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  In the midst of TV-land, I was a faceless, unnamed extra.

  I came to my destination, an empty gap between two buildings—overgrown grass, broken bottles, and piles of rubble. A missing tooth in an otherwise pristine set of teeth. Five years ago a vintage movie house stood on this spot, the Pastime Playhouse, then burned to the ground.

  Movie mogul Marv Parker (aka, Bobby-Daddy) bankrolled the place and kept it in business before it burned. The rumor mill speculated that after he started losing profits on the place, he torched this money pit himself for the insurance. You could still see the char on the walls of neighboring buildings.

  Dad and I sometimes came here twice in a weekend, especially summers. This was before they installed the big multiplex farther up Market Street. We’d walk down to this theater, and all the discussions we had, anticipating and then critiquing—let’s just say we didn’t talk like that much anymore.

  For a minute I stood where the ticket booth used to be and looked through the fake camera lens I made with my fingers. The empty lot worked as a perfect industrial wasteland backdrop, or a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

  Then I turned and saw the radio tower beacon flash its steady red pulse high above the buildings, and I knew the real reason I trekked out to this part of town, and it was not my distant past. It was my immediate future, and Connie wasn’t here to talk me down.

  It was still daylight when I reached the headquarters of WCPF, Cape Fear’s most popular network station, and Mr. Yes’s former employer. The building was just a squat beige box beside the river, but for added flair, a nearby billboard supersized the grinning mugs of the news station’s lead anchors and weatherman.

  Their steel radio tower loomed three hundred feet tall, tapered at the top. Almost a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. Its upper reaches were fitted with satellite and radar dishes. Below, gray electric boxes with shock danger decals buzzed a constant warning to keep away.

  For further security a chain-link fence surrounded the tower with razor wire coiled around the top like a badass Slinky. That obstacle might’ve meant game over if the gate were actually padlocked shut like it was supposed to be. But somebody had left the chain and padlock dangling from the fence.

  I took out my cell phone, aimed the lens at myself and tapped record. “Scaling the WCPF radio tower, because it was there, first and only take. Action.” All I had to do was lift the latch, push the gate, and I was in. Then I found the access ladder, and I started to climb.

  I CLUTCHED the rungs of the radio tower high over the Cape Fear River. The red beacon blinked above, urging me to climb. The river below looked calm on the surface, but its undercurrent was known to swallow people stupid enough to take the plunge.

  My attempted cell phone video recording was a flop. I needed two hands to climb so I held the phone between my lips, meaning I couldn’t run commentary, and my mouth was going numb, and I was probably fogging up the lens with my breath. At least I’d get a good panoramic shot when I reached the top. I’d have my proof.

  Anyone watching from the windows of nearby warehouses or apartment buildings could’ve spotted me. And if they wanted to stop me, they’d call the police or at least yell out. I was prepared for that. Cops gathering around the tower, begging me to climb down—it would make better footage than the climb itself.

  Truth is, heights freaked me out, especially when nothing but my balance kept me from a fast and fatal drop. But that’s exactly why I climbed, my knack for rushing blind into whatever scared me. It wasn’t the ascent. It was the after party, the hours of delicious adrenaline and the conquering spirit I’d be filled with.

  Connie would’ve stopped me but Connie wasn’t here. The angel on my shoulder fluttered off. Finally I could hear my own will at work. I had to prove I could take the same crap I was always dishing out to Connie. Had to prove myself apart from everyone else. And if I got arrested, well, it would prove my point, wouldn’t it? I was already on the tower that would transmit my news across the Carolinas. I wanted Savannah to hear all about it.

  Four stories up, I saw the hazy green outline of the Cape Fear Bridge. So far away, I could make it vanish under my thumb, but when I tried, a wave of vertigo made my palms go slick with sweat. I had to keep wiping them on my jeans, one at a time. Another twenty feet and the winds kicked up. The cars in the lot below were die-cast toys. My jaw ached with the strain of holding that phone, and it was slippery with spit. I’d drop it any second.

  When a gull landed on a beam just overhead, I tried to shoo him away. But he claimed his perch and twitched his head as if deciding exactly when he’d drop his milky white crap load.

  I chanced another rung upward and the bird flew off.

  Then, my cell buzzed in my mouth. It felt like my own shuddering nerves, until I realized what it was: a text message. Could be Savannah, apologizing for ditching me. Or Paige, apologizing for blaming me. But most likely it was Conrad, fishing for an apology.

  Even as I thought not now, I still had to check, because who knows? What if? I hooked a rung by the crook of my elbow, dropped my slimy phone into my palm like a dog giving over a tennis ball. The fact that I’d somehow pressed stop on the recording only barely registered in my mind. Instead, I was focused on the animated envelope icon on the display. And below that, the sender’s name: Horace Vale. Me.

  Never before had I gotten a text from my own phone. I’d seen it happen with email, but always in some virus or spyware switcheroo. My anticipation sank. All that risk for nothing but some stupid piece of spam like great work study opportunities for high school grads. $$$.

  But that’s not what I got when I tapped the icon.

  The text was just three words long:

  Take the leap.

  Somebody was screwing with my head. Had to be.

  But that made no sense. No stranger would know my phone number, not to mention how to send a text using my ID. The only keyboard cowboys I knew were Conrad and my father. Neither of them had any clue where I was, and neither would callously encourage me to jump to my death. At least I hoped not.

  Take the leap.

  I kept reading the message. It had to be a coincidence, something like: Take the leap into a new career with Tucson Online University! Then it hit me that “Take the Leap” was the title of the short video about the motorcycle daredevil I’d been planning to shoot all day. I’d totally forgotten. Funny how fast priorities can evaporate.

  There was a link attached. A gateway to more information.

  Click the link, see what a spazz I was being. That’s all I had to do. My thumb hovered over the screen. I told myself to resist because I could end up downloading a virus and kill my phone. But I knew what I’d find would be way worse than a virus.

  So I did it. I pressed the link. The spiral dot signaled that the system was retrieving the information I sent for, probably using this very radio tower as a booster. The load time was only a couple seconds. What came through was a basic home video. Just a carefully framed headshot of a guy with a blank white wall behind him. The stark light and his darting eyes gave the recording the distinctive look of a hostage recording.

  The video star took a hard swallow, faked a smile, and said, “Hi, Russ. It’s Russ.”

  For those first few seconds, I really didn’t recognize myself on the screen. Since I knew I never made this video, my brain refused to register that I was watching footage of Horace Vale. Cannot compute. Not until the me in the video actually introduced himself.

  Me, down to the shirt I got for Christmas a few months ago.

  Except I did not make this video. I would’ve remembered.

  I flipped the phone over, looking for what? A false backing to show it was a gag prop? Then I realized Video Russ was talking, and I wasn’t listening. I thumbed the volume to maximum, but the small tinny voice still fought to be heard above the wind.

  “…to wrap your head around…” he was saying.

  I put the phone to my ear “…very little time, so hear me out. Yo
u have to trust me—trust yourself. Right now, you have no real plans to off yourself, but what’s going to happen when you get to the top of that tower? A dark feeling might hit you. We never know what kind of person we’re going to be five minutes from now, Russ. Remember last summer, you almost sent that private message confessing your love to Savannah, then you erased it? One minute you’re sure, the next, you’re not.”

  Video Russ stared back at me. The dramatic pause, the cinematic beat.

  “You just told me to take a leap!” I screamed at Video Russ.

  The wind drowned him out again so I smacked the phone back against my ear. He was saying, “…a metaphorical leap, a leap of faith. I had to get your attention. The chance you’re about to get will seem impossible, but you’ve seen enough to know I’m legit.”

  “Wait, hold on,” I said, but this was not a two-way dialog. It was just a prerecorded Video Russ psyching me out, even though I never prerecorded anything like this. He knew what I would probably say in response to what he said because he was me.

  “…at seven o’clock sharp. After one minute, the file will delete itself, and you’ll lose your chance. You have to do this, Russ. Your one chance to make things right. This is the real leap. Take it.”

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  Just like that, the video clip was over. A drop-down list gave me options to watch the video again, delete, save, respond. When I considered the strange loop that last choice might set in motion, a fresh nausea washed over me.

  My arm ached from hooking the rail for so long, but all my focus was on the 6:59 p.m. flickering in the bottom right corner of the display. Any second, seven o’clock would hit, and then, according to me, in a video I didn’t make, something else was coming. My one chance to make things right.

  Seven p.m. The phone shuddered with the acceptance of another text.

  After one minute, it will delete itself, and you’ll lose your chance.

  I didn’t see how the video could’ve been faked. It was me, and I had to trust my own word, because why would I lead myself into a trap, knowingly? But also: I didn’t remember making the video, and if I couldn’t trust my own memory, I was screwed.

  Like one of Dad’s game theory scenarios, endlessly judging the probability of what the other guy would do when it was his turn to play. It drove me nuts. I couldn’t do the calculations. So, thirty seconds into my countdown, I pressed the text icon.

  The digital retrieval pinwheel spun again. There was no actual text with a link to follow or a file to download. It was a one-click maneuver. A logo came up: a clock with backwards-spinning hands and the words The Pastime Project in its center.

  Then, my phone flashed a light so harsh, all my senses shorted out at once. My vision went white, my eardrums screamed, and every inch of my skin came alive with needle stings. I couldn’t feel a thing past the pain.

  For all I knew, I was already plunging to the ground.

  MY SENSES came back. I wasn’t dead, wasn’t falling, wasn’t broken in a heap down below. Both my hands were locked around a rail, and I was still six stories above the earth.

  “What the hell, Russ?” I asked aloud, but nobody answered.

  Also, something was way wonky with my body. When the prickling faded from my skin, goose bumps sprang up in its place. The chill wind was a factor, but mostly I was cold because I was buck-naked.

  I winced, sure my phone had set off a flash bomb that disintegrated my clothes and covered me in third degree burns. But there was no pain. No singed flesh. Just me, just as I usually looked when I toweled off after a shower.

  Suddenly, getting caught on the radio tower didn’t seem so badass. Outlaw Russ was one thing, but Naked Outlaw Russ was way more likely to land me on some permanent pervert list.

  So, yeah. I scaled down the tower as fast as I could, hooking the rails with my bare toes. I never felt so exposed, commando on high. Any second, somebody could stop by and snap a photo. Every teenager’s literal worst nightmare. And it wasn’t like I had a free hand to self-censor my bits.

  I dropped into a crouch on the gravelly ground. Pebbles stung my foot soles, but terra firma was sweet relief.

  That is, until I realized I was still inside the security fence that boxed in the tower. No biggie, except the chain was wrapped around the gate latch, padlocked shut.

  I was trapped.

  I rattled the gate with one hand. The other was busy cupping my junk. The chain seemed to wrap even tighter. Crap, crap, crap, crap. I was no better off than a zoo animal here.

  Scaling the fence wasn’t an option. I got queasy just thinking about how that razor wire would greet my most sensitive areas. Hunting for a ground-level breach in the fence also got me nowhere. The chain links were taut as trampoline springs. As a last resort I might’ve screamed for help, but I couldn’t bring myself to draw an audience.

  Instead, somebody just showed up without an invitation. I didn’t see the truck rumble into the parking lot, but I heard it well enough. I dropped low and pressed myself against an electrical box, hidden from view.

  The truck door creaked open, then shut. Rattling keys, clanking chain. Whoever it was, was whistling a tuneless rendition of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” I prayed that this surprise visitor did not already realize there was a naked dude nearby. He was an unsuspecting maintenance worker, I told myself. Nothing more.

  He gained entry, boots crunching the gravel. I hunkered down as low as I could and tried to guess where he’d go so I could dart in the opposite direction. He grunted as he hoisted himself onto the tower rail. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to will him away, but all I got for my wishing was the clap of boots on metal. Nowhere for me to hide. He was climbing the ladder, headed for a bird’s eye view.

  “What the…” he said, and that’s when I booked it.

  Dashed through the open gate, stumbled, scraped my knee on pavement. Found my awkward stride again after more stumbling steps. Didn’t dare look back. I just knew he’d be hot on my trail, some track-star-turned-electrician, reaching out to headlock and drop me for a citizen’s arrest.

  I couldn’t exactly make a stark-naked appearance on one of Cape Fear’s busiest downtown roads, so I cut south through a stretch of warehouse back lots. Hunched and cupping myself, I couldn’t run at peak speed, not while I also had to watch the ground for debris that might slice open my feet.

  The sun’s position in the sky, the dewiness still spritzing the air, the smell of fresh donuts from the bakery down the street… it all hit me like another disorienting flash.

  Morning. It was morning.

  The white light from my phone had somehow blacked me out for hours. Close to twelve hours. Except it wasn’t possible. No way I could’ve hung unconscious from the tower all night long. Heck, I couldn’t have lasted for even a second like that. I should’ve been a dead guy, a splat on the pavement.

  I had to stop my mind-spin and catch my breath. The only choice was to hunker down behind a dumpster. There were probably more fragrant places to gasp for air, but with a few free seconds to think, I quelled the urge to puke and charted my next move.

  Two loading docks down, I snagged cardboard from a recycling stack. Sirens down the street, likely meant for me, the Front Street Streaker. I cut across the main road at full trot, knees knocking the stiff toga I fashioned for myself.

  Some jerk tapped his car horn at me, but I kept my head in the game. Another back lot, a narrow wooded park, and a cemetery where none of the residents gave a damn how I was dressed.

  My last obstacle was a stretch of back yards—uneventful, until I came across a grandma in a housedress, hosing down her lawn. She screeched like I was a scurrying rat. Then she cranked the setting on her nozzle to biting cold Proton Stream and soaked my cardboard clothes into oatmealy goop before I was safely out of her range.

  In another few minutes I was heaving for breath out behind Conrad’s house. He had to be home from the hospital by now, and Connie’s was the closest sa
fe zone I could think of, even if a warm welcome was probably not in store for me. But I was brimming with ready apologies. Funny how a twelve-hour blackout and fifteen minutes of running naked through town could cripple my pride.

  I had to talk this through with Connie. I had to count on his forgiveness, but then again I’d never pushed him so far as I did at the diner, at least not since the prank, before we were friends. Under normal conditions it’d take me at least another day to plan exactly how I’d redeem myself. Connie wasn’t the type of dude where you could just tell him chill out, I’m only screwing and move on. Dealing with him was like constantly making the twentieth move in Jenga.

  The trickier part was that his mom was probably also home, probably sewing together a voodoo doll of me so she could torture it in retribution for her son’s trip to the hospital. So I decided to be discreet. I snuck around to the side yard and tossed pinecones at his bedroom window. Three tries before he peeked through his blinds at me.

  Just as fast, he flicked them shut.

  So that was it. After everything I did for him, not even the decency to hear me out. I snatched a rock the size of a golf ball and prepped for a pitch, but breaking glass wouldn’t earn me any points. So I dropped the rock and trudged away, shivering. Maybe somewhere in this row of houses I could find a stocked clothesline to borrow from, even if it meant I’d have to dress in drag. Nobody’s perfect.

  “Russ, what the heck are you doing?” Connie asked from his back doorway. He stepped onto the wraparound porch, still in his bowling shirt from yesterday. Clean freaks like Connie usually didn’t wear the same shirt twice before washing, but maybe he’d just been discharged from the hospital, hadn’t even had a chance to change.

  “I came to apologize,” I told him.

  “Apologize for what? And why are you wearing a box?”

  “For trying to force you to do my movie…”

  “You’re not forcing me. It’s something I have to do.”

  “Well, it’s all in the past now. It’s DOA.”