Climb Every Building
Jon met Jerry at their favorite watering hole, Clement’s bar. It was an unusual day to say the least. Jon only heard about the “incident” in confusing snippets, too disjointed to make sense of.
Jerry, a police officer, looked more tired than usual, his eyes sunken, his mouth in a semi-frown, staring into the foam of his beer. Built like a retired linebacker with a deep brown complexion, he was in rumpled civilian clothes; it had been a hard day.
“So there was a copycat?” Jon asked as he signaled the bartender for a mug of beer for himself. Fair-skinned, sandy-haired, and angular, he leaned over the bar, eager to hear what Jerry had to say.
Jerry’s answer was to take a much-needed swig of beer. He wiped his lips and gave a barely perceptible nod.
“It started with that couple, around July 1st, I think.”
“Yeah, Wednesday of last week.”
“And it was that daredevil “rooftop” couple that scaled the Empire State Building. They unfurled a flag about love ending war or something. Then the guy proposed.”
“Yep, that started everything,” Jon said. He paused, not quite believing what he heard. “So today no less than nine people scaled the Empire State Building. What’s the deal with that?”
“It was the von Trapp family,” Jerry said, almost mumbling, his eyes fixed on the collection of spirits on display at the back of the bar.
“The von Trapp family?” Jon asked incredulously.
“Yes, the very one from The Sound of Music,” Jerry explained. “They somehow violated space and time and the fictional bounds of their nature to join us here in our reality, our place, our time. And they forgot to age as well.”
It was at this point the bartender brought back Jon's beer and placed it on the bar. Upon hearing this, the bartender nodded his head and gestured with open palms, indicating that he too, along with probably thousands, had heard the story.
“But why?” asked Jon.
“Did you ever hear the song 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain'?” Jerry began singing sub rosa so no one else at the bar could hear. “'Climb every mountain, search high and low'—”
Jon impatiently interrupted, speaking the next lines. “'Follow every byway every path, yada, yada, yada.’ We know. We all learned that at the police academy.”
“Well, it turns out that they have already climbed every mountain. The whole crew of nine of them, even little five-year-old Gretl. Every single mountain!”
“So they’re out of mountains?” reasoned Jon. “And now they’re doing skyscrapers?”
“You got it!” Jerry said. “They saw that crazed couple and decided to follow their own personal rainbow, so to speak. So we got the copycats we feared.”
“With so many people up there, it must have been a difficult operation.”
“Yeah, the team had a hard enough time with the original pair,” Jerry said, tracing the rim of his mug without looking up. “Unlike a window washer hanging on to a diagonal scaffold, holding on for dear life, these exhibitionists want to enjoy their moment. They stay up there and we have to convince them to come down. So it was bad enough with two people who want to enjoy their moment, but nine?”
“I bet it was a nightmare.”
“It was crazy.” Jerry shuddered slightly and shook his head tightly as he recalled the chaos. “The von Trapps are like crazed trapeze artists. There was Louisa running up the ladder, Friedrich was hanging by one hand and making faces. Then Brigitta actually did a cartwheel right on the ledge. And Liesl did 16 backflips and threatened to go onto the 17th before one of the officers stopped her.”
“That’s messed up,” Jon said.
“Then things got worse.”
Jon brought his beer halfway to his mouth and stopped. “How so?”
“They started to sing,” Jerry spoke louder, showing his frustration. “And they wouldn’t stop. For hours they sang and sang and sang! It was freakin’ karaoke at 1,500 feet! And we couldn’t get their attention, no matter how we tried.”
“I hope they didn’t do the 'Do-Re-Mi' bit, did they?” Jon asked.
“Yeah, over and over again! By the way, I always thought the line 'Fa, a long, long way to run' was bad. 'Fa' is not far.”
“Point taken,” Jon agreed. “But how did you finally get them down?”
“Well, although they appear idealistic, everyone does have their price.” Jerry seemed to be enjoying this part of the story. “A representative from the Salzburg Music Festival saw the breaking news and showed up. Between musical numbers, he offered them a prime television spot at the next festival and 70% of the gate revenue only if they would come down to the 86th-floor observation deck to sign the contracts. And before you could say 'so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu,' they were all on the deck hammering out the deal.”
“Did you book 'em?”
“Are you kidding?” snickered Jerry. “Can you imagine the bad publicity we’d get arresting those adorable von Trapp kids? We just gave them a warning. We were just lucky we got them all down without any of them making the sound of 'splat' on a NYC sidewalk. Now they’re Salzburg’s problem.”
“Good riddance,” Jon agreed. “I’ll get this. You had a hard day. I know beer is one of your favorite things.”
Jerry smiled and they clinked their mugs in a mock toast.
