I crane my neck, my eyes grazing the flat limestone, and then I spot Sully waving at the top of 120 feet of ascension. “You climbed without me?” I frown. “I thought you wanted to do this together?”
“That was the plan until I got here.” His legs hang off the cliff. “I was just going to scope out the face, but I saw weeds and dirt in the cracks. I cleaned the route for you on my way up.” I can almost see him shrug. “I didn’t want you to die in Pennsylvania on a hundred and twenty foot ascent. If Ryke Meadows is gonna go out, he’s gotta go out big.”
“Thanks, man,” I say with as much appreciation as my voice will allow. If I climbed and found loose rocks in the cracks and handholds, it would’ve been a bad time. I’m thankful for a friend like Adam Sully, especially after all my college ones were shit when I became famous.
Sully never really cared. He doesn’t even mention it that much. We met at summer camp, climbed together, and we’ve done it ever since. Some months I don’t see him since he backpacks a lot, skipping college. For cash, he’s a climbing instructor at a gym. When we meet up, it’s like no time has passed. It’s like we’re at summer camp again, picking up right where we left off.
He’s the kind of friend I’ll have for life. Not because we share deep f**king secrets or our heartbreak—we don’t do either—but because we have a passion for the same thing. And even though I know I may die alone while I climb, I’ve been lucky enough to share each accomplishment and triumph with someone else who understands what it means to reach the top.
“I’m timing you,” Sully tells me. “What’s your first record?”
“You f**king know all of my times.” He always told them to kids at camps, gloating about my speed climbs each year. And then when we were instructors, he’d f**king tell the pros. And then when we were considered pros, he’d tell anyone who’d listen.
“Remind me,” he says.
I dip my hand in the chalk and then begin scanning my path upwards, a grid that I see laid out with each crack and divot and precipice in the f**king rock. “The first time I climbed this, it took one brutal f**king hour,” I tell him.
“And what’s your latest time?”
I smack my hands together, the chalk pluming. “Six minutes, thirty-eight seconds.”
I know he’s smiling. I don’t even have to see him. “I’ll see you at the top.”
My lips rise.
And I climb.
* * *
I didn’t set my stopwatch since Sully’s timing me, but the ascent feels different from the last time I did it, which was over a year ago. I feel lighter, freer. Stronger.
I’m near the top, clinging to the rock, my hand slipping between the smallest crack in the mountain, a fissure just deep enough for my fingertips to rest. I support my body with this single grip until I reach for the next handhold, a space where two rocks meet.
I move fast and precisely, not stopping to catch my breath or to consider an alternate path. This is where I’m f**king going, and I just go.
My muscles stretch, every inch of my body used with each new position. At one point, I have all of my body supported by two fingers. I find good footing to adjust my weight.
I look down once or twice and grin. I don’t have a problem with heights. I also know if I fall, I’ll die, but people don’t realize how confident I am. If I didn’t think I could do it, I wouldn’t.
“Oh my God, he doesn’t have a rope!” I hear a woman yell the closer I am towards the top. She wears a helmet and stands beside her instructor, coming off a route with bolts.
“I know,” Sully says, still sitting on the cliff. “That’s my friend.” His smile reaches his scraggily hair that covers his ears.
“He’s crazy,” another man says.
“He’s a professional,” the instructor tells them. “We also don’t advise anyone to free-solo.”
And then I reach the last ten feet, the easy part. My muscles barely ache. I have a lot more left in me, and it bolsters my f**king confidence to go after my other goals in Yosemite.
I hike my body onto the ledge beside Sully. The people behind me just stare, and I try not to make eye contact in case they’re into celebrity news, reality television, all that shit. They congregate together, looking like they’ll keep their distance.
I turn to Sully, who wears a squirrely looking smile.
“What?” I ask.
He unzips his backpack and pulls out a store bought cake, all the white icing smashed into the plastic lid from the climb. “It said Climb that bitch.” He pops the lid and sticks his finger in the icing. “I guess we’ll have to settle for limb that itch.” He grins. “That’s even better.”
It’s hard to joke around when you’re overcome with foreign emotion. I squeeze his shoulder.
He pats my back and then nods to the cake. “This half is mine by the way. You can take the itchy piece.” He uses a plastic fork to cut the cake in two.
We eat quietly at first, staring out at the expansive view of the quarry. I can hear a guy scream in terror and excitement as he jumps off one of the jagged cliffs, splashing into the water below.
After the long moment of silence, he says, “You didn’t ask for your time.”
I know it’s shorter. I could feel it the moment I had thirty feet left. “Six minutes flat?” I ask him.
He shakes his head with a smile. “Five forty.”
“Damn.” That’s really f**king good. I look back out at the tree tops. My progress, my journey—from being a curious six-year-old, to a punk teenager, to a determined adult—it just flashed quickly before my eyes. I think that’s what Sully had intended to happen all along.
“So you’re probably wondering why did Sully bring me to the top of this cliff and serve me cake?”
“Not really,” I tell him.
He smiles. “Besides your foul-mouth and that intimidating scowl thing you do, you’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever met. And I’ve been around for twenty-five years.” He laughs. “In climber life span, that’s a long ass time. I’ve already neared my halfway-point.”
I grab his water bottle and take a swig. I wipe my mouth on my shirt sleeve. “I’m only nice to you because you carry my gear when we climb together, and you’re the lead. If I anger you, you can turn around and cut my f**king rope.”
He snorts. “Right. I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Why?” I ask, seriously this time. “You’re always the one protecting me from a f**king fall.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty positive I’m the only person who has that job when it comes to you, climbing, not climbing, doesn’t matter. I know you’ve been going through some heavy shit with your brother, and you still make time for other people and this sport.” He means I make time to meet up with him.
I nod. “Yeah,” I say, not knowing how else to respond.
“I remember you telling me that you had a brother when we were in Lancaster.” He shakes his head. “That seems like such a long time ago.”
My gaze darkens, recalling that day. I was too angry to climb, and it was one of the few times I opened up to him about my family. I didn’t civilly talk about it. I yelled. And the only person who ever heard the pain in my voice was a summer camp friend. “I called him a f**king bastard.”