61 Stories at Once

March 4, 2010

We took the elevator up to the 61st floor of the Macau Tower and I wasn’t coming back down in the elevator. At 233 meters, it’s the tallest bungy jump in the world. Your ears pop on the way up. It was my birthday, and while I wasn’t trying to overanalyze it, I thought it would be kind of ironic on a tombstone if anything went wrong. From the view up, there you can see the whole city and beyond. I was starting to feel a little sick. Not from the height, but from the day before…

We were supposed to meet up with our friend Bruce. He was taking the bus in from Guangzhou, but our cell phone had been on the fritz and we had no rendezvous point established. It seemed like a lost cause. Takayo and I headed over to the Wynn Hotel and casino to check it out. The place was just as glamorous as the Venetian, but had low ceilings and felt sort of cozy. That is, until we came across a pale, redheaded man yelling at an employee behind a desk. He was wearing a green tee shirt with a picture of a pig on the front. The employee was trying to stay calm.

“Sir, I’m sorry, it is impossible to place an international collect call from these phones,” said the girl.
“How the Hell am I supposed to call my bank then? I need money.”
We walked up to the man and stood behind him.
“Quit holding up the line, deadbeat.”
Bruce turned around. “Oh, hey. Hold on a minute.”

He turned back to the girl. At no point was he phased by the fact that we had stumbled into him, in a foreign country, with no information other than, “Let’s meet up in Macau.”

Bruce’s friends were slightly more bowled over by our chance meeting. This is when the celebrations began. Someone had heard about a go-kart track near the Cotai Strip, just past the Venetian. It took a convoy of taxis to get us over there. The snack bar served us Tsingtao beer for thirty minutes before setting us up with the go-karts. Mine was the slowest in the pack. The track was a quarter mile long and I got lapped by everyone. When it was over I smelled like gas and was spitting out rocks.

The group of us piled into a city bus bound for the Venetian, just to wait in line for a taxi. A windy path led us to Fernando’s, an authentic Portuguese restaurant in Coloane. After dining on prawns, chicken, suckling pig, and too much sangria, we went to back to the Wynn. The place was ALIVE. We sat at a blackjack table and drank Red Bull and vodkas until the pit boss got tired of telling us to keep it down. Somewhere along the line, we lost everyone. My wife and I made it back to the Grand Waldo just before sunrise. Bruce would end up sleeping in a random hallway at a Holiday Inn.

…So there I was, at the top of Macau Tower. When you sign over your life and fork over the money to jump off the building, they make you change into one of their tee shirts and put on these canvas shoes. We ordered the DVD package, so now I had a Chinese guy following me around with a video camera asking questions.

“Ok, AMERICA, yea? What‘s your name, sir?”
“My name’s Noah.”
“Noah. Ah, Noah.”
“So it’s first time jumping?”
“Yea.”
“So how your vacation?”
“Well, I’m hung over, I’m thirsty, and I’m about to jump off of this tower. So, all in all, it’s been a pretty good day.”
“How you feeling?”
“Optimistic.”

They strapped my feet together and told me to hop over toward the ledge.  They attach the cord, and it’s heavy.  Walking is hard, so I try hopping to the edge.  The weight pulled me closer than I’d expected.  “Don’t hop,” says the attendant.

Things seem to go quiet.  My toes are at the ledge.  Then I hear the voice of the camera man.  “Hey, look over here.”  I do something with my hand, thumbs up, peace sign.  My arms are no longer under my control.  He smiles from behind the camera.  They tell me to hold out my arms.  I do it.  Their words sound reasonable, even when they tell me to jump.
Falling is the fun part, but the abrupt YANK at the end wrenched my guts to the back of my teeth.  I saw spots, and then I went back up.  Someone way up high lowerd me down onto a big inflatable mattress.
“Now go back up,” said the guy at the bottom.  “You can look at yourself on TV.”
Back up 61 stories.  People look at you a bit little different after you jump.  My hair looked silly on the television screen, and I was pale.  Takayo bought me some ice cream.  We sat by the window and looked out at the people, one after another, jumping off of a perfectly good building. 

About the author:

Noah Pelletier is working on a series of essays about growing up in the American South, marrying young, and living abroad.
Having spent the past two years in Suzhou, China, he has traveled extensively throughout South East Asia.
A native of North Carolina, Noah now resides in Germany with his wife, where they have, once again, come to terms with metal cutlery.  He has published his work in the Blood Lotus Journal.