Before the moment I boarded one, I had never given a moment’s thought to the passenger quarters of a skydive plane. My tandem dive instructor asked me,
“Do you know why there’s no dancing on a skydive plane?”
We were packed in like Pringles. There were two rows of jumpers sitting on a padded floor each with another jumper between their legs. My back was pressed up against Mike’s chest. Glenn’s back was pressed up against me. An experienced woman diver boarded and asked us all to sit up straight and shove back. Jeez!
Apart from the obvious reasons, I decided to play along.
“No, why can’t you dance on a skydive plane?”
“No ball room.”
I knew exactly what he meant in another minute.
There were about 16 people jammed into this little plane. It was a DH6 for those of you who know planes. I didn’t count people at the time, but it was about that. My right leg was buried in a pile of other legs. I could not move it. It’s a good thing we had all those jumpsuits and harnesses, helmets and chutes on. You could not help touching other people.
I felt Mike fart before I smelled it. I don’t know what he had eaten and I wasn’t going to ask. I’m sure he was hoping no one would know. But since there is no ball room on a skydiving plane, I could feel every time he let one go. It’s too noisy to hear a fart in a non-pressurized cabin with the window wide open. There were several silent but deadly emissions. I was trying to do what my mom taught me and ignore it. That got more difficult when someone closed the dive door. When the moment of jumping neared and people were doing last minute gear checks and getting on their knees, the same lady who told us to shove back said to the back of the plane,
“Whoever had broccoli quiche for breakfast, thanks a lot.”
I knew who it was, but I did not rat him out. I thought he would be a good person to have on my side at that moment.
I asked the videographer if this was his primary job. No. He had a “real” job. How could it possibly compare? He did this one day a weekend. He was a diver first and loved it. This was a way he figured out how to save money on the diving fees. Diving ain’t cheap. All the instructors were dive junkies just dealing tandem dives and pictures for their fix. I don’t know what they got paid, but they all loved their jobs. It was obvious from the joking.
My friend, Jeff, was strapped to a comedian. Don kept yelling out things that all us jumping virgins were thinking but were keeping to ourselves.”I’m getting off. I’m not doing this.”
“Aww man, I just shit my pants.” That one was believable with broccoli quiche behind me.
I noticed some prankster before me had used a finger to write on the dirty window “Don’t do it.” Thanks a lot. An Indigo Girls song started running through my head,
“I’m up on an airplane, Nearer my God to Thee.
I start making a deal, inspired by gravity…”
As if Mike heard my thoughts, he pointed out the beauty of the view above the clouds out the airplane window. He speculated that going to heaven would have such a view. I agreed, but hoped I wouldn’t know for sure any time soon.
Mike reviewed all the exit procedures and positions. He told me we might fall through a cloud. “If you fall through a cloud, remember to keep your mouth shut. Clouds can be fattening.” He was doing his best to keep my nerves at a dim hum rather than a screeching racket. “If we land on a thick cloud, we’ll just walk to the edge and jump off.”
It was a twenty minute ascent. As we approached 14,000 feet, I started feeling the effects of the thin air, nausea, shortness of breath. That might have been from the smell in the little plane. I was probably a bit dehydrated from the three hour wait in the sun. I was glad I didn’t have a full stomach, but my blood sugar was likely low. It might also have been the harnesses that Mike kept tightening. The strap across my belly seemed to be hooked under my ribs. I wasn’t about to ask him to loosen anything. Most likely my awareness of the proximity of vomiting or fainting was the nervousness that I was trying to ignore.
When we wrestled our legs out of the pile and got to our knees, I felt pretty sure I was going to throw up. The dive door was opened and 3 or 4 experienced jumpers were seemingly sucked out, causing me to gasp. I thought,
I’m going to throw up and then pass out and miss the jump entirely.
I was compelling my body to cooperate and go with the momentum. Mike was explaining each step and we were edging to the door. My mind was running in an endless loop of
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod whathaveIdone ohshit ohshit ohmygod ohmygodWas I saying it out loud?
The videographer was hanging out the door to photograph my friend Jeff as he plummeted away from the plane. I did what I was told, making my body small and tight, hands crossed on my chest, feet tucked back between Mike’s knees, back arched.
The wind was deafening. The ground, two and a half miles down, looked like a green seventies quilt. We were way above the clouds. There was shouting. I closed my eyes as my body’s only remaining instinct of self-preservation.
We rolled forward.
