One More Step.

I was heading back to work from lunch when it happened. My office was in the tallest building in town. It is called the Tower but in reality it only stood ten stories high and contained nine floors of office space, and a Subway restaurant on the first floor.

I made my way down the street to the dilapidated office and joined a growing crowd of onlookers. I struggled to see what everyone else had already seen, with the glare of the sun making it nearly impossible. As if God had heard me, a slightly dark cloud moved in front of the sun and I was able to focus on the roof. Somehow, I already knew what I was going to see. It’s a simple calculation really, crowd of onlookers, plus tall building, plus moving object on top of the tall building. So yes, I knew what I was going to see but I didn’t know who was about to jump, until he hung his head over the side.

Frank Iero, my best friend was on the roof of the tallest building in town. My body almost gave out as I tried to control the influx of emotions that threatened to overtake me. Fear, being the main culprit had my legs locked in place. I might have still been stuck there when he jumped had I not yelled the first thing that came to mind. “If you wanted to kill yourself you should have told me! I could’ve helped you without all this drama.” I thought I had gone too far as the gasps from the crowd died to a low mummer. Frank looked down on the mass but couldn’t see me in the ravelment. “Hold on!” I said, and stepped out of the crowd and into the Tower lobby.

I could hear sirens in the distance as the elevator doors closed and started my ascent. I had to move quickly if I wanted to get to him before the police tried to talk him down, which I knew wouldn’t work. A felt a sprinkle of rain as I stepped onto the roof with my best friend. I yelled out to him “Frankie, you never seemed the type for all this drama?” He turned quickly and saw who it was. “Don’t come any closer Gerard, I can’t do it anymore, you need to go away.” I shook my head in mock disbelief. “ Fat chance of that Bubba, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Frank started to say something but I cut him off. “So how do you think we should do this? I was thinking head first so that there is no chance I end up veggie soup.” He smiled a bit and I knew I could bring him back “You’re not jumping Gerard, you have everything to live for,” I nodded my head once and said “I could say the same about you Frankie, now let’s do this before the cops can blow up that big air thing.” The next part of my plan was extremely dangerous but absolutely necessary. I ran right for the edge as fast as I could. Frank was smaller than me, about fifty pounds smaller than me. He did as I hoped and stepped in front of my charging frame. I crashed into him with full force so that we both fell on the roof a few feet from the edge. “I can’t let you do this Gerard.” He said. “I know buddy, I feel the same about you, now can we please go eat some Subway?” Frank laughed loudly, which was the best sound I heard the entire day.