What good is having amazing powers of observation if you can't do a damn thing about what you observe?
Perhaps we should all take a cue from Billy Pilgrim. It's better in the zoo...
Perhaps we should all take a cue from Billy Pilgrim. It's better in the zoo...
Falling Man by Charles Tarlton
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So, this
is what happened on Christmas Eve; see what you can make of it. I woke at the
regular time, got up reluctantly, went to the bathroom, made some coffee,
turned on the radio, and dropped lethargically into my big chair. Out of my
apartment window I could see, in the distance and just to the right of the
Fairmont Tower, the top of the Mark Hopkins hotel, where an American flag hung
limply from the flagpole.
At that
exact moment, a man appeared at the base of the flagpole. He seemed so small,
like a tin toy soldier on the roof. Then he jumped, fell, slid, and tumbled down
the steeply sloped roof, off the bottom edge, and into the air. I watched the
small, dark, human figure flailing against the gray sky as he fell, but he
disappeared immediately behind the roofline of the apartment building right
across the street.
An hour of
listening to the news on radio and TV yielded no mention of what I had just
witnessed. I started worrying. Either I had clearly lost my mind and made up
the whole thing, or a horrible accident (maybe even a murder!) was going
totally unnoticed. I began to panic. Had I just dreamt it?
I searched
the distance between my apartment and the Mark Hopkins on Google and found it was
exactly 1.2 miles—straight up Powell, a slight nudge right at Filbert, left
briefly on Columbus, back onto Powell and then right on California. I took off
on foot, stopped for a gelato on Columbus Avenue, and then arrived, in just
over half and hour, in front of the hotel.
No police vans,
no ambulances, no NewsHour trucks, nothing. Tourists walked out of the hotel,
the doorman signaled for cabs, and they drove off to wherever the tourists were
going these days. Another cab would pull up, someone would get out, pay the
cabbie, and go into the hotel. The doorman touched his fingers to his cap.
I walked
nonchalantly past the doorman and into the lobby. There was a time when the
doorman at such a hoity-toity hotel would have noticed me, maybe even asked my
business there. But no one said anything. I crossed the lobby and waited for an
elevator. I took the one that went to the Top of the Mark, and when I stepped
out there I was in front of a wall of windows looking out over the city from
the combined height of nineteen stories added to Nob Hill’s three hundred and
twenty five feet. Waiters came and went. A trio of musicians played soft jazz, and
there was the low murmur of conversation. In the background, the tinkling of
glasses.
If someone
had fallen past these windows, flapping his arms, twisting his face into a
grotesque mask, there was no evidence of it now. I stepped back into the
waiting elevator, rode it down to the lobby, and walked slowly but very
business-like out onto the street. I couldn’t help thinking that people all
around were hiding something, like they were all in on it.
It was
conceivable the body could’ve fallen without anyone seeing it. But if no one
had picked it up, it would still be lying around somewhere. I started investigating
in slowly expanding circles around the base of the Mark Hopkins, walking along and
looking casually as if I were a tourist searching for a dropped fanny pack. I
looked behind dumpsters in the alley, tried the handles of locked doors,
checked under parked cars, peered into dusty windows.
Given the
circumstances, no one could blame me if I became just a little paranoid. I felt
my shoulders stiffen as I looked quickly around. I felt like I was being
watched, but I saw no one. At first, that is. As I emerged from the alley I
noticed a black Dodge Charger parked in a no-parking zone. The car started and
drove slowly out into the traffic and down the street. I wrote the license
number in my little notebook. ROT ZZZ.
I decided
to take a circuitous route home, walking in the shadows whenever I could, and
taking only less traveled streets. I waited under the awning at the sushi place
across the street, watching my apartment for a long time. I thought I saw a shadow
through the Venetian blinds, but I convinced myself I was being silly. I went
upstairs, and when I opened the door, the apartment was very quiet. Nothing
seemed to have been disturbed. I went from room to room, checking everything. If
anyone had been in here, they were good; you’d never have known it.
Eventually,
I turned on the news. Still no mention of the falling man. I had my dinner and
settled into my chair to watch a little TV before bed. I was just dozing off
when I thought I heard something—a soft scratching outside my door. I jumped
up. I went close to the door. I heard it again, a definite scratching around
the lock. The scratching became louder and rougher. I ran around the apartment
looking for something to defend myself with, looking for a place to hide,
trying to think what to do. The scratching turned into a pounding and scraping,
as if someone were attacking my lock with a mallet and chisel.
The
scrapping and whacking stopped, the metal handle turned, the door opened. Two
men in sweat pants and hooded sweatshirts came in.
“No! No!” I
began sobbing.
One of
them held me as the other crossed the room and opened the window. He looked
out and down and then came back. Without a word, the two of them took hold and pushed me as I started screaming toward the open window.
