Legacy Jackie Craven

LEGACY

JACKIE CRAVEN

I come from a long line of clif-leapers. Our home was on Chopakict, a rocky island just of the coast of Maine. You’ve probably never been there (not many people have), but you may have seen pictures. Te astonishing clifs along the northern edge of the island inspired Winslow Homer and several other important artists. Teir paintings, however, were only approximations—no one can capture the enormity of our clifs.

Imagine, if you will, ragged granite as black as oil rising from a thrashing ocean, soaring up and up, reaching as high as the Empire State Building. Now imagine standing at the very pinnacle, the ocean so far below that its roar is no more than a sof, seductive swish. If it weren’t for that sound and for the salty taste of the air, you might never guess that an ocean lay below. Even when the sun is bright, a heavy white blanket of clouds obscures the view.

Tey say my grandfather was twenty-fve when he rode his mule through town and hollered that he had discovered the secret of fight. Te blacksmith stepped out of his shed. Smoke from his forge made tears run down his red-hot cheeks. “Clarence, what are you yowling about now?” he asked. He and my grandfather, a silversmith, were always quarreling about something.

Te blacksmith’s wife, Missy, stood two feet behind her burly husband, her blue eyes bright as a branding iron. “Says he’s gonna fy!” she whispered hoarsely. Missy’s words echoed along Winding Way, hissing and swishing like the faraway waves.

“Says he’s gonna fy,” said the grocer, spilling four all over his polished leather boots.

“Says he’s gonna fy,” said old Annie Stenstrom, leaning on her broom and standing tall for the frst time in ffeen years.

“Says he’s gonna fy?” asked Sherif Boismier, fondling the fligreed handle of his pistol as he strutted from the jailhouse.

“Fly-fy-fy-fy!” chanted a dozen children, slamming screen doors and dancing out into the road, their bare feet kicking up yellow dust.

My grandfather shoved his hat to the back of his head. Lifing himself in his stirrups, he waved both arms. “I said I will,” he shouted, “and so I will!”

My grandmother was a freckled teenager, but she already had a child—a boy with worried eyes and a stubborn chin—my father. Walking alongside the mule, mother and child led the parade of onlookers across the village green. Tey circled the grocery and the jailhouse and, without a backward glance, passed the steepled church.

“Sally, wait—” Missy pushed past her blacksmith husband. She jostled through the crowd to reach the head of the parade. Wiping a dingy sleeve across her pink nose, she cried, “Sally, please! Don’t go no farther.”

But, as legend has it, my grandmother didn’t answer. Her freckled face expressionless,she trudged deliberately in step with the mule. Te road turned steep and jagged. My father stumbled and would have fallen if my grandmother hadn’t held onto him. Regaining his footing, he forced a grin and gave a little skip as if to say, “I MEANT to do that!”

At the edge of town, Winding Way stopped and the clouds began. Te blacksmith sneezed and snorted into his handkerchief. Te children jumped up and down and fapped their arms. “Fly-fy-fy—!”

My father, who was only four or fve, didn’t hear the mockery in their voices. Pufed with pride, he shouted, “Papa’s gonna fy!”

Missy grasped at the mule’s bridle. “Stop him, Sally! Stop him right now!”

My grandmother stroked the animal’s velvet snout. “Clarence knows what’s best,” she said.

Climbing down from the mule, my grandfather bent to kiss my father’s forehead. Ten he gave my grandmother a hurried and formal hug. Ten with a fourish, he swooped of his hat and bowed deeply.

Te salty air, I’m told, tasted like blood that day. Te townspeople stood a full twenty feet from the edge of the clif (they knew enough to be wary of sudden strong winds) and watched with open-mouthed astonishment as my grandfather turned toward the mist.

“You always were a fool,” the blacksmith muttered, having fnally found his tongue.

My grandmother stood with her back to the crowd. She tried to bury my father’s face in her apron, but he squirmed away. Tey stood as rigid as sailors in a storm, watching as my grandfather took a confdent step toward the edge. He spread his arms wide, lifed his heels, and leaned forward like a diver at the edge of a pool. His foppy hat tumbled of his head, bounced across the clouds, and vanished. Bending and straightening his knees, he pushed of.

Tey tell me that there was only a momentary pause before a loud, spontaneous cheer rose up from the crowd. “Yea, Clarence!” the blacksmith shouted, suddenly worshipping the man he used to shower with insults.

Sherif Boismier crossed his arms across his barrel chest. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

“He few!” the children shouted. “He few!”

“Told you he would!” my father retorted with a lif of his chin.

Old Annie Stenstrom pressed a hand to her heart. “It’s a miracle,” she breathed.

Missy took a timid step forward, her soot-smudged brow wrinkled with concern. “Sally…?”

But she didn’t need to worry. When my grandmother turned to face the townspeople, she wore the kind of peaceful smile you usually only see on undertakers. “Clarence always said he would fy, and now he has.”

Tere must have been people who knew that my grandfather plunged to his death that day. Among all the townspeople, surely someone thought, “No! Tis is wrong!” But if there were protests, I haven’t heard about them. By all accounts, everyone in our village congratulated my grandmother. She was fortunate, they said, to have a husband talented enough to fy. Even her dearest friend, Missy, decided that what had happened really was for the best. “You wait and see,” she told my grandmother. “Any day now, he’ll fy back home. And think what exciting tales he’ll have to tell!”

Of course, my grandfather never did fy home again. My grandmother was brave but lonely. She yearned to fy afer him. She longed to spread her arms like wings and glide out over the salty mist: buoyant, blissful, free.

“But I don’t want a noisy crowd ogling,” she told Missy. “No fancy celebrations for me!”

Missy sympathized and didn’t tell the townspeople what my grandmother planned. Te two women went quietly to the edge of town where Winding Way ended and the clouds began. My father, who was now almost eight, walked several feet behind. At the edge of the clif, my grandmother kneeled to kiss his lips.

“I’m too old for that!” he retorted.

Turning her tearful face away, my grandmother stepped quickly and purposefully into the clouds. Her lavender skirt and pink petticoats lifed up and closed over her head like the petals of a fower bud. Ten the mist rolled over her.

Afer that, my father was obliged to live with Missy and her blacksmith husband. Maybe the blacksmith meant well, but he had no patience for children. “Look at you!” he snarled. “You’ll never be half the man your father was.”

Missy, however, was a kind soul. She stroked his hair and whispered, “Don’t worry, little one. Your papa will come back for you. Your mum too.”

So, my father squinted up at the sky and waited. Each time a dark shape swooped from behind a cloud, his heart leapt up and then sank again, because the shape was only a hawk or a gull or maybe a bat.

When he turned thirteen, he became an apprentice. He learned how to make iron sof and pliable. He made horseshoes, gate latches, and garden tools. And whenever he could, he slipped away to practice the art of fight.

First, he jumped of the stone wall behind the blacksmith’s shop. Te wall was only four feet high, but it was a beginning. He found another wall, one that was eight feet high. Sometimes when he jumped, the air seemed to swoop up beneath him and hold him alof for moments at a time.

Missy applauded. She declared that he was a born fier, just like his mum and pop.

I was ten years old when I watched my father spread his arms and spring into the mist. Te fog didn’t even leave a space to show where he had been. Now, I’m well past thirty. I know what happens to people who jump of clifs: they drop down like lead. If they don’t die of fright, they’re killed the instant they hit the water. Still, I like to think how it would be to spread my arms and glide, to follow seagulls through the fog, and then to circle back and hover just beyond the edge.

All my friends would be watching, and I’d wave to them and call, “Come on, you sissies! Jump in! Te air is warm, and the fog’s not all that deep!”