Fearless - Part I

“Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd…”
-Fearless, Pink Floyd

Halloween abounds with scary stories. Stories about vampires, ghostly apparitions, and supernatural forces. Stories about terror. Stories to make us feel afraid.

This is my story about fear. There are no monsters, demons or unearthly visitations in this tale, just one very frightened individual. I don’t claim that this story will make you afraid, or even shed any light on what H.P. Lovecraft calls the “oldest and strongest emotion of mankind.” ‘Write what you know’ I’ve been told. Well, this is what I know about being afraid.

Several summers ago I dabbled in the sport of skydiving, thinking to qualify for my ‘A’ license. The hows and whys of this decision are not important for the purposes of this story; I’ll fill in any necessary details as we proceed.

What you should know is that on my 30th birthday, I found myself just aft of the cockpit of a twin Otter, ascending to 14,500 feet, miles away from any friends or family on this red-letter day. Seated in front and beside me were two Jumpmasters, who were going to accompany me on this my first AFF jump. To use the ultimate cliché, I was minutes away from jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Which is where the being afraid part comes in.

I was sweating profusely. The plane was packed with about twenty other jumpers, and though it was the middle of the summer I was wearing a jumpsuit, parachute, altimeters, a flotation device and radio. I would’ve been damned uncomfortable if I was at ease, and I most certainly not at ease. My heart was racing, pounding away like it was going to fly out of my chest Temple of Doom style. ‘That can’t be good,’ I thought and then was glad I’d hit the bathroom multiple times before the last now –call. I’d known I’d be terrified and wanted to avoid the shame of soiling myself. What I hadn’t known was exactly how terrifying terror would be.

C, the Jumpmaster seated to my right, reached across and tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Breath Dan,’ she said, ‘take deep breaths.’

I realized I was breathing rapidly, shallowly – probably on the verge of hyperventilating.

‘Right,’ I replied, ‘breath… deep breaths. I will. I’m cool.’

That was obviously a lie. Sure I looked cool – well mostly cool, aside from the whole sweating heart racing not breathing thing – and in a snap shot taken in those minutes I do look collected, giving the thumbs and wearing a slight smirk on my face. But if you look closer, you can see my stare is entirely vacant, my eyes focused on something far past the photographer. If you know me well, you might recognize the entire expression – it’s one I seem to reserve for unpleasant occasions. It’s the expression I wore when my heart was broken for the first time. It’s the expression I wore when I put my dog down. It’s the expression I wore when we buried our friend.

The Otter reached 14,500 feet and leveled out. Somebody opened the door set in the fuselage in the rear of the plane and a blast of cold air rushed in. Singly, in twos, in groups, all of the jumpers in front of me began exiting the plane. Since AFF students exit last, I watched them all go. Each time they’d assemble in front of the door. There would be barely heard shouted commands, a blur of motion, and they’d be out the door and ripped out of my vision by the air rushing past outside. Each time people exited the plane would shudder and seemingly bounce, as it adjusted to carrying less weight. Each time I saw this I slid a little further down the bench toward the door, as the Otter’s occupants seated ahead of me dwindled. Each time my heart skipped a beat and I thought, ‘There is absolutely nothing outside that door and I’m headed right towards it.’ I wondered if I’d be able to stand up when the time came.

And suddenly the plane was nearly empty. Just the pilot, the two Jumpmasters… and me. My field of vision narrowed down to a tunnel that stretched between me and the door. You could’ve set off a hand grenade behind my head and I wouldn’t have turned to look.

We all stood up. S, the other Jumpmaster who’d been seated in front of me turned to face me and spoke.

‘Are you ready to skydive?’

Unless I replied in the affirmative, the jump would stop right here. They would not take me out, they would not fly with me unless I was capable of driving myself to it.

‘Yes,’ I answered and a voice inside my head wondered ‘who the fuck said that?’

‘Then take your commands from C.’

I felt like I was having some sort of out-of-body experience. Part of me was shrieking in terror, more scared than I’d ever been in my 30 years, and hinting that now would be a really good time to sit the fuck back down and take the plane to the ground, like normal people. The other part – the part that apparently had the upper hand – was like an automaton with programmed instructions it had to follow, regardless of any clamor to the contrary in the background.

We moved to the door and took up our positions. C was on my left, hanging half in and half out of the Otter and facing me. S was crouched to my right, also facing me. I was in the middle facing forward, my left foot flush with the edge of the door.

‘Check in!’ I shouted and looked at S. He gave me the go-ahead. I turned to C.

‘Check out!’ I yelled and C gave me her go ahead.

This was it. I was on the balls of my feet. I rocked to my left, swaying towards the door and the open air beyond. I reversed direction and rocked to my right, back into the Otter. I rocked to my left again, except this time I didn’t check my momentum and I stepped out of the plane.