Climbing with the Hunted

We used to climb these gigantic towers when I was a kid. There were water towers and power lines. You had to shimmy your way up the first fifteen feet or so because there were no rungs to hold onto, but after that there were metal ladders. Easy, right? But the higher you got, the looser your grip felt, the slipperier the footholds. Up and up we would go until the air was gone, until you just couldn't breathe, then the first of us would go back down. Slowly, up and up, higher and higher until you could hear the sizzle of the giant electrical wires. It was wrong, so we did it.

Later, when we were older, we climbed the ancient, rotting wooden scaffolding behind the drive-in theater. Struts were broken or gone, nails falling out as we would climb there in the dark, calling to one another not to grab here, not to step there. Finally, we were on top, looking down at the sea of cars, looking back into the giant projector light flickering toward us, then leaning out over the screen, waving our hands in triumphant silliness, filled with adrenaline, then hurrying down to make our getaway.

These were not good kids I was hanging with. I would never have done this on my own. But it seems in my life I have been attracted to those sorts, running with the hunted rather than hanging with the safer, saner, more successful types. Thinking back on all that now, though, I'm not so sure. Still, looking at the world from the back of a movie screen is something. Not everyone has seen that.