But in the same moment that he pitched forward, in the same moment when he stared death in the face, Ken felt very much alive.
A strange clarity gripped him. His mind seemed to turn to glass, images appearing that he had long forgotten.
His grandfather, taking him up on the roof, showing him that if he stood with one foot on either side he could see the whole world….
His grandmother, baking sugar cookies with him and pretending not to notice when he stole more dough than she cooked….
A moment behind a friend’s house, his first kiss with a little girl when he was barely four and they promised to never tell and never did and then forgot about it because it was far too grown up and there were things to watch on television….
A million remembrances that passed through his mind, that passed in front of his eyes. The world had become clear. For one instant he lived only for the moment, and because he could define it he understood the sum of his existence and could fulfill its measure.
He was jumping. But not being pressed by anyone, not being hounded or led. This, he realized, was his first jump as his own man. He was making the decision. There was no Aaron, no Christopher, no Dorcas, no Buck, no anyone. Just him and his family. Him and his children. Him and an impossible leap to make.
He fell forward along the side of the train. Stretched out to his full length. A few inches shy of six feet tall, with hands that reached another foot beyond his head. Almost seven feet. Maybe all the way to seven.
Eight feet was too far to jump. But one? He could do that.
But that meant he had to wait. He fell in an arc, his fingers coming closer to the ladder with every inch his body fell forward. But his body – his head and trunk especially – also plummeted closer and closer to the ground, the rails, the wheels.
Tok-tok. Tok-tok. Tok-tok.
Give up. Give in.
Falling.
Inch by inch.
Wait. Wait. Don’t jump yet, Ken.
The memory of his first solo ride on a bike, the delirious exhilaration followed by the terrible terror as the short ride came to a crash and he was swept into his father’s arms….
The night he was so sick and his mother stayed up all night, rocking him and singing songs until she was hoarse….
Still falling.
Tok-tok. Tok-tok. Tok-tok.
Give up. Give in.
Falling.
Wait. Just wait. Just… wait….
NOW!
Ken pushed off. He was nearly horizontal, his body stretched out so close to a straight line that if he waited one more millisecond he would lose the ability to kick off the edge of the door track.
He shoved with everything he had. His right foot felt powerful, but his left leg shrieked and he buckled in mid-air.
His fingers stretched. Knocked into metal. Fell past the rung.
Past another.
Past them all.
20
The clarity was still with him.
Ken saw the last rung pass by his hand, his fingers just missing it. Saw his life ending, his children dying at Aaron’s hand. Maggie and Buck shot by Theresa. Christopher throttled into lifelessness by the huge and grinning Elijah.
He willed it not to be so. Refused it. Rejected it.
And a last chance appeared. As though the universe had heard his resolve and bent itself to his will.
The rungs ended. But there was a loop underneath them. Ken hadn’t noticed it: it was set back slightly, a few inches back from the edge of the boxcar. Indeed, there was no way he could have seen it from his vantage point clinging to the side of the boxcar.
Only by falling had he spotted it.
Not a rung on the ladder that ran up the side of the car. No, this was a larger loop. A stirrup-like piece of metal that was clearly meant as a step to help people get up the distance between the ground and the bottom of the car.
Ken’s arms flapped manically, moving so fast he could barely see them. He found time to wonder as he fell, to marvel at how fast a body could move when pressed by desperation. Not fear for self, but terror for the consequences of failure.
He couldn’t fail. Too much depended on him. He was a father, and fathers had to succeed for their families. It was the main job description.
His left hand clanged against the step and bounced off. The stumps of his fingers cried out. Ken ignored them.
His right hand swung out.
And caught.
The steel stirrup was hot under his skin. Sticky and slick at the same time, old grease and grime and his own sweat mixing to create a unique sensation. Ken thought it would resist his grip, but then he slapped his left hand against it and felt both hands lock around the metal.
But he was still falling.
His feet and knees hit the ground. Bouncing hard, his frame rattling and pulling inward. Toward the track.
Toward the wheels.
21