Every summer as children we were sent away to summer camp, and one summer I was old enough to be assigned the high ropes course as one of my daytime activities. The high ropes course was a series of climbing tests and challenges set up in a way that, looking back, seemed somewhat improvisational, on an old, unused part of the camp’s property. On the day of the high ropes course we rode in the bed of a pickup truck fifteen minutes out into the woods in silence. When we got there the instructor was a scrawny, muctachioed Old Texas man named Steve, and he was kindly though we expected him to be harsh, based on what we had heard. The first challenge was simple: a climb straight up to the top of a telephone pole of standard height, using the staples a service worker might use to climb, and then a freefall from the platform attached to the top of the pole. We would be harnessed for the jump so we would only fall for about forty feet before swinging back and forth between two poles on a wire. Everyone called this one “The Screamer.”

I had lived in fear of this high ropes course for many years and had collected as much information as I could about each of the challenges so I already knew a fair amount about the mechanics and specifics of this one. When it was my turn to climb they harnessed me onto the safety wire and I set out up the telephone pole, using the staples as a ladder. The staples were hot and slippery under my hands, and in the places where my elbows touched the telephone pole, the black tar that they coated the poles with to protect them against the elements stuck to my skin. The higher I climbed the faster my heart beat and the shakier each of my limbs became. I tried not to look down, but when I glanced through my arms by accident I saw my sister and the rest of the group becoming smaller and smaller beneath me. When I reached the top of the pole, almost in disbelief, I hoisted myself shaking and heaving onto the platform, where Steve was waiting for me, sitting comfortably with his back against the pole and his legs dangling over the side. He clipped me onto the second wire I would use to execute the jump and asked if I was ready. When you’re ready, just move until you’re sitting at the edge of the platform and then let yourself fall forward over the edge, he said. Don’t hold on. I don’t think I can do it, I said. I don’t think I can make myself jump. Well just wait a few minutes, he said, and take deep breaths. You may be ready in a few minutes. I breathed and waited a few minutes. I could see the small crowd of people down below staring up at us, waiting for me to jump. I still don’t think I can do it, I said. I can’t jump from this height. I’m too scared. You’ll have to push me. Nope, said Steve. We can’t push you. You have to jump on your own. Please, I said, glancing down at the tiny faces who stood looking up at me, a few of whom were starting to disperse. Please. You have to push me. They’re waiting on me. It would have been so easy for him to just shove the clip I was hooked onto down the wire, carrying me with it. We can’t push you, Steve repeated. You have to jump on your own, or else you have to climb back down the way you came. I begged him off and on to just push me off the platform for another fifteen minutes.

It’s like that, I said, and turned to leave. Did you jump? she said. Did you jump for it? No, I said. I went back down the pole the way I came. I closed the door to her bedroom behind me.