Fallen

He was falling at 120 miles per hour and the situation was beyond desperate. He was falling out of the sky without a parachute from 30,000 feet, the temperature was 38F and he had no jacket. His countenance, though, reflected no panic, just irritation and a strong look of discomfort.

A kind of black market arrangement had gone bad. Horribly bad, one might argue, but degree of awfulness was of little consequence at this point. There had been a dollar value agreed upon to pay for certain services, those services had been rendered. The other party later consented to accepting an equivalent dollar value in Bit Coin. Electronic payment was made. There was then a subsequent and considerable exchange rate drop for Bit Coin compared to dollars. The drop had been favorable to fallen man, not his former business partners. The resultant effect was that the other party ended up with significantly less than what had been originally contracted. They requested the Bit Coin payment be rescinded and revert back to dollars. Their suggestion had been rather aggressive. It had also been staunchly rebuffed.

“Nope, tough shoes. A deal’s a deal,” responded fallen man, not one to be easily swayed in the face of aggression. The thing about crooks, a deal isn’t always a deal and the customer is not always right.

The unsatisfied party retrieved him late one morning as he exited his favorite bakery with chocolate chip brownie, hot chocolate and a banana in hand. [“Yes, a banana, please. A guy’s got to eat healthy,” he teased the clerk.] A scuffle ensued out front of the bakery. It took four opposing crooks to overpower him and stuff our guy into a waiting vehicle. He somehow managed to retain possession of his breakfast despite delivering a well-connected head butt to one opposing forehead, a powerful and optimally placed kick to the crotch to a second, and a knee to the larynx of a third. The immobilized disputants were helped up off the sidewalk and into the vehicle. He sat in the back seat and, as the vehicle sped away to a destination unknown, savored his meal and hot cocoa. And he didn’t offer to share. The meal’s debris including banana peel were unceremoniously dropped to the floor of the vehicle and rigorously mashed in with the heel of his shoe. After the ordeal outside the bakery, this went uncontested.

The ride to the airfield was brief. There were weapons involved in his transition from vehicle to aircraft. He knew his fate, wondered only how much he could affect the score sheet. There were three more of them, not including the pilot, as the first four thugs had become somewhat worn out after the bakery capture. The three new ones were big fellas, bigger fellas than their spent predecessors. Also dopes, as he visually and correctly assessed. Our guy was large and equipped with well-honed street smarts, except for being picked up walking out of a bakery. But still, these odds were crummy, he figured, as he embarked the aircraft.

At 30,000 feet the side door opened. Bad planning, that kind of strong wind is tremendously difficult to maneuver. He opted to be the aggressor and took advantage of the confusion created by the high velocity wind soaring into the fuselage. He ran down the aisle toward the open door and, though unsteady, managed a flying kick launching one addled foe off the doorframe and out the door. Two more to go. He then dropped down hunching low on his feet as if preparing for a weight-training deadlift. With the soles of his shoes flat on the floor the two assailants approached and, with his chin tucked down into his chest, projected himself upward like a missile and was rewarded with a solid sounding crack. A broken nose, he guessed, based on the quantity of blood that began flowing to the floor as if someone had left a sink spigot running. He didn’t usually fight by nefarious means, but in a fight to the death different rules applied.

The fun had to stop eventually. Today it would end when the third combatant charged him and pushed him out the door. With that he was done. All done with one final act to carry out. Bubba was wearing a belt with a large buckle, an inviting handhold opportunity. He reached for it on the way out, desperately and successfully, landed the grab and pulled his adversary out the door with him. Mental note, he thought, jumpsuit instead of trousers with belt to minimize grab holds should these roles be reversed.

The melee took only 20 seconds but was conclusive. It ended three out of four of them. Our guy was not victorious, but he’d made his choice years before. He’d decided to operate on the wrong side of the law. The dark economy had its benefits. There was often ample cash, provided your offered services were dirty enough and cleanly conducted. But of course, his engagements were with those who lived by a similarly dirty or questionable code of ethics. Those ethics, in many cases were simple. ‘Do not be wronged.’ That was it. Not ‘Do no wrong,’ rather the perceivedwrong was the deed that necessitated a counter blow. That’s what we had here, one party perceived they had been wronged. And so three of them fell from the sky.

As he fell from the aircraft, he accelerated for the first twelve seconds, at which point he attained terminal velocity. Henceforth he fell unimpeded at 120 miles per hour with no slowing down until something broke his fall. From a starting point of 30,000 feet that’d be almost three minutes.

The first few seconds were a tremendous shock to his system, as one would imagine. Aside from the high-velocity tumbling toward earth, it was so cold that he had difficulty breathing. Also, he was unprepared for a chilly freefall and was caught while donning only blue jeans plus a t-shirt under a long sleeve jersey, and, of course, footwear, quarter-top Chuck Taylor sneakers. His garb was no match for the harsh elements and he struggled. There was no relaxed, full capacity inhale followed by a complete exhale. His breathing was reduced to a sequence of erratic and rushed partial inhales followed by unfulfilling, partial exhales. Then, of course, there was the fact of oxygen scarcity at this altitude.

Fallen man was no mountain climber, but he’d seen enough Mount Everest documentaries to know there was an oxygen deficiency at altitude. Mount Everest, at its peak of 29,028 feet, boasted of only 33% amount of oxygen as found at sea level. The cold temperatures to which he was being subjected was more of an inconvenience compared to the lack of oxygen. Or maybe not, pending the outlook. If he lapsed from consciousness from lack of oxygen he’d avoid the agony of the fall, matched by a corresponding never regaining consciousness. The inverse had him battling first to stay conscious despite the lack of oxygen, only then to also contend with the uninviting temperature, finally, only then to figure out what to do in the remaining 150 seconds before he stopped. There it is. Oxygen, temperature and velocity. Meanwhile, the earth approached. The only thing below him was miles of ocean in every direction. He’d leave no trace.

He was falling at a rate of speed where he couldn’t easily breathe, even without the near freezing temperature and wind chill. He would have likened it to hanging your head out the window of a vehicle traveling at 120 mph, although in the moment he did know that precise speed. Regardless, not a comfortable task to undertake. He instinctively cupped his hands and put them over his nose and mouth. Doing so allowed him to breathe the air that slowed down just enough as the air molecules collided with his hands and decelerated a tiny bit. Eased minimally, but not much improved. But still, the cold and wind chill factor were the worst part of this experience.

His eyeballs were also experiencing difficulty. They were miserable, in fact, due to velocity causing ocular discomfort. He did what he could. The horizon was vast from up there. The sky was beautifully cloudless. If it wasn’t so cold he might even enjoy the view for a while. But for only a short while, two more minutes anyway. He thought, briefly, how thankful he was not to be inclined to bouts of acrophobia, because that’d really be bad. This, of course, made him chuckle, even under the dire circumstances.

The ground approached, as did his demise. The earth looked less beautiful as it got larger, like looking at the pores on his face up close in a mirror. Better from a distance than close up, not that he considered himself to be a striking beauty.

He was not surprised at such an ending for himself. He was, after all, a self-acknowledged and unapologetic crook. There was no retirement from this profession. There was, typically, only a final day of work. It was not the nature of this conclusion that surprised him, only that it would be today . . . and from an airplane. He had peace as he fell, though. He was not peaceful, but had peace. Knowing a dramatic finish was entirely to be expected and that he’d planned well. 

He had a girlfriend of near ten years. She did ask questions about his line of work. He was dutifully vague in his answers and she was thankfully soft on pressing for clarification. She was good-natured, positive in demeanor, and yes, naïve. Maybe even purposefully so. The advance planning, though, was well conducted.

He’d been mentored, so to speak, years earlier by another crook, a respected elder of sorts. Until the elder’s mysterious disappearance as fallen man would do today. But the elder’s lessons were adeptly digested and played forward. Cars, houses, financial accounts were all in her name. He also did what he could to shape her thinking by sparking her thought process for his eventual, involuntary disappearance. 

“You know, if you were to ever be done with me you’d be OK. Everything’s in your name. You’d have no need to worry about money,” he’d try to playfully suggest.

“Why do you always say things like that? I’m not interested in getting rid of you,” she’d counter.

“I’m just saying. You know, if I got wrecked in a car accident . . .”

“I know, contact Cassidy, he’ll know what to do,” she’d blurt out knowing this to be the desired response.

Cassidy was a friend, one who could be trusted, but must also be kept at arm’s distance. The distance was necessitated out of respect for his pal and his profession. He was a financial consultant whose work was commendably regarded by colleagues. He didn’t need the cloud summoned by an association with a dark figure like fallen man. They were friends from before grade school whose lives took wildly divergent paths. A mutual respect prevented them from working together. One didn’t want to ask and officially learn of the other’s crooked source of income. The other didn’t want to impel the one to compromise his impeccable integrity and risk ruining his means of profession. Fallen man had never engaged his friend’s honest talent at finances. But if he were to pass away, his girlfriend would be well and honestly kept up with a financial adviser like this. That much had been made clear. 

As the ocean made its rapid approach he’d hope simply that the messages took root. A brief mourning, then she’d keep living life. With that, he touched down.

-klem