Mild at heart

I remember a night, a summer night on a rooftop in one of the more upscale areas of the city. Summer 2001. We ended up on the rooftop.

We began in an apartment in the building. An apartment or a condo, hard to say. A very tall building with many floors of identical tiny apartments or condos. It felt like we were in a kennel.

Our hostess had mosquito netting over her bed. There on the seventeenth floor of an air conditioned high-rise: mosquito netting. I made fun of her a little for this and she did not seem to know I was making fun of her. She gazed blankly back at me as though I were speaking a language she could not understand. She blinked lanquidly as I spoke to her.

In addition to her decorating taste, our hostess had a desire that I desire her. I don't think it went any deeper than that. I think she just wanted me to burn with jealousy if she spoke to other men. I did not. It was easy for me to do, as I did not really find her appealing on any level.

It was a party of sorts, in the tiny apartment. The apartment and then the building's swimming pool. Some of the partygoers had brought swimsuits, and they cavorted in the warm air and the water until we were chased away by the building's security personnel. When they chased us from the pool was when we went to the roof.

I had brought a book with me to the party. I did not bring the book to be antisocial. I had brought the book along with me when I was under the impression that the party was merely a relaxed poolside gathering. Water holds no appeal for me. I thought I would read and sit in the sun and watch the women play in the water in their bikinis. This seemed an excellent way to pass the time.

The gathering became a party only through the virtue of people not leaving, and other people showing up. It was very organic.

I did not know most of the people at the party. I had been brought along by a former roommate. I knew her, and she knew all of the others. All of the others knew each other as well. My roommate did not stay by my side to ensure I was mingling. It would have made me feel terrible if she had.

There was a coat of coarse gravel all along the rooftop. A woman asked me why they put gravel on rooftops. People sometimes assume I will know things that are obscure. I guess I give off that vibe. I wear glasses, and I was carrying a book. Perhaps that's all it is.

I told her it was so that no one could sneak up on her, throw her off. I told her it was for her own safety, and that it gave her a fighting chance should an assassin appear here on the roof with a desire to do her in. She moved away.

I ended up on the periphery, perched on the concrete ledge of the building with my limbs wrapped around the guardrail. I was looking down at the other rooftops and the streets and the twinkly lights of the city. There were no twinkly lights above. There is far too much ambient light in Chicago for a body farther than the moon or the sun to have a hope of being visible. And yet we have a famous planetarium. Go figure.

I was looking down at the lights and thinking about a PJ Harvey song. I was thinking about the pretty woman I had failed to talk to that afternoon. I was thinking about a dream I had, and the book I was reading. I was thinking about the lights as I looked out upon them from my perch atop the city.

I could hear the laughter and muffled shouts from the others on the rooftop who seemed to me as though they might be on another rooftop entirely. It was very late at night, and each cry from a reveller brought a loud "shhh" from another.

If I leaned forward, I could easily visualize my own death. I could feel the wind of the fall.