SoMa Literary Review - Broken Compass

Broken Compass

By Vinoad Senguttuvan

Nova's feet skipped over the sidewalk like flat stones on water while his mind played tic-tac-toe with itself in a distant land. The sun was dispelling the last of the lingering San Francisco fog, with its long crimson beams, as the Sunday morning crowd rippled through the streets.

What would happen to the world when he drowned, Nova wondered. Would it go on just the same or disappear like a fading mirage? He didn't care either way. All his life Nova waited for this, the day he could shed his loneliness and stop the throbbing ache under his ribs, forever. He couldn't wait for the cold embrace of the water as it flooded his lungs.

"Ah, Nova, how are you young man?"

It was his dentist, clutching brown shopping bags on either side, and a Blackberry clipped to his belt. Why my dentist, wondered Nova, of all people? To run into his English teacher or childhood nanny on the last day of his life would have been more appropriate. Well, that's the problem with life, isn't? He thought. It makes no sense.

"Well, you know," said Nova, his right hand clenched around the broken compass in his pocket -- it had been his father's once -- feeling it's familiar curve under his palm. "Making ends meet."

The dentist stared at Nova's designer slacks and diamond studded watch.

"I mean," Nova bit his lip, "Existentially."

"Right." The dentist walked away.

Being orphaned at the age of two with a billion dollar Silicon Valley company, acres of forestlands and wineries, and a fleet of Maseratis didn't sound like the worst fate. But it was for Nova. Growing up in a mansion amidst the redwoods with a plethora of rotating resident relatives, he had everything he needed except affection. Turning his bedside light dim, little Nova would spread open the immaculately dusted hard copy of Oliver Twist and read into the night, the gold-trimmed heavy pages pressing down his child legs. He longed to be Oliver, to have something he could strive against.

He tried too hard to please, or so he concluded years later. Nova paid for all the candy and later on, for all the drinks. Kids seemed to show up in his life only to disappear when they had their full of his parties and imported Absinthe. But the three that mattered stayed, for a while. When Jenny and Sam and Alex drove away to Seattle in Nova's favorite Maserati with his entire CD collection, stealing away from his life forever, Nova stopped trying to cure his loneliness and just worked on forgetting it. He tried everything -- pot made him irritable and with heroin he couldn't get hard. Only two things relieved his pangs, sex and sunsets.

When Californian skin and sky failed to stir his spirit, Nova perched on his jet, spun his broken compass and headed north. He fucked in basements and villas, in Zurich and Bangkok , soaking up pebble-smooth bodies and tasting the salty skin. He watched the Arabian Sea swallow the sun and then flew in time to see it disappear behind the Ural Mountains .

Nova knew his hedonism couldn't soothe him forever. Many nights as the smog filled the avenues and street lamps flickered like dull fireflies, Nova fell on his knees, the rough Persian rug bruising his skin, stretched his arms and prayed to the void. "Oh please," he cried, "Please don't let me become a nihilist."

The previous evening on San Francisco Bay , as he watched the clouds streaked in an autumn purple, for a moment Nova felt enclosed and embraced by the sky and the brown earth. But as darkness fell, he felt a pain creep up his throat. When he nibbled the ears of his lover, it stung stronger. Musk and sandalwood candles teased the air and the flames threw golden shadows on their naked torsos. But the agony marched on, breaking down all of Nova's defenses. That's when he knew it was over. Tomorrow would be his last day.

A good night's sleep and the crisp morning did nothing to shake his resolve. Pulling on his cap and tossing his keys into the trashcan, he had set out on a brisk walk.

It was noon by the time he reached the Golden Gate Bridge . Traffic seeped over the concrete, mixing the smell of exhaust and gasoline into the salty morning air. Tourists dressed in primary colors ambled with cameras around their necks and pesky kids around their ankles. Holding the outer railing in his hands, the brown metal cold under his palm, Nova leaned over. He saw a foot wide ledge and beyond it the water -- blue, green and brown. As it lapped, different facets caught the sun and shimmered for an instant. The Alcatraz Island was far ahead, it's lighthouse and water tank standing tall.

Nova decided to jump straight from the railing, past the ledge, into the bay. In a minute, the water will blanket me and fill all of my senses, thought Nova. But first, he wanted to think about something nice. Nova didn't remember his parents though he could feel their touch on his skin like a distant echo. As he searched his head for the right memory, an unpleasant one popped up.

The image of Audrey running toward the windshield of his car as he backed away from her driveway floated in front of Nova. Her curly blond hair dangled just above her naked oval breasts and moonlight shined off the bracelet on her wrist. "You never knew love," she screamed, "So you don't recognize it when you see it."

For the hundredth time Nova reasoned with himself, I know what love is, she was just trying to use me. To justify, he reminded himself, she made me pay her medical bill, once she didn't call me back for two days, she kept asking for my car keys -- so she could drive away like the others. "Fuck this," said Nova aloud and breathing in hard, he prepared to climb over the railing and jump.

As Nova propped up his left leg on railing and thrust up his shoulders, something brown caught his eyes and he turned to his right. A girl was sitting on the railing, facing the water, twenty feet from him, her long brown hair flaying in the wind. She was no more than nineteen. Is she allowed to sit there? Nova wondered stepping back down on the walkway. His eyes traced her profile, lingering on the thin stern lips. He watched her throat bulge as she swallowed and then she was gone.

Nova raised his head as if expecting to see her lifted up in the air by the wind. And when there was nothing up there, not even a stray leaf or a feather, he turned to the water. The ripples of the initial splash were fading but two sneakered feet and the brown head broke through the surface. There was no struggle. She must have broken her neck in the fall, Nova thought.

He just stood there, fists clasped around the railing. The girl's body was spinning in the water like an object dangling from a string. Slow clockwise rotations followed by rapid counter turns. How beautiful she is, thought Nova. There was no serenity in her look -- the hair was a mess and the face was pale and discolored. He was too far to see, but imagined her lips set in a grim smile, as if to say, "This is it." Nova found that irresistible.

When she floated away from the bridge and he could see nothing but the weathered toes of her shoes, Nova dialed 911 on his cell phone. Then he slipped out his compass and looked at it, as if for the first time. He found it when he was eight, in his father's old study, tucked deep inside the drawer of the Maplewood table. The base was smooth copper but the glass on top had a slanted crack. The needle still fixed at the center rotated freely and came to stop at a random direction. He had carried the broken compass in his pocket ever since. Now he tossed it over and the water swallowed it in one gulp.

A mustached burly cop pulled over next to him and looked over the railing. The suspension cables of the bridge rose up on either side of them, all the way to the top. Soon a motorboat was making its way toward the bridge, a single light flashing on its cabin. Nova and the cop leaned over side-by-side and watched two men tug at the limp girl as if she was an overgrown catfish. To his left, across the bay, a thick fog was moving in over the green hills of the Marin County .

All his life, Nova had felt a piercing loneliness that nothing could dispel. But today seeing that girl do the exact thing he was about to do, he felt a strange sense of kinship with her. What had brought her to that place at that precise moment, he wondered.

"Bizarre," said Nova.

"Not really."

"Excuse me." Nova tilted his head to face the cop who was staring at the motorboat tracing its way back.

"They come in hundreds," said the cop still looking straight ahead, "I don't know what draws them to this bridge."

"Draws who?"

The cop slowly turned to face Nova and said, "People like her."

It was the way he said it. People like her. As if they were dirty and diseased and disgusting. And Nova was one of them.

From the next day, Nova often paced the Golden Gate Bridge , confined between its two railings like a lab rat in a duct cell. He studied the faces of every loner ambling the sidewalks and when one of them leaned on the railing or climbed on it, his heart doubled its pulse.

Soon he learned to separate his kind from the dreamy loiterers. The resolute jaw and the quivering throat were telltale. He followed them without being noticed and watched from a distance as they went through the familiar ritual -- lean, climb, linger, let go and disappear. There was always a moment before they fell when they stayed suspended in mid-air. At that moment, Nova felt an electric charge connecting them. And time stood still.

Those nights, Nova walked home from the bridge shaking all the way. He knew one day he too would go off the bridge. But there was no hurry. First he wanted to know his brethren. Then it would be his turn to jump.

Vinoad "Vinny" Senguttuvan works at an animation studio and enjoys writing short fiction and photography. His work can be viewed at http://artoffascination.blogspot.com/ and http://picasaweb.google.com/vinoad. He would be delighted to hear from readers.