Illinoir

There was about a tenfoot gap between the roof I was on and the roof of Tim Stimph’s building. I’d never been involved in a rooftop chase which required me to leap from one building to the next, but I’d seen a lot of movies, and it looked like a lot of fun, so I was eager to get going. How often do you get an opportunity like that?

I gauged the distance, estimating how much of a running start I’d need. Ten feet isn’t a whole heck of a long jump (the men’s world record in long jump is almost six time as far) but when you’re ten stories above ground, it tends to make you extra cautious even if you’re certain (or at least the voice in your head is certain) that you’d survive the fall. Jumping from roof to roof was something I wanted to do. Experiencing a 100-foot drop with a sudden and violent conclusion was not.

“This is so bad-ass,” I said, psyching myself up. “I’m a fucking action hero.”

“Brains.” You’re a zombie with a human complex.

“And you’re a wet blanket buzzkill. This is going to be so cool.”

I stepped back about 30 feet, and did a couple test runs of the running start. When I was confident I could manage the jump, I took a couple deep breaths (unnecessary, of course) tore ass across the roof and leapt into the air.

“Yippie-cay-yay motherfucker!” I shouted.

“Brains.” Why is it that David Hasselhoff was killed in a riot in Berlin? I thought he was really popular in Germany.

“Guh?” I asked. And then, as I slammed into the side of the building whose roof was my target, I said something along the lines of, “Oof.”

I’d caught the lip of the building’s roof right in my midsection. I think I felt (and heard) a couple ribs crack. If I still had a functioning circulatory system, I’d have a hell of a bruise. As it was, I was just really annoyed.

“Dammit, Westy,” I shouted, “you did that on purpose!”