I was fallin’ down to Earth at a gawd-awful speed through the clear blue skies of Zephyrhills, having made my peace with Jesus, knowing – finally – how the universe began and how it would end:

“Helluva lot of good that’ll do me now,” I thought.

A six-pack of things crossed my mind, including: who would get my Frank Sinatra album collection, where did I park my car, would my sainted Mother have to ID my crushed body, how would my Nets, Mets, and Jets do next year, would anybody miss me when I was gone, and, most importantly: “Whatever happened to Arch Deal?”

Why Deal?

In June, 1975, Tampa Bay TV newsman Arch Deal jumped out of a small airplane at 3,000 feet over nearby Cypress Gardens and his main chute didn’t open. At 2,000 feet, his reserve chute failed to deploy. At zero feet, he hit the ground – yet managed to survive, except for his broken neck, six broken ribs, separated pelvis and hundreds of contusions, lacerations, and bruises.

I was in a similar situation – but without the chute.

Would I survive?

The spinning, churning, and turning was taking its toll. I was fadin’ in and out. I’d managed not to look down by keeping my eyes closed as long as I could. When I finally opened them (wide) and stared at Mother Earth, I saw (floating in the sky) what looked like a large, eerily thin, crown of thorns.

A sign from God?

Then the crown slowly transformed; first, to a winking eye; then, to a butterfly.

My last sane thought was of the card game that dealt me this death drop.

“Never play poker in an airplane when you’re out of money,” I thought. “Never.”

Wish somebody had told me that sooner.

The rushin’ wind, like an old train, was blastin’ (unmercifully) through the dark, moist caverns my brain. The last functional thought I had was a joke I heard as a kid. The punch line:

“It’s not the drop that kills ya . . . it’s the sudden stop.”

The air leaves me breathless. The light, blind. My senses, over extended. My bones crack under pressure. My hair, whipping like wild fire. Fed by the oxygen and thriving out of control. And everything is ending. And I think that as I fall I will leave you behind. But you fall with me. And you are the wind under my skin. You are the gravity breaking my insides to splinters. The stars behind my eyes. You are the rupture of my lungs. The bursting of my heart, too full. The enveloping waves, crashing through my last thoughts. You are the cement rushing at me. The ground, ready to catch me. And I think I’ll leave you behind. But I’m only diving to meet you. I’m only careening into your arms one last time. And I still feel you in the end.

Paralyzed with fear;

Lucid state of mind

Underneath the azure mirror

My fate I'm soon to find.

Mimicking the raindrops

Enveloped in the air

Transcendental; time stops

In minutes, I’ll be there.

Next to all the daisies;

Grass that’s kelly green

Treasuring the scenery?

How odd, I think, it seems.

Or is it? Am I dreaming?

Unwind. Rewind. Wake up!

Good for nothing—screaming;

Halfway down I stop.

Terrifying nightmare;

I wake; chilled in my sweat

Should have skipped dessert I

shared and had hot tea instead.

I have always been enamoured with the endless blue of a summer sky, the white cotton puffs of clouds, the blinding white sun. So it seems fitting that these will be the last things I'll see as I fall with my back to the endless earth, my unshielded eyes forced open by wind.

I suppose that now I should be praying to some sort of God, but I can’t seem to move onto the next thought- I’m past Panic Mode and onto some sort of paralyzing indifference- the sky seems to be holding me fast in this one, infinite moment.

I close my eyes

.

I am a child again running through the woods and the trees don’t end I am staring straight up instead of down at my feet where roots trip me but nothing can stop me I’m invincible I cannot fall I cannot die it’s nothing but me and the lines of trees and the sky the sky the sky and now for an instance I am everything I am the sun and the moon and the stars and gravity cannot hold me any longer I am not falling but flying

.

I open my eyes. The sky is so beautiful so beautiful so beauti

The humid air worked its way through my lungs as I pulled myself up higher. The aerial roots of the great banyan tree rose from the earth to a canopy, intertwining and stretching across the edge of that rocky hillside.

My mind a mess with anger, hurt, and pretended indifference, I paid little attention to my body which warned me I was climbing too high and too fast. Surely there was too much air beneath the majestic limbs beneath my bare feet. It was almost as though I knew what would happen when I tried to balance my way up that branch; almost as though I had sent myself there for that specific reason.

And suddenly I slipped. My feet, legs, arms, face, all tingled as my scream split the air and I fell. The rocky slope rushed toward me. Rushing through my mind were thoughtless words I would never get to take back, the boy who would never hear me say “I love you,” the children I would never name, and friends who might cry.

I braced myself and tried to hold on to that pretended indifference.

Nobody ever gave a damn about Lovelin, West Virginia. Not that they should have. Some of the people in town might have been less committed asses if someone had tried. Might have been worth a shot.

My Grandma Nellie always had what she called “a touch of the third eye”. She claimed that somewhere out there was another reality where Lovelin was a better place. A place where shuttered windows were flung open and festooned with hanging flower baskets. A place where children walked openly and yet people were not afraid. She claimed that the fork in the road for Lovelin had all come down to one woman. Barbara Lester. She would never tell me the story though. Until now.

I'm twelve, I'm not a moron. When Grandma tells me to fetch her “Third Eye Juice”, I do so with the full knowledge that this is to actual juice what fast food is to actual food- that is to say better. Its better. Apparently, if Barbara had behaved decently, I would never have known this fact. I remain unconvinced that this belongs in that magical Better Lovelin category but I keep an open mind. I want to hear the story. Please and thank you, and here's your “juice”, Grandma.

I'm a bit too old for sitting on Grandma's lap. I tell her this but she insists that it is here and now or nowhere and never. She fears she may not have enough time left. I sigh but snuggle up between where her chin and the third eye juice will soon be staging their courtship dance. Back and forth, back and forth. Rocker and floor. Bottle and face. Its the Lovelin dance.

Grandma begins. “Barbara used to be a cute little thing. There was a developer came into town who went mad crazy for her.”..... Grandma stops. I look up. She has put the juice down and a single tear is rolling down her face. I don't know which is more alarming. Grandma laughs. I pee myself a little.

“Grandma?” I am almost terrified to ask. “What's the matter?” Grandma smiles down at me. “I've been a bit silly about Barbara. I spent all this time telling you all how one little woman's action could have saved us all. Really, there's nothing would have saved us. We're an awful town full of awful people. That's all. All that butterfly effect crap is just another way of avoiding responsibility.

I feel slightly relieved. Enough to gather courage for one more question. “Grandma?” “Yes dear?” Is there any reality where Germany didn't win? Grandma chuckles and pats the swastika on my sweater. “No dear, that always happens.”

don't make a sound, fingers dance, stretch those arms, move those hands, glide through the surface, breathe in the air

not symbolic, not a sign, just some love, don't name it, don't call it, silence in the matter, songs under the heart_ no sound, no voice, no me, no you

fingers dance in the air, move your body until your soul cracks, eyes closed, glide in the open room, doors wide open but no one to walk in_ floorboards don't creak, birds don't sing, gentle flutters of a burning heart

it's just a muscle, don't make a sound, back bends to the side, arm lifts, fingertips searching for a tune, move them fast, they're creating the world_ palms shift, elbow to the right, knee to the left, sing out without a sound

hold the whipers, forget your breath, dance in circles, reach the sky, move the ceiling to reach your needs_ walls fall, universe ceases to exists

keep on playing, rocking to nothing, baby your dislocated, with craks in the bones, spirit sticks but the body flows

so move your fingers, palms up, limps bending, hush...

___

On the Feast of the First Morning of the First Day, in the Year of the Monkey, 1968, North Vietnam’s wildcat soldiers—many dressed in pale shirts with pleated pockets, button-downed trousers, and wearing sun-helmets or jungle hats—attacked South Vietnam.

Bullets and tracers cracked the silent sky; grenades and mortar fire shook the earth.

Thousands of Americans in hundreds of cities, towns, and villages, faced ever-growing waves of gritty soldiers trying to provoke citizens in the south into overthrowing their own government and siding with Ho Chi Minh and his Communist regime.

It did not happen.

What did happen, however, was a bloody mess: More than 40,000 Viet Cong died, along with 7,000-plus Americans.

I was not in-country during that brutal battle, known as the Tet Offensive. I showed up later.

In 1971, I was given guard duty at the end of a runway at Da Nang Airbase—a runway that had been overrun during Tet.

Spooky.

The night-watch lasted four hours. It was deadly dark. Menacing. On the edge of the jungle—a stone’s throw from hell.

I was alone.

It crossed my mind that somebody was out there. Watching me. From the other side. (Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be? They were doing their job—like I was doing mine.)

Nighttime creeps me out. Haunts me. Especially that night. Gloomy thoughts conjured up layers of fear, anxiety, and dread. I didn’t need that. Not one bit.

I was wearing a helmet and flack jacket along with my uniform-of-the-day. My weapon: an M1911, Automatic Colt Pistol. The barrel was rusty; sand had found its way into the detachable magazine.

Nobody ever taught me how to shoot a 45—let alone dismantle and clean it. Didn’t really matter. I was told not to load my pistol unless ordered to do so. And, if so ordered, not to shoot unless given an official OK. Good thing, too, because (given the rust and sand) the dang gun would have exploded in my face.

About two hours into the watch, I got paranoid—trees became stalking solders; shifting ground-grass transformed into a dangerous threat. My breathing sounded like labored gasps from a faulty fireplace-bellows; my heartbeats reverberated like hollow thumps rumbling through a defective drum.

At some point I put my hands in my pocket and was surprised to find the harmonica I’d used the night before to play for drinks at the on-base saloon. Of course I wouldn’t play the harmonica out here. Not on watch. For one thing, the sound would call attention to me; for another, the shiny metallic top and bottom plates would make a great target for sharp-shooters.

Playing would be a suicide move.

Eventually, boredom, fear, and dread teamed up to form a strange euphoric alliance. Pragmatic. Morbid. Sinisterly re-assuring. I took out my harmonica and played a sultry blues riff. Panic melted away. Terror took a trip. Apprehension dissipated into wistful puffs, like ghostly smoke leaving a dying fire.

Better target for a sniper? Sure. But I figured I’d rather take a kill-shot than suffer a shattered arm or leg.

Silence sauntered away that night. Quiet as a bug. Far away from my one-man parade—drifting through a stream of blue notes and caressed by a soft, summer breeze.

The second bottle thudded to the floor, clinking against the first. In reality, it wasn’t the second bottle, and its friend down there on the floor wasn’t the first, either. A more accurate way to classify it would have been “the second bottle of that night." The carpet was musty and stained throughout from the spills of hundreds of beer bottles over the last decade. Many of them still lay around, long empty. It didn’t take him long to drain them anymore.

Footsteps sounded in the room over. That was his daughter, clearing away the mess left by supper. They had ordered it, as always. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d eaten something other than pizza or take-out Chinese. Granted, she was barely thirteen. It wasn’t like she could be expected to cook for the two of them, and he certainly was in no shape to do so. He hadn’t been for a while now.

Her silhouette appeared in the doorway. She was so small, with hunched shoulders and limp hair. She seemed aged in a way that no child ever should.

If he had been sober, he might have sobbed but for the childhood she never had, should have had. The childhood he had never given her.

She all but tiptoed into the room, gathering beer bottles and other garbage as quietly as she could, like she was trying to fade into the shadows around the edges of the room.

If he had been sober, he wouldn’t have been able to stand the look on her face when she shot him a quick glance. It was a mixture of pity and disgust, but worst of all was the fear. Her fear. She was afraid of him.

It wasn’t his daughter’s fault. Of course it wasn’t. She had only been a toddler when it happened. Barely walking, the only words she had even known then were Daddy and Mama. But the latter had soon faded from her vocabulary.

If he had been sober, he’d still have been able to hear his wife’s scream, the squeal of tires, the crunch of shattering glass and twisting metal.

She was too young to remember. His only child held no memories of her mother, the beautiful woman that she was growing up to so closely resemble. All she had were empty bottles for company and that ugly gash on the side of her forehead.

If he had been sober, he would have realized that it had been him who had given that to her, to his own daughter. And before that, the black eye. He might have noticed her scars. But even if he had been thinking clearly, he wouldn’t have been able to recall the incident anyway. The beer made sure of that.

His daughter didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. With no way to remember her mother - even pictures removed from the walls, since the memories hurt him too much - she would never know how much her father had loved his wife.

If he had been sober, he would’ve been able to feel every ache that the painful memories brought with them. Every gash and every wound, reopened. He would have remembered exactly how much he had loved her. Unfortunately, he also would have remembered that she was gone. That fact was what kept him firmly planted in the moldy recliner, surrounded by an army of empty glass bottles. He didn’t want to remember.

Despite the terror lurking in the shadows of his daughter’s face, the remnants of the blood she’d tried to clean from her temple, and the way she kept to the edges of the living room, as far away from him as possible, there would be no changes any time soon.

There was nothing left in this world that could drag him out of the grave he’d dug himself. The only person that could’ve done that was his wife, but she was in her own inescapable grave.

Sobriety was no longer something he could handle.