The Cliff

There is a park with a pool where the landfill used to be near my childhood home. A fissure opens up every couple of years and produces a lost treasure for someone fortunate to find it.

I have traveled back to the old landfill to remember my youth of yesteryear. The place held a lot of treasures. There are ghosts buried there now. Sometimes, late in the evening, they are seen rising from the ashes of my youth. My time spent there, along with other friends, is buried there for all eternity, or almost anyway.

Karl and I are walking there now. We are not ghosts but are living at that time. We a going cliff climbing today. It is sixty feet high and dangerous. You climb down the front of the cliff, but you have to climb the less steep part, which is in the rear to get there.

It’s a warm and sunny middle summer day. I’m wearing my high-top Ked’s sneakers. They cost my Mother five dollars on sale at the five-and-dime store. Today, if she were alive and went to buy them, they would cost at least fifty dollars.

Karl and I are both wearing Keds. They are our special mountain climbing shoes. So are the blue jeans we are wearing. They are not designer jeans. They are just plain old Levi’s. That’s about all you could buy thirty years ago.

The narrow path up the side of the cliff is overgrown with weeds. It is not used very often by young, courageous boys. People then and people now didn’t take the chances or challenges put to them. That cliff was our challenge that day. It was our opportunity to lift ourselves above the pack. It will raise us to one of the highest dimensions that one can achieve.

It was to be our Zenith.

We carried hatchets and Boyscout knives to cut away the dead brush in our path. Slowly and cautiously, we made our way to the summit. The top of the cliff was desolate and barren. We compared it to a mountain on the moon.

We will leave the mark of our adventure on the cliff. I will chip my initials into the hard rock at the peak. It will say Jimmy G. It will forever tell someone who dares climb the cliff that I was there. I conquered the cliff in my youth.

We finally made it to the top. A crow suddenly flew by us as we crossed the plateau on the top. I thought it was an omen of things to come, which scared us.

I borrowed my mother’s rope she used for a clothesline. This is what we used to lower ourselves down the face of the cliff. She found out later I borrowed it without permission.

Karl started down first.

It was at least fifty feet straight down to the rocks below. Hey Karl, I shouted, “take the end of the rope.” “I’ll be okay without it,” he said. He looked at me with that big confident smile. He was very sure of himself. Yet, I still worried about him. I didn’t want anything to happen to my best friend.

He made his way down the side of the cliff around some large boulders that protruded outward. There was a rough, narrow path that he was working his way through.

I tied a rope around my waist, and then I tied the other end to a tree root at the top. I began to follow Karl’s path very slowly. The brush was so dense I could hardly see him below me.

Suddenly, I heard rocks breaking loose and falling to the ground below. Then I heard a frightful scream. What followed were intense cries for help. I peered over the rock to see what had happened.

He fell about fifteen feet to a narrow ledge below. “Karl, I shouted; Karl, are you alright? There was no answer. Then, through the thick bushes, I heard his strained voice. He said, “I think I broke my leg.”

I didn’t even have to think about what I did next. I knew what to do in an instant, but how to do it was another matter. I lowered myself down to where he was lying.

He smiled to let me know he was doing fine when I got there. But I knew better. His leg was bleeding. I had to get him out of there and to a doctor but fast. I leaned over the edge and decided the only way to go was back up. I told Karl to pull himself up on my back. I would pull him and myself back up the cliff face.”

I positioned myself so that he could grab onto my neck. He nearly choked me when he wrapped his arms around me. He was shaking so badly it started to make me tremble.

Slowly, I started pulling both of us up the cliff. He felt heavy, like a dead weight. Luckily, he was still alive. he said, ” Jimmy, I can’t hold on any longer.

You have to hold on, Karl, or die, and I will die with you. He held on tighter with all his might. He held on so hard my air passage was almost blocked what seemed like an hour passed. I finally worked my way up to the top. I fell down to rest. Karl hit his broken leg on the ground. He let out a loud scream. We were safe.

I managed to tie him to my back with the rope I had. I slowly crawled down on my hands and knees down the side of the cliff. I didn’t stop until I carried him all the way home.

His mother saw us coming down the street. Her name was Hilda. She worked at a candy store. I got all the free candy I ever wanted from that day on.

She almost fainted when she saw the blood on Karl’s leg. The bone could be seen through the gash in his left leg. The doctor was immediately called. He was taken to the hospital, and we rode in the ambulance with him. He was in a cast for six weeks.