“I’m going to go get her now,” I inform him.
“Son,” he says slowly. “Just remember no matter what happens, that I’m proud of you. I always have been. And I always will be. You’re a fine gentleman and you have a good heart. You’ll make a fantastic King one day.”
“Alicia will make a great Queen,” I tell him, trying to be glib. But that’s just to hide the fact that my father’s words have fucking touched me. Like never before.
“I’m glad you feel that way, Derrick,” Dad says. “I’ll let Samantha know when she gets out of the shower.”
Okay, I didn’t need to fucking know that. But instead, I decide to let it slide.
“Dad,” I say to him, choosing my words carefully. “I’m going to go after Alicia now. But there is a small chance you might see my name again in the papers.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “Where are you now?” he asks me.
“I’m on the plane,” I tell him. Direct. To the point.
Another pause. Moment of fucking truth. What’s he going to say?
Finally, my Dad says what I’ve been waiting to hear all my life. “Do what you have to do, son. I trust you.”
And there we fucking go. Off to the races. I say goodbye to my Dad and make sure everything is geared up and ready to go.
Sam nods at me. Pressly looks like he’s about to faint.
“Let it go,” I say and Sam pulls a lever and the panel beneath me opens up and I fall into 25,000 feet of empty air with nothing but the sharp spires of Manhattan below me.
* * *
I’ll say this for the greatest city in the world – the air above Manhattan is just positively fucking filthy. I don’t know if it’s all the pollution, the combined steam and funk of 8 million people, or what, but as the wind is rushing by my face and I’m falling, I seriously feel like holding my fucking nose so I can’t smell.
That’s my first thought as I jump out of the plane.
My second thought is that I might actually die today. Even as high up as I am, I still see the concrete jungle of buildings and their interconnected streets. And it’s rushing up at me like nothing else.
I pull my wrist close to my face and look at my bearings. I’m a bit off course. I angle my body so that the wind whips my body farther to the north.
It looks like I’m heading uptown.
If the stratosphere is smelly, I swear the closer I get to the city it gets crowded – even up in the fucking sky. There’s drones. Helicopters. Airplanes. Weather balloons. Kites. Birds.
It’s like there’s room left for fucking clouds. Jesus Christ – no wonder people move out of here as quickly as they can – even the sky is starting to get crowded. And each of those things moving around in the sky is a potential death trap for me.
I angle my body to avoid hitting a nasty looking drone that’s whirring by. I only have a few moments left before I have to start worrying about buildings and I need to make sure I’m in the right vicinity.
I angle my body, using the atmospheric currents to draw myself further uptown. That’s it – my watch is telling me I’m on a near perfect trajectory now.
Fuck me. On top of everything else, now a
dd a couple falcons who are lazily circling near the Chrysler Building.
One thing’s for sure. I’m fucking glad Alicia stayed in Midtown. Having to land in downtown with the Freedom Tower would have been a fucking nightmare, to say the least.
I start to feel the air get warmer. It’s time to deploy the parachute. I pull on the cord.
Nothing happens.
Oh my fucking God. This is not the time for this to be happening to me. I pull again on the cord.
Nothing.