All This Life

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.