As Easy As Falling Off The Face Of The Earth Part 3

"No," said Arvin. "Not work shoes."

"He needs shoes he can keep," said Beth, "to wear back on the train. We can make a quick trip to the Sally."

(SHOES) (LOST AND FOUND) (CINDERELLA).

"The Sally" was the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Once inside, Ry's new companions strayed like cats, every one to his own way. He stood just inside the door, bereft. Without his team buoying him along, he was less certain that what he was doing made any sense. He moved toward a set of shelves that held plates, bowls, and gla.s.ses. Kitchen things. The shelf at eye level was filled with mugs imprinted with photographs of children, grandchildren, best friends, boyfriends, and girlfriends. There were inscriptions like "World's Best (fill in the blank)", "I (whoever)", "BFF."

Abandoned now like puppies at the pound, they huddled together on the cold metal shelf. It was kind of depressing. Who was going to buy a mug with a picture of a total stranger? They were doomed. Their ranks would only grow. It would be kind of funny, though, if you had a restaurant, to use only this kind of cup. He was momentarily glad to be far from home; if he saw someone he knew on a cup, he would have to rescue it. Them.

"OhmiG.o.d," said Beth, suddenly beside him. "Look what I found. Wait. We have to go to an outlet." She took Ry by the elbow. As she led him along, he saw that in her other hand she carried a plastic cactus in a plastic pot, with a cord attached. When they reached the wall, she plugged it in. Many of the plastic cactus bristles were optic fibers, and pinp.r.i.c.ks of light shone from their tips in an ever-changing array of color.

"I can't believe someone would get rid of this," said Beth. "Can you?" When Ry didn't immediately respond, she said, "Picture it in the dark."

"Cool," said Ry. It would be better in the dark, he guessed, when you couldn't see the cheesy plasticness of it, just the shimmering lights.

"Okay," said Beth. "Never mind. Let's go find you some shoes."

On the way she grabbed a package of socks from a spinning rack.

Del was already in the shoe area. He was methodically checking each pair in the unmethodical aroma-of-feet jumble for size. He glanced up as they approached.

"It's not the greatest selection," he said. "But I found a few." He nodded toward three pairs he had set aside.

Ry had imagined something like the work boots Del and his crew all wore, maybe a more beat-up version of his own hiking boots. A pair of tennis shoes would have been okay. So far, his choice was between an old man's dress shoes, reddish brown; crinkly white business-lizard loafers with a gold chain on one but missing from the other, and pull-on ankle-high boots of scuffed black suede with triangular elastic inserts on the sides.

"Give those a try," said Del. "I guess you need socks, too."

"I've got some right here," said Beth, ripping open a plastic pouch. Ry pulled on the white cotton tube socks. Blue stripes went around the tops.

The ankle boots were the only pair that looked like they had been worn by a person under sixty years old, so he tried them first. He could barely get his foot inside.

Next he tried the dress shoes. They were huge. He would have been relieved about this except that it left him with the most horrible shoes, the shoes of last resort: the shiny white loafers.

Reluctantly, he slipped them on. He hated to admit it, but this pair felt the best. They were all cushiony.

"Wow," said Beth. "You would need a lot of self-esteem to walk around in those all day."

Ry looked at his feet and legs in one of those little shoe mirrors that sat on the floor. The shoes were a metaphor for the decline of western civilization: c.r.a.ppy and glitzy and barely useful, but pretty comfortable. This is the narrator's opinion. Ry didn't think that thought specifically, but he felt as dispirited as if he had.

The contrast between the shoes and the striped tube socks was interesting. Probably a metaphor for something depressing, too. It looked as if a lawn mowerriding failed gambler in shorts with a potbelly should be attached to his legs. But shoes were just something to put on your feet, right? It wasn't like he had to wear these the rest of his life.

Beth, meanwhile, said, "Men don't know how to shop." She went over to see what Del had missed. When she came back, she had a pair of blue-and-yellow Pumas. They were soiled and worn, but intact.

They fit like gloves. Whatever that means when you're talking about shoes. They fit like magic slippers, in a fairy tale.

"You don't have to pull the socks all the way up like that," said Beth. She folded the tops over and smooshed them down. "There," she said.

Ry felt almost normal. He looked at Beth with grat.i.tude. She was pleased, too.

"I know," she said. "I'm amazing."

Pete and Arvin had materialized. Pete held a cookie jar shaped like a parrot. Arvin carried a teakettle.

"Th.o.r.eau said to beware of enterprises that require new clothes," said Pete.

"But did he say you have to go barefoot?" asked Beth. "I don't think so."

"I don't think those shoes count as new," said Arvin.

"Did Th.o.r.eau say anything about ceramic parrots?" asked Del.

"It's for my mother," said Pete. "She loves this c.r.a.p. You should see her house-it's full of it."

Ry tried to picture Pete in a house full of cookie jars. He tried to picture Pete with a mother. It wasn't what you thought of when you first looked at him. That would be more like, I hope he doesn't hurt me. Okay, not really-that was an exaggeration.

He tried, in his mind's eye, to morph Pete into Pete's mother. He made him smaller, rounder, and softer, and eliminated the facial hair. He pulled the rest of the hair into a ponytail and gave her sleeves. She only came up to Pete's shoulder.

"Oh my G.o.d, Pete," she said. "That is too cute. I love it!" Her voice was gravelly, like Pete's. He gave her his own mother's voice instead. It didn't quite fit, but it made her seem very motherly.

Thinking of his mother's voice made him think of his mother. He thought of how she looked when he said something she thought was funny. At first her face stayed the same, except for her eyes. They would twinkle. Then the shape of her mouth and cheeks would shift almost imperceptibly into her secretly amused expression. It was weird not to know where she was. She didn't know where he was, either. Both of them sort of thought they did, but in a useless, nonspecific way. Like, oh, yeah, my needle is right over there. In that haystack.

AT THE TRAIN STATION.

The ticket agent listened to Ry's story.

"Wow," he said. "That's a good one. Creative. But with a lot of realistic details."

"I didn't make it up," said Ry. "It's what happened."

The agent looked at Beth. With interest.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"A friend," she said. "Actually, we just met this morning. But we're already good friends. He's telling the truth. Can't you just, like, switch his ticket on your computer from August whenever to sometime this week?"

Beth was a warm and vibrant and infectious person, though infectious is a weird word when you think about it. Ry could tell the agent liked her, too. This made him hopeful.

The agent smiled. But it was not the smile of yes, all right, okay. It was the smile that went along with, "I'd like to help you. I really would. But I can only give him a ticket if you're such good friends that you want to pay for it."

"He already paid for a ticket," persisted Beth. "He just wants to switch it."

"He has no ID," said the agent. "What happens when someone named Ry-what is it? Wilco? Whitcomb? Wooster?-shows up in August and his ticket has been canceled?

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really am."

The only thing he was sorry about, Ry could tell, was disappointing Beth.

"Okay," said Beth, sweetly crestfallen. "Well...we might be back later."

"I hope so," said the agent.

"p.r.i.c.k," muttered Beth as they walked out the door of the station.

"There really wasn't anything he could do," said Ry.

"I like you, Ry," said Beth. "You're a good egg."

"Thanks," said Ry. He wanted to say something nice back, but he couldn't decide what.

Leaving Amtrakland, they pa.s.sed a fountain, splashing the granite pant legs of the statue of some historic guy. It looked like he had gone wading.

OOPS.

Ry shinnied his way out along the limb to the place where he would tie the rope. It was the only limb that remained on this side of the tree. One by one, section by section, they had brought down the limbs below this one. First they harnessed them with ropes, then they chopped them, then the chunks fell, more or less, right where Del wanted them to fall. Arvin chopped them into smaller chunks, and Ry and Beth carried them to the back of Pete's pickup.

They were taking the tree down because it was dying, and big heavy parts of it were hanging over two houses and a garage. The idea was to get it down before those parts fell off and knocked holes through someone's roof. And to not drop parts of it on someone's roof while they were getting it down. So far, so good. It was work, but it was also a game. A large game. Del was the only one who completely understood the rules. The others sort of understood. Ry got that there were rules, and he saw that there was a logic to them, but he could see that it would take a while to really get the hang of it. Still, after watching Pete crawl out on a few limbs, he thought he'd like to try. So Del hooked him up and explained what he was supposed to do. Which was to creep out onto this limb with a coil of rope hooked to his waist.

He couldn't help noticing how high up in the air he was. Higher than the roofs of any nearby houses. His knees were bent and his feet were hooked onto the limb behind him, his thighs clamped in a vise-grip around it. Like a witch riding a broomstick. Except not moving forward as fast. Like a cross between a witch and a caterpillar. He looked into the eyes of a hawk as it soared past. His coworkers moved around like ants, far below. Okay, not ants. But chipmunks. It was pretty far down.

He focused again on the limb ahead of him. The texture of the bark. Inching forward, he reached his spot. Now he was supposed to tie the knot. Except that to tie the knot, he would have to let go of the limb with his hands, and he found himself suddenly unable to do that.

It was the height. If he were only a few feet off the ground, in this exact same position, he wouldn't even think about falling. He hadn't thought about it out on the other limbs. But I'm not only a few feet off the ground, he thought. It seemed certain that the instant he let go, he would topple over and go into free fall, meeting the ground with a breath-robbing, crunchy-gooey, heavy thud. He could imagine the thud. In reality, he probably wouldn't hear the thud. He would be unconscious. If he was lucky.

He decided to do as much of the operation as he could one-handed, so he could hold on with the other hand. Holding on with his left, he took the coil of rope with his right. He found the end of it and let the middle fall. Don't think about it. Think about the knot.

Ry managed most of the knot with the heels of his hands resting on the limb. When he had to lift a hand away, he made sure the other hand was holding on. He was giving the knot one last quick tug when a loud crack split the air. It was a semi-distant crack; he didn't think it had anything to do with him, though it startled him and he was already wobbly. He had both hands on the limb again, a safer feeling.

But then the limb shuddered and gave way beneath him.

Ry fell with the limb, clutching it as if it could save him. Together they fell, fell, fell. Pa.s.sing before life's eyes, because life was standing as still as a statue; it was Ry that was moving. Moving too fast. Moving down. Picking up speed.

And then he stopped.

With a jolt and a rebound, he was suddenly suspended in midair by the harness Del had made him wear. Oh, yeah! he thought. The harness! He dangled twenty feet or so above the ground. This was an estimate, based on how, as Pete and Arvin trotted over, they looked. Bigger than ants or chipmunks, but not as big as he wanted them to look, which would be actual size. Was it panic he saw on their upturned faces, or just interest? It was hard to tell from here. Through the jumble of blood crashing in his ears and his heart thumping, he heard Del's unfl.u.s.tered voice, off to the left somewhere, say "Oops."

Looking over, Ry saw him scamper across a roof.

"Hang on," Del called out. Ry hung on.

But now that it was detached from its tree, the tree limb was heavy, and its dead weight wanted only to crash down onto the ground. He could feel the death-grip of his knees and thighs loosening. He was going to drop it. And Pete and Arvin were directly below him, as if they meant to catch him. They were in the perfect position to be wiped out by the falling limb.

"Watch out!" Ry bellowed. "I have to let go. It's going to fall. MOVE!"

Pete and Arvin grasped the imminent threat and scattered.

Ry let go. The limb fell the rest of the way. It bounced once or twice, then lay still. Hanging in s.p.a.ce, Ry looked down at it. Then around him, at the empty air. Farther off, he saw the gutter running along the roof edge of a two-story house, at eye level.

He hung there diagonally, balancing himself by holding fast to the ropes he was suspended by. One was tied to another tree. The other went to the remaining limb of the tree they were removing. He hoped that whatever had happened to his limb wouldn't happen to that one, too.

In an unwelcome surprise development, Ry was suddenly aware that he needed to pee. He would have to block it out. Mind over matter. Easier said than done.

Del had reached the roof edge closest to where the other rope was tied. He paused for a bare microsecond to lay out his path, his plan. Then, in one fluid movement, he lowered himself to a porch railing, reached out for a limb, hoisted himself onto another limb, took a couple of quick steps, and dropped nimbly into position within the V of the bifurcating trunk, where he began to work the rope he had tied there.

As if he did this every day.

Maybe he did.

Ry watched in admiration. How did he do that? He felt again the extremity of his situation and murmured, "Hurry, Del." And, "Hurry faster." Glancing back down into the yard and its surroundings, he scouted for a place to go, once he landed.

He felt a movement, felt himself drop a half foot, felt his self-control struggle to recover. Del had dismantled the knot. The rope was wrapped twice around the tree, which Del was using as a pulley. His muscles and tendons bulged as he released the rope, hand over hand, a little bit at a time. He must be strong, Ry thought. I couldn't do that. But he thought he would like to be able to.

Each release of rope brought Ry that much closer to earth. Each downward jolt brought his bladder that much closer to eruption. He was almost down. His toes touched the ground. And his heels. He readied himself to dash to the spot he had chosen, a nook nestled between a fence, a bush, a storage hut, and a garbage container. He unclipped the harness, and it fell to his ankles. Beth rushed over in concern.

"Are you all right?" she asked. She put her arm around Ry's back and with her other hand clasped the arm closest to her, in the way a big sister or a mother or an aunt would. Still, Ry felt his face grow warm.

"I'm okay," he said.

Arvin and Pete had rushed over, too.

"Excuse me," Ry said. "I'll be right back." It was amazing how your brain could fill up so full of what was happening right now that it could forget all about what had happened thirty seconds ago.

A FARAWAY BUT RELATED STORY: WISCONSIN.

When Lloyd opened his eyes again, Peg licked his face. She had crawled down into the hole with him and lay close against his side, waiting for him to awaken. Olie, up on the rim, was watching something with great interest, his ears at full attention, his head shifting abruptly from side to side.

It took a few minutes for Lloyd to recollect what had happened and where he was, and another few minutes for him to decide that he'd better try to sit up. Crawling up out of the hole was not impossible, but it was awkward and tricky. There was nothing solid to grab onto, and with every other step the ground seemed to collapse into hidden, bottomless pockets.

Once he made it onto solid ground, he wanted to get clear of the treacherous field. But looking around, he saw an unbroken perimeter of maple and aspen saplings growing in tall thickets. He could not tell where they had entered. The angle of the sun told him only that time had pa.s.sed. Which way was which? Then his eyes fell again on the pile of rocks and the partial foundation. He tried to recall where he was standing when he first saw them, and he went and stood in that position, not trusting the ground to stay where it was when he stepped on it. His head throbbed when he moved. The b.u.mp on the back of it was tender to the touch. Making an about-face, he tentatively headed into the trees.

Olie and Peg differed on where to go next. They wandered in opposite directions to the ends of their leashes and looked back at him. This way. No, this way. Lloyd knew the path could not be far off. He just couldn't see it. He racked his brain for some landmark he might have noticed that morning. All he came up with was twittering birds and squirrels. And then he saw what seemed to him a small miracle. A human head was bobbing along. He shouted.

A FARAWAY BUT RELATED STORY: DOG VERSION.

ANOTHER FARAWAY BUT RELATED STORY, THIS ONE WITH A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET.

Roughly thirty-four hundred miles to the southeast of New Peche, the sun was setting. Ry's mother and father dangled their feet from a dock attached to an island and watched it. Once it got close to the horizon, it fell so quickly. The sky was deep blue, lavender, peach, yellow, tangerine. Just ahead of them, the sh.o.r.e curved around and offered up picturesque palm trees in silhouette. Gray violet cloud wisps drifted along in the distance.

"What an absolutely beautiful sunset," said Wanda.

"We should have done this years ago," said Skip.

"You're right," she said. "I just always worry-"

"You don't need to worry," he said. "Everything will be fine."

"I liked his old camp where they made them write postcards home before they could eat dinner," she said.

"Where would he send them?" asked Skip.