PART 5

         There’s darkness all around me but I’m bathed in light. My body is rigid, paralyzed. My eyes seem to be the only thing I can control. I don’t know how long I’ve slept and I don’t recall dreaming. There’s a weight upon me, a reassuring weight that commands me to stillness. I close my eyes again. The light is still apparent, bright and unyielding. Where is it coming from?

         I try to move and the sharp pain returns, shooting from my thigh. The steel is still below me. I find this comforting. I breathe deeply and prepare myself to force my body into motion. Once I get momentum, I know I won’t lose it. I turn my neck to the left and follow it with my right shoulder as if they’re tired together by a string. I twist my torso and roll to the left. I use that leverage to twist myself up into a sitting position. My abdominals burn but it’s a good feeling. There’s water near. Water will make everything easier. I’m now straddling the rail and I use my hands to scoot myself forward across it. I’m sliding my body across bright silver marked by deep shadow lines. There are three of these lines between me and the dark bundle that’s across from me, tethered at the joint of the rails by bright yellow cord. The cord stands out like a flag against the steel.  When I reach it, it appears to be intact. I carefully pull away the towels, un-wrapping it like a fragile gift. The phone is there. It was there all along. I smile wide and feel my lips cracking at the corners. It’s all there: my TV, my binoculars, my mug, sunblock, a pack of batteries and two thick bottles.

        I immediately gulp down a few ounces of water. It feels great against my lips but violates my stomach. It strikes me as funny that I’ve finally reached my sunblock and binoculars only to find them, for the moment, essentially useless. I chuckle to myself. I need to think clearly right now. The light: where is it from? Perhaps, the police are shining it on me to disrupt my sleep. That makes the most sense. It doesn’t matter. All that’s important is the phone. I cradle it in my hands. It feels perfect but something is off. It stares back at me blankly. I flip it open and my spirit shrivels. I press the power button three times but it just lies there lifeless. Looking at the cold, black screen, I feel the hollowness of my body. I realize that I’m nothing but a shell. Drained of food and drink and purpose, I’m just a shell holding a shell. I want to cry but my body has neither the water nor the capability. When I was young, I used to try. Whenever I felt sadness, I’d yearn for tears. I’d rush to the mirror and watch my face, focusing on my pain, pushing for some kind of dramatic expression but I couldn’t find it. I never had that skill. My mother was a wonderful crier. She had switches at her disposal for every emotion and she simply flipped one whenever she needed tears. And every time she would cry, afterword, sincerely or not, she seemed at peace.

         I just stare at the phone. I feel my body trembling. I feel a surge of violence. I need to hit something, break something, run, scream. I take the lifeless plastic hulk in my hands and twist it until it snaps at the joint, a small relief. I needed to kill it. I yearned to hear her voice again but failing that, something needed to suffer. I feel like Daniel Plainview. I feel for a few fleeting seconds like a powerful, evil man. Pain and doubt rush back but my mind is scrambling against them, fending them off until I can twist them into some useful course of action. An actor must adapt. I must address this new situation for what it is. I cannot contact the world below. They cannot contact me. I’m going through my motions, smoothing my clothes and my hair but rapidly, manically. I breathe deeply and try to slow down everything: my mind, my body and the scene around me. I think of my object exercises: Who am I? I am Tan Man. I am nothing. I am Samuel. I am dying. I am manic. I was a tiny speck in the world. I am a tiny speck in the sky…. What time is it?.... What surrounds me? Light. Darkness. Steel. What do I want?...

        I may die. I may have set that course on the day that I climbed up higher. I always considered that to be a viable ending but I wanted it to be a great one. I wanted it to be the final note in a great symphony of emotion- Tan Man descending in the dragon’s mouth, the masses holding their breath, fearing the worst, his limp body potentially still alive but… no.

       Tan Man nobly standing his ground, wishing only to be left alone until suddenly he’s struck from his perch by the reckless authorities, his body spinning towards the ground causing even his detractors to cry out in horror.

       Or, perhaps, the scene of Tan Man fading from the screen, using his last gasps of breath to utter six last words to the world: ‘I did it… for the girl’.

      I don’t have the energy to even be Tan Man at the moment. I’m slumping, beaten and raw- things he would never allow himself to be. Still I go on. In the morning, I will point my binoculars down at my crowd and see what remains of it. I will ration out what remains of my water and decide if I have the strength to climb back down to a level where the dragon can reach me. My options, unpleasant as they are, are my only options.

      I reach for my TV. I switch it on and it stares back at me blankly. I exhale and shake my head. I pop off the back and switch out the batteries. TV will not let me down. I can see the scene again. I’m a pitiful figure, cast in bright light surrounded by dark shadows, sitting absurdly in the sky. I’m thin and dirty, certainly more black than tan, and I’m holding a tiny portable television. I’m starving and broken and staring at a small screen hoping it will give me nourishment. I look beaten and haggard and one of my shoes is missing. I never even realized this but my fractured stiff leg clearly hangs with a loose, muddy red sock at the end. My head is light and I feel confused. I close my eyes. I open them to stare down at the television and… I’m there. I’m really there. I close my eyes again and I open them to see myself clearly emblazoned on the little screen. I watch myself. I watch myself with the channel 4 logo in the corner. I close my eyes again and open them to again stare at the pixelated image of me. I run my right hand through my hair and I watch it happen on the screen. I watch myself in real time. I glance at my watch. It’s 8:26. I’m watching myself in… prime time.

     I feel like I’m floating. I close my eyes again and listen. I hear it now all around me, a wonderful percussive hum. It’s soothing, ambient, really. I expect to hear it from the North but the sound surrounds me, just like the light. How many are out there? How many helicopters, how many cameras and how many eyes? I imagine the viewers for my drama of the small broken climber. I can see it projected on- living room flat screens, laptops and hanging boxes at the airport. I imagine the people who are watching him, wondering what will happen. Will he fall? Will he starve? Will he come down with the police? I hope I’ve given them thrills, sorrow, anger, disgust, laughter, smiles, something to talk about.  I hope I’ve given them moments, real visceral moments. I feel the elation of gratitude. I feel grateful for them and grateful that I may have given them anything. I would give them anything…. What should I give them now?

    Uta Hagen talked about the original definition for an amateur. She said that an amateur did not denote someone unskilled but specifically someone who does something out of love. I need to show them, all of them, that I am a true amateur, that I love what I do and that I love being there for them. I stare at my muddy red sock on screen with the missing shoe where the tweezers once nestled in the laces. I twist my torso subtly until pain shoots from my leg through the whole of my body. I began convulsing and I have to breathe heavy to keep from crying out. I keep twisting. I bury my face in my hand. I extend my hand and stare at it for a minute as it shakes violently. I then take my television and smash it several times against the rail, yelling to punctuate each strike, until pieces of plastic fly from it and the screen is shattered. I place it back on the rail with my trembling hand. I keep twisting and building the pain until I know that my face is wracked with agony. I then slump and shake and cry a wonderful tearless cry. I slump there defeated and, finally, look skyward with closed eyes until the shaking has calmed to a shiver. I grab the rail and pull myself up until I can slide my left leg beneath me. I stand. I stare down at the abyss below, the brilliant haze of light and dark. I bow my head and shake it. Will our hero go on? Can he go on? I pause and savor the moment. There will be no tragic ending here. I couldn’t give them something so perfect as a leap my death. I am an actor and nothing more. I must now take off the mask to tell them the truth.

    I lift my head and straighten my posture. I look upon my abyss with the plainest expression I can muster. I wrap my left arm securely around my rail, smooth the lapels of my jacket and extend my hand with a flourish while slowly enunciating the words: “thank you, thank you, thank you”. I repeat this in the three directions that I am able to turn. I give the closest I can manage to a bow and I sit back down. I dust off my sleeves. I sit as sternly upright as I’m able and I pick up my mug. I pour in a couple of ounces of water and sip it slowly, admiring the flavor with a pursing of my lips and an appreciative nod. It’s nice to go on.

    If a ride is possible, I’ll return to the world tomorrow in a helicopter. I’ll return to being Samuel and I’ll continue my career as best I can. Tomorrow I will be Samuel. Tonight I am still Tan Man. Tonight I will do nothing, in the lights, in the sky, for anyone who’s watching.

THE END