LITMIR.BIZ

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range of vision. Mark spread his hands. “Just enjoying the ride.”

      “Better watch it.” Dave turned and used his toggle lines to maneuver toward the touchdown point.

      Grant touched down, then Dave, both within ten feet of the center target. Mark touched down thirty feet away and sat on the ground for a moment, then gathered up his chute and took it over to the packing area.

      He staked the top of his parachute down, straightened the spaghetti of white nylon risers, then smoothed the alternating orange and white leaves of the canopy one by one, going through the motions by rote, while he mind drifted.

      His mother had cancer. No one had said anything, but Mark was certain it was terminal. The atmosphere in the house had changed.

      Mark noticed a small tear in the nylon of one panel and taped four inches of rip-stop tape over it. Then he slid the shroud over the chute and laced the rope of risers into the big rubber loops set into the casing. He folded the chute in three folds in the green nylon case, compressed the pilot chute with his knee, and pulled both flaps of the case shut. He knelt on the closed case to hold the spring in the pilot chute compressed while he threaded the four stainless steel pins of the ripcord through the four cones that held the case closed. He pushed the ripcord handle into its pocket on the shoulder strap of the case, checked that the quick release Capewells on the shoulder straps were snapped closed, and set the packed chute on the grass by his helmet. He stretched out on the grass, head on his chute, eyes closed, and let the mild day clear his mind of gloom.

      Overhead the plane inched across the sky. He opened his eyes, found the dot of black in the clear blue sky. A speck appeared beside it, then another and another, the distant engine noise went silent as the pilot turned the plane away from the jumpers and into a steep downward spiral.

      “You going over to the Berg tonight?” Dave asked. “Rod wants to talk about the meet in Florida.”

      “Maybe,” Mark said. He shaded his eyes at the sky. A few seconds later a white and orange chute bloomed, then a second one, then Rod’s black and red para-commander. Rod had founded the skydiving club, had the most advanced chute, and had taught them all skydiving. Despite being a former army sergeant, he was a likeable guy. He was pushing them to join him at the annual inter-collegiate skydiving competition in Florida. It would be the first time the University of Missouri had ever entered.

      “I don’t think I’m going to the Berg tonight to hear Rod tell us why we need to enter the competition.”

      “Thought you didn’t need to study anymore,” Mark said a little petulantly.

      Dave put the top down on the little Triumph and put his gear in the space behind the seats.

      “But, let me know what Rod says, okay?” Dave got in his car and started it up.

      Mark picked up his gear and loaded it into the trunk of his car, “When’s the competition?”

      “December. First week of Christmas break, some little town in Florida near Clearwater.”

      The plane came idling up the runway and onto the grass shoulder. Overhead the three chutes drifted toward the pea gravel circle in silence. Rod swung the slotted red and black chute around, settling fast. Mark could see he had the toggles pulled way out, opening slots, letting the chute fall faster. Then he let up, the chute slowed, angled, and Rod came in to a gentle stand up landing and walked away.

      “Rod,” Mark called. “Put me down to go with you guys in December to the jump meet. But I can’t make it to your meeting tonight.”

      “Good,” Rod said, gathering up his chute. The two orange and white chutes drifted serenely toward the target, the jumpers keeping feet together, ready to touchdown. The first one touched the edge of the gravel circle and rolled smoothly, then the second. They stood up and began gathering in their chutes. Mark got in his car and drove to campus, his mind elsewhere.

      * * *

      In one of the dark phone booths in the lobby of the library, Mark phoned Jennifer and muttered some untruths at her, cancelling their date for the night. He hated the hurt tone in her voice. He wanted only to get the conversation over with, to hang up, to not speak, to not explain. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

      He trudged up two flights of stairs to a row of study carrels under bleak fluorescent lights high overhead. Talk was meaningless, and so was sympathy. There were no words that would change anything. But if he concentrated, kept his mind always occupied, then he would be okay. He clicked on the desk lamp. It made a pool of light on the imitation wood Formica. He sat down and stared at the orange cover of his Thermodynamics book. Down the row of desks someone rustled papers.

      I wish there were gods, Mark thought. Something to pray to. Or some mantra, some method of mind that could stop things from changing. Some way I could put everything back to the way it had been just a few months ago. And keep it that way forever. “Give us this day our daily lives,” he muttered with great sarcasm. He opened the Thermo book—entropy always increases, nothing can remain the same, order always deteriorates slowly to disorder. The hours pass, people change, nothing can be kept the same, no matter what we do or how hard we pray, he thought. I want things never to change, yet always be fresh and new, like the summer wind rippling the leaves of the trees on Dad’s farm. Always changing, but always the same.

      Down the row of desks someone coughed. Mark slid the orange Thermodynamics book an inch toward him, opened it to chapter three, and began reading. Forcing his mind line by line into the words. He read two pages but comprehended nothing, so reread the same two pages. Then he turned to the problems at the end of the chapter. Number six, the pressure times the volume equals the Reynolds number times the temperature, for all processes, reversible or irreversible.

      But life is not reversible, nor is death. He forced his mind into the problem, worked and reworked it until he had it right, then went to work on the next one and the next. He checked his watch periodically and when two hours had passed, he went to the trailer and went to bed.

      * * *

      The next day after class, Mark got on his Suzuki at the Engineering building and started down Sixth Street. The cool air and the leaves beginning to turn brown were surreal, a movie flowing past him with the sound turned off. The clarity he’d felt skydiving was gone. The blankness he’d felt working on problems from his textbook was gone. Now he felt only exhaustion.

      Traffic had slowed to a stop on Sixth Street. With a flash of irritation, Mark wheeled the bike over the curb, across the sidewalk, and into Peace Park intending to cut through to Ninth Street. Past the shrubs at the other side of the park he could see red lights flashing. He cut off the engine of the bike and sat watching the ragtag crowd of students chanting and waving signs in the middle of Elm Street. In front of them was a row of campus cops augmented by city police. The loudspeaker on top of a patrol car was blaring something unintelligible. Several hotheads at the front of the crowd were chanting, “Stop the war now!” Mark saw Carol Bianchi trying to make herself heard with a bullhorn, but the crowd was more interested in sparking a confrontation with the blue-clad squad of police. Mark saw one of the cops talking on the radio in a squad car.

      “March to the state capitol! Insist on a referendum!” Carol’s voice was becoming strident as the tumult escalated. “Don’t block the street. Don’t get arrested. It doesn’t help things,” she shouted, but the crowd in the street continued to heckle the cops, anticipation of confrontation thick in the air.

      Two more squad cars pulled up and four cops piled out to join the row along the sidewalk. The crowd shuffled to a stop. Then from the back of the crowd of protestors, Mark heard a couple of pimply-faced longhairs start shouting, “FTA! FTA!” and the crowd took up the chant. A scrawny long-haired punk gave the cops the finger and shouted, “Fascist pigs!” Four blue uniforms snagged him, wrestled him to the ground. A hail of stones and empty beers cans rained down, the cops charged into the crowd swinging nightsticks. Mark ran back to his bike, got it started, and ripped across Peace Park between the azalea bushes and across a mulched flower bed. He reached Ninth Street, hopped the curb, and got into traffic before

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