17 Apr Oxygen Falls – audio short story by Ithaka Darin Pappas
Audio book of “Oxygen Falls”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRMRHz_2UKY&feature=youtu.be
____________________________
Oxygen Falls by Ithaka Darin Pappas (© 1991)
I’d been here fourteen days, ever
since they’d brought him home
from the hospital. And for
fourteen days in a row Zeus,
Athena and I had walked across
the cotton field, through the
lemon orchard, into The
Reservation and along the bank
of the canal until we reached
the base of Oxygen Falls.
The air here was thick with
humidity, the roar of water
threatening. Haunting and
intriguing at the same time.
Three years ago, he’d been
transferred here from his job at a
Los Angeles aerospace
corporation to their production
division in a rural area outside of
Phoenix. Unfortunately, my trip
wasn’t a family social visit.
My Pops was sick.
Terminal they’d called it,
I called it unfair.
KEEP OUT!
SUBMERGED OBSTRUCTIONS!
EXTREME DANGER!
These faded red letters, on a now
rusted-out piece of white sheet
metal, had been a never ending
subject of controversy and
speculation between Niles, Joe
and I during every holiday we’d
spent together since Pops and
April had moved here.
The sign was posted on the first
of two parallel, barbed-wire
fences guarding potential victims
from the hazards of the falls
behind them. Oxygen Falls in
actuality was a hundred-foot high
aerator weir slope just
downstream from the Red
Mountain Dam on the
Saguaro Indian Reservation.
The extensive Oxygen Falls
compound first corralled a section
of the Salt River into a wide
rectangular pond using a large
submerged barrier wall. It then
forcibly rereleased the water
through its spillways down a
descending eighth-of-a-mile long
boxy, narrowing concrete
waterway. This compressed the
river water volume from a surface
area of about 40-yards wide into
an end width of just twenty-five
feet, quadrupling its velocity. The
water then rocketed out of its
square cement chute and down
the eight-story, sixty-degree slope
into a churning, chaotic
maelstrom at the bottom. This
process whipped the water
abundantly full of oxygen
molecules, essential for impeding
algae growth and increasing crop
harvests. Immediately after this
frothy, turbulent area, the water
abruptly tranquilized…quieting
down into a deeper, wider body
of water known as Lower River or
South Canal, which eventually
dissected itself into several
smaller, slow-flowing canals and
dirt ditches, providing the
agricultural water supply of
eastern Phoenix.
For fourteen mornings in a row,
I’d stood here with my two friends
and reread the words:
KEEP OUT!
SUBMERGED OBSTRUCTIONS!
EXTREME DANGER!
wondering what exactly it meant.
An old Indian citrus-farmer,
whose land bordered the canal,
had once told my brothers and I
that the submerged obstructions
were in reference to underwater
rake-spikes; sharp, metal, vertical
bars mounted just underneath the
the surface of the white water at
the base of the falls that
prevented logs and other larger
debris that had managed to make
their way through the dam and
down the aerator slope from
continuing any further
downstream (potentially
clogging up the subsequent
farming canals and ditches).
BULLFUCKINGSHIT!!!!!!!!,
that old Red doesn’t know shit,
proclaimed my stepbrother Joe,
an ex-marine, my elder of two
years.
No….I think he may be right,
protested Niles, my other brother,
also two years older and the
brainiest of us three, I think I
read something about something
like that somewhere.
For the moment, I’d remained
undecided on the subject, but
had later asked Pops about it.
He’d said that the underwater
rakes did exist on some dams
and aerators, but on which ones
was impossible to tell, unless the
spillways were closed and the
water level low enough to expose
them. However, here at Oxygen
Falls, the water was kept flowing
year round, quenching the thirst
of the area’s perpetually arid
farmlands.
What do you guys think?
I asked Zeus and Athena.
WOOOOOFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!
howled Zeus.
AAAARRRRRRRPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
echoed Athena in feminine
equivalent. Zeus and Athena,
brother and sister Rhodesian
Ridgebacks agreed on everything.
I sometimes wondered if they
even shared the same brain.
We walked back to the house
where April had been waiting for
- She had errands to do in town
and Pops couldn’t be left alone
in his condition.
I’ll see you in a couple of hours,
my stepmother said.
Ok…see you later, I replied.
I pulled out an old atlas from the
living room bookshelf and went
up to Pops’ room. He was asleep
so I began exploring its pages.
Are you ready to take the drop?
asked an unexpected voice.
It was my dad sleep talking.
What?! I asked.
Are you ready to take The Drop?,
he repeated.
I wasn’t exactly sure what he
meant, but even though he was
unconscious, I somehow knew
that the question had been
directed at me.
Um…yeah…I guess so…
what about you?
a sleep which he never
awoke from.
He died in a peaceful way which I
suppose is better than getting run
over by a UPS truck or catching a
stray bullet in a neighborhood
drive-by, but when it’s your Pops,
shit like that is of little
consolation.
It was about two a.m. when the
last of the looky-loo neighbors,
the mortician with dad’s body
and the rest of the anonymous
weepers and mourners split.
I walked outside, got into the
family mini-van and flew out onto
the Beeline Highway. My speed
rarely dropping below ninety, as I
talked incessantly to a silent,
invisible father riding in the
passenger seat. The towns sped
by; Fountain Hills, Apache
Junction, Hohokam, Superstition.
In and out of the Tonto Forest,
through Sunflower and out past
twenty or so smaller settlements
until there was nothing but cactus
and stars. I stopped the van, got
out, laid on my back across the
yellow checkered dividing line
and looked directly up. The
biggest shooting star I’d ever
seen radiated by overhead, its
trail glowing for a full ten
seconds. It was one of those
infrequent, self-pitying moments
when I would question the
purpose of all existence; The
Earth, The Stars, Love, Hate, Life,
Death….it all seems like such a
cruel, heartless joke sometimes.
Exhausted and fatigued, I finally
got home midmorning. Niles and
Joe had already arrived in Arizona
and were giving me shit for
staying out all night.
April’s been worried
out of her fucking mind!!!,
they scolded.
I apologized, instantly morphing
the vibe more positively.
Although we all lived within an
hour’s drive of each other in
California, we rarely hung out. But
that night we drank beers, talked
about Pops, the old days back in
the South Bay and about all the
trouble we’d gotten ourselves
into. I was surprised to learn for
the first time that, on separate
occasions, both Niles and Joe
had both been arrested. How I’d
never found out remains a
mystery. And my dad, not being
one to rat, had never mentioned
anything about it or the healthy
sums of cash he’d shelled out for
their bail bonds.
However, I wasn’t being as open
with my older brothers as they
were being with me and hoped
Pops had been as equally
discreet about my own personal
fuck ups and had never told them
of my little run in with a particular
vixen from Lomita. An incident far
more regrettable and less heroic
than getting your ass thrown in
the slammer for a few hours.
If it’s at all possible for a funeral
to be a good thing, Pops’ was.
The youngish priest, Father Paul,
had been a good friend of my
dad and April and spoke to us
with his eulogy, not at us. His
message was very personal,
almost completely avoiding
any corny, generic post-death
sermonology. He even played
an acoustic, from-the-heart,
slightly altered cover version
of the Phil Coulter song “The Old
Man” part of which was;
He was more than just a father,
A teacher, my best friend.
He showed me things
Not known to kings
Like how to fish
And make a wish
Beside the Magic Sea
I miss him the old man
Toward the end of the service,
Father Paul had said something
that stuck into my head like a nail.
He’d spoken directly to Niles, Joe
and I.
Your father, being the man that
he was, would want you to go on
with your lives, living them to the
fullest.
On the ride back to Pops and
April’s crib, that last part kept
playing and replaying in my
head over and over again:
living them to the fullest.
For me, in contrast to the urban
hell I’d inflicted upon myself four
years earlier by moving from the
beach into Hollywood, living life
to the fullest still meant getting
into the ocean regularly,
something I’d been less than
successful in accomplishing lately.
Of my last several attempts;
on one, I’d borrowed and
broken in half a friend’s favorite
board. On another, I contracted
a hideous bacteria-caused
ear infection. And on my last
try, while speeding west down the
Santa Monica Freeway at 6am
(to surf what I later heard was
uncrowded, absolutely
perfect five-foot Topanga),
I rear-ended a station wagon
full of Guatemalan cleaning
women en route to the Beverly
Hills mansions they were to
immaculāte. Coincidence maybe,
regardless, I felt that the almighty
Poseidon had put some kind of
restraining order on my surfing
rights. I decided to lay low for a
while and had been surviving
strictly on a surf mag fix.
______________________________
When we got back to the house
after the funeral, I began
frantically searching the hall
closet, then the garage, then the
tool shed. And finally found it
behind the jacuzzi pump next to
the pool. I unfolded the yellow,
moldy plastic revealing a round,
inflatable swimming pool raft
about four-feet in diameter.
It resembled a giant holeless
donut complete with a
circumference of bright pink nylon
rope secured around the top of it
to use as leverage in case you
encountered any dangerous,
turbulent conditions within your
chlorinated utopia. Joe, stoned as
usual, came outside and after
several minutes of amusedly
watching me trying to inflate the
damn thing with my own breath
offered,
I think there’s a compressor
in the garage, bro.
Soon I was running, holding the
inflated raft clumsily on top of my
head, across the cotton field,
through the lemon orchard,
into The Reservation, along the
bank of the canal and up the
long hill until I was in front of the
double security fences at the
upper backside of the immense
cement structure. I frisbeed the
raft over the first fence, climbed
it, then tossed it gently over the
second, (this time barely clearing
the sharp barbs).
Seconds later, I was standing
above the rushing, funneling
channel of water leading to the
drop. I prepared to make my
jump, then hesitated. I set the raft
down, walked along the ridge of
the canal to the top of the falls
and took a last long look down to
the bubbling cauldron of frothy
water at the base, only imagining
what actually lay beneath.
In the far distance, I saw Niles and
Joe charging up the river bank
yelling as they ran, both armed
with about a mile of safety rope.
As they got closer, I realized Niles
was shouting something about
the rake-spikes and the possibility
of drowning in the current.
YOU COULD DIE ASSHOLE!!!!!!!
he shouted, barely audible above
the rumble of water.
THAT’S OK!!!, I yelled back,
I DON’T GIVE A FUCK!!!
Frenzied, I ran back to the raft
and grabbing it, hurled myself the
ten feet off of the vertical
embankment and into the racing
thirty mile-an-hour current below.
Landing on the raft, but losing
hold of the rope attached to it, I
was swept violently downstream
spinning like a top. Dizzy and
panicked, I had only one
conscious thought, going straight
down as I went over the falls…..
or I’d surely be discovering truth
about the rake-spikes headfirst. At
the last second, I somehow
managed to get it together.
Getting hold of the rope, I was
able to stop the spinning and
lift the forward side of the
raft into a kind of up-curved
bow then went straight over…….
SHHHHHHHHITTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I shrieked, flying down
what could be comparable
to dropping into 100-foot
Waimea Bay on a giant vinyl
apple-fritter, my stomach making
an ambitious attempt of escaping
up through my throat…
FFFFUUUUUCCCCCKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my velocity was multiplying all the
way down…..
SHHHHHIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!
Below me somewhere through
the spray, I caught a millisecond
glimpse of Niles and Joe near the
base looking like cowboys
preparing to rope cattle. By the
end of the drop, I had
accelerated to the point that the
raft wasn’t even really connecting
to the water’s surface. With the
point of impact rapidly
approaching, I strained to
make a last effort to get the front
of the raft up as high as possible
and…..
SWWOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Like going over a ski jump, I
blasted right up and over the top
of the bubbling aquatic chaos,
airborn for at least fifteen feet
(safely above the submerged
spikes) and then sent skipping like
a thin stone on a puddle another
fifty feet into the calms of the
South Canal.
Several long seconds later, my
heart began beating again, my
emotion confusingly somewhere
between laughing and crying.
I ignored the rope Niles and Joe
eventually tossed my direction,
the thundering sound of water
leisurely dissipating behind me.
Underneath the cobalt Arizona
sky, I spent the next several hours
slowly drifting westward down the
canal; alongside of citrus farms,
waving Indian children, and finally
as I neared Pheonix, thru cookie
cutter suburban track-home
neighborhoods…all the while,
thinking about Pops and what life
would be like without him.
Several months later, I went to
visit April, Zeus and Athena.
When I drove over the tiny canal
bridge signifying the
neighborhood’s entrance, I
couldn’t see any water at all
flowing down the dirt trenches
into the citrus groves. Arriving at
the house, I immediately got the
dogs and headed up toward the
cotton field trail leading to the
river. For the first time in the three
years since I’d been coming here
Oxygen Falls was under repair.
The spillways were shut.
The river bed was dry.
There were no rake-spikes.
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