D.B.'s Last Hurrah

© 2002 Brian G. Parker

Green.

All around me is green. Even the air seems green. And it’s cold as my ex-wife’s bed but positively warm after the last 10,000 or so feet. Happy goddamn Thanksgiving!

By now, I guess I’m all over the news, right between the new balloons in the Macy’s parade and which half-assed college team snagged an upset in the big game. I’m probably getting famous right this minute, and no one knows who I am or where I am. I know who I am, but I sure as hell don’t know where I am, except that I’m pretty sure I’m still in Washington. But you know, one forest looks pretty much the same as another.

I can see the ground, a patch of it, a brown mat of pine needles and weeds, a rock here and there. A few yards from my tree, I can see a sheer drop-off and, beyond that, a wide raging river. The Columbia? If it is, I can also see Oregon from my perch.

Not exactly a perch. More of a sling. My ass is in a sling. I hang suspended like a rumpled suit on a freshly pine-scented hanger in a gargantuan cedar closet. I must be delirious; or drunk.

Goddamn, it’s cold.

I wonder if they’ve even realized yet that I deplaned. Me, two parachutes, a handful of tiny whiskey bottles, and a duffle bag full of money. $200,000. And I walked out of the back end of that 727 into the coldest goddamn air I have ever felt. It just about took my breath away, and I thought I would never touch the ground again. I thought I would freeze to death before I touched the ground. As I fell, even after the ‘chute opened and my trajectory slowed, I imagined myself frozen stiff, plummeting groundward and ultimately sticking headfirst into the ground. I even heard myself making that “doy‑oy-oy-oyng!” sound like in the cartoons.

As it turns out, I didn’t freeze to death. But I figure I still have plenty of time to do that, seeing as how I haven’t exactly touched the ground yet, either. I fell nearly two miles from the sky without incident, only to be snagged on a goddamn tree fifty feet from touchdown.

"You know, Mr. Sunshine, it would be really goddamn nice if you would shed just a cunt-hair of warmth on me, you dumb motherless bastard of a lard-ass puppy-humping son of a bitch!"

Great. If anybody heard that little tirade, they’d avoid me like grandma’s mashed rutabaga soufflé. Then again, if anybody is this far out in the woods on a day like today, they’re crazier than I am.

Yep. It’s cold out here. But I have my smokes, and I have my whiskey, and I have $200,000, and nobody—nobody—knows who the hell I am.

Shit. They didn’t even pay any attention to me at first. I got on the plane and handed that stewardess a note and she didn’t even read it until we were in the air. The note said I had a bomb, and she’d better come sit next to me. Finally, she came back, white as a goddamn sheet, and I made her carry notes back and forth to the pilot.

I’ve got to hand it to them—they didn’t pussyfoot around. They landed at Seattle and brought me exactly what I asked for: $200,000 in used twenties. I let them take the passengers and stewardesses off the plane and told the pilots to take me to Mexico.

I guess they thought they could pull one over on me because they told me they would have to stop and refuel in Reno. I figure they had the goddamn army or something there waiting for me. But I got the drop on them. I did my homework. I had plan B.

I wish plan B had included an overcoat. I’m freezing my balls off in this tree. I’d pay a squirrel to come get my balls and bury them somewhere just to keep them warm, except it’s too goddamn cold for the squirrels. The squirrels are in Tijuana, where I ought to be, enjoying Thanksgiving at the donkey show and keeping their nuts warm.

I guess it’s time to think about getting down before somebody figures out the general vicinity I might have jumped in. Trouble is, I’m way up this damn tree and way out in the big bad forest, and if I break a leg or two, I am truly screwed.

That last 50 feet may as well be 10,000. So far, I’ve been lucky. But I’m dangling by some goddamn parachute cord, and I can’t reach any branches. It could be worse, I guess. There could be more branches below me. But it looks like a clear fall to the ground. I thought it fucking snowed in Washington. If there was snow, I could land on it.

So I’ve got a couple of choices here. Hang around until the cops find me, or take a chance and undo this harness and drop the last 50 feet to the ground.

Well, hell. This whole day has been a gamble. So far, the odds have been with me. The question is, do I still feel lucky?

Shit. I’ll freeze to death before somebody finds me hanging here. I might be a hundred miles from the nearest cop.

But let’s be smart about this. If I drop the duffel with the money in it and the extra ‘chute, I might be able to land on them and break the fall. I’ll use my belt to tie them together so they won’t roll apart. I’ll throw anything sharp way over there so I don’t land on it and puncture a lung. I’ll drink this last little bottle of whiskey and smoke another cigarette real fast so I’ll feel all loose and light and airy. I’ll pray to God and promise to give the requisite 10% of my ill-gotten gains to the church if he’ll just slide another sliver of good luck my way. I’ll close my eyes so I don’t brace myself for the landing—I hear that’s what kills people in car wrecks.

Hell. It might work, and it beats the shit out of hanging from a tree freezing to death in this goddamn forest.

Well. Here goes nothing.