Parachutes
BY DAVID RYAN
Annual Egg Drop, you’re out in the parking lot beside one of the moms’ candied root beer Mercedes while your daughter’s middle school science teacher, Mr. Knievel, stands on the roof high above, shouting down at the children. His words snag and shatter in the crisp blue sky.
And what are you doing here? You’re half hiding, sure, a little, observing your daughter with her classmates. Your daughter’s assignment was to wrap an egg so safely that when dropped from this roof, it lands unharmed on the asphalt. But it’s her age—she’s thirteen; your presence has begun to embarrass her. The field, these kids, this time of her life, you get those pencil smell memories these days, recall the chipped grey enamel of lockers in a sunstreaked hallway like how cigarettes and beer in the summer breeze conjure certain moments lodged in parking lots, beaches, other lives. And sure, you’re curious about this egg, how it will fall. You and your daughter put some thought into it. This is true.
But there are other truths, other questions. Questions that left you far too alert most of the time, fevering the drumbeat of your blood; you imagine things, there’s so much to be freaked out about, and—
“Some ground rules,” he shouts from on high, but the rest of his words fly off again into the breeze, and he looks even more lawless and mad up there now. This science teacher, a charismatic guy, folding bifocals attached to a chain around his neck, you don’t know his first name, but of course, the last name, Knievel, conjures the daredevil Evel Knievel. No one your daughter’s age would know who that is—was. But you remember that vestigial tail of his rumbling video-flared chromium arc and flame paint shot through the cathode memory of your childhood. The luminous burn of captured light, arrogant twist of his motorcycle’s front wheel ascending, its correction, the descent over the floodlit analog clutter of buses and canyons, flashes popping the press pool, the tube tops, terry cloth shorts, tall clogs, feathered hair screaming in the dim bleachers. He must get that a lot, this science teacher, this Knievel. Over on the soccer field, there’s another parent, she’s vaguely familiar, with her toddler. She’s not here for the Egg Drop, she’s just using the wide berth of the lawn for her kid, and you remember back when Amanda was that age, barely able to walk, the relief of finding some open, soft space where she could just fall and it would be okay. Balloons from the May Day festival over the weekend bound about the kid. A couple of strays, as if dancing around her.
And you step back a little into the Mercedes. Not hiding from your daughter. Not so much as trying to lessen the friction of your presence at this annual Egg Drop competition. Because, honestly, you know why you’re here, but would others understand? The pretty TA—you keep forgetting her name—holds a clipboard. She’ll tally the winners and pick up the pieces of the failed experiments. A contractor bag flits like a live creature in the breeze beside her. On the roof, the science teacher Knievel shouts something, his gestural enthusiasm so high up again open to interpretation, lost in the windward enunciations that would suggest in some other, imagined context that he’s lost hope, doesn’t give a damn anymore, he’s going to jump this time, and he shouts two words spared by the wind, Bryant Rainey. You think, Rainey, that little fucker. You don’t like that kid, no. Understand, he threatened your daughter with some social media shaming. Which enlivened an unspeakable violence in your imagination, a vicious and disruptive jarring of heat in your brains that you hadn’t felt since high school. And then you hear a gun go off, like a giant balloon pop, and you jerk alert, see the toddler on the mown grass of the big athletic field with the mom and, okay, a stray balloon has exploded, just that. But who’s to know these days. This school’s costing you to death, but it’s safer, that’s the idea: with good counselors, good arts and theatre and writing, an emphasis on expression, thoughtfulness. It’s small enough, maybe she’s spared a little less bullying than elsewhere, surely less than in the news. The stolid colonial main and outer buildings, the small organic farm, how could violence thrive here? Mr. Knievel extends Rainey’s egg—a fist of flags and a sparkler, which he lights with a lighter (and you wonder what the guy is doing with a lighter, does he smoke?) and lets Rainey’s ignited, sparkling, flag-wrapped egg fall from his hand. The spectacle’s swift descent, a fray of light, the egg explodes on contact with the asphalt below. The TA yelps, Oh yeah, Jesus, oops, then goes over, picks up the broken, wet twist of scorched flags, yolk, drops it into the trash bag. It’s worth mentioning you had thought all the kids would be up there on the roof. This was the concern, what brought you here to the parking lot, the thought of your daughter, peering over the ledge a little too enthusiastically, falling, a call from school or the hospital, and so this was your excuse, calling into work, saying you’d be late, and sure, you’ve been late a lot, but whatever—the kids aren’t up there on the roof, so the call wasn’t necessary, and your presence here to catch her is as asinine as it now sounds. But you’re here. Understand, she keeps asking what a good life span is, your daughter does, you can see her thinking it out, doing the math: your life, her mother’s, her own. The timeline’s uncertainty runs through your porous grasp with as much of a question. So many outcomes fall upon a future you increasingly see you can’t predict, can’t control.
Mr. Knievel good-naturedly waves off another crash below—you missed it, the next egg experiment device, you were staring at the woman on the field with the little toddler, the burst balloon, listening as some shimmering phantasm of your daughter asks you an impossibly simple question, and now Knievel shouts, Well that was interesting—and he laughs and everyone laughs and the TA takes a call on her phone quickly then puts it away and smiles. They’ll hose everything down later. It’s all fine. The parachutes, you recall them billowing mid-jump, Evel Knievel’s little motorcycle capsule or whatever it was, tossed falling through the striated ribbons of canyon walls, or was it a rocket, somewhere—where? Daredevil Canyon? Snake River Canyon. Utah? Colorado? You’ll go home when this is over and look it up.
It’s all you can do not to lose everything, to get to the end of it. Standing in a parking lot among all these high-end cars. The privilege you and your wife can’t afford but you make it happen. The sky, a perfect blue. That toddler with her mom on the athletic field, you’ve seen the mom around, said hi a couple of times. Her kid toddles toward another balloon, bounding along on the athletic field. Beyond them, bleachers. Nothing can go wrong on a day like this. And yet. You glance over at your daughter, she’s laughing, watching Mr. Knievel above: Does she have enough friends, what about her teachers, is she happy, is she sad, do they really know how brilliant she is, are they ignoring her? The hazy intangibles—overtones shouting at you all at once, joining into a pure and dark single tone; the way black is every color at once, or is it no color all at once, you can’t remember, and Knievel shouts, Clayton! and holds the next egg project out. Basically, wadded-up duct tape. Points for lack of imagination. A crude implement, it might work, sure it might—
And suddenly, you hear the psychotic megaphone from that white Econoline utility van that drives around town, 70s sun-faded decals of glowing fetuses on the sides, black striped American flags writhing from the van’s antenna, the sides and back strung through with unmoored strings of language in some kind of Germanic font, text too tangled or small to read, The side of the van flashes by, Twitter and Facebook logos plus some others you don’t know, the Q-Code of the driver’s torqued psyche. The Econoline’s megaphone voice is louder now, some of the scratchy words carry holy praise and damnation, and here’s where you want to hold your daughter, where you nearly go over and wrap yourself around her, the strongest impulse to put your arms around your daughter, and the noise fades and—
“Ramon!” Mr. Knievel, high above, raises a small box before him. You know he saw the van, he heard it; he’s as glad as you are that the van has passed. But he’s a professional, he’s better at the bluff. And holy fuck, this kid Ramon, he’s something—good at science, math, your daughter said he’s writing a speculative novel set in the Bronze Age. He’s what, twelve, thirteen, a dynamo. Knievel extends Ramon’s modest-looking box and lets it fall. A flicker in the light, the flicker snaps and breaks off, the box blooms, releases an appendage—a hatch throwing out a ball of cloth. A parachute unspools, opens wide and fills; the box coaxes in a slow sway like a leaf in the breeze, landing gently and flat on the lawn a few feet from the lot’s asphalt. Beyond, the toddler rolls in a shallow puddle in the grass, his mom, on her phone. You’ve considered all the diseases that live in puddles, it’s true, and simultaneously disdain and admire her nonchalance. A small crow or maybe a sparrow chases a bigger crow in the blue above. You hear an ambulance chasing memory far away.
Knievel shouts: “Great job Ramon—no surprise there!” And even the wind pauses on Knievel’s praise for this kid. Did this science teacher get made fun of, growing up with a name like Knievel? But you survive childhood, don’t you, except for those who don’t. Maybe every generation believes things are more complicated now. More dangerous. That smaller bird snaps at the larger crow mid-air and they tumble a little then part and the larger crow drops something and you watch that small something fall through the sky and vanish in the ether’s descent as the toddler rises from the puddle and his mother now sees what he’s done and in silence puts her phone away and comes over to him.
That Ramon kid is a force. You were not a great student at your daughter’s age. Face it, you were a mediocre kid. The only science experiment you can recall is when you and Eddie Mireles set the class on fire. You were carrying the Bunsen Burner. Eddie had possibly intentionally overfilled the glass bulb with alcohol as you held the lamp, alcohol spilling cool and dry over your hand, Eddie lit the wick with the zinc lighter and the filament burst blue and blossomed onto your soaked fingers, the beautiful ethereal flame washing over your hand and up your arm, and you dropped the Bunsen Burner to the floor, the liquid flaming burst like a star at your feet. Old linoleum probably had asbestos milled into the tiles. Easily put out. And you were fine, too, the only injury was you lost all the hair on your arm, but then—
It all works out, it’s all fine. Get a grip. Over on the athletic field, two blue balloons skitter along now, the deflating strays, balloons frolicking like playmates. You’re daughter’s friends—
Knievel screams, “Sara Nevins!” and leans—a little dangerously, really—over the ledge and lets the object in his hand drop. It’s a yellow balloon, but it falls with more mass than a balloon; it’s the mass of an egg inside a balloon inside a balloon. Smart, you think. The balloon lands on the asphalt of the parking lot and the outer yellow balloon bursts, revealing its interior soul, the red balloon. Inside, which, you assume, is the egg, the safe egg, which likely has survived this. And the pretty TA holds the thing up into the light and says: “Safe!” and the kids scream and applaud and you applaud and almost scream. The woman on the lawn, the one with the toddler, she’s bopping a balloon to her little kid who shrieks delighted, reaches to the sky where the balloon currently lives and tumbles on the soft grass. Everyone, screaming. You and Eddie Mireles in Little League, you went All-Star with him though your team was 0-12, the most losing team in the league. Coach Jim, nice guy, you can’t remember his last name, like a dad, really. The dad you’re trying to be for your daughter. Came by your house and played catch a few times, he thought you had a gift, or maybe he just saw that your dad never came to the games. Maybe look him up, let him know how much he meant to you. You can’t remember his last name. His wife, though. Wow. At every game, screaming from the bleachers at him, insults, she was heckling him. What a fucking weird woman. Eddie’s fastball, a little wild most of the time. Orioles, white polyester uniforms with yellow trim, the sponsor’s name on the back, what was it? some demolition shop off of Sauk Trail. And Knievel, science Knievel, tosses a tiny inflatable raft over the edge and lets it fall. This raft, it hits the lot, bounces and then lands upside down, cracking the egg. Not a lot of decorum for this one. Your daughter glances over and waves a tiny, flickering wave—and you smile and wave back. Back when you were her age, your daughter’s age, there were risks; sure, back then, you could get tetanus, blood poisoning, you could overdose on homemade speed, you could damage your brains by sniffing solvents in a bag, which you did do, you could die in a car accident, Jack Rainwater’s van drove off the bridge into that quarry in Monee, television shows had quicksand and tarantulas, Miss Kearns, your 7th grade English teacher—you heard she was on that flight, Flight 104 or something, the one that went down in Arizona, no survivors, she’d bring in a zither and play it while the class read to themselves, asbestos, you breathed it certainly, drank and inhaled lead everywhere.
An enormous white bird appears from some slip, an envelope, of perfect blue in the sky, the flash of airy white passes hovering high above. How clear and blue the sky was in September 2001. You were on the Metro North leaving the city and you could see one tower missing from the horizon, thin wisp raising a curtain in the blue like grief had cut all the weather from the air, sucked the clouds up into some upper stratum of terror. Watching it devolve on the news, you and Sue weren’t allowed back in the city, couldn’t get to your cat in the apartment for a day, but the cat was fine, and a kind of deja vu landed more recently, much more so, watching the kids scatter on the television screen, the digital artifacts of someone’s a handheld phone, kids scattering kids scattering kids scattering and you hear the P.A. speaker of that fucking village idiot driving by again in his van, now coming nearer to the school, the fetuses on the side of his van like aliens hovering in some 2001 Space Odyssey, the scratching speaker of his voice a—
“Okay, listen,” Knievel, on the roof, shouts. The kids glance up at their teacher.
“Amanda,” Knievel shouts. Your daughter’s name is Amanda, yes. It is the most beautiful name in the wind, in the blue sky, it’s the most startling clarity of your entire life, that name. This is her project: The egg, pushed gently through a balloon she then inflated, wrapped in some cutout foam, then wrapped in popcorn, then in bubble wrap, then duct taped, then wrapped in bubble wrap again, then more duct tape. There is no way she’ll come to harm—no way the egg, you mean, will come to harm. You’re here, you’re watching, you’re ready.
The heron grows in the blue sky. It’s circling lower, an enormous glowing wingspan of an angel.
“Amanda’s the final egg!” Knievel shouts down from the roof, and you think Amanda’s your last and only chance, and your mind doesn’t quite understand what that means, even if your soul does. He makes a big spectacle of it and holds it out. You know why he saved your daughter’s egg for last. Because she’s the fucking best egg. Knievel’s no-iron oxford rippling in the breeze, those bifocals hanging from the serpentine chain around his neck with the magnets you can break apart and snap back together on the bridge of your nose. This Knievel holds your daughter’s egg out over the edge of the roof. Dear god, it’s an enormous ball of grief. The anticipation of its flight, the other steps you could have taken. Miss Kearns, the teacher with the zither, sitting in a doomed jet airplane high above. Like all of us, we’re all sitting high above in airplanes. Sometimes, yellow masks drop from overhead. Such a soothing sound, the zither memory, Miss Kearns, you’d like to tell her how soothing she was. You looked Eddie up a while back, didn’t you? He’s down south now with the Department of Children’s Services. You miss his blistering, wild pitches. You miss the vast, abandoned chasm between cause and effect, past and present. The wildlands of youth bounding around the memory cassettes. You’re so glad to be here, to be now. A daughter, a wife, this parking lot. You’re glad he’s working with kids, that Eddie is.
Everyone applauds.
The speaker in the van is gone. Mr. Knievel is talking. Everyone put in such a good effort, each of you is a success story. The kids are clapping, and it’s over. You could go for a cigarette right now, a couple of beers. This is what you’ll do: you’ll drive around with open containers, the window wide open so the smoke—and then you realize you missed the egg drop, your daughter’s. It fell, what happened?
The science teacher has vanished from the roof; your daughter Amanda waves at you again—quickly, a little blip of redemption in her hand. Or maybe she’s just saying you need to leave now. And she joins her group of friends, you know, a couple of them, Savannah and Cleo and Jimenez, all good kids, and there they go, joining the relatively tidy line at the back entrance of the school where, without looking back at you again, she slips laughing into a doorway, and then, soon, the door closes, and she’s gone. And you think to call your wife, to check in. To just see how she’s doing.