The Jump

I kept getting mixed signals on the day I went skydiving.

They have a pretty cool web page with video of people skydiving, testimonials about how much fun it is and payment options, etc. My first indicator that this might not be safe was in the payment options. Listed among Cash, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express was the statement that they do not take personal checks on the day of the jump. Which makes sense. Mangled corpses are notorious deadbeats.

When we got there we had to sit through an instructional video. Now keep in mind, we were about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and were a little nervous at the prospect. So we were literally hanging on every word of instruction. Sort of like our lives depended upon it. The instructional part of the video lasted about 45 seconds.

The other 23 minutes of it were legal disclaimers and a guide to filling out the paperwork. We had to agree not to sue anyone, ever, for any reason, ever, nor could our heirs (survivors), ever, even if they (the skydiving company) completely screwed up and packed an anvil instead of a parachute, ever, or if they ran out of gas, ever, or if the jump master forgot to hook onto you, or for anything else. Ever.

My sense was that they were more afraid of lawsuits than we were of jumping out of an airplane, at 10,000 feet, for the very first time.

Next, we were told that we would be getting a discount on the videography. It seems that their regular guy who jumps with us and wears the camera on his helmet to record our jump and rapid descent could not make it that day. He was in the hospital. Geeze! I hope he watched the video.

Now here is something that should have been in the video. Most of us were wearing jeans. Then we were put in a pair of zip up coveralls. Then we were strapped into a jump harness. Which, by my count (including my under shorts), is four layers of very tight material and straps surrounding, compressing and pinching my private parts. Only after we are all strapped and cinched tight does the jump master tell us that we should make sure that we are comfortable down there because when the 'chute opens we could get hurt. So there I am trying to rearrange my junk through all of the tight materials that have been strapped into place, while there are women standing around watching and snickering, and I'm trying to be cool about it.

Fortunately, I am very cool.

Eventually, I got into a very small airplane with the pilot, the jump master, and the guy who owns the skydiving business. He has made over 38,000 jumps and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most skydives. (I'll bet he arranges his junk before they cinch his straps.) And we were off.

About 4,000 feet into our ascent, the old guy opened the door and leaned out and was whipped away by the 120 mile an hour wind. It happened so fast it was like a special effect on Heroes. That was my reality check. Up until this point I had been remarkably calm. It hadn't really hit me what I was about to do. But suddenly, I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor of a flying canoe, three feet from the open door and the guy who opened the door was whipped away in the blink of an eye and I'm not strapped down or connected to ANYTHING. And the jump master yells over the noise, "So, what do you think?"

What do I think? WHAT DO I THINK? "Holy shit!" I yelled back. "Close the frickin' door!"

Eventually the pilot reached over and pulled the door down. The next thought I had was "that is going to be me in a couple of minutes" and I wondered how many people have thrown up at 120 miles an hour and what kind of mess that'll make.

Then I thought, "At least my junk is comfortable."

When the moment came the jump master told me to get on my knees and scoot around so that I was between the pilot seat and the door. All of this is in an unsteady, vibrating, rocking, flying Volkswagen. I have less than 2 inches leeway on either side, I'm swaying with the jarring movements, I am not strapped to anything and I am not wearing a parachute and the jump master cautions me not to touch the door. YOU THINK? I wasn't about to touch that door! I wouldn't touch that door if my... well, actually, it did.

Then he tells me to sit on my heels and lean back into him. And, finally, he hooks onto to me. Two at the shoulders and two at the hips. This the the first time since the old guy was whipped away that I think I actually breathed. When he reached over and around to re-tighten the cinches I did not care how tightly I was pressed into his junk. I thought if it's another place to hold on to I hope it's a big one!

This is when the pilot reached over and opened the door. It snapped up and my whole world became a 120 mile an hour wind storm. The jump master yelled into my ear, "Swing your knees out of the plane, look up and arch your back." I think the last part was so that he could rearrange his junk.

The next thing I know is that he leaned forward and we are in a rushing river of air. I can see the entire world laid out before me but the torrent of air is buffeting me so badly that I can hardly catch my breath. I am peripherally aware that he is strapped to my back. All my senses are alive. I am totally aware of everything around me. He yells in my ear to look up and to the left and give a thumbs up at the camera strapped to his wrist. A moment later he yells, "Your other left."

Hey, I had a lot going on! O.K.?

That was the longest and shortest 45 seconds of my life. And then the 'chute deployed. My shoulders were snapped back. I grabbed my shoulder harness, the wind virtually disappeared, and we were floating.

The next five minutes were magical. I got to see the world as few others do. I saw the mountains become nothing more than rolling disturbances in the landscape. I saw the highways as mere lines connecting areas of population. I saw the fall colors as an even brownish-orange and I actually saw the curvature of the Earth.

Eventually I was able to process familiar places and got my bearings above the familiar roads and malls and housing developments. We drifted lazily across the landscape, catching the thermals, steering in and out of the now gentle winds. It was cold that day but I really did not notice it until later. I was flying, man. Flying.

After a while I saw the airport, then the landing area, then the people, and we were down. A perfect landing exactly where the jump master had intended.

I had gotten to know a few of the other jumpers while we were all waiting earlier and as I walked over to the fence line where they were standing, a mile wide grin on my face, Tony asked if that was me he heard screaming like a little girl. Suddenly deadpan I replied, "No it was the jump master. When I pissed my pants it ran up his leg."

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