Photo by Rick Scheibner
The photo is a study in perspective. The cart, the tree, the house, the weather vane and the small shack behind it. And the cloudy sky glowering over all. The cart is actually in the middle of an empty field, quite some distance from the tree that seems to loom over it. It's a gloomy day and few people are up and out of doors. James Jordan, however, is up and about to propel himself out of a door. He is, in fact, way way up, kneeling on the floor of a small aircraft some 12,000 feet over the field in this picture, he has a parachute strapped to his back, and he is smiling.
Jordan has been waiting weeks for this moment. Six weeks, to be exact. That is a long time for an adrenaline junkie whose drug of choice is skydiving. Any disposable income that remains after his basic necessities have been paid for is poured into jump fees. He has made over a thousand jumps and knows what he is doing. He has packed his chute himself, slowly and carefully, and is never hasty or overconfident. He wants to live to jump again.
He cannot see another human soul as he scans the earth below. Only the small farmhouse and a nearby road that cuts across the land and, after a half mile or so, passes another small farmhouse. A tractor here, a barn there, a thresher, and empty fields everywhere, the perfect place for a jump. Some fields sport mid-season crops, waist-high corn, wheat, barley and hay to feed livestock, but Jordan will avoid the crop-filled fields. He briefly discusses the desired location with the pilot and the plane banks to the left and circles back around. Jordan makes a final check that his pack is well secured, puts on his game face, and gets himself in the zone physically and mentally, the unique place where a person must put himself before jumping from a plane 12,000 above the earth.
Then, with a word of farewell to the pilot ("Sayonara!") who blurts a one-word reply ("Godspeed!"), Jordan is out of the plane and tearing through the ether, tumbling through a few aerial cartwheels at first and then straightening out, spreading his arms and letting the Superman exhilaration wash over him as he plummets, riding the slipstreams that ripple across his body and massage him from head to toe.
Thought is feeling and feeling is thought. They are one. His heart is a fastball hurled by an ace pitcher, by Nolan Ryan. He is no longer a plodding, earthbound human being: he is a bird, a freak, a god ... doing what few do, going where few go, feeling what few feel, and knowing what few know. There is nothing like it. Words are pointless as a means of description. Soaring, looping, diving, breathing beside the point, all bodily functions forgotten, all earthly responsibilities non-existent. The air in his face is cold, then warm, occasionally hot, but always vibrant, like a quivering, all-embracing hand that holds him, tighter then looser, gradually lowering him toward earth even as he resists the thought of arriving there. He wants it to last forever, a perpetual freefall, here in this effervescent place between heaven and earth.
But it doesn't last forever. It can't. He deploys his chute at about 2,000 feet as he knows he must. He could wait longer but this is his preferred juncture, for being lazily swung to earth on the chute is a pleasure all its own and 2,000 feet permits a thorough enjoyment of this stage. He sees the empty field below, sees a farmhouse here, a farmhouse there, a weather vane tower taller than the houses but that to him looks miniscule. He swoops through the air and is already feeling the letdown, emotional as well as literal, of his descent's conclusion. He would like to get right back in the plane and go up again. But there is a price for that and he cannot pay it. He will make the exhilaration of this jump carry him to the next time, when more money comes in. And then he will come back. Again and again.
But for now, he must face the business of landing. The empty field rises to meet him. But only now, a few hundred feet from the surface, does he notice the cart. A weathered and broken down old thing just sitting there in the middle of the field. Why? He tries to turn himself to avoid it but it's too late, at this height there are no longer any helpful currents to ride. He pulls his knees up to his chest as best he can, but his trajectory brings him into direct contact with the cart, there is no avoiding it, as though some malicious god has drawn his line of descent in permanent ink, incapable of being erased or changed or circumvented. His left leg catches on the cart near one of its old rusty wheels, between the wheel and the cart bed in fact, and yanks the leg back while the rest of his body tumbles into the adjacent grassy field. The pain is immediate and fierce and brings him down to earth in a hurry, far from the exhilaration of a few moments earlier. He lies there, stars spinning in his head, gazing up at the sky, filled with diabolical clouds that seem to smirk and sneer at him. The last thing he remembers thinking about before passing out is the pilot's reply ("Godspeed!") and the jolt of ecstacy ripping through his chest as he tumbled out of the plane ... nothing like it, nothing at all, this is all mine ...
Jordan hobbles into church on crutches the following Sunday beside his wife and two daughters. Quite a number of people approach and ask him what happened. Broken leg, he says. Took a bad fall. And leaves it at that.
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