by Mark Tufo
“Well, I wasn’t going to go that far, but whatever. Let’s do this.”
By the time we had the ladder fully extended, it looked about as sturdy as a pipe cleaner. The swaying of the main ladder and the resultant swinging of the one we were holding had my confidence ebbing faster than Superman’s libido after putting on a kryptonite condom, that is providing of course that such a thing can be made. But IF it could be, it would be disastrous for him, and I guess Lois too.
“This seems safe,” BT said as he tried to keep his footing while also steadying the ladder.
“You guys ready?” I yelled to Paul.
“What the hell do you want us to do?” Mrs. Deneaux shouted.
“Catch it!” I yelled back.
“Yeah, preferably with your face,” BT muttered for my ears only.
“Good one, let’s let it go.”
It fell faster than I was expecting. The good news though was that we had about a foot and a half to spare as it slammed onto the roof. Our end kicked up a good foot from the shock of the contact. It missed me completely but caught BT squarely on the shin. It wasn’t an injurious hit, but it had enough force to make him lose his balance. BT began to pinwheel his arms. I could hear the horrified cries from above and below as I reached out and grabbed the waist line of his pants. There was a shockingly long second where I thought we were both going over. BT wasn’t a piece of equipment and I was not going to let him go.
We were frozen between absolute death and relative safety. A butterfly landing on BT’s shoulder would have been enough to tip the scales. As it was, there was a slight breeze to my face that I think God issued just for us. The death détente was shattered by minutiae; the forces I applied pulled us back from the literal edge.
“Whew,” BT said as he sat down, placing a tight grip on the ladder he sat on. “That was close.”
I didn’t say anything. I probably would have just vomited anyway. And that really would have just killed the heroic moment I was hoping to bask in for another minute or two while I got my heart rate under control.
“Mike, I can’t…”
“Don’t,” I said putting my hand up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
BT remained seated while he secured the ladder with some tie downs and a few bungee cords. “I don’t think this would stand up to a regulatory inspection.”
The whole assembly was bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans high on cocaine.
I eyed the climb as I psyched myself up.
“What are you doing?” BT said ominously, placing massive arm across my chest.
“Getting an ice cream cone. What the hell does it look like I’m doing?” I asked him.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
“BT, come on man, this won’t hold you.”
“So was that how you planned on getting rid of me? You all go up there and then I’m stuck down here by myself.”
“I hadn’t really planned it out,” I told him honestly.
“Listen, this makes the most sense, IF this holds me then there’s no doubt it will hold everybody else.”
I started to protest.
“Shut up Mike, I know you’re the Type A personality with control issues and a hero complex, but I’m doing this. It makes the most sense and now once a-friggen-gain, I owe you,”
“We’re not keeping score, BT.”
“Maybe you aren’t, but I am. Just make sure your end doesn’t come undone,”
“Fine, your funeral…oh man, I didn’t mean that… that was a poor choice of words,”
“Actually it wasn’t, just poor timing. Stop looking like you just swallowed a mouse, it’s alright my friend.” He fist bumped me and started up.
Paul and Alex each grabbed their respective ends of the ladder to keep it from shifting around too much, which was not an easy task with BT’s weight. The real problem began to arise as BT was halfway through his climb, the bow in the ladder began to pull precious inches of aluminum from its perch on the roof. The eighteen inches he had started with had rapidly been reduced to less than two.
BT had not raised his head during the entire expedition, wise move. I don’t think I would have either. He just stayed focused on the task at hand, hand to rung, foot to rung.
“Stop, BT,” Paul said.
“I’d rather not.” Although he did.
I had been so intent on watching BT, I did not realize the drama happening up above. I looked up to Paul and instantly saw the issue.
“Foh!” I said.
“What, Mike?” BT asked without looking.
“I said that out loud? Apparently it’s Shakespearean.”
“Mike!” BT roared.
“Sorry man, your weight is pulling the skids of the ladder off the roof.”
“How much more of a climb do I have?”
“Fifteen feet,” I gauged.
“How much of the ladder is still on the roof?”
I looked up to Paul, he held up two fingers.
“Two inches,” I told him, my heart sinking.
“Am I over halfway?”
“I’d say you’re just about dead center,”
“What is it with you and bad word choices?” he asked.
“Huh? Oh man, I’m sorry,” I said again.
“In for a dime, in for a dollar,” as he reengaged his movements.
A third person who I had not seen previously came to the aid of Paul and Alex by getting in between them and reaching down to grab the top rung. I think that may have been what saved BT’s ass. Looks like he was going to owe someone else big time. He was soooo not going to be happy about this.
“Ten feet BT!” I shouted.
“How much?” he asked in return.
I once again looked to Paul. He let go his hold with one hand to raise all his fingers.
“Five inches! That’s awesome!” I said with jubilation.
“Maybe where you come from,” BT said.
“Did he just make a dick joke?” Alex asked.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” I heard clearly from Mrs. Deneaux.
“Just get your ass on that roof,” I told him. “Five feet, and no, I’m not telling you how many inches so that you can tell me ‘That’s more like it,’” I said, trying to do a reasonable facsimile of BT’s deep voice.
“Don’t quit your day job,” BT growled as the new guy grabbed a fair amount of BT’s shirt and pulled.
Considering that my day job consisted primarily of killing zombies, I didn’t think that was going to be a problem.
I rested heavily once BT got his ass up and over the wall. I knew BT far outweighed everybody still on this side, but how in the hell was I going to be able to sit here and watch eight more people cross this suicidal bridge?
Travis was already clambering up to meet me. “I’ll go next,” he said with just a little too much excitement.
“Be careful,” I said needlessly.
“No way, I’m going to do it standing up.”
“Just be careful, smart ass.” The minute it took him to make the climb was among the longest clock ticks I had ever known as a parent. If he slipped and fell, I would have dove in as if he had fallen into a swimming pool. There would have been no thought, no hesitation. My death to mirror his would have been much more preferable to soldiering on without him.
The new guy had found a rope and secured the top rung to something on his side. The ladder had barely bowed at all during Travis’ climb.
“Alright here’s the deal.” I told those on the truck. “I’m heading up, Eliza will definitely kill them if I leave, but if any of you think that you can get this truck out of here safely than I strongly suggest you take that route.”
Brian looked at the growing crowd of zombies surrounding the truck. “What do you figure the odds this thing could plow through them?” He asked me.
“Fifty fifty.” I replied.
“Kind of optimistic, don’t you think?” He asked gazing out among the throng. “We’ll come with y
ou.”
I nodded, I was happy, we’d need as much fire power as possible.
Meredith climbed up the ladder next. She took a solid five minutes to make the climb, but besides that, nothing out of the ordinary took place. Justin went next; his trip was not as smooth. He had one foot slip and dangle dangerously over the precipice.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly when he got to the top. “I was trying to beat Trav’s time.”
“Yeah, that seems worth it,” I said sarcastically.
It was pretty much Perla’s turn, but she was having none of it. “I can’t!” she cried into Cindy’s shoulder. “He’s gone!”
“He is, Perla,” Cindy said consolingly. “But his memory isn’t. He would want you to go on, Perla. You let me read the letters he sent you when he was in the thick of the war. He loved you more than anything. He was always telling you to not let your life go by unlived if anything should happen to him.”
“Wait, you read his letters?” Brian asked, “Did she read mine?” he asked, pointing to Perla.
“What do you think?” Cindy answered, pulling Perla in closer.
“That was some pretty personal stuff,” Brian said with some embarrassment.
“Don’t worry, you’re no poet,” Cindy said.
“But there was a lot of love in them,” Perla said, sobbing into her friend’s shoulder.
“Please,” Cindy said. “It was the only comfort we could give to each other while you were off fighting your wars.”
“Fine, but I don’t like it,” Brian said as he turned away. I could only imagine that he was trying to desperately remember all that he had said and how many of his deepest secrets had been exposed.
I remember some of the letters I had written to Tracy when I was traipsing around the world in some of the least unsavory places on the planet. When you are under the belief that the day in which you are living is going to be your last, you tend to spill everything within you. Sometimes I had gushed such heartfelt sentiment that I had actually become embarrassed when I reflected back on it from a safer vantage point. If Tracy ever thought that perhaps I was becoming a girly-man, she never once brought it up or held it against me.
Perla did go next; she never once took her eyes off the spot where her fiancé dropped. I personally think it was the anger that spurred her on and not the fear. A pissed-off woman was always a good ally.
Brian grabbed a coil of rope that was housed at the bottom of the lift controls and brought it up. “Never know if we’ll need it,” he said.
By the time the rest of the troop had made it up the ladder I figure I had aged a good five years. It is a sucky feeling to feel so powerless (I would like to banish the word but impotent rings closer to the truth). It is the effect of being a man but unable to do the manly thing. No, I’m not talking sex; it was the inability to completely protect my family. I couldn’t spot them on the ground if they should happen to slip and fall. I couldn’t go up with them and hold them secure. I just had to wait and hope that a higher power was not calling any one I loved to be by His side just now.
Of course that is assuming that I believe in Someone or Something. I have wrestled seemingly my entire life with my belief system. A lot of time in my youth I believed only when it served me. As I have grown older (you’ll note I did not say wiser) and I have spawned my legacy, I sometimes see Him and His Power shining through their eyes. But I waver as I look at the cruel black eyes of those that oppose us and wonder how an omnipotent being could ever find justice in the cruelty that the world afforded so eagerly. And I’m talking even before the zombies came, but if you really start to put all the pieces together, than perhaps it does fit. I’m not saying I like the picture that the puzzle is portraying, but who am I to say what is art? I can’t stand Picasso either. But let’s just say for the sake of argument that He gave us all free will to do as we pleased in His garden. And let’s say that as the spoiled, greedy, egotistical, uncaring, brattish life forms that we are, we took a big shit on his prized Azaleas and maybe His way of disciplining his wayward children is this plague, this plague upon humanity. I have yet to see so much as ONE zombified lady bug, or dolphin, or even an ape who shares somewhere in the neighborhood of 98% of our genes. So there you have it, Beginner’s Theology, Course 101.
So I’ve been stalling my inevitable climb up the ladder. I am no fan of heights. I was so wrapped up in everybody else’s go at it, I guess I never figured my turn would come.
“Henry, it’s just me and you. You ready for this?” I asked him. He didn’t respond, he was too busy looking down at the zombies.
“Talbot, get your ass up here!” BT yelled.
“What about the truck?” I asked him needlessly.
“What about it?” Tracy asked in response.
“He’s afraid of heights,” Gary said, looking over the lip of the wall.
“Talbot? I watched him charge into machine gun fire,” BT said disbelievingly.
“Our brother Glenn,” Gary said, bowing his head and doing the Holy Trinity upon his chest (Catholicism dies hard), “once took him hiking to a place called Blue Hills when he was young,”
“Gary, you really don’t need to tell that story right now!” I shouted from the truck.
“If you come up here I’ll stop,” Gary said with a wicked smile.
“That’s kind of messed up,” Meredith piped in.
“I agree with her!” I shouted. Just then the fire truck began to shake as zombies began to slam into the body. I almost pitched over the side long before I had a chance to go up that ladder.
“Continue,” BT said.
“Mike never told me this story,” Tracy said.
“He told me once,” Paul said, “but we were pretty drunk.”
“This sucks,” I said.
Gary turned from me and began up his narrative, “So Glenn,” (Gary stopped for the Trinity again) “took him all the way up this Hill. How old were you Mike, ten, eleven?”
“Seven,” I answered back.
“Wow, that young? Damn, no wonder you’re so screwed up,” Gary reflected.
“Just finish it up, will you!” I yelled at him.
“So on the top of this hill is a Ranger’s station, looks a lot like a castle come to think of it. But anyway Glenn (yes the Trinity came again), one of his friends, and Mike go to the top of it. The stations were unmanned and unsupervised back then, I think that’s probably changed since then. Do you know, Mike?” Gary asked.
“Never been back Gary, thank you very much. Please continue!” I told him.
“Well, Glenn,” Gary started again with the cross upon his chest.
“God gets it!” I shouted at him.
“What? What are you talking about?” Gary asked.
He was completely oblivious about what he had been doing. Catholics were used to doing things by rote. If you have never been to a Mass, it consists of a lot of sitting, kneeling, bending and the damn shaking of strangers’ hands. It’s not the people that I can’t stand nearly as much as the germs that they have on them. I’m concerned about where MY hands have been and I KNOW. Only God knows where Joe Schmoe’s hands have been. Who knows, maybe he has an incurable case of pubic lice and he’s been feverishly scratching his nether regions moments before he grasps your hand in mock friendship. I don’t know, but that’s what I’m thinking. I once saw a video on YouTube where a lady on a public train once shoved her hand down the crack of her ass and then pulled it out to give it a good licking. Yeah, you read my entry right, I wrote LICKING. Sniffing would be bad enough, but LICKING? Are you kidding me? I almost upchucked on my monitor. What if that bitch is sitting next to me in church! Still stalling about the climb up the ladder in case you hadn’t noticed.
Gary had started back up while I was having my inner dialog. “… they’re up on the top of this castle slash ranger station and Glenn (Sign of the Trinity – I sighed heavily) asks Mike if he wants a better view.”
“This doesn’t sound like it worked out well for
you Mike!” BT shouted.
I flipped BT off. It had absolutely no effect on the big man as he laughed it off.
“So Glenn (SotT – guess what it stands for. I have to write this journal out with a pencil and I’m sick of repeating the same thing over and over) hoists Mike up.”
My breathing started to accelerate just thinking about what was to come.
“Immediately flips him over and hangs him upside down by his ankles outside the window.”
“Oh my God!” Tracy exclaimed.
“Glenn (SotT) was a wild man,” Gary said with his head bowed.
“Damn Mike, I’m sorry I was messing with you. That would be a head fest for any one, especially a seven-year-old,” BT said. “Now get your ass up here.”
“Is that your version of tough love?” I asked him.
“There are zombies getting on the truck,” the guy I hadn’t met yet shouted.
Henry started barking, something he only does under extreme duress, and zombies closing in was apparently on his sliding scale of bark-worthy events, that and doggie ice cream treats, but I hadn’t heard the ice cream man coming.
