Adventures never start out that way. no omens, no warnings. a normal day. i was walking up riverside, killing an hour on a cloudy fall day, little chilly. looking at the bums in riverside park, the construction on grant's tomb. thinking: god, why are there so many of these
missing hours? why are there so many interludes? i didn't know, and neither did the joggers or office workers, hurrying home after a short election week. rounding grant's tomb and walking through that little park across the street, i spied riverside cathedral. no. that makes it sound like it wasn't
there all along. it was. looming. constant presence in the neighborhood. red light twenty five gothic stories up, warning helocopters, maybe signaling god. or reminding the damned. i wasn't sure. the night before i was walking around the same area, not alone. the tower was there at two in the
morning, shrouded in fog. we had talked about going to the top. whatever that means.
as i passed the doors i decided to take a look, logisticize the possibilities. i pass through these huge oak doors, lion knockers and everything. thinking about jews in churches. a bad mix? i lost the thought
when i saw the guard, old neighborhood guy, looking a little bored at the end of his shift. "hey, you know if there's anyway to get up on top of the tower?" "what?" "the tower... can you go up there?" "yeah son, it's a dollar. but it's only open till four, monday through friday, 'means you only got
twenty minutes. you still want to go?" "yeah, if it's just a buck." "go up to twenty, and you'll see another guard." i went. another old guy, just like the first. points me up the steps. past the bells. two or three stories, huge, looming things. they strike a-quarter-to, almost knock me to my
knees. ringing still in my ears, i followed the winding staircase to the top, finally wandering out onto the deck. it circles the belfrey, about four feet wide. surrounded on the outside by rising stone. about twelve feet. the glowing red light is on the top of the tower. feels ancient, air of
illuminated scripts, red-eye on some new york tower of babel. no. this is silent. only the wind banging against the corrugated aluminum gates, and the far off sound of car alarms.
i walk around the edge, taking in the view. riverside park all autumned over. campus looks collegiate,
like movie quads. barnard, the conservatory, the tomb so recently visited. projects stretching north in the distance. it was all so beautiful and lonely. i can't find peace anywhere. the wind is gusting, the air is damp, excuses flying into my brain: "you can just come back up here another day.
bring someone, or wait until spring. no reason to torture yourself. go home. even thoreau went inside when it rained." so i circle back around to the gate. once. twice. maybe it was disbelief, but it actually took three turns around before i realized they were all locked. it took me five minutes to
locate the one which hid the stairs. six inches of light shone through at the bottom. six inches more than all the others, which were closed to the ground. i let off a sigh.
ten minutes of screaming through the gap did nothing. i circled the deck again, looking for an alarm, or a
security phone, or a parachute. nothing. the sun, daylight savings drained, goes down somewhere over paramus. i kick the gate. i scream. i try to grab the attention of people on the street, hundreds of feet away. nothing. the closed gates are all thundering from the wind. every ten minutes the bells
go off. for whom the bell...? nevermind, i thought. don't think. can't grab at convenient metaphors, not on a night like this. i consider my options: a) squeeze through the six inch gap in the gate. b) somehow signal for help. c) break the helicopter light on the roof of the building, somehow
withstanding the twenty five mile an hour winds long enough not to get picked off, hope someone comes up to fix it.. i cursed missing so many episodes of the a-team. they'd have known what to do. i figured i'm a waif, but not plastic-man, and six inches is pretty small. signaling for help seemed
unlikely, with the noise, and the bells, and the twenty stories between me and the street. i can fly. i can fly. the words were running circles in my brain. i couldn't avoid it. like a mantra. sure wished it was true right then.
option number three: climb the tower, fight the wind,
break the serpent's one red eye. i scaled the walls, felt the wind picking at my windbreaker. peak over the edge. long way down, neverending. start having crash fantasies. getting dizzy. i shimmied along the water-drains on the roof, all of new york laid out beneath me. it's hard to breath. i
finally reach the horizontal ladder to the light, sort of layed out along the pitch of the roof, maybe twenty degrees. i looped my belt around the first rung. figure if i fall here, that's it. no more anything. saying prayers in every language i know. though i walk through the valley of death...
shma y'israel... whatever. i'm making deals with god. "let me live and i'll make it all right. set things straight. mend broken hearts. please. please. anything." the wind only hits harder. this side of paradise is floating through my head. amory blaine, thinking about himself for thirty-six hours.
read those words two days ago. identified. "well jake, here's your chance." i knew that if i didn't get down tonight, no-one was coming up till monday morning. all they'd find was dead white boy. exposed, frozen to death. i thought about my funeral. five minutes go by. i'm still clinging to the
ladder. i unhook, move up a rung. so on and so forth, across ten feet. i reach the red light. it's shining bright, blinding. i turn around on the ladder, still strapped in. kick at it. nothing. then punch my knuckles bloody. nada. it's lighthouse material. thick. would've taken a pickaxe to break
it. i felt the tears start to come. trapped on the roof of this god-damned cathedral. this is my fucking life. my life! and probably my death. i started to turn on the ladder, make to kick at the radio tower. figure maybe if i knock out the radio station, someone will come up and find me. as i spin
my leg around, i hear something rip. i didn't have time to think. suddenly i'm sliding down the roof, all wet from the fog and moist with a century of smog dust. covering me. there's a cable around the edge of the roof. my arm catches it as i sail past. like getting it ripped off. better than going
over the edge. half of my body is resting on the outer wall. my feet are dangling over the edge. i drop down to the deck without thinking. land on my ankle hard. sprain it. only option is gone. i'm fucked.
i reconcile myself to three days on the roof. i didn't tell anyone where i was
going, so i knew no-one would be sending out a search party. my roommate might get suspicious tomorrow night, when we were going to throw the party, but i knew he'd never figure out where i was. no one would. i'd be left up here alone. if it rained i was dead. if it got as cold as it had been for
the last couple of days, i was dead. i gave up on praying. screamed through the gap in the gate for a while longer. no answer but the bells. thinking about my funeral again. i tried to steel myself against the wind. pulled my windbreaker close around my shoulders. i wished i had worn a real coat, or
anything. i wished i had food. i wished i wasn't going to die alone.
another hour went by. my hands were bleeding from the roof-ride, and my pants were torn, letting in these little breezes. just killing me. i cursed god. i cursed myself. i knew in some ways, it was what i deserved.
twenty minutes go by. i give up trying to keep warm.. i start screaming at the clouds. then singing. anything to keep warm. two and a half hours have gone by. an eternity. i knew i was going to be out there all weekend. i knew these were the last hours of my stupid, ill-considered life. back to the
huddle. fetal position on the cold stone deck. fifteen minutes go by. it's getting colder and it looks like rain. i start thinking about how cold it's been the last couple of days, typical new york descent into winter. my own funeral. best party of my life and i won't even get to go. the muscles in
my arm are all torn where i caught the wire during the fall. my shirt is transparent with blood and sweat. my head begins to pound. singing again. ana ng and i are getting old... only song i know by heart. reciting spanish words. gets tired after fifteen minutes. my will collapses. i break.
i look up at the six-inch gap, under the metal gate. two small for my head to fit through. always knew it was going to get me in trouble. damn ego. i try pulling the gate out, maybe make another inch in the opening. get maybe half that. i take off my timbo's, feet immediately wet with
water on the ground. i shove one of them up behind the gate, at the same time sticking my head through the tiny space. it works. my neck is right under the gate when the shoe falls out. strangling me. losing air. third time tonight the reaper is hanging over me. strength comes for a split second.
forcing the gate back out. arms straining for the inside banisters, pulling. pulling. a second later i'm inside. naked from the waist down. without the belt, my big jeans were off in a second. same for the boxers. if i died here the newspapers would write: dead jew found naked in chuch belfrey,
strange ritual suspected... etc. i grab my clothes from the outside, manage to find my keys. my boxers never reappear. haunt that place forever, probably. now dressed, still panting, bloody, and bruised, i stalk down the steps, looking for revenge. break two windows to open locked doors. can't find
a security guard. shoes untied, five minutes later i'm running home along riverside. three hours have passed. i'm home with this story an hour later. telling it. retelling. like panic-breathing, unstoppable.
i don't know if it was my prayers or curses which got me out of the situation.
maybe resourcefulness. definitely stupidity. not many english majors have the balls to scale riverside cathedral during a storm. cowboy that fucking red light. @!#$ it. not brave. necessary. anything to survive. live to say more. live for another story. it's thirty hours later now, and i can still
hardly stand up. i patched up all the cuts, but the bruises are going to take a while to heal. tonight we're throwing a party at my apartment. in thanksgiving. optimism renewed. i'm going to keep my promises. make things right. i don't know why i got caught up there, two inches from death, and i
don't know what it's taught me. this isn't a story. these aren't the right words. it doesn't matter. that you are reading them, that i can write them now... it's all that matters. for three hours one friday night i found something real. almost died doing it. i can fly, friends. i can fly forever.
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