William Wright

01.06.98

no matter where you step, you'll always leave footprints

It is half eight and Alison is still standing out on the viaduct. Her hands rest calmly against the railing, as do her breasts; the cool galvanized steel is comforting. It's a long way down. Looking at the stream of traffic below, her hair falls around her face like a folding screen set haphazardly in the corner of a room. Beyond, someone is undressing. Revealing shadows flicker. Suggestive motion and familiar sounds, to anyone racing by on the four lane road behind Alison, she looks like just another pedestrian who has stopped to look out over the deep river valley and the glittering city beyond. And what a breath-taking view! Her fingers grip the rail. She feels the crusted salt of winters past and the sharp points of the galvanizing dip. Though her eye notes that the bolts securing the rail in the concrete are rusting, no part of this engineering wonder is about to break off. She understands that there is no way anyone can accidentally fall off. It would take a miracle. Alison has been out here since six.

Pretty, she thinks, following the twilight stream of lights winding their way up and coursing down the highway. White. Red. Commuters as tight and single-minded as the road, as the ribbon of asphalt with all its stripes, hard lines and glowing points that hug the valley wall. Traffic demarcates the banks of an ochre river. Why can't I see it the other way? She considers how the erotic curves of the landscape mold the road. Herons and geese follow the river down to the lake. Willows. Reed. It might be pretty down there, too, lost in the marsh, she concludes, managing to suppress the urge to burst out laughing again. Hysterics. A woman's prerogative. Could I smell anything other than waste? Could I hear anything other than the economy? It is late in the summer, but the evening is still warm. Khaki shorts and navy T, sockless, bra-less, she is not cold. At least she doesn't feel it. My body is numb, she whispers against the roar of traffic echoing up from below the bridge.

Now! Up over the railing! Like a dance, one, two, three, and our soul will be free to fly. Bathed in love, neither the blizzard of the mind nor the winter burden of the body can turn you back. One decision to end all decisions. Relish it. Enjoy it. Leave the lie. Exit insanity.

Momentary hysterics wash through her. The heady command only sets her heart pounding against her ribs again. The wind stirs her loose hair. It gently brushes her wet cheeks. She finally breaths and pulls her head back. She is once more just a pedestrian out on the bridge.

Alison thinks about her choice of accouterments this evening. Simple. Conservative. A revelation in cotton twill, she smiles, comparing the lines she chooses to conceal with the contours of pigeons and gulls that circle below. 'Born to Shop' in glitter gold italics graces her back. She feels those words there, a stickiness of warm sweat under the plastic embossing. They all had a good chuckle at the office when she came to work wearing the message. Work, she now reflects with disgust, a civil servant providing a questionable social service, paid by the state, her taxes going to pay for her own job, her salary – or whatever was left – she used for entertainment. Shopping. She might as well be in a coma …

"Hey, little girl!" The voice punches through the hypnotic drone of traffic and her own remonstration. She hears barking. Turning, Alison sees two black dogs bearing down on her. The owner stands some distance off swinging two leashes uselessly in his hand.

"You can either jump or be taken down by my dogs!" he yells, laughing first at the sight of her confusion, then harder as plump face churns in terror. And the barriers are down, the danger different. Alison scrambles up over the railing, hoping, needing, praying to escape the dogs.

"Ho! Stay!" The shouted commands compete against the traffic. With perked ears, however, the two beasts stop in their tracks, not a meter before the terrorized girl. A frustrated whine replaces the growls.

Unsure for whom the command was intended, Alison throws the young man a glance. Now beaming in pride as he reaches his animals, A laughing face shows no concern for her. He grabs each animal's head and churns it roughly with praise. Atop the rail, Alison casts a glance down at the scene she has been watching for hours. She needs to laugh at the perversity of this situation. One meter higher and the view is richer. Seen from this new angle and the feat less intimidating. She is calm. The dogs are calm. The youth looks puzzled. And Alison remains atop the rail.

"Closer to your goal?" jokes the owner, who leashes his two boys, "Man, are you afraid of dogs! I'd see a psychiatrist about that!" Now, suddenly ignoring her, he continues across the bridge. Without thinking, Alison slips back down to the raised sidewalk. Only when her feet are back on the ground does she realize she is shaking violently. Alison has never been afraid of heights, nor dogs.

"Fuck you! Bastard!" she shouts weakly, but whether the youth hears her against the traffic is unclear. Without turning, he offers her a friendly, parting wave.

Two hours later she's still here. Another thought has distracted her. Another history. The viaduct had been named after a local mercantile family patriarch who organized its construction and funding at local and provincial levels. Apparently, the old man had thrown himself off the bridge at the beginning of the Depression. His eldest son also jumped to escape romantic responsibilities. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the viaduct was rededicated in the late president's honour. A young politician elected to change the world. Only the world bit back; old men who didn't see the point in jumping off bridges. The world acknowledged the loss, but not the crime. If the public mourned and voters elected to rededicate the bridge, old men were happy to oblige.

These old men reminded Alison of her ex-boyfriend. His peers were enthusiastic about his dedication to work. Praised and emulated, he moved with ease up the corporate ladder. Technology, specifically software engineering, defined his existence. He once told Alison that work was easy, because it was fun. All his free time went into his machines. In the same rare exchange of words, he confessed his secret knowledge that all of the world's problems could be solved with the advancement of technology. The bureaucracy that choked the world and isolated individuals would soon be made redundant by the implementation of programmes like the Internet. Small units would once again become a reality. The global village was at hand. A humane civil service would become efficient and user-friendly. Yet, Alison wasn't convinced. She told him so. Global, yes. Efficient, yes. User-friendly, perhaps. But something was missing, she declared, made careless on red wine. Human contact, she answered to his blank stare. No, video was not the same, she refuted. Solitary, masturbatory, gaming, chair-sitting emperors running around without any clothes, she had concluded. The comment was above him. Telling her to fuck off, was not. He farted too much, anyway, she comforted herself, choosing potted palm as her new companion. Old men, she tells herself now, commuters.

The setting sun and humidity glue the plastic letters to her back. Alison pulls them loose and savors the breeze. Once, at work, she wore a T-shirt commanding Don't Buy – Give! No body got it. A message that no body gets just doesn't cut it. A friend told her it wasn't fashionable -- might as well mop the floor with it. A lesbian friend once gave her a T-shirt declaring, I Breed Therefore I Am. They all laughed. Novel, they said. But as they thought about the message, laughter turned to frightened chuckles. Annoyance. This proverb they got, but they didn't want to accept its complexities. The implications were outside of their life experience. When she thought about it, Alison also found it disturbing. Nope, the shirt was best worn by the non-reproducing elements in society. Born to Shop won them all.

As the sun slides into the bank of smog on the western horizon, Alison is thinking about her life of consumerism. Sure she is overweight, but who wouldn't be overweight among friends that jokingly call the mall, Mecca. A consumer consumes. Pay until you are eighty. Pay for your funeral. Show your family and friends how much you want to pay. Teach your children to consume. Diving and swooping below her, pigeons return to their nests for the night. Growth is measured in salary and waistline, she reflects. All living things grow, even cities. Against the rumble of subway cars rattling across the trestle stuck to the underside of the bridge, she knows this is not the kind of growth she needs. A consumer consumes. Grimly, she reminds herself that a consumer is not supposed to take her own life.

"Jump!" Youths shout the dare from their bikes.

"Nah," one sounds in disgust, "She's chicken." They cycle past on gleaming new mountain bikes, laughing at their own bravado. She watches them with a wry smile.

"My friends don't really mean what they say." The unexpected voice startles her. Alison spins around to see another kid on a bike. Ahead, the other four stop and wave him to hurry up. When he doesn't immediately catch up, they invent a new distraction taking turns spitting off the bridge, aiming for birds.

"I understood them well enough!" snorts Alison with an unwelcome tone. The sudden presence of the boy annoys her enormously. Since when has she ever been a public target so often? A pregnant mother could be dying on the streets and people just walk by … she read it just the other day. Why now? Why today must there be all these disturbances, she wonders.

The boy smiles sheepishly. "You aren't really going to jump, are you?" he asks. The woman is struck again, this time with a loss of words. Brutal, whether with honesty or villainy, she nods, shakes her head, and nods again. The boy will not go away. He continues to stare.

"I might," she confesses with potentially explosive exasperation.

"Cool!" he replies enthusiastically, "'Can I stay and watch?"

Alison moves to hit him, but turns her back on him instead. Suddenly, there is nothing explosive to her exasperation. She sighs. "It's a personal thing," she says quickly, "Your friends are calling you."

"Oh yeah," he notices, his voice trailing as though her momentous decision is already forgotten. His friends are horking gobs of phlegm and shouting boisterously at their sport. But instead of cycling on, he adds, "Aim for the river, because it's like concrete when you hit, you know. I saw it on TV. And if you do survive, you will still drown."

Cross, Alison says she intended to aim for the highway, north-bound lanes, and points out that if she survives that concrete, the commuters will finish her off for sure! Turning to regard the boy, however, she sees no outrage at her sarcasm, but rather a sagely nod. He is obviously seriously considering the wisdom of her suggestion.

"True, but everyone knows you gotta jump into water from a bridge," he finally concludes with a satisfied smile and leaps up onto the seat, driving down on the pedal.

"Right," Alison acquiesces and watches him bike ahead to join his friends.

Words, words, words … Alison is used to listening, nodding, chatting, forgetting. At some point in her life she realizes, the lives of others had to be let go, like water under a bridge, otherwise she'd go crazy. All competing for attention, for sympathy, for agreement. Perhaps it is only her, she thinks, because I choose to listen instead of adding my complaints and opinions to the throe. And look where it has gotten me! Again the traffic above and below, the dizzying height, the darkening valley glittering cosmetically like a lesser firmament … hysterics well.

However, at her side she suddenly sees a grandmother pushing a stroller. Even though it is late, Alison can see that the baby is asleep. The other woman appears to be very tired.

"Careful honey, that's quite a drop," she says with a smile. The comment allows her to slow down. And doing so, she then decides to stop. Checking the baby first, she looks out over the city to see streetlights flickering on amongst all the trees. "I remember my father telling us that a lot of men jumped in '29. Less in '91. Don't recall any women jump'n, though". The old woman nods in agreement with her own facts.

"Didn't anyone just ever fall off the bridge," Alison asks plaintively, wanting solitude.

"Fall? Heavens no. Who'd just fall?" laughs the other woman politely, "Though I suppose a workman or two might have walked off the end of a beam in those days. The Drink, you know." Her nod this time is sagely, but the twinkle in her eye reveals much more. Alison smiles. The young woman's smile encourages a longer stay. Checking the baby again, the grandmother continues.

"Say, I did hear of someone jumping and surviving though. Crippled for life, I read, unable to take his life now even if he wanted to."

"A living hell, to be sure,' adds the trained social worker automatically, who is, as publicly announced, Born To Shop.

"Sure! A living hell for all the care workers he'll drive nuts with his bitterness. And all those years on the public's tab! This little one here will probably even be paying for his care. Shameful."

Alison smirks, "Shameful." Looking back out over the darkening valley floor and the glowing towers beyond, Alison adds: "He should have done it right."

"What?" the other woman's question signals disbelief. Suddenly embarrassed, Alison coughs, yet she wont be intimidated. She didn't ask for this conversation. In fact, an inner voice reminds her, she wont be around much longer to care.

"He should have jumped on the highway or that fence down there … aimed for the lamp post … "

"Aiming'd be tough with all that wind," corrects the older woman, "Honey! What a thing to say!" Her mock outrage is accompanied by a ambiguous, familiar twinkle of the eye. "If you survive a fall like that, someone must want you alive … sort of like changing your mind. Get my point?" Her smile is brief because he bends to check the stroller. Wiggling uncomfortably, the baby is awake. Alison can't see whether it's a boy or a girl. Between the goo-goo's and the now, now's, she mumbles something about getting the little one to bed. Tucking in the writhing bundle with practiced ease, the wrinkled face looks up and smiles at Alison: "Careful of that view – don't let it get too compelling." Then she laughs and wishes Alison a good evening.

It's dark now. Below the lights hum and roar. Alison stands in the shadow between two streetlights. She is breathing heavily, telling herself it is a question of mind over matter, her mental desire to get off the carousel before she sinks any lower in the dark prison of her misery. Twice she has been up on the rails. Twice her something inside her has yanked her back down. A voice is laughing at her: You seek to kill yourself because there is no love left in the world and you have faith no more … Yet you cannot bring yourself to the task because you are afraid of the consequences? Does this mean you think someone cares? What’s it going to be … death by your own hand, or more suffering and death by someone else's hand? Those are the choices. How much longer are you going to suffer? Why do you feel the need to suffer?

While the one voice has been getting clearer and clearer, behind the arrogance laughs another voice, one that she remembers, but cannot place. It is this voice that mocks the errors of the first. It is this voice that has drawn her back each time.

Confusion mounts, and as the day's decision presses on into evening, Alison feels the numbness return. She is tired of the debate. So tired. However, before she succumbs to the bilious welling of self-pity, someone farts beside her.

Aghast, her mountain of self-pity evaporates. Left suddenly empty, she laughs.

"What cha look'n at?" A derelict is leaning against the rail beside her. Was she so lost in thought that she failed to notice him? Alison wonders as her eyes almost tear from his pungent cocktail of alcohol, sweat and general filth. Their eyes meet. Like the old woman hours ago, the man nods. "I sup’pose yer gunna tell me I’m in’erupt’n one of life’s precious moments, huh?" the man snorts. He wipes a huge bell of snot off his nose with his sleeve. The interloper seems oblivious of Alison’s outrage and continues: "Lot a people jump from here, ya know. I can never understand that … I mean, if yer gunna die anyways, en ya will, sooner or later, why fear life now? Now. Later. It’s not like yer hungry or somethun. But I guess some folk are always eager to park their chairs at the dessert table. Yup, I know death's gunna be glorious, reunited out there with God, understand'n everythin, the big picture … sounds attractive donit?" he proposes, leaning out over the railing to watch the cars below. "Why git stressed? Damn, who really needs to drive 130 anyways?" With this question voiced, he spits and watches its descent.

At first puzzled, then angry, Alison finally sighs. Maybe she should have picked another bridge. "Why get stressed? Well it might be too much of one thing, too little of another and a load of regrets that rises like a glacial cliff," replies Alison.

"Oh, that," croaks the old man with a phlegmy laugh, "Regrets, guilt, sin … a glacier, eh? Why not turn aroun and head the other direction? A fine young gal like you’d be able to outrun one of them! Ha! Here's a thought … woulda mother ever shit in her kid’s cornflakes? I mean, would she condemn her own offspring to 'ternal damnashin in a fiery pit stinkin of sulfur?"

Amused by the man's naïve brutality, Alison gets flippant. "Mine might …" she starts, then quickly answers 'no'.

"Uncondish'nal love is what I'm gettin at, honey. Imagine a world without pain and sufferin. Imagine a world where your mind isn’t the devil's playground. Nobuddy needs to drive anywheres at 130 because what ya truly need is yers already. You follow’n me?."

"You mean like the world according to Doris Day?" she replies with obvious sarcasm.

"Right," he smiles, "Never doubt God's love for an instant. It's all-encompas'sin and without conditions. Nope, don't doubt it, because there's no point in wastin time doubt’n. And while my days might not be painted in Technicolor, I live in a world like Ms. Day … it's here, stretched out before yer feet, before that glacier." He waves his arm, panning it across the landscape before them. "By all means jump, if ye feel the urge to re'nite yerself with our Maker. No shame in that. Hell, I think about it all the time. But I like it here. Here. There. What’s the difference? Daily inspirations of love on the streets and all the sweet illusions that I'm so fond of … sun, light rain, wet leaves and a gentle wind on my face."

"Sure, and there's no booze in heaven," Alison adds irritably, praying that he will go away.

"Nope, no booze in heaven. We only need it here so that we can relish be’n sober. Ha, that’s a lie; most people use it to sleep. Can you imagine? Sleep within a sleep within a sleep. Shit, you get so fer down … Look kid," he says looking up at Alison with remarkably bright eyes, "Don't waste time gett’n stressed and believ’n yer a social drinker. You know the way, you are the truth and this is life … no, this is life," he restates with an exaggerated wave of his arms ending in his callused hands scooping up her own hands and warming them.

Alison shakes her head, smiles an apologetic smile and withdraws her hands. I'm an idiot to be standing here … suddenly, she whiffs the evening air with dramatic grandeur. The bum smiles. "The smell? Oh, I douse my shirt in alcohol. It answers questions. Sorta explains my appearance to the judges. No one wants an explanashin these days … fine by me. My history is my own to write. To do as I please. In a universe balanced by relativity, I walk my own way. And there are enough interest’n obstickuls to cherish ‘n embrace without attract’n a swarm of party poopers, if ye know what I mean."

The traffic pulses. A jet punches the purple sky. Crystal spires illuminate the southern horizon beyond the dark valley. "Why'd you stop to talk to me?" Alison finally asks, when she calms down. Funny, she thinks, I have calmed down. "Because ye didn't jump," he answers with numbing truth, "I've been sit’n over there, under those trees along the top of the valley … can't help but notice someone hang’n from this rail fer hours. I could feel yer emoshins churn'n, even at that distance."

"Oh," she moans with embarrassment. The old man's smile, however, reveals that no awkwardness was intended. Together, they listen to the city pulse as it gets darker.

"Well, guess I better be off," announces the bum suddenly.