I guessed I could walk across the river without getting my hair wet in this section. The riverbank sloped farther than usual because of the drought. It was a long drop from here on the center of the bridge, and with the water so low, longer than usual.
I had been to funerals before. Although my mother’s parents were both still alive, my father’s parents had passed away: my grandfather when I was in kindergarten and my grandmother two years ago. Had those services helped my father? I supposed so. They hadn’t really helped me. The truth was, I had been saddened by the death of each of my grandparents, but not overwhelmingly so. They had each been sick awhile before they died. They had each been in pain. They had each, my father had reassured me, been ready.
I watched the small constellation of stars emerge in the bowl when I took one long, last drag. I blew the smoke straight into the air and thought, I am a dragon. The idea made me smile inside. I placed the pipe on the balustrade.
Almost as if daring myself, I climbed onto the parapet, first kneeling and then, ever so slowly, climbing to my feet. It was perhaps four feet high and little more than a foot wide. It was not as ornate as the ones on the bridges that span the Tiber or Seine, but it had a series of spindles below the balustrade that were rather elegant for the Green Mountains. I spread wide my arms to steady myself, prepared to jump (or fall) back toward the asphalt on the bridge if I felt myself losing my balance. When I was standing up, I allowed myself a glance down at the water. The elevation here was high enough that most likely I’d die if I landed in any manner but feet or legs first. And then I’d wind up crippled. A paraplegic, I guessed. Maybe even a quadriplegic. It wouldn’t be pretty. It would be painful.
No, I’d die that way, too: I’d drown because I wouldn’t be able to swim to the side.
I stared up at the moon, my arms still spread like wings. I craned my neck and liked how it felt. I stretched my fingers and recalled how my mother had stood here with her arms at her sides. My naked mother. That naked angel. Her skin had struck me as especially pale that evening, the alabaster of renaissance statuary. I wondered what it would feel like to stand here, a nude at night, alone with the moon. Had my mother been howling inside or was she as serene as the seraphs spanning the Tiber or Seine?
I had an idea; no, I was experiencing a craving. Here was the difference between a want and a need. This was not something I could do; this was something I had to do.
I made sure of my footing and then pulled my hoodie over my head and tossed it behind me onto the sidewalk. I unbuttoned my flannel shirt and carefully slipped that off, too. A part of me thought, I am stoned and I am out of control, but it didn’t stop me from reaching behind me and unclasping my bra. I watched it fall and was disappointed that it didn’t drift like a kite. Shouldn’t lingerie float to the earth in slow motion?
I heard a vehicle in the distance, the growl of a pickup. I wondered if the truck was coming this way. I ran my fingers over the goosebumps on my arms, and I blinked at the tears that for reasons I couldn’t fathom were starting to pool in my eyes. Perhaps somewhere nearby was my mother’s body. Or had its final journey begun downstream of where I was standing now—near where the shred of her nightshirt had been discovered?
I unzipped my jeans. I unbuttoned them. It was only as I was starting to pull them down below my hips, taking my panties with them, that I remembered I was wearing my sneakers. I couldn’t take off my pants without first taking off my sneakers. This was…logic.
I started to kneel so I could untie them, planning to begin with my right foot, but suddenly the toe of my left foot was slipping on a stone or thick twig—no, it was my pipe, my goddamn pot pipe—and I was falling. For a second I was suspended, tottering, a tightrope walker losing her balance and about to plummet from high above the circus ring, the audience gasping, but it was only a second, because although I was stoned I was able to think street and hurl myself toward the sidewalk instead of the river. I landed hard on the asphalt—beyond the sidewalk—palms out, and rolled onto my side. Instantly I felt the road burn on my hands and my shoulders, but somehow I managed not to crack my skull on the ground.