye saw the ground racing up to crush him. An instant later, his head and shoulder slammed into sand and he rolled to a stop. Sand filled his mouth, eyes, nose, and he spat onto the ground. His shoulder felt like it was on fire. Broken? Maybe. He rotated onto his back and thanked God for the helmet, closed his eyes, and tried to slow his breathing.

  Seconds later the roar of an approaching ATV filled his ears, and he opened his eyes to find Peter jumping off his machine. Peter dropped to his knees as Andrew pulled up next to Peter’s ATV. Seconds later, Camille, Susie, and Ari arrived.

  “Talk to me!” Peter leaned down till his face was a foot from Jake’s. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. Might have broken my shoulder.”

  “That was an idiotic idea. My fault. I never should have sugg—”

  “Not your fault. I veered from the route. Totally my screwup.”

  Two hours later, Jake walked out of the emergency room they’d found in a town ten miles north on Highway 101.

  “How’s the shoulder?” Peter stood and strode over to him. “You going to live?”

  “Painful, but not broken. Just badly bruised.”

  Peter dropped his voice. “Was it worth it?”


  Jake glanced down the hallway to his right and left. None of the rest of them were there. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Went to grab all of us something to eat and get gas.”

  “Yeah, it was worth it.” Jake gave Peter a half smile. “You know it was. I’ve been dying of thirst and was just handed a gallon of water.”

  “Enough to quench you for a while?”

  Jake didn’t have to think about the answer. “No. Not even close.”

  “Why? I don’t get it.”

  “I love the rush of competition, the adventure, pushing myself, but that wasn’t me doing the work, it was a machine. All I did was pull down on a throttle and turn some handlebars back and forth.”

  “You did more than that. You—”

  “You don’t have to placate me, Pete. You like the outdoors. Doing a little waterskiing, going on a stroll down a hiking trail. For me it’s different. The mountain climbing, the mountain biking, triathlons—that is who I am.” Jake popped his fist into his palm. “Who I was. Losing my legs is about more than just yanking me off the dating circuit. It’s taken me away from . . . I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  22

  After dinner that night, Susie set a drink on the armrest of Jake’s deck chair and took a sip of her own as she plunked down next to him. She kicked off her shoes and set her feet on the wooden ottoman in front of her chair. Jake peered at her stony face, but she didn’t turn.

  “Are you going to say anything?” he asked.

  Silence.

  “Sooz?”

  “Do you find it at all ironic that you teach people how to discover what’s on their label, but you have no clue what’s on your own?” Susie took another swig of her drink and kept staring straight ahead. “And even if you did, you wouldn’t be willing to admit it?”

  “I know what’s on my label.”

  “Yeah, sure you do. That’s why you had to be an idiot out on the sand today. Proving you’re still a stud. You have no idea what’s on there.”

  “I wasn’t trying to prove anything, and, uh, yeah, I do know what’s on my label. I went down that path nine years ago when I started my company. Did it again two years ago. Went through my own process, with input from close friends. Like you. Or did you forget we did this? I don’t teach what I don’t know.”

  “Has anything happened during the past two years that might have changed the label?”

  Jake didn’t respond.

  “Want to know what I think? I think you have a few typos in your text because of certain life events.” Susie twisted to face him. “In fact, I think you have more than typos. I think you have whole sentences blacked out and lies written over the top of them. But that’s only what you’re seeing. I’m still reading the old label, all of which is still true.

  “But again, you no longer believe what’s written there. You’ve shut yourself inside your bottle and because of that, you’re not only not helping yourself, you’re not helping anyone else with their labels either.”

  “What are you saying? Helping people discover what’s on their label is my life.”

  “Used to be, yeah, used to be. But not anymore.” Susie thunked her glass up and down on the armrest of her chair in a slow cadence. “Now it’s your job. You’ve stuffed the ‘it’s my life’ part down deep in a basement you’ve bolted shut. And as much as I can, I understand why, but if you really want to continue to help people see what’s written on their souls, you need to be willing to read what’s being written on yours. Not what was written back then, what is being written right now.”

  “Oh, so here it is. The moment where my little sister comes and lectures me on what I need to do in my life to have it make sense? To get it fixed?”

  “Nope.”

  Susie sat back in her chair and took slow sips of her drink as Jake stared at her.

  “I get it. You think your mere presence here will cause me to squirm till I finally talk about what I’m feeling toward Ari and what I should or shouldn’t do about it.”

  “Ari is such a small part of this, but yes, that would be a place to start. Time to risk it.”

  “You think I should stop hiding. Tell her what happened to me.”

  “Yes, but not for the reason you think you should.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes, really. You believe you need to take the risk of telling her so you can see if she’ll reject you. That way you can put yourself out of your misery, one way or another.”

  “Sounds like the right reason to me.”

  “I disagree.”

  “How can I take a bigger risk than that?”

  Susie’s face was full of hope as she sat up and took Jake’s head in her hands and shook it.

  “Listen to me, big brother. You’re on a journey. No big revelation there. But you think it’s to find someone who will look beyond your scars and love you regardless. You think if you do find this mystery woman, her acceptance will restore the place Sienna gouged out of your heart. But that’s an external journey, one that ends with a person, whether that’s Ari or someone else. I think you have a more complex path you need to follow.”

  Susie popped Jake’s knee with her fist. “You need to tell her so you can stop fixating on her and move on to the deeper thing that you want most in the world. So deep you don’t even know what it is.”

  “But you do.”

  “No,” Susie said. “I’m not saying that. But I am saying you need to get off the path to Ari and onto—”

  “The path that leads back to me.”

  “Yes.” Susie patted him on the knee. “Yes, my dear brother, yes. You need to take a journey inside the bottle and forget about what people are seeing on the outside.”

  “I know what’s on the inside. It greets me every day.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah, really.” Jake held his breath, then let it out in a slow stream. “You want me to get gut-level honest with you, sis? I mean, really bare-my-soul-to-you-type honest?”

  Susie’s breathing slowed and she looked at him as intently as she ever had, then gave one slow nod.

  “What’s inside the bottle is not enough. I’ll never be enough. Never.”

  Susie’s eyes never left him as she waited for him to speak again. She didn’t need to ask him why. Everything about her was inviting him to dive in. Maybe it was time to take the plunge.

  “My mom didn’t die in a car accident, Sooz.” Jake let out a bitter laugh. “Can’t believe after all these years I never told you the truth.”

  He turned away and stared at the sky as the memory of those days back in the spring of ’89 hit him like a hurricane.

  “I’m going to the school bus now, Mom.”

  “Okay, Jakey. Be good.”

  “I’m trying.” He pushed open the screen door and stopped. “Really, I am.”

  “Try harder.” His mom crushed out her cigarette in an ashtray full of butts and closed her eyes. “You knocked over your milk again last night. How many times is that this month?”

  “Twice.”

  “No. Not twice.” His mom opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on him. Cold eyes. Dead eyes. “Not even close to twice. Five times. Five! Too many. You’re wearing me out, Jake. You’re going to be the death of me, I swear.”

  “I’m so sorry. It won’t—”

  “—happen again. I know. I know you’re sorry, Jake. I know, I know, I know. And I know ‘it won’t happen again.’ But it will. It will.” She closed her eyes again. “You make Mommy so tired sometimes. The mud you tramped in last month, the cuts I have to deal with when you fall off your bike. The mess in the bathroom. And your room. Good golly, Miss Molly! Do you know what that does to me?”

  “I stopped riding my bike. And I keep my room clean. All the time. And my side of the bathroom is—”

  “Fine!” Jake’s mom slapped the table. “But your sister leaves that bathroom a pit.” She put another cigarette to her lips and lit it without opening her eyes. “I’m
exhausted, Jakey. Just be good.”

  “I’ll vacuum again today when I get home from school.”

  His mom’s head fell back and she opened her eyes and looked at him with a lifeless stare. “If you come home today from school and I’m gone, then you’ll wish you’d been a better kid and not so wild all the time. You understand me?”

  Jake shuffled up to his mom, his Captain America backpack now feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. He took his mom’s free hand. “Feel better, okay, Mom? And take your pills, okay? Promise me, Mom. Promise? Take your medicine, okay? Please?”

  She pulled away and gave him a sick smile and pulled a long drag from the cigarette. “I’ll try to remember, but if I forget, you know whose fault it is.”

  Panic rose in Jake, his breath quickened. “No, don’t say that, Mommy. I’m going to be better. I promise.”

  “I’m kidding.” She waved him off and took another long drag.

  “Promise that you’re kidding and nothing will happen? Promise.”

  “Just be good, all right? And stop exhausting me all the time.”

  Now the memories came like flashes of lightning. How every day during the spring of ’89 he begged her not to kill herself. How he’d begged his dad to help her. The flowers he plucked for her out in the field behind their home. The times he sat his parents down and tried to get them to talk to each other.

  Ten years old and trying to get his dad to stop controlling every second of her life. Trying to get them to have a conversation that was about more than his dad telling his mom exactly what to do, and his mom looking at him with her dead eyes.

  “I think if you guys would talk about things together, it would be really, really good. And then you can listen to what each of you is saying to each other, then maybe . . . I mean, if you’d really listen . . . and then one of you would go first to try to listen and then—”

  “Okay, Jaker. That’s pretty sweet of you to try.” His dad gave that plastic smile that really meant shut up and lifted Jake off the couch. “But Palmer children don’t talk to their parents that way, do you understand? You’re not my counselor, young man.”