The Jumper - Part 2

Down on the street, it was as though the circus had come to town. Half a dozen different people were shouting up at me through electronic megaphones, but then I guess someone authoritative-looking called for order because they all suddenly shut up. A spokesperson for the NYPD assured me that someone from the Department was on his way up to talk to me. I couldn’t figure out a way to convey via body language that Earl was already there.

The spokesperson asked if it were OK for the media to pose a few questions, and said I should just wave my right hand — carefully, without losing my balance! — if it were. I waved. A woman from Fox asked who I was and what was the problem. I have strong feelings about Fox, and responded by giving her the finger, but couldn’t be sure that anybody could see it from so far away.

I guess someone must have, and called Earl on his cell phone or something to tell him about it, because now he was saying, “I’m not such a big fan of Fox myself. I know I’m supposed to be, being a cop and all, but hey, they didn’t give me a lobotomy when they gave me my shield.” I think he imagined I would find this funny, and I was indeed smirking appreciatively, but his vertigo precluded his seeing it. He said, “Hey, did I tell you what my motto is? I’d rather have bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” I rolled my eyes, not that he could see, and said I’d thought that was really funny the first few thousand times I’d heard it. I got the feeling I’d hurt his feelings. He’d never claimed to be a standup comedian, or comic, or whatever they called themselves. I couldn’t do anything right!

Somebody had joined him, and there was shouting. I made out that it was a TV news team. Earl was hollering that he’d arrest them if they didn’t get the hell out, and they were hollering back that the public had a right to know. They must have struck a deal because the next thing I know, a woman with enough spray in her hair to keep it immobile even in the swirling wind was leaning out the window, pointing a microphone at me, and asking me personal questions while one of her associates shot video over her shoulder. I was right in the middle of telling her what had made me despondent when I heard Earl bark, “OK, a deal’s a deal. Your three minutes is up.” Everyone went back inside.

Somebody on the street had commandeered one of the megaphones, or had his own. His shouting, “Do it already, dickweed,” inspired a lot of my audience to laugh. I was enjoying the attention too much to mind the joke being on me. Let them jeer; at least somebody was paying attention for a change. But it was getting chilly.

“OK,” I heard Earl say. “It’s just us again, pally.” He asked me, if I didn’t have any loved ones, to think of him. “Every one like you I lose,” he explained, “that’s another six months I can count on only getting the cost-of-living raise, and you try maintaining any kind of quality-of-life that way.” He was divorced, and got his two kids on alternate weekends. The younger, a girl, was getting nearly straight A’s now that they’d figured out she needed glasses, and the elder, a 14-year-old boy, was a pain in the tush a lot of the time, as what kid his age isn’t, but with a good heart. Earl worried that it wouldn’t be long before his daughter would imagine herself unable to go on living without rhinoplasty, and how was he going to afford it if he lost another jumper? It made me feel like a heel, and I was freezing, so I made my way over to the edge of the window, and…

Found myself being pulled inside by a whole lot of hands, which turned out to belong to Earl’s uniformed accomplices. Boy, did they seem pissed off at me, none more than Earl himself, who looked exactly as I’d thought he would — squat, rumpled, and saturnine. But as one of the uniforms (I watch a lot of TV!) handcuffed me, his anger dissipated. He swept a thick hand through his wispy combover and said, “What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea what your little prank will wind up costing the city, with the gridlocked traffic and all?”

I told him I was really sorry. I admitted that my own despair had blinded me the fact that others had problems of their own. He relented and actually grasped my shoulder fraternally as he said, “Just don’t let it happen again, OK?”

I thought sure I’d least be arrested, if not prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but two hours later I was back to my animated banners, and frankly missing the celebrity I’d enjoyed so much during my time on the ledge.