I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [27]
Midnight on the last day in the ninth week found me kneeling on the roof of our apartment house. I was costumed up, my beautiful sword painted silver and stuck through my belt. I was praying through the final nine Rosaries, not rushing. Each one was portentous, bringing me closer to the great moment when Jesus would let me fly. Apostles’ Creed, Our Father, five Hail Marys, Our Father, then repeated Hail Marys in a circle around the beads until you end up back where you started. At last! “I’m ready, Jesus.”
I went to the edge of the roof and jumped.
And fell …
Only two stories … to the roof of the adjoining building (Jesus really was watching out for me). Had I gone off any of the other three sides, a six-story drop would have awaited me.
I was knocked out. Coming out of it after how many minutes? a few? ten? twenty? half an hour? One whole side of my leg was scraped, knee to hip. My costume was shredded, my ankles and knees throbbing so badly that I was sure they were broken. My sword shattered.
The fall was probably some twenty-five to thirty feet. Lucifer’s fall was much farther. I crawled up onto my aching knees. “Forgive me, Jesus, I’m so sorry. It was not right for me to fly. I’m not worthy. I was too proud. I had the sin of pride. IT WAS NOT GOOD FOR ME.”
The d’Artagnan’s wire hand guard on my sword was flattened. I tried to stand, but my ankle did not support me. Broken? Maybe just a sprain. Glory Dreams vanished. My concern was, “How can I get off the roof?”
I had imagined I would fly, batlike, through the night sky, soar around my neighborhood for a while, then alight gently back where I started, and so I had propped open the door to my roof, to welcome my return. But now, I found myself on another roof!
Chastened and dejected, I limped over to the door to the stairwell. Horrors! Locked!
“Oh, please Jesus, don’t let them find me here in the morning.” It would be worse than being caught naked in the subway. My costume seemed stupid, the splintered sword a travesty, my cape, pathetic, and me, battered—all because of the sin of Pride.
Crawling off the roof by descending a ladder to the top floor’s outdoor fire escape, I zigzagged down several levels of metal stairs, limping past the open windows of sleeping families. Most perilous was the ten-foot drop from the lowest level of the fire escape to the ground! What a nightmare! Terrified, I hung by my fingertips from the final rung of the raised ladder, said another prayer, and let go. This time, I was certain I would break both ankles.
Not so bad. I was okay. “Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you!”
Yikes! The alley door to my apartment building was locked! I sat down and cried. They would find me in the alley in the morning, unable to move, exposed by bright morning sun, my ankle a swollen balloon.
Then, right in front of my eyes lay the half-open casement window to the coal bin in the basement of my building. Inside, the piles of coal were packed right up to the window’s edge. I saw how I could squeeze through the window, roll down a hill of coal to the floor, then wend my way through and out of the cellar, up the stairs, and to bed. Hooray!
Black with coal dust when I emerged from the basement, I left smudges on the stairs all the way up to our fourth-floor apartment. It took me two hours to clean the filth off, bandage the scrapes, and wash away the coal dust rimming the bathtub. I could hear Boss snoring as I cleaned away the evidence. No spy could have done better. The cape and the shards of d’Artagnan’s sword were on the roof of the building next door, abandoned.
Now I had to hide my ripped and blackened costume. I threw it out the window.
Folds twisting, swirling downward, bat wings fluttering away in darkness. Lucifer, on his way down to the abyss. (See Appendix.)