Chain of Vengeance: Chapter Three - Part Four

4

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Crazy Geoff. “You look like you been swimming or something.”

They were on the M4 now, speeding away from the outskirts of Bristol, heading east.

“Yeah,” said Jack.

“Don’t recall seeing any swimming pools out there in the middle of nowhere when I picked you up.”

“No.”

Geoff laughed. “Obviously a subject you’re itching to talk about.”

They drove silently for a while. Jack looked across at Crazy Geoff then back out the front window. “You aren’t going to believe this,” he said. “I jumped off Clifton Suspension Bridge last night.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I survived the fall and got carried downstream. I woke up twenty minutes before I met you, lying in the mud on the riverbank near where you picked me up.”

“Is this a lead-up to a joke?” said Geoff.

“No.”

“I don’t like being lied to.”

“It’s not a lie. Forget I said anything.”

Geoff scrutinised him. “I don’t know much about Clifton Bridge but I had a cousin who was a daredevil back in the seventies. He went off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as a publicity stunt and killed himself. Clifton’s taller than that.”

Jack didn’t try to defend himself.  

“Let’s just imagine you’re telling the truth for a second,” said Geoff. “Do you know how fast you’d be going by the time you hit the water?”

Jack shrugged.

“You’d be going near… You’d be going maybe seventy five/eighty miles an hour! It’d be like someone sticking a brick wall in the middle of the fast lane here.” He pointed to the speedometer. “You see that. You see how fast we’re going? It’s impossible.”

“People do survive though don’t they?” asked jack.

“Off Clifton? Fucked if I know. Off the Golden Gate it’s like two in a hundred. Probably less and like I say… I’m pretty sure Clifton’s higher than that.”

They drove in silence again for a while then Crazy Geoff looked back across at Jack. “Are you joshing me about this?”

“Not at all.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah. I’m serious.

“Man! That’s a miracle is what that is! You should be proud!”

Jack didn’t reply.

“And you were carried downstream? Unconscious?”

“Yeah.”

“How far is that?”

“No idea. A long way.”

“You are the luckiest guy I ever met, you know that? You don’t look like you’ve got a scratch on you. It’s a miracle!”

“I don’t know about that.”

“It is man. That is the genuine article; not just one miracle but two, back to back like that. It’s a sign is what it is.”

“Of what?”

“Search me.”

“I think you’ve got it wrong,” said Jack. “I’m not sure I deserve a miracle.”

“Well you got one. You got two! What you’ve got to start wondering about is number three!”

“Huh?”

“Everything happens in threes. You never heard that before? You keep your eyes open. One miracle, that’s nothing; just a coincidence, right? A second one: that’s when you start thinking maybe something’s up. If a third comes along then you think of me. I’m telling you; if that happens you know something’s going on. You’re being kept alive for a reason.”

“Give me a break,” said Jack.

“You can be sceptical all you like. Look at me. I’m more sceptical than anybody… till I see it with my own eyes. I’ve only got your word for it anything happened at all; but keep on the lookout. If anything else happens then that’s a sign. You’ve got a purpose.”

“What kind of purpose?”

Crazy Geoff shrugged. “You tell me,” he said.