Someone has removed the cable I set up yesterday from the roof of this 16-story office building to the top of the five-story Paramount Theatre a block away. I am not surprised they are trying to stop my performance—I am here illegally because the building owner said no—but taking away my lifeline is a new twist in prevention.
I put down the bag containing my harness and walk to the very edge of the roof. Looking down, I see a sea of blue uniforms on top of the Paramount, and surmise that the police are arresting Rodney, who was stationed there to make sure the cable remained undamaged. More officers are certainly on their way here right now.
Eighth Street below is full of people, and they are spilling over onto Congress Avenue. Traffic is being rerouted. Everyone is chanting my name: “Jeris. Jeris.” A groundswell. If I hadn’t twittered about the show, the police would not be here, but neither would the crowd. I like a crowd.
I step up onto the edge of the building, right foot slightly in front of left, knees bent, arms extended to the side. The chant from the street below gets louder. Behind me I hear a number of footsteps and someone says, “Please don’t jump.”
But I’m not here to jump. I’m here to dance. And I cannot disappoint my audience. I inhale deeply, and do a grand jeté off the roof.
The wind catches me, and I float along, dancing on thin air.
Which falls faster, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead? An old question, long settled: a pound is a pound is a pound. But what happens if, instead of cramming feathers into a bag so that they will hold together, you open the bag and let a pound of unattached feathers drop to the ground?
Human skin is like a bag, but it’s a large bag, with plenty of internal space. Learn to relax at the molecular level and it’s as if you were made of hundreds of thousands of independent feathers, moving in coordination.
Slowly I descend, aiming for the ground, which has more people, but fewer policemen, than the Paramount roof. People move aside, make room for me to land. The crowd is utterly silent when I touch down, en pointe. And then they begin to clap and whoop and scream, until it sounds like a Willie Nelson concert or a Texas football game. It’s an Austin crowd; they’re passionate.
The crowd moves with me as I walk away, protecting me from the police. I borrow a phone, tell my lawyer to get Rodney out of jail and start negotiations with the authorities. Practicalities.
Around me, a hundred people are sending video to their friends, their blogs. By tomorrow there will be a thousand people calling it a hoax, but those around me know there was no wire. The truth is, I haven’t used the cables in a long time. They’re only there for show, to reassure my audience. It’s much more fun to float through the air.
It isn’t really flying. Gravity always wins, in the end. But it’s as close as a creature born without wings can come.