The Pole

a short story

Hello readers! Below is a short-ish story I’ve had in the works for a while. I took a break from my second novel to tidy it up and share it with you. Warning, it’s not for the squeamish.

New subscribers, welcome, and note that my novel Song of the Red-Legged Birds is available for free. I’d love to hear what you think of it.

Thanks for reading,
Bill

---

The Pole

“You best get scramblin if’n you want to ring that bell afore times up!” Skrimshaw spat a wet slick of chaw into the scorched sand, which sucked all moisture from it before he finished a psychotic laugh like a hyena fighting for a carcass.

The hundred-foot pole stood in a circle of ragged stones set in place before anyone alive could recollect with certainty. At noon, the gold bell affixed to its apex was like a heavenly beacon as it reflected the sun, amplifying its brilliance and making it visible to the naked eye for miles on the withered and desiccated terrain of the plain. If the stones in the circle could speak, they would scream. Screaming for the bodies that broke across their backs. Maybe they would scream at those who surrounded them, those who watched as the remains of men were gathered into rickety wheelbarrows and carted off to be burned. Ashes turned loose on the rare breeze that cooled the evenings. The blood left to cook on the hot stones, forever painting their faces even as the humans forgot what colored them.

“Ya’aint nervous, are yah? That’d be a shame. People here for a show, bettin hard-earned coin. Ain’t above sayin’ many think you’ll get past fifty feet! And that only halfway! Hell, I got a tenner that you’ll make it up’n seventy fore you come down in a heap. Hehe!” Skrimshaw spat again and wiped his forearm across cracked lips, turning his head towards the bell and holding onto the frayed straw hat. “You know I ain’t seed that bell a rung in forty turns. I was a pup myself. That man go by the name Scanlon, no, Scranton I think. I heared he was a lifer up to sway from the knot. Heared he didn’t even do much trainin’. You believe that? Climb the Peace Pole with no trainin’, and he ringing the bell too! No one I knowed testify where he got off to after settin’ his feet down on the ground. Story goes he took his paper from the marshall and set to walkin’ straight across the desert. And that more dangerous than the Pole, I say!”

Skrimshaw had been overseeing Pole scrambles for most of his life and clocking in at over seventy-five years old; most hadn’t seen another facilitate the gruesome spectacle. A particular disdain for humanity was needed for the job, or just a lack of connection with your fellow man on any level. He had both in spades despite his darkly cheerful countenance. In his younger years, he was a shooter, one set to pick off climbers who got past ninety feet. Three pulls of Jack Daniel’s was all it took to hear him brag about his stoppages. If he drank more than that, he’d regale you with descriptions of broken men writhing in the dirt.

They’d removed my shackles as I stood there staring up at the Pole, noting the levels marked in feet in white paint touched up every spring by a member of the maintenance crew. A shove in the back from a deputy cradling a shotgun roused me.

“Git,” the man said.

I fell to my knees on the scorched ground and ran through the levels one last time. The first ten feet were easy. Long spikes were driven in at random intervals that could hold your weight as long as you held on. After ten, it was game on. From ten to twenty, the spikes would retract and protrude in a seemingly random pattern and interval. Be quick, smart, or both–or end up on your back waiting for a shooter to finish the job. Reaching twenty, the spikes were stagnant again, but hot, scorching hot. Accept that you’re going to get burned and move fast. At thirty, adrenaline would be flowing and hopefully carry me through the pain. This section was gross. Filth oozed and stunk from the spike holes, making it very slippery. The longer you waited here, the worse it got. Reaching forty, you were met with frozen spikes. Each handhold would threaten to freeze your skin in place. Eclipsing this to the fifty-foot mark, I knew I’d begin to feel muscle fatigue, not to mention the fear of being that high off the ground. Heights were never my strong suit. I’ll be questioning why I’m doing this. Hopefully, I’ll remember with clarity that there was no choice. The gathered crowd of gamblers and sick bastards will likely be getting loud now, screaming for me to go higher or fall. Whatever is more profitable or what satisfies that disturbed part of their brain. Fifty to sixty shouldn’t be that hard. Simple spikes again, like the first ten feet. Except that the pole is wrapped in barbed wire. One slip could cause a lot of pain at best. At worst, I could be hung upside down like that poor bastard a few years ago. I’m not thrilled at all about sixty to seventy, even though most might think it’s one of the easier sections. It spins, and the speed increases as time goes on. I’ve always had a weak stomach for spinning. Focusing on each next spike and moving quickly is critical, or I’ll puke, lose my nerve, and get launched from the pole a good distance. Some sick fuck came up with seventy to eighty. I mean, a sicker fuck than the one that came up with this whole thing. Seventy to eighty is not only random, it might be completely new. I’ve heard of it being charged with bolts of electricity, loaded with spiders, eardrum-shattering noise, and high-pressure wind blasts. Of course, this really sucks because I’ll be moving quickly from the last section and have no idea what I’ll find here; this one is the biggest gamble on the Pole. But if I can get to eighty, I get a break. It’s just like the first ten feet, normal. The intent here is to make you think about the last section. There’s ten feet to the bell and two shooters on the ground trying to pick you off. The only thing to wish for is that if I get hit, I can hold on. Sad to say that I’ve seen a man make it this high and take one right in the jaw, and that was after ten shots missed. He was so close. Froze up. It gave them time to aim. I’ve got to move.

“Ain’t gonna say git one more time, just drop you here and collect my winnings that you’d punk out,” the Deputy said.

---

You don’t set out thinking you’ll be incarcerated by the end of the day. You especially don’t when simply grabbing a soda from a convenience shop to satisfy a childlike sugar craving. Maybe I had it coming. Resentment sat in my belly for years like a stone, weighing me down. Pulling me. Knocking about my soul to remind me that I’d never be a better man. I ask you, what’s easier, dealing with those demons or taking it out on the one in front of you? You’re probably a better person than me. Or a liar. Probably resolve those questions with some higher power… but that’s still you, right? You’d have finished that soda and belched along to a pop tune on a drive back to your perfect life. Your eyes wouldn’t have searched for trouble. They would have passed it over like a brand of cereal you weren’t looking for if they found it. Not mine though. Nope. Maybe your eyes would’ve known there was a problem, that something wasn’t right, but you pretended not to notice. Not your problem. Soon to be forgotten. But not me. Not today. There was no significance to the time as far as my conscious mind was concerned. For all I know, I was a boiling teapot, and this was taking me off the heat. Didn’t my lawyer say something like that in his half-hearted defense?

The child, a little girl with tawny pigtails slightly askew, jerked her arm from the man clamped on it by the wrist. Her eyes, that’s what got me to the base of the Pole. How’d they make her do the eyes? She couldn’t have been more than five years old. Help is what they said. A wiser man would’ve sensed deception; I’m not that man. They knew that though, no doubt. This guy’s angry and has a hero complex. Easy win. Maybe we’re all easy wins, the kinds that play the hero and attempt the climb. Ironically, the kind wanting to save someone else at the risk of everything. Maybe that’s not irony. Some twisted death wish? But I don’t want to die. I’m gonna make that climb.

---

After chasing him part of the way down the dank alley that smelled of hot sweat and refried sewage next to the all-night store, I swear he slowed a bit to let me catch up. Hindsight, another tell. I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him hard and face-first into the side of an overflowing dumpster. I heard a cracking, something broke in him, and then a far stranger sound. He was saying, “I’m sorry.” A stray cat scrambled over him and tore towards the depths of the greasy corridor. I rolled him onto his back and drove my fist into his jaw.

“What’d you say to me, you sick fuck!”

He tried to speak through spat blood that sluiced into the creases of his button-down shirt.

“Mm… the… thorry.” A tooth rolled to the ground.

“Leave him alone!” a voice screamed from behind me. The little girl stood at the mouth of the alley, backlit by dirty amber light from loping steel fixtures like sentinels to the dark side of skittering evening souls.

“Thony… thop…” the man burbled.

I grabbed a fist full of his bloody shirt, hoisting him off the ground. With the benefit of reflection, I’d detached. My mind, or brain, or whatever crap the jury heard my shrink say. The moment I’d been waiting for someone to take it out on arrived. Someone who deserved it. I thought he did. I wasn’t thinking about what man does to survive—never heard of a ruse so sick. Wouldn’t have believed it either. As sure as I’m tellin’ it now, that man was a half second from me caving in his skull when I was hauled off him. I never heard the law at all. Mostly just a high-pitched ringing in my ears that kept going as I was shackled and dragged into the squad car past the doe-eyed little girl who shook under a lawman’s heavy overcoat.

Look, I’m not going into detail about how I was sure he’d taken that youngun, held her against her will. I just sensed it. And I sensed it because that’s what I was supposed to do. I might as well have been beating my own face in that alley. I went in it a free man, a man of options, and came out a vile, caged brute that gave a would-be hero a beating—nothing to prove otherwise. The innocent little one only had to point at her captor—the big man with bloody knuckles. I was on my way to lock up and eventually the pole the moment that I got thirsty. I don’t know, maybe I’ll find out someday what the payoff was. Most people struggle to get by. There’s been rumors of how men are selected to climb for more years than I’ve seen. Most ranked up there with the Yeti or Sasquatch. Selected ain’t the right word though. I know that now. The thing is, it doesn’t matter. I tried to play the hero, and here I am—the fool.

---

My kind, the kind they said I was, don’t dare hope to see daylight again. They keep us down deep in the bowels of the suck, where I simmered for the right amount of time before it was spelled out for me. I can’t imagine a soul that’d choose life ankle-deep in your filth against a shot at freedom. It’s worth getting out of this caged hell in exchange for a few moments of fresh air, even if I end up broken by the Pole.

No time to rage at my captors or the system that puts on these sick spectacles to numb the masses. Don’t rightly care. Spose I should. When my feet touch back down on the gravel, when I’m a shimmering blot on the horizon’s heat to the watchers, I may feel different. May not. I’m lazy and selfish. Strong though. Reckon that’s why they picked me. They need someone to go high.

---

I recollect that the last meal is something people like to know about. I guess that’s the measure of a man. Beef or chicken. Soup or salad. Always thought it odd when I ever did have a chance to wonder about such things. I passed on a meal, too close to climbing time, and I didn’t need my body doing anything else. But I did ask for a final conversation. I’m not talking about final words to be scrawled next to my name in a cheap coffee table book. A final chat with some other earth-bound meat bag like myself. About what, you wonder? I didn’t care.

“Can I talk to the guy that would’ve brought my food?”

“About what?”

“Nuthin particular.”

“Why?”

“Why not.”

I hear the jailer breathe the breath of the annoyed but resigned. Don’t fault this clock-puncher either.

“Ten minutes tops. Can’t promise he’ll do it.”

“All right.”

“It’s a kindness, and you didn’t want chow.”

I nod.

Keys rattle the lock of the unwieldy, swollen door, which scrapes on tracks screeching like the souls of past inhabitants found rotted on the ground. A graying figure whose body is turning into the letter c steps inside, holding his hat. The jailer hovers behind, hand gripping an aged oak thumper.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

The graying man glances at the putridity that is my living quarters and nods.

“You can sit there if you want; I won’t keep you long.” I motion to an overturned wooden crate.

“Said you wanted to see me?”

“I did.”

“About something particular?”

“Not particular at all.”

“Oh.”

“What happened to your face? Big ole scratch.”

The man runs his hand gently over a scabbed spot on his cheek.

“Hurt myself workin’ fixin’ my porch.”

“How you come to that?”

“Porch need fixin, loose and rotten boards.”

“No, how you come to the scratch?”

“Accident.”

“Surely. How so?”

“You ain’t want to hear that?”

“Reckon I do.”

He clasps his hands as if rubbing them brings the story to mind.

“I was fixin’ to nail in a couple new pieces after tearing out the old ones. Tearing the old took a turn, and it being hotter than sin in a church, I worked up quite a sweat, you see. I’d nothin’ to drink, my temper gettin’ real thin, my missus not around, out at her sisters. She’d bring lemonade on a day like at. Well, I set the board in place and drove in an inch and a halfer but hell if it ain’t long enough to hold tight. You wants to hear more?”

“I do.”

He shrugs. “See, I need an inch and three quarters, more an likely, and I got some them son bitches in the shed. I head back thar, find an old dusty box half full of em’, and when I pick them up a roach size of my pinky finger skitters away. Gave me a start.”

“And you scratched yourself then?”

“Naw. I’m gettin’ to that. The roach set me on edge. Set me to it. In my mind, yah see. I take the box of them inch and three-quarter fasteners back to the porch. Set that box down on the deck and grab my hammer. I’m right tired at this point; not a youngin like yerself. I can get tired watchin’ the sunrise. Well, I open that box, and another nasty-ass roach jumps out. I ain’t above saying I yelped. In my yelpin’ I brung that hammer down on the edge of the box, missed that roach entirely. Sent nails flying and one directly at my face. Landed this here jagged souvenir. That’s about it.”

“Hell.”

“Ain’t so bad. Missus thinks I’m a dang fool, but she ain’t far off. When I fix somethin’, I break somethin’ too.”

“How’d the repair turn out?”

“Just fine. I finished it out of spite, blood drippin’ onto the new planks. Course, that’s partly why my beloved called me a fool. Like I said, she ain’t wrong.”

“Don’t care for roaches, do yah?”

“Not much.”

“Thanks for telling me about it.”

“Weren’t nothin’. That all you wanted?”

“Didn’t know, but that’ll do.”

We’re both quiet for a minute, and the graying man fidgets and meets my stare, “You want to talk about yersef, the climb?”

“No. I mean, thank you, no.”

“Times up,” the jailer says, banging the thumper on the door frame.

The graying man stands slowly as joints click back into place, nods to me, and leaves. The jailer says, “Tomorrow,” before grinding the door shut, leaving an echo that pierces dreams, where I fall forever through the fates, torments, and sorrows of humanity, all the while screaming like a lost child in the empty, darkening shell of a city.

---

So, after the deputy’s “Git,” I got. To it, that is. I was never one to put off what needed to be done, no matter the cost, and today, the cost was high. All in. They’d read my crimes off in a bullhorn that echoed across low-rise dwellings and into the ears of pasty onlookers. Some cried for blood, others placed final bets, and a few looked as scared as I should feel. But the roar was dampened to a whisper when I stepped forward, boots crunching into hard-packed gravel.

Skrimshaw let out another earsplitting, “Hehe!”

I took a deep breath, a last thought about the family I wish I’d had, and ran to the base.

“Lookey, folks! Thar he go, like his backsides aflame. It may turn out that’a way! No more bets. That goes for you, too!” he said, turning to one of the cameras trained on the action.

Some would say that pacing yourself is how to climb the Pole. But some say a lot of stupid things they’ve never done. I wanted into the pain and discomfort quickly, before my mind began a self-defense routine that shuts down limber muscles and pours lactic acid like a geyser; clouded judgement following on its heels. I’d been up and down this torture device hundreds of times in my mind to shore up these potential problems. How would I do?

I always remember the sound of that last crunch as I lept from terra firma to the cold steel handholds of the Pole. The white-painted zero directly in front of my nose. I scrambled hand over hand up the first ten-foot section quickly and paused to assess the random spike pattern of section two. The sound was rhythmic. A schink, chonk, schink, chonk. I planned to grab one as it set out and leap up to catch the next. At least three leaps of faith should get me up to twenty feet, and the inevitable pain of scorching hot spikes at that level. I lept and secured the first grab. One foot found purchase, and I jumped and missed with my right hand. The crowd gasped.

“Uh oh, folks!” Skrimshaw tittered. “We gonna be done early.”

My left hand flailed as my left foot connected with a lower rung. That momentary connection set my mind right, and my left hand found the solid grip of a spike. In time with the next schink, chonk, I lept repeatedly. No pattern to it, but I discovered I could leap, look and grab without worry. Two more jumps before mandatory pain.

“Leapin lizards of Louisana, I say! Lookey that convict go!”

I glanced up and regarded the pale glow of the heated spikes in section twenty. I picked my route, steeled my nerves, and jumped. To say I was prepared for that first searing of flesh would be a dammed lie. I ain’t about that. I grabbed that first spike and howled like a baby fallen from its crib. In fact, for a second, I was transported back in time. Not to a painful memory like you’d imagine, but I was running through a field with my dog, chasing a squirrel together. I’m told that the mind does strange things in times of crisis. At this moment, I lost the present altogether and was in the middle of the filth-ridden ooze of section thirty without a memory of getting there. The gelatinous and noxious sick that oozed from the spikes was a comfort to the scorched flesh of my palms. Or maybe it was adrenaline kicking in. I wondered if anyone died from an infection after making it through this sadistic ascension. The goo slid into my boots, and my footing became more of a problem than my hands as I squished and rocked back and forth to steady myself for another step. Near the top of this section, approaching the forty-foot mark, I began to feel tremors in my legs—the kind that originate in the mind, not the muscle. My eyes forgot the plan and scanned the ground, the bloodthirsty crowd, and Skrimshaw’s twisted, gaping grin. Words began an assault on my remaining confidence. They threw ladders up against the fortress of my resolve while marauders scrambled over the walls. You’ll fall. You’re weak. You can’t fool yourself. Spineless. Gutless. Coward.

Coward. A trigger word–snapped me out of it. Even your mind can fuckup manipulating you. That word, so often proved true, would not be how I died. A coolness began to fill me like water in a glass. I pulled my gaze from the ground and past the large forty where the frozen spikes lay in wait, craving flesh. I made my leap and grab like a crazed monkey. Shards of frozen lightning shot through my arms, nearly taking my breath as I latched on. I’d not expected this at all. Luckily, I’d kept one hand off the frozen spikes because my right lost all feeling, seemingly flash-frozen into a claw. No sensory input. Like having a log at the end of my arm. If both hands were thus affected, I might as well fall to my death or sit and wait for the grace of a bullet. I watched some of my flesh, previously loosened in the heat of the twenty-foot zone, affix to the spike at eye level like a sick calling card. The raw meat of fingertips exposed to the wind which increased with my elevation.

“Cold enough fer yah!” Skrimshaw laughed to the raucous crowd–his words muffled by the drumming of my heartbeat. It slammed the insides of my head, alerting my nervous system of the strain and stress. I imagine those nerves replying, “We fuckin know! Do your job!”

Cold crept into the soles of my boots, threatening to freeze them in place on the gleaming spikes. I rocked my feet back and forth, freeing them with a crackle, and ascended with my left hand while letting my right flop to my side to recover. Less than ten feet to the barbed wire section at fifty, the halfway point. I couldn’t make it to the top using only one arm, no way. Hopefully, some feeling would return to my damaged hand, enough feeling to use it and not so much that I’d black out from the pain. Take the pain. Take the pain. All in vain unless you take the pain. You do what works for you, stupid rhymes work for me, they’re working now. Left pull, step right. Left pull, step left. Again, again. My face nearly touched the surface of the pole as I climbed. I felt an eyelash adhere to the steel and pull from my lid, blurring my vision for an instant. Left pull, step right. The repetition got me to the top of the section, winded, pain throbbing from head to toe, and fifty feet left.

The barbed wire section is deceptive in that it’s exactly what your eyes take in. Razor-sharp bards wrap the pole and hand holds. Placed carefully, you may escape with minor pain. Placed carefully, you may not catch a pant leg you cannot free yourself from. But tired and pained humans do not make careful decisions. We trip and drop things in the middle of the night. A small voice reminded me of this as a louder one pushed to get it over with. I reached with my right hand for the first time in several minutes, flexing stiff and thawing fingers that creaked like an unoiled hinge. I managed to slide my hand through a stab-filled labyrinth, taking a firm grip, only grazing my forearm, which sprang tiny crimson dots like Morse code. Heaving myself up, I felt the coarse material of my prison trousers catch on a barb, pulling me back. Like vermin trapped in a snare, I shook my leg until it was free, swinging it out in a wide arc and watching for safe station on a spiked rung. I saw rivulets of blood streak down my forearm, painting crimson paths through sweat and grime and devising routes like water creasing mountain valleys for an outlet. I hoped to keep enough inside of my body to remain lucid. A real danger, as I recall, or thought I did. The haze crept at the edges of awareness. For a moment, I felt I heard the girl’s voice from the store, “This isn’t for you,” she whispered, and I shook my head as if dismissing a mosquito. Then, the pole began to warp like a funhouse mirror. There were so many obvious dangers to plan for that I’d spent no time on anything entirely new. Poison. The barbs were likely more lethal than any other section. I imagined them dipped in something that may not kill me but would make me act crazy, up the fun for the viewers and sadists. Threading my torn hand through a liquid haze without further infection would be difficult. But the next section spins, the one after is random, and if I make it to eighty, I get ten feet of rest. Call it rest if you like. Plans be dammed, and caution aside, I hit the hallucinations straight on. The pole morphing into a candy cane that smelled of peppermint, I decided to move fast. Several more slashes on my hands and arms later, I’d reached the top of the section, but the landscape blurred into something like The Scream by Edvard Munch as more of the toxin infiltrated my bloodstream and clouded my consciousness. My head felt heavy and sloshed on my shoulders like a half-filled water balloon. As soon as I touched the handhold in the next section, it would begin to spin and get faster until I climbed past it or was tossed into the wind like a leaf in a tornado. The only good news was that I had no room left in my mind for worry. A primal desire to survive woke up and leaped past pain, poison, fear, and fatigue. I grabbed the first handhold into section sixty.

The sound of grinding rusty metal gears, which hadn’t been oiled in decades, screeched as the section came alive and began to turn like a psychotic carousel, accompanied by teeth-gritting, sped up, calliope music. But maybe that was in my head? It wasn’t easy to tell. It was also difficult to tell which of the myriad handholds in front of me was real and which were illusions. Pick the middle one was my only thought on that matter. I took a shaky handhold and felt for purchase as the centrifugal force began to weigh down my body, desperately trying to convince it to let go and let fly. Another grab for a twirling grip as my feet skittered across slick pegs, smacking into them on missed placements and sending waves of as-yet-new and colorful pain through my nervous system.

“Him a whirly-do now folks! Ya’ll keep back nah. This ole convict’ll end up in yer lap I say. Spill yer poppy corns.” Skrimshaw howled with laughter, his voice cutting through the carousel from hell music.

I heaved myself up another step and barfed the remains of my last meal into the air, having turned my head away. Weakness from the sick expulsion crept into my knees, but I held fast as the rotation speed notched up a level. In a few seconds, there wouldn’t be a person alive who could maintain a grip without being tossed. I made a break into the next section. The large number seventy signifying arrival at the random level. I braced for the unknown, and as I took a firm grasp of the first hold with my right hand, which looked like shredded meat, the whole section turned into a video mosaic. My mother appeared in the digital grid and, with a smile, said, “You’ve always been a pathetic disappointment.”

---

That began a soul assault from every family member, friend, coworker, and acquaintance. They flicked into view in pixelated squares and exclaimed how disappointing I was, how I was weak, broke, and spineless. Shallow, selfish, and sad. Broken, hollow, and without talent. My grandfather just pointed and laughed. While a cousin chanted, “Let go, let go, let go!” I knew none of it was real and all a video graphics AI manipulation, but it froze me. Whispers bounced off walls in my mind, assuring me that this was what everyone really thought and that everything else was a lie. I could feel it sapping my remaining strength, and my fingers began to slip. I grabbed the pole in a bear hug, face pressed against my best friend from childhood, who said, “I always hated you.” An old girlfriend called me impotent; a high school coach called me weak, fat, and slow; and a friend said that everyone knows I’m a joke. Even my dog came into view, growling at me with bared teeth. 

My guts twisted into a fist.

I screamed until I ran out of air and slumped in place. An errant leaf could’ve knocked me off.

“That’ll about do yah for him, folks! Kicked right in the feelies! Ain’t seen a man clear sempty in a dogs age. Watch em’ drop and plop, ere he go!”

Skrimshaw’s braying cut a path through fields of doubt and shame. I unwrapped my arms from the pole; my precarious balance was only maintained by rocking footholds. Seething raw fire poured from my center as I leapt and grabbed for the next hold and the next. The videos became a liquid blur, and the only sound was the echo from my scream. I passed the eighty-foot mark, the last section to have no torture devices. The next one, the final one, would include shooters from the ground.

“I cain’t believes it my own self, folks! Looks like we be gettin a wee bit of target practice in today, hoooo-eeeee! Shooters, lock and load!” Skrimshaw screeched over the gasps and shouts from the crowd.

I slunk my way up the section, moving slowly and hoping to recover as much as possible. It’s ten feet to the bell when I cross the ninety-foot marker and a zip line to the ground and freedom. But the chances that I’d take a round to the head or vital organ were much greater.

I could hear a faint gasp from the crowd as three marksmen took positions in a triangle at the base of the Pole, raising their weapons to gather me in the center of crosshairs. Six shots. To live, I expected to dodge at least six rounds, two from each killer–If I moved fast. Another three if I was slow. I relaxed my muscles as much as possible and took four long, deep breaths. Raising my left leg to rest on a spike, I chambered it, telegraphing my next move, a leap straight up. Gathering my will felt sticky. Hard to let go and play this out, knowing these could literally be my last thoughts. Would I have any as I flew towards the ground? Or if I took a round to the head?

I grasped the handholds tighter and began to rock back and forth, one, two… three. I lurched up. Two shots rang out, one dead center where my chest would have been had I actually jumped up and not sat back on my haunches. It was a trick I could only play once, but it had saved me precious seconds while two of the three shooters reloaded. The crowd screamed at the sound of the ricocheting rounds. The pole obscured the third shooter’s view, and I jumped up for real this time. His first shot was close enough that I felt it whiz by my ear. I had no time for gratitude that they had to reload after each round; that was part of the game. Automatic weapons wouldn’t be a crowd-pleaser. But after three’s miss, I jumped up and scrambled to his side, knowing the first two killers would be ready for their second volley. That move got me halfway to the top and my first glimpse of the shining gold bell atop this nightmare. A small steel hammer was tethered to the apex next to the taught zip line wire, my ride to freedom. As I landed on the backside, I heard another wild shot ping off of the pole near my hands, and one smacked into the meat of my left calf. My howl of pain was dampened by adrenaline gushing like rapids after a storm through my veins. I chanced a glance down at my leg. I shouldn’t have; it was a mess of unrecognizable gore. Shooter number three put a round into the heel of my right boot while I took this look. I didn’t think it hit my foot, but maybe I was beyond pain. Not trusting my left leg anymore, I gave weight-bearing duties to my right and scrambled around and up again. When I’d secured that step, there was but one more leap to the bell. I felt like I could almost smell it. Push with your right, reach for the hammer with your left, and smack it.

I began to feel this burning and annoying sensation in my guts. Looking down, I saw a blooming bloodstain near my stomach.

“Hoooo-eeee! That’ll leave a mark, convict! He’s about to take the die-rect route to the ground folks. Avert yer eyes now if’n yer squeamish! Hee hee!”

I thought about how much it sucked to have gotten this close. My vision swam, my head got heavy, and my fingers started to loosen. Instead of looking down, I looked up and, for a moment, spotted a bird cruising through the blinding sun that reflected off the bell. I wondered if I would fly if I only allowed myself to take to the air.

Some say that life passes you before your eyes in moments like this. It didn’t exactly happen that way for me. But something did. The absurdity of existence enveloped me as if my soul received a hug from all that has been. And I laughed. I laughed at the pain, the horror, and the spectacle. I laughed as another shot pinged between my legs, nearly smashing my cock. I shook with giddiness so much that I almost let go, but without strategy, speed, or plan, I climbed the last step slowly, clutched the hammer, and smacked the bell.

Fireworks burst from the top of the pole and drowned out the clang of victory.

“I’ll be dipped!” Skrimshaw howled through the loudspeaker.

With my head swimming, I let go of the hammer and reached for the steel handgrips attached to the zip line. Without a thought, I let go with my feet and rapidly descended. The wire snaked above the crowd and past a high fence, destined for a fast-approaching, small, and weathered wooden shack with time-worn shovels and tools leaning against it as if supporting the structure. Several marked dirt piles were set ten yards away. The last thing I remembered was the looming crash pads.

---

I awoke on a cot that smelled of mold and history. My first attempts to move were thwarted by joints and muscles that creaked with misery. I glanced down to see that my stomach and calf were neatly wrapped in clean gauze. Next to the cot, a tin pan held the remains of old bloody dressings. A sweating pitcher of water and a broken-handled mug sat on the floor, immediately signaling my thirst. My throat felt like basement dust collected in cobwebbed corners.

A hunched old man sat craned over a rickety desk by the sole window, which let the filtered light of midday through tattered flower-pattered curtains that danced shadows across his deeply lined face. He scribbled in a thick and battered notebook with the nub of a pencil.

I gathered the energy to sit and set my feet on the floor. I started to speak, but the man held up a finger without glancing at me. He pointed to clothes folded neatly on top of a backpack by the door. I pulled the stiff jeans and loose t-shirt on; my bandaged hands throbbed.

“Drink some,” he said, immersed in his work.

I poured a cup of water with the remains of ice dissolving in it. The man tapped at an imaginary calculator in the air, chuckled, and made more notations. From my angle, it looked like the pages were crammed with columns of numbers. He dropped the nub into the book's center and closed it, then ran a hand over his face and long grey whiskers. He smiled.

“Amos Scranton,” he said, holding out a hand that had a slight tremble.

I shook it. “Why do I think you already know me?” I said while tying up boots that the clothes had been piled on.

“Of course I do. You’re the news around here. Or, were the news.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Goin on close to two days now.”

“Two days?”

“Thereabouts. I reckon you had some healin’ to get to.”

I finished tying my boots and looked up at the man. “Amos Scranton? Aren’t you the last person to clear the Pole?”

“I suppose that’s so.” He took the stub of a cigarette from the pocket in his overalls and placed it in the notched corner of his mouth.

“Always imagined that you’d taken off across the continent. I guess that’s how legends work. What brings you here?”

“Same that brung you, I’d say.”

I looked out the window. The end of the wire bolted to a stone in the ground near the crash pads. The handles that I’d clutched on the way down were affixed to the wire, swaying with the breeze and casting long shadows.

Amos rose, bracing himself, and walked to a small kitchenette with a tiny sink half-filled with dishes underneath a dripping faucet. He plucked two short glasses from a shelf and a squarish bottle with a faded, peeling label and amber contents that glowed with noble purpose in the afternoon light.

“Indulge and old man afore you go?” He said.

“Sure. I’m in no rush now that it’s over,” I said.

Amos poured three fingers full into each glass and sat. “Over? Ain’t quite that.”

I pulled a chair forward. “Ain’t quite what?”

“Over, I said.”

“How you figure?” I said.

“By definition, over is the end of somethin',’ and we nearly there but not.”

“We? Why do you say we? I did the climbing and nearly dying. Most recently. All due respect.”

He held his glass at eye level as if using it to examine me closer.

“Could you grab that box high up on that shelf there?” he said, pointing to a dust-coated box of oak, or maybe cherry, about the size of my forearm. A steel clasp cast in the shape of a sickle secured the top. I pulled it down and wiped the dust from the lid with my sleeve before setting it between us.

“Ain’t no sense dragging this out, son; I’m not as sharp as I once was. In times past, I’d been able to discern whether you’d figured this out yet. But I’m full up tired and don’t get many visitors. Open the box.”

I pushed the hasp through with slight resistance and raised the lid. An old Colt revolver sat nestled in red velvet.

“Take her out. Should be loaded. Ain’t checked it in months,” he said, emptying his glass and filling it again.

I removed the weapon from its nesting place, feeling its heft and coolness. The cylinder turned easily and looked full of lethal projectiles. I set it down on the table.

Amos swallowed, smacked his lips, and winced into the sun. As if hearing an offstage cue, he began.

“There are two men, alive, in this shed and only one by tomorrow. As it has always been, as it will always be. One soul to catch searing lead, the other to sit and scribe. There’s nowhere to go, no grand exit where you walk to salvation. Run for it, and you’ll meet your end the quicker. Look to them graves outside if you think I ain’t truth tellin'.”

He swiped the box from the table with a sudden burst, and it crashed to the floor. Amos placed his hand flat on the table, the gun between us.

“Palms down, like mine, son.”

My head began an accelerated throbbing. “You can’t be serious. I won. I’m out. You won. You got out. What is this?” I looked around the room for answers and back to his stern gaze tinged with emergent tears.

“No one gets out, never has. Never will.”

“What?”

“I buried one afore me yonder. And he the one lying next to him.”

“You killed him?”

“Didn’t say that I did. Said I buried him.”

“How’d he die?”

“Took off runnin' like maybe you’re fixing too. They don’t let you get far. Caretakers job to set em’ six foot deep.”

“You’re the caretaker?”

“For now. Could be you in a minute.”

I glanced down at the gun whose lengthening shadow stretched to my hand.

“That’s right. Yer gettin' it. Ain’t but one of us in here tomorrow, other in the ground.”

“Why?” I said.

He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Never much for philosophy. Might as well ask, why is the sky?”

I could feel a tremor in my legs, like standing on the pole rungs with my energy waning.

“Don’t fret, son. Go on and draw before I do. Days have to end,” he said with his palms fixed on the table and eyes set through me to another time.

I snatched the weapon clumsily, managed to cock it, and aimed at his forehead. It was the first time I’d held a gun. Scranton hadn’t moved a muscle, but his eyes softened like a grizzled Buddha.

“Go on,” he said, “it won’t get easier.”

I stood, keeping him sighted behind steel. “What’s wrong with you? Death wish?” I said as my hand shook.

“Wouldn’t call it that, son. It's not my life wish to take one while I’m kicking. I figure that the sand has run down. Sand does that.”

I lowered the Colt to my side. “Have you killed anyone here? This way?”

“Not a breathing soul,” he said.

“Why let me execute you?”

“Son, it’s not about me or you. This game is bigger than us, and only one comes out alive. I’ve done my time, and I’m a tired man. I can’t think clearly anymore, and I’ve got nary a reason to go on. Sad thing is, I can’t even bring myself to end it on my own. Ain’t religion, just fear.” He tilted his head slightly and almost smiled. “You’d be doing me a service.”

I lowered the gun, put the hammer back, and placed it on the table.

“Can’t do that. Won’t,” I said.

Amos closed his eyes for a minute.

“What if we both walked out?” I said.

“Huh?” Amos said, eyes pinched shut.

“It seems to me the last vestige of power we have is choice. Force them to choose one of us, both, or none. Maybe the whole thing stops if we leave together. Has it ever been done?”

“Don’t reckon. Not in all of that thick log book.”

“Fuck this place, and what got us here. Let’s go.” I extended a hand that stopped shaking even as I resigned myself to what might happen.

“How about that?” He said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Something to look forward to.”

Amos got up, and I followed him to the door.

“Shouldn’t we take some stuff–in case we make it out?” I said, scanning the cabin.

“Naw,” he said, turning to face me, “I travel light. Let my last moments be like my first.”

“May not be the last,” I said.

“Well, I like surprises,” he said. “Come on.”

He opened the door. The early evening remains of the sun spilled into the shed, lighting Amos Scranton’s countenance in an ethereal glow.

We began our walk west across the wasteland, shadows following.

The end.