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One Year Lived by Adam Shepard PDF

289 Pages·2013·7.99 MB·English
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ADAM SHEPARD ONE YEAR IVED L Copyright © 2013 by Adam Shepard All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Content editors: Stuart Albright, Chris Hays, Jeff Wozer, and Alexis A. Hunter Copyeditor: Johnathan Wilber Interior layout designers: Jay C. Polmar and Martha Delia García Márquez Cover photos of the author at Lake Atitlán, Guatemala: Jan Laakmann Cover designer: ImageTrance ISBN 978-0-9796926-4-2 pbk For book clubs, retail resale, educational institutions, gifts, or promotional use, One Year Lived is available for 78 percent off the cover price at www.OneYearLived.com. For my pops, George Shepard, a maverick who inspires me to live my life off the beaten path. And for Flora Herrera. 1. Raleigh, North Carolina (author’s hometown) 2. Antigua in the Caribbean 3. Antigua, Guatemala 4. El Porvenir, Honduras 5. Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua 6. Auckland, New Zealand 7. Melbourne, Australia 8. Warrawagine Station, Western Australia 9. Boracay Island, Philippines 10. Palma de Mallorca, Spain 11. Zlaté Moravce, Slovakia I peer up into a gray sky. I squint. I start making promises. My pulse ϔights to exit through my neck and chest and wrists. I can’t do this. Really? Can I? This is crazy. I can’t do this. Whose idea was this anyway? Was this Ivana’s idea? Dammit, this was her idea. Herein lies the consequence of running away from home and running into a Slovak girl. I dig this girl, but I don’t dig this idea. My ϔingers tremble, and I can’t seem to catch my breath, chest falling quick and uneven. This is crazy. I can’t do this. I look down over the bridge, to the left and to the right, and then up: clouds stacked upon clouds, packing the leaden sky, no sign of the sun. This isn’t the proper scene for memorable moments. Where is the shine, the sparkle? I can see the start of a lake just over there, but a heavy dose of mist conceals it. They tell me that in the distance there’s a wonderful view of the High Tatras mountain range. I can’t see it. Below, a hundred meters of open air and a spread of green waiting for me, inviting me. I can do this! I turn around. They’re watching. A guy in a red hooded sweatshirt. Another with a goatee, a girlfriend at his side. A lot of back-and-forth in a foreign tongue; many darting glances, bouncing from me to the platform and down to all that lies below. I know that look. Yeah, “must be a ϔirst timer” is right. Cocky bastards. I bet you were a little hesitant your ϔirst time, too. It’s been a wild journey. I’ve seen beautiful places. Met fascinating people. I climbed a volcano in Guatemala. Chased rambunctious children in Honduras. Dug trenches in Nicaragua. Hitchhiked in New Zealand. Castrated a bull in Australia and then fried the jewels up for dinner. Offered my naked body to a beach in the Philippines. Rode an elephant in Thailand. Visited Auschwitz. Swam in natural pools, hot and cold. Skipped rocks. Contemplated the conquest of the natives. I drank too much in Spain and not enough in Indonesia. I watched the sun rise and then set all over the world. And now, here I stand. Ugh. Don’t pressure me. In a few minutes, another coward will be standing in my place, people, and I’m going to give that person all the time he or she needs to muster the courage—don’t you worry. Don’t stare at me like that. Yeah, you. I’ll go when I’m ready. I’ll go when I’m ready. Just give me a second. Jesus. Y’all don’t have anywhere to be. I’ll go when I’m ready. The cheering and clapping isn’t helping. You can stop now. I’m not ready. Am I? No, I’m not. I can’t do this. My gaze rolls to Ivana. She smiles but doesn’t press me. My nerves fumble my return smile. Where is our relationship headed? This is going well, right? I think it’s going well. I say it’s going well. Yeah, it’s going well. But there’s still no way I’m jumping off this bridge. One of the guys says to me in broken English: “Just in case line break and you not stop before ground, we really enjoy know you.” Ugh, this is crazy. I can’t do this. I’m not ready. Man, what a horrible idea. Ugh. Okay, that’s it. I’m not ready. Unwrap the cord from my ankles. I want outta here. Let’s all go have a drink and a good laugh, both at my expense. Do you offer refunds? Partial? Can I still get a T-shirt? Ahhhhhhh. Why am I doing this! Come on, Shep. Screw it. I take a ϔinal, lingering look over at Ivana, her expression cheery and supportive. I spread my arms out wide above my head. I bend my knees. I rise up off of my toes. I curl my head down over the rest of my body. I dive. I soar. An exhilarated shriek explodes through my lips, prying at my clenched jaw. The world opens up. My pulse pounds even harder. I’m dropping. I’m ϔlying. The forest widens, widens, widens—a sea of spiky green spreading beneath me. The fall lasts a day, a week, a month. Three-point-two-ϔive seconds. I bounce, retreat high back up toward the platform, and tumble. The cord pulls me high, and I tumble again. I come to rest. I look up. I can’t make out the details of her face, but I know my girl’s watching me, laughing that melodic laugh that infects everyone around her. There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be. THE LIST wasn’t angry. I didn’t hate my job. I wasn’t annoyed with I capitalism, and I was indifferent to materialism. I wasn’t escaping emptiness, nor was I searching for meaning. I have great friends and a wonderful family. The dude two doors down invited me over for steak or pork chops—my choice—one Sunday, and I couldn’t even tell you the ϐirst letter of his name. Most of my teeth are natural. I had enjoyed some nominal success: a few books to my name, a bunch of speaking engagements across the country, a new audio program for teenagers. Sure, the producers of The Amazing Race had rejected all ϐive of my applications to hotfoot around the world—all ϐive!—and my girlfriend and I had just parted ways, but I’d whined all I could about the race, and the girl wasn’t The Girl anyway. All in all, my life was pretty fantastic. But I felt boxed in. Look at a map, and there we are, a pin stuck in the wall. There’s the United States, about twenty-four square inches’ worth, and there’s the rest of the world, about seventeen hundred square inches begging to be explored. I looked back, and I looked forward. This life is serious: I want the wife, I want the babies, I want the business success, and I understand the work that is required ’til the wee hours to get them. But I didn’t want to leave any experience unlived before that happened. I felt as if I was a few memories short, as if there was still time for me to go out there and get missing for a little while. Bust out the List o’ Good Times, sell my car, store my crap, stuff a backpack, buy a small mountain of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and hop on a plane. Just this once.

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