volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

Gulls, white as the ferries, wheel and rail overhead in the blue,
blue sky.
Roy stands on the sidewalk looking up at the tiny platform
hanging against the black, glass building; stands in a group
of people clutching Starbucks coffee cups and cellphones and
leather satchels and Bon Marché shopping bags, people who
have paused from their busy lives to stare up at the tiny platform,
shielding and straining their eyes, paused to share the vicarious
thrill of watching terror unfold, a tragedy thankfully not their
own, paused briefly to gawk before moving on towards the finish
lines of their lives.
Roy watches the body plummet towards the sidewalk,
swallowed by converging lines.
Long, red fingernails tap.
White, white clouds.
Blue, blue skies.
Rick grins and shifts his weight from side-to-side. The
platform on which they stand starts to sway. It swings out from
the building, then in against its black, reflecting glass. bang He
shifts again. The platform swings again. bang Out. In. bang
Again. bang
Roy’s eyes swell with fright. His fingers curl tightly around
the cold pipe that keeps him from being swallowed by converging
lines. He tries to speak, but words, as usual, fail him.
Rick laughs.
bang
The platform swings farther and farther out from the
building—
bang
White gulls wheel and rail, while white ferries scratch the
turquoise green of Puget Sound.
Another airliner floats in the blue, blue sky.
Roy crumbles to his knees.
Through the expanded metal grating they stand upon—the
platform’s floor—he can see the swinging scene, the hungry
converging lines, abstract people like rolling BBs, and he starts to
2 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY