Jump by Larry Miller

Author:Larry Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

When I drove myself cross-country to Portland in September 1992, Lon was sick. He’d been in and out of the hospital with throat cancer. After I left, he had gone back into the hospital.

I moved into a small apartment the company had gotten for me that was right across the street from the office. Until Carol and the kids came out, my plan was to go back and forth to Philly once a month.

I had been in Portland for two weeks when Jerry Johnson and a couple of the senior corporate people flew their private plane out from Reading. I was settling into the job well. I knew the drill and quickly got a handle on the business end. Jerry was pleased. He asked when I was going back to Philly. I told him that I had a ticket to return the next week.

“I think you should go back with us,” he said.

I told him no thanks, and that I was fine waiting. Again, he said that I should fly back home with them, and again I told him that I was good with my ticket and my plan to go home the following week. We went back and forth a few times.

“You’re going with us,” he said. “You need to go home. You need to see your family. That’s it.”

He didn’t know that my father was sick or anything that I had going on in Philly. “All right, man,” I said. “Damn.”

So, I jetted home on their brand-new Falcon 900. This trip was the first time they had ever used it and my first time in a private jet. They had a rental car waiting for me when we got to Reading, and I drove home.

The next day I went up to the hospital and I hung out with Lon. I helped cut his toenails for him and stuff like that, just spent the whole day with him. That next day, Saturday, Mom came by. Though she had moved out, they had never divorced. My sister Glo, Carol, Jamal, Amissa, and I were all up at the hospital hanging out with him and having a good time. He was in good spirits. We were laughing and joking, just enjoying being together. At one point, Lon reached across his chest, undid his watch, and handed it to me. Without saying a word, I put it on my wrist. The room was quiet.

“Looks good on you,” Lon said.

By the time we had driven from the hospital in West Philly back home to West Oak Lane, Mom called. “Lon has passed,” she said.

A lot of things went through my mind, of course, but overall I was happy that I had had the time with Lon. If I had waited in Portland until the following week and come home when I’d planned to, I would have missed that opportunity to be there and spend that time with him. Things like that happen for a reason. I was supposed to be there in Philly.

That’s the thing.

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