Three Tarantulas and a Bear Enter a Race (Part 4)

We have all seen it done in the films: Men and women lined up against the inside of an airplane, suited up and ready to jump. This is what I pictured when the employee told me I would squat and she would strap into my harness with me. My jump looked a lot different than what I had imagined.

When the van pulled up to the airstrip, the hefty pilot shuffled his extra jiggle out of the driver's seat and the entire van moved with the weight displacement. Glancing over at Nick, I could sense his unease. His face was lacking color and his eyes were alert. I touched his hand and he looked at me with a forced smile. As the instructor droned on about his brother competing in his first triathlon, I could tell Nick wasn't listening. His one fear is heights and I was forcing him to kick that fear in it's atm-ass-phere.

Looking around the strip, I only saw one plane. It was a single seater, no way was it ours. The moment I denied its purpose was the same moment the pilot opened the door and heaved himself inside.

Oh bugger.

Nick's instructor crawled in after from the other side. Nick followed him and I wondered how anyone else would be able to get inside. As I held the door up in the air, feeling its force pushing down on me, my instructor climbed inside and I followed suit.

The insides of the airplane had been completely stripped, except for the pilot's seat. The ground, the walls: All that was left was the aluminum framing. We were smashed in; Nick's back pressed against his instructor's chest, my foot in Nick's lap, my armpit on his instructor's ear (after a race... I'm sure he loved that smell) and my instructor's legs under mine. It was what some may refer to as a "tight squeeze".

I reached across Nick's instructor to grab my boyfriend's hand. He looked out at the ocean of Pismo Beach then tweaked his neck backward like an owl to look at me and give me a nervous smile. "You got this," I urged and giggled, half out of nervousness that I might be the cause of my boyfriend's death, half out of trying to comfort him.

The pilot suddenly dropped the plane toward the earth and our stomach's followed Newton's Law Of Motion while our body's followed the principles of gravity. He twisted right and tilted left as far as he could without turning the airplane on its head. I felt like I was in the first scene of 007: Spectre.

"The jump will be twenty times worse than that," someone said. That someone may have been me. Probably not going to win the award for Most Comforting Girlfriend of 2015.

As we gained altitude, I felt the tap on my shoulder. It was time. I placed my hand on the ceiling so as not to bump my head when I shifted my bodyweight onto my toes and came into a very low crouch. The instructor strapped into my harness then we eased our way to the open door and I sat on the ledge, feet hanging from the plane. I felt the wind resistance threatening to pull me out of the plane, but my instructor, despite her size, had a lot of strength. She kept me seated on the edge then I felt her rock me back and forth three times before we dove forward, head first toward the earth. We didn't stop tilting though; I saw the plane three separate times as I somersaulted through the sky. When we finally straightened out, I could feel my cheeks lifting upward toward the sun as my body left them behind.

We soared through the sky, performed tricks, waved to Nick as he did the same. The background was golf courses, dehydrated fields and ocean as far as we could see.

My instructor pointed to the original lot where we parked. It was a third of the size of my high school football field. She labeled it our "landing spot" then let out our parachute. Our college frat friends were back and "Free Falling" was shaking the speakers of their Volvo. As the harness pulled on every inch of my pelvic girdle, I lifted my legs and we landed with a heavy thud on the uneven dirt.

I watched as Nick and his instructor did the same.

"We just jumped out of a plane," he said, as if I had been napping through the entire thing. "I have to call my mom!"

Three Tarantulas and a Bear Enter a Race (Part 3)

As Lopez Lake became just a dot in my rearview mirror, my cell phone chirped, letting me know I had regained Sprint coverage. There was a voicemail waiting for me.

“Hello, Ashlee. The forecast is calling for rain tomorrow. Can you come in this afternoon? Call us when you can.”

I called, trying to avoid using vocabulary that might allow Nick to put the puzzle pieces together.

This is Ashlee, you left me a voicemail… Yes, I see how that could be a problem… Could we come in 20 minutes?... Great! See you soon!”

“Nick, we are making a side trip,” I told him.

“Where are we going,” he inquired.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tried to sound sly, but he knew exactly what we were going to do.

We pulled into a parking lot in a sketchy part of town. My bike was locked to the top of my car, but I didn’t know how safe it was to assume it would be there when I returned. This was not Montecito.

“Are we skydiving?” I couldn’t surprise my boyfriend with anything. He knew exactly what we were doing.

As we walked around the strip mall searching for the building, a woman with colorful hair, inked arms and a burrito in her hand sauntered up to us. “Ya want me to take your picture in front of the skydiving sign?” Her smile was so big, I felt like she was an old friend. “Don’t worry,” she reassured. “I won’t steal your phone. I work here!”

We did our classic #whoanilee pose then followed the girl inside.

“Alright, so it’s getting windy outside,” she got serious. “We need to get you out there as soon as we can or else you may not be able to jump. Usually, we would need you to watch this safety video then fill out some paperwork, but since we are in such a rush, you can just fill out the paperwork while the movie plays in the background.”

“What is the movie,” Nick asked.

“Oh, you know, just safety stuff and how to jump. A lot of people die skydiving, so it’s important to know what to and not to do.”

“Should we be watching this, then?” I asked, nervously.

“Definitely,” she nodded her head, eyes wide, smile still on her face. “A woman recently flew out of her harness because she had her arms in the wrong position. The instructor caught her and held onto her belt the whole way down. It was a close call!”

“But we should still fill out our paperwork while watching the safety tips,” my brain was wondering how it was going to focus on both things at once.

Static played on the small television screen, followed by some tuning of the picture before a man with the most magnificent beard came onto the screen. He spoke about the importance of holding your arms and body a certain way during the jump and fall.

I read the first paragraph of the first of seven pages:

The likelihood of getting injured or dying is very likely. Initial here.

The second paragraph read:

I understand that I may lose a limb while skydiving. Initial here.

This continued for seven straight pages.

I could almost here the thoughts in Nick’s head: What has she gotten us into? This is crazy.

He was uncertain about the whole thing and it was obvious. Quietness overtook him and his body movements were rigid. I can always tell when Nick is uncomfortable in a situation. This situation was turning into the worst birthday gift ever.

The woman handed us directions to the landing pad. “Our bus already left, so you’ll have to drive yourself there. It’s not far,” she reassured us. I think she read the fear in the wrinkles of our faces. “My girlfriend and I jump all the time. It’s amazing. You’ll want to come back again and again!”

We drove out to the Middle of Nowhere, Pismo Beach. Peter Gabriel told us that the light and heat were in our eyes, but that didn’t calm us down. Both Nick and I were wondering if this was the smartest decision; I still had to race the next day and he really didn’t want to die 8 days before his 27^th birthday.

Turning past a few warehouses onto a private dead-end road made us think we may be lost. “I think that big grassy spot with the four boys was where we are supposed to go,” I told him.

“The four kids?!” he seemed astonished that I would even toy with the idea. “That frat party?! If those are the instructors, we are getting your money back.”

We drove past the boys again. They were total bros, clad in tank tops and board shorts. Gel held their hair in perfect spikes pointing from their scalp to the sky. All eight eyes turned and watched us drive past, but no one waved us over. Could that really be where we were supposed to go?

“Just pull in and we will ask,” I told Nick.

The boys danced around their car as we parked next to them.

“Are you skydiving? We just woke up this morning and our buddy opened the door and said we should do it. This is everyone’s first time,” the shortest of the frat members spoke quickly. “Have you guys done this before?! Oh, look! There are our friends!”

We watched as two parachutes danced in the air. Someone turned on Tom Petty’s Free Falling. As we watched the two jumpers land, we saw how harmless the sport looked. All of the blood was restored in Nick’s face and our lungs began taking in normal amounts of oxygen.

After the first group packed up and drove away, the instructors prepped us for the upcoming jump. The female was 5 inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than me. She had pink streaks in her hair and gages in her ear. Listening to her talk made me yearn for adventure and freedom. The male was even shorter than she was and his gages were a size bigger. Tattoos lined every inch of visible skin. He was from Puerto Rico and I couldn’t tell if he was so quiet because he didn’t speak English or if he really just didn’t give a hoot about anything going on.

The pilot leaned up against a post smoking a cigar. “This is my last day,” he chuckled. “See you (fowl word) never.”

“What is your plan,” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If today is your last day, what do you plan to do next,” I clarified.

“I’m going to work at Jack in the Box.”

I laughed.

He looked at me, offended. “Really though.”

“Oh…” I couldn’t think of anything more to say.

“You a Seahawks fan? I saw your watch,” Nick saved me by changing the subject.

For the next 10 minutes, we listened to the story of how our Californian pilot became a Seahawks fan. When he finished, the instructors told us how we were going to jump. The picture she painted made me think of the jumpers seen in movies, sitting along a bench then jumping out of a decent-sized plane one-by-one.

“When I tap your shoulder, you’ll come to a squatting position onto my lap. I’ll hook into your harness then we will sit on the side of the door and rock three times before tilting forward and falling out of the plane,” she instructed. “Got it?”

It sounded easy enough.

To be continued...