SAM TAKES A DEEP BREATHand rubs his temple.
I can tell that what he’s about to say will be difficult. I have no idea how to support him because I feel lost and traumatized, and I’m doing what I can to avoid disintegrating. I swear though that I will stay here and listen and not fall apart. I rub his hand with mine. It’s not enough, but it’s all I can manage in my shaky state.
“You know that Costa was my best friend for years, practically my brother.” Sam falters and takes a moment before speaking again, “But by the time we graduated high school, we’d drifted apart a ton. He didn’t come over often, if at all, and he was partying way too much. Or so I thought.
“I went off to college, and I suppose I’d mostly given up on him by then. As much as my family and I had tried to undo what his own family did, I figured that it hadn’t been enough to change his life. I got caught up in school and friends, and I assumed he had whatever he had going on. It happens, right? People lose each other. So, I didn’t see him when I was home on breaks or anything. I didn’t even know where he’d gone.
“Then, one summer, right after college got out for the year, I was rock climbing, alone, on Mount James. It wasn’t the smartest idea because it had rained. The rocks were slick, and the terrain was muddy. I thought I was kind of a badass, and it didn’t really occur to me that I could get into trouble. I was doing a hard uphill climb when I slipped and fell way off route. I think I broke my ankle on the way down, but I managed to catch hold with both hands and stop myself from going into the ravine below.
“But I was hanging off the side of a cliff and in horrible pain. I…I’ve never been so scared in my life. I couldn’t get a leg up over the edge, and I didn’t have enough strength to pull myself to safety. All I could do was hang there with jagged rocks and…and certain death if I let go. It was my own damn fault, too. I’d been incredibly fucking stupid, and I deserved to die. I wasn’t harnessed in, and I went out without a partner. There’s no excuse. Anyway, I was panicking enough that I wouldn’t have been able to hold on much longer.”
I’m grateful that Sam pauses here for a bit because I already feel sick. There’s no denying that this story is not going anywhere good, and the details will likely be excruciating.
He blows out a long breath. “That was when Costa showed up. Out of nowhere, it seemed. He’s always been stronger than he looks, so when his hands clapped around my wrist, I knew he’d be able to pull me up. And he did. He hugged me. I hugged him. And it was as though we’d never fallen away from each other, as though we were still brothers, and he’d somehow magically known that I was in trouble. It felt so amazing for all of three minutes. While he was holding on to me, he asked if I trusted him. And of course I did.” Sam slows his storytelling now, his voice getting quieter, his tone growing darker. “Then, he said, very clearly and calmly, ‘It’s a good day to die, my friend.’ It was very Costa of him. Then, he threw us both over the edge and onto the rocks below.
“I remember falling, and I remember feeling terrified, but Costa didn’t let go of me, even when we hit the rocks. That sound, the sound of bones breaking…yeah, that first time still echoes in my head. Sorry. You don’t need to hear that…”
“It’s okay,” I say although my head is spinning and I feel sick to my stomach.
“It’s not. None of it is okay.” He tightens his arms around me. “The thing is, I wasn’t in pain from the fall—at all. The opposite, in fact. It felt good. I realize how that sounds, but the process of dying was like a drug. It didn’t take long, probably only a few minutes, but they were an indescribably awesome few minutes.
“First, I watched Costa. His face was a mess, blood and…but it wasn’t frightening. I just closed my eyes and drowned in pleasure. It was like I was floating, flying, or…I don’t know. You just want to be absorbed into that, if that makes any sense. Then, I died, and everything went dark and murky, like I was swimming through a dense gel of some sort. I couldn’t see much. I don’t know how long that part took.
“Understanding where I was, what happened, was impossible. I just sensed that I was dead, like dead for real but in some kind of in-between space. A fake death. Or on my way to heaven or hell, if I even believe in those. I don’t know. There was an urge to escape, tolandsomewhere, but I couldn’t get a handle on where to go or even how to move.
“Then, I saw Costa, and he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me up. Like surfacing from deep water into breathable air, it’s lighter near the surface. I wouldn’t have been able to get there without Costa. I can do it now on my own, but that first time, I never would have without him.
“When we surfaced, there was this rush, this relief, and this fucking euphoria that nothing could ever compete with. Ironically, it was like I was so full of life. We had no injuries, no scars. There was no blood. We were whole and perfect. Everything looked gorgeous and bright. I was full of energy…and aggression. And I was starving. I mean, crazy hungry. So, first, I beat the absolute shit out of Costa.” Sam stops for a second and actually laughs.
“Then, I made him take me out for pizza. I ate two larges by myself while he iced his eye and plugged his bloody nose with tissues.” He strokes my fingers with his. “Costa tripped me because he was so lonely. In it all by himself, I guess. I understand that, but…”
I sit up and face Sam now, crossing my legs over his. “But he did this to you.”
“Yeah. He needed me. Desperately. Dying and surfacing…we’ve found out that they’re so much better with someone. Being under is nothing too interesting really, but sometimes, the longer we stay under, the more intense the surfacing is. We call that a surge, the rush you get when you surface. You come back really wired, and you’re totally id-driven. Freud would probably love the whole idea of death tripping because it’s all about food, sex, and aggression when you trip hard. You’re driven by primitive instincts.”
“How is Costa a…death tripper? Was he…born this way? I mean, is it genetic at all?”
“The short answer is that someone tripped him. He found another death tripper, a stranger he caught in the act of tripping, and Costa somehow convinced this guy to trip him. Costa’s never seen him since. The only information that my adrenaline-junkie friend walked away with is that we can trip anyone, turn anyone into a death tripper. Essentially though, we’ve had to learn everything on our own, and we still don’t know much.”
“What…what happened after…Costatrippedyou?” This language of Sam’s sounds crazy coming from me. “You must have hated him.”
“You’re right. I should have hated him. But I couldn’t because death tripping felt so goddamn good. We loved it. It felt like he’d given me a gift, not a curse. He stayed in town, and we spent the summer death tripping. We started out just dabbling—you know, like recreational drug use. We fucked around with dying slowly, trying to stay under for as long as we could, trying to control where we surfaced.
“I showed up in an IHOP twenty miles from here once, seated with two parents and their three kids. It was…you know, rather embarrassing. Surfacing is a pretty loud, intrusive process. Floors smashing apart and reassembling themselves…it’s nuts. The family was a little freaked, needless to say, so I paid for their breakfast and left.”
I can’t help but smile.
“It was the least I could do, right? It’s hard to control where you surface sometimes although I can always find my way home. We got totally out of hand. It was disgusting and wrong—killing ourselves over and over. Guns, knives…Costa was big into knives…
“It’s sick. I know.” He looks away before continuing, “Death tripping is an addiction, just like any other. You can get run-down and you need more and it’s never enough. Never. As suicidal as it sounds, it isn’t really dying, and it isn’t about trying to die. There’s no death wish. Ironically, it’s the opposite. We’re after an enhanced sense of life. We trip over death, but don’t take it. The process, the ritual of this, is all for the thrill and the power from the pleasure that seeps into every part of you during dying and surfacing. The intoxication is nearly impossible to fight.”
Thank God my mind is so used to being fucked with. My ability to cope is the only thing keeping me from screaming that this is all impossible. “All of this…this is why you left college?”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“Because you were…death-tripping…so much?” I offer.
It takes a long time for him to answer. “I dropped out after Toby died. The summer before, Costa and I had both been out of control, tripping way too much, but I’d quit abruptly. I’d known it was a problem. My family had started to notice something was wrong.Ihad noticed something was wrong. I had to go back to school, and I couldn’t be all tripped out, so I’d stopped. But Costa hadn’t. Couldn’t. He’d wanted to know everything about death tripping. He was addicted.
