September 11, 2009

• Fatigue burned in my legs as me and my roommate biked hard and fast up the incline of the bridge. Breathing heavily, we finally reach the top and lock our bikes by the gate. We lean over the bridge and take in the view as the afternoon sun shines off the waters of the Chicago River below us. We take a quick look around, just to make sure no one is watching us. Then, we swing around back and quickly climb down a flight of metal stairs hidden around the back of the bridge. Running in the secluded area under the bridge, we make our way over to the river. The water was no less murky at the bottom of the bridge than it was from the top- we couldn't see more than six inches below the surface. David was the first to dive in; he swam around to make sure that the water was deep enough for the stuff of legend. Leaving his shoes, my sunglasses, and our doubts behind, he climbed back to shore and we made our way across the under side of the bridge. In this particular area, there was only a small ledge from one side of the bridge to the other. With our backs pressed against the wall, we inched across the underside of the bridge. I accidentally kick some rubble, and watch as it plummets into the waters below. Now we're standing on a narrow ledge with the river to our right, a cesspool of sewage to our left, and the metal beams of the bridge above us. I jump and grab hold onto the nearest beam, and pull myself up the top. making our way across the metal beams, we come to a narrow catwalk built under the bridge. We follow this catwalk all the way to an overhang. David and I look at each other, and then at the river, thirty feet below us. This is the stuff legends are made of. We drew courage from each others eyes, unspokenly agreeing that the same fate would befall the both of us. Either we would both chicken out and turn back, or we would both go balls out and jump into the river to emerge as legends... or die trying. Live or die, that would be the bond that ties us, like brothers. David lowers himself to a hanging position to scope out the river. A few seconds later, he pulls himself up. David does a few more pull-ups but finally makes up his mind. Leaving all hesitation behind, he jumps in, dissapearing into the river below. I propelled my body to move through the impulse centered on honor; I will not let this brother of mine jump off a bridge alone. Abandoning thought, my heart drove my body to act before my mind could object. I jumped in after him, falling for what felt like an eternity. Time seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time as what could have been the last moments of my life passed by in a blur. I plunged into the water, a boy holding onto his honor... and surfaced as a man.
  
  
  me at the top of the bridge
  
  
  David didn't time it right so he didn't get a picture of me in mid-air
  
  
  David hanging from the catwalk
  
  
  the stuff of legends
  
  After we swam to shore, it seemed we had gathered quite an audiance. A man in a uniform informed me that the cops were on their way. He was a distance away, on the land and slightly around the corner (while me and david were on the ledge that you see against the wall of the bridge. We snuck along the edge of the bridge quietly and crept quietly away from him, then we went around the back and went quietly up the metal stairs. Once we reached the top, we discovered that David had lost my bike key. The two of us ran like the wind for a block or two, then decided to hide inside Whole Foods until the heat died down.
  
  After I went back to the appartment, I found out that it was exactly 28 feet and 5.24 inches from the bottom of the catwalk (David's fingertips in the picture) to the surface of the water. I calculated this by dropping a rock from that height and using the gravitational constent plus the equation of motion: Δx = vt + 1/2at²
  

  • 9:30 pm
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