WHITE PRIVILEGE SKYDIVES WITH BLACK GUY IN APPALACHIA
While escaping Hillbilly Days in Eastern Kentucky
I learn “tandem jump,” and, years later, “Shibboleth”
We sit at the fold-out tables in a gray room at the airport
on the hill, where the coal mine barons store their private jets
and fly to places that aren’t “locked”
between
mountains.
And they tell us to watch a video about the buckles
on our suits, how to pop our ears while falling
and lift our legs high enough
so our butts
sandpaper the ground.
Don’t land on your feet,
but if you do, try to walk it out. It’s best
to ass-
bump it.
And this salty blond surfer-looking dude
chews a toothpick, then eyes us down—
(like he’s picking a puppy
at the pound).
And he slaps the table with the palm of his hand;
Why the heck—(he smirks)—
why the heck would someone who’s sane
jump
out
of a perfectly good
airplane?
And when we look at each other—Dude
screams back, ’Cause, you fools,
you left the dang door
open!
And we laugh, and he laughs
from his gut,
then assigns me to this thin
black
guy,
and I’m not sure
he’s strong enough to hold me up.
I’ve gained a few pounds
and this jumpsuit’s too tight.
So I try to breathe and smile
at the same time.
And with his hands, he tugs
buckles on my back
and near that
sacred
between my legs.
And there’s Aunt Betty, again,
and her finger tick tocks in front of me,
like we’re swimming at the Breaks and she says I can’t
swing out
on that rope.
And I realize I’m twenty-five
and I’ve never been this close to a black person before,
and I think back to grade school and high school
and—No. There were none.
In college, they were the ones
on ball teams,
but they weren’t
in my classes.
Then, I bend over to tie my shoe, and there’s Amy—
who was half my age when she lived next door to my sister
in that trailer park when I was in the fifth
or sixth grade.
So, now, I’m at a picnic table—book open—and, we just learned
in school how old Abe
freed
those
slaves.
And I know
something
mean
happened to them,
but they never really explained it.
And I know they have this other
skin, I think,
from this other
place, and I know they were beaten and sold,
but I don’t know
What.
That.
Means.
And Amy is so cute with her hair
back like that, and that sunny smile
and little butterfly
earrings.
But she wants to play, and she’s jumping
on my back and she pulls me
from my seat.
And I’m on the ground and she screams,
jumping up and down above me.
I stand up and sit back down,
and she’s pecking my shoulders,
tugging
my shirt.
And I just want to do a good job on this test
I’m studying for, so I’m writing all the dates of things
that happened.
And she won’t stop tug-
hugging my neck.
Her finger slips and she scratches
my skin. —And it just
blurts
out.
—What? Do you
think I’m a slave,
or something?—
And her face
—its light—
melts like
sun bows to night
on the west side
of the mountain.
And when I see my shoes on the floor in this room,
I remember I never saw her after that because she
moved
away.
And—for a second—I’m that stringy-headed cow,
again, who’s smacked in the head like a dog
while being told You’re mangy.
You
filthy
thing.
And I swallow the muck
and look up— And that guy
who touched me tells me I’m Good to go, Girl,
then points to the door where the plane waits
to take
us up.
And I feel it resist that thrust
from the earth. Then I feel the lift
that starts in my stomach, then belches in waves
to my brain.
And after a while, he tethers me
to his body
and I am a key on a ring
attached to a wire line that stretches
across the tops of our heads.
And I look around for the others,
but they’re not there, and I don’t want to go,
but I feel his legs behind my thighs,
push-walking my left,
then my right, to the door—wide open—
where wind is cussing
and I want to say, No
wait!
But it throws a fist at me, and he says,
Are you ready? And I want to say Hell yeah!
or something even better,
but all I can muster is Okay—
No!
Wait!
And then this hurricane
shoves me—and the plane and time
and everything is gone,
and it’s just cold sky and different shades of green
and their open ’chutes—
Plucked petals.
Poured.
From a cup.
And I’m looking through a glass at a painting—Oh my
God!—And then I’m a rock that dives off the edge
of some waterfall,
watching everything that splattered
before
I came.
And I keep saying Ohmy God! And I keep telling myself, This is
it!
And I wonder what God would say of my jumping
like this.
Would I be
the fool
or the wiser?
And a man in a yellow suit with a camera buzzes out
in front of me. Gives me a thumbs up; stretches his mouth wide,
with
fingers,
into a smile.
But I can’t—
can’t move my arms or legs
because the wind is fierce
and it feels like I’m falling, and that push
is the hand that holds me up—And I don’t want to
break
it.
He smiles and spreads his arms like wings
and I try to do that, and then I perk up my thumbs.
But I can’t feel my wrists
anymore and I don’t know
if I’m breathing.
Then, there’s this yank, and, now,
I know
I’m alive,
and I look down,
and the painting has leaves and trees
with long brown
trunks;
and I see a road where ants drive toy cars
and move sand on sidewalks.
And this guy on my back is steering in circles,
and I am
the hawk.
I lower my beak to watch rabbits, and they dunk
under bushes,
so,
I am
the moth.
And they get bigger and closer, and I become
a thunderstorm
that screams in the distance,
then sneaks up and pounds
on the porch—
until I can’t feel God anymore, but I really want to
because I’m near the base of this drop
and I’m sure it’s full of rocks
and I know I’m gonna hit—
And the trees that were once
smaller than me
stretch until they tower
over grass;
and I can’t stop watching them reach
for what I came from,
until I bump my rump
and shake my head and blink
my eyes.
And this guy on my back,
who’s, now, by my side;
reaches over and throws me a high five,
so I
breathe
and put my feet on the ground
to stand up—
And something
in me
is wailing—
So I
step back to smile— And,
for a second, it’s like
we’re alone, making love,
and we speak with our eyes—
So I wrap him up like he’s part
of my breathing.
And when the others come,
I step back and fold up his eyes
and I stuff them down—
Down,
in my pocket,
where
Sweet.
Beautiful.
Amy.
Cries.
And he and I— we
hold out our hands to show them how not
nervous we are— And I—
I
Am!
And I look, again, at this Black Guy by my side
and I—
—dammit!—
I am the ant.
That fell.
From a leaf.
—from Rattle #74, Winter 2021
Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist
__________
Mary Meadows: “I can’t go back and change what I said to ‘Amy’ when we were kids, but I hope it brings her solace to know that there’s a part of me that’s hated myself ever since. I think of her sometimes and I worry that this memory haunts her like it haunts me. I hope it doesn’t. I hope she was too young to remember it. And, if not, I hope it was the only time in her life that she ever had to deal with something like that. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I wish I could go back and fix it, but I can’t.”
