Gruesome Accident Tales Part V: "Hey, I know where there's a really good view."
Gruesome Accident Tales Part V:
"Hey, I know where there's a really good view."
Nothing is more boring than a Tuesday night in a city where you�ve lived for a month and a half when you don�t even have money for coffee. I had made a friend�a bold Leo frosh living at Haggett Hall on the University of Washington campus. He was trouble in an energetic, fun, egotistical, attention deficit disorder kinda way.
We were at the Allegro with a girl who was telling us about her newfound stripping career, when he suggested it, "Hey, I know where there�s a really good view." In our boredom we were willing to follow him anywhere. We followed him to an alley on the side of the Neptune Theater, a few blocks away. The Neptune is a famous Seattle theater, with a huge reader board topped by a neon sign where the final "E" in NEPTUNE is a trident.
As he began to push a dumpster underneath the fire escape ladder, we realized with some trepidation that this was going to be the illegal kind of good view. Now the Neptune is housed in a three-story building that also houses a retail store on the first floor, and some residential units on this alley side.
We climbed up on the dumpster and began to ascend the ladder. I could swear I saw someone poke their head out one of the apartment windows�although I don�t remember too well now. In any case, we got a little sketched out as we climbed up past the platforms for the 2nd and 3rd floors. At the top, I was disappointed to find that the view was mostly of I-5 at 45th, and a little of downtown. It was really not all that spectacular especially considering how spooked we all felt up there. We looked down and saw a cop car cruise by really slow. It was at that point that we decided it was a good time to get down from there.
George went down first, and I got on the ladder after him. The girl was still on the roof. I was a little ways above the top floor platform when he reached it, got off the ladder, and started climbing in the window of the building�s hallway.
How foolish, I thought, if we are coming down the ladder just as the police come, we can just say, "We were just leaving, Officer." But if we�re entering the building, then it�s breaking and entering instead of just trespassing. I was about 4 rungs above that platform, and so I jumped down to the platform to tell him so.
That�s when I realized that there was no platform directly beneath the ladder. Just a hole.
(to be continued)