He’s the kind of friend I’ll have for life. Not because we share deep fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking rock. “The first time I climbed this, it took one brutal fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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.