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waltappel

Building Stress Levels (long)

By waltappel, in The Bonfire

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waltappel    1

waltappel
What started out as posting a couple of funny stories seems to have turned into a series. In case you missed the earlier postings, here are some links:

"Maybe the greenies don't like it when you act like a fool...": A true story about just how stupid I can get when I'm really frustrated.
"More Stupid HumanTricks": A story of me getting stupid with some hot sauce.
"My Visit to a Bordello": Just like the title says...
"One more reason to hate the doctor's office": Nipple infections are not fun but can be funny.
"I am a bad man when I get bored": My encounter with a perv in a laundromat
"I am not a smart man when I'm drunk": A BASE site scouting trip gone bad.
"thoughtful career choices": Who says mental hospitals are not fun? (ME, that's who!!!)
"Glory, Glory, Halleleujia": Don't read this one if you are a homophobe.
"practical joke for the practical nurse": A practical joke I played when I was a nurse.
"The Romantic Kiss is Not Dead (long)": "God's gift to women gets kissed
"The Ultimate Accusation": Like the title says...

“Walt Appel?”

“Yes….”

“This is Officer Murphy from the Houston Police Department. We’ve got your friend [I’ll call him ‘Mr. 1’ (the number one)] in custody. We know you did the jumps and we expect yourself to come turn yourselves in.”

After a badass building jump when you’re feeling like you are at the very peak of existence, that can be a real mood killer. How could such a great day suddenly go so wrong?

A friend who I’ll call ‘Mr. 175’ and I had been headed to the dropzone that morning. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in early December, and something suddenly got our attention.

Window washing platforms on a 400 ft. building on a Saturday.

On a Saturday?!!!!! Oh, Hell Yes!!!!! Most people don’t think much about window washing platforms on tall buildings, but they get BASE jumpers’ attention. After all, those platforms are attached by cables to the roof of the building, and to get to the platform on the roof, you have to go through a door that is normally locked. Since the window washers were working on a Saturday, when building occupancy [I]and security[/I] were low, the door might be left unlocked! This had some potential for being a relatively laid back building jump.

So much for heading to the DZ.

We parked the car and made our way to the top of the stairs to the access door to the roof. It was unlocked!!!

It is precisely this kind of moment that virtually any BASE jumper starts hearing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah playing in his head.

“Haaaaaaaaalayluyuh, Haaaaaaaaalayluyuh, Halaluya, Halaluya!!!!!”

My place was not far away, so we drove there to put a couple of rigs together for the jump. While I was doing that, ‘Mr. 175’ called ‘Mr. 1’ and asked if he might like to get in on the action. For some very good reasons, ‘Mr. 1’ decided not to jump, but he said he would like to go up and take some shots of our exits.

Before we knew it we were geared up and standing in front of the roof access door—me, ‘Mr. 175’, and ‘Mr. 1’.

I’m not very fond of jumping buildings—especially [I]finished[/I] buildings. They stress me out. I’ll take a good ol’ laidback tower any day. Jumping a finished building is a real exercise in cunning, stealth, logistics, and planning. Not only do you have the usual hazards of jumping a wall, but they are always in highly populated areas, where you can be seen (and reported to the police) easily and they have security.

So here we we were. My throat was tightening, I was sweating, and my heart felt like it was going to explode through my chest. If you’ve ever had that “chewing on your heart” feeling, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

We gave each other gear checks, ‘Mr. 1’ made sure his camera was ready, and we hauled ass for the exit point. The winds were perfect, our getaway car and driver was directly in front of the building next to our landing area. It was a go.

“3-2-1 See Ya’!!!!!!”

I had a beautiful on-heading opening and headed for the landing area, or so I thought. I turned in for final and quickly realized that I had turned in way too soon. I was going to over-shoot the landing area—not a good thing on the typical building jump, and this was no exception. I had to swing out wide to kill off some altitude. This put me directly over a 10 lane freeway facing directly toward the traffic.

Picture that for a moment. December 1st. A Saturday. Beautiful weather. Yep, the Christmas shoppers were out in full force and they were getting an eyeful!!! There were cars honking horns and I was starting to think that maybe our original idea of going to the dropzone had not been such a bad idea after all. This situation was starting to look like a shit sandwich without the bread!!!

Did I mention that I can be a real dumbass at times?

I managed to land my canopy on a 4 ft. wide strip between the feeder road and the freeway exit. I quickly gathered up my canopy, ran in front of a bunch of cars to get across the feeder road, and then hauled ass up the hill to the getaway car.

‘Mr. 175’ got a great view of all this during his jump. Unlike me, though, he landed right next to the car.

We hauled ass out of there—bigtime!!!

What a relief!!! We made it back to my place, popped open a couple of beers, and waited for ‘Mr. 1’ to show up. We were feeling GREAT!

That’s when the phone rang.

“Walt Appel?”

“Yes….”

“This is Officer Murphy from the Houston Police Department. We’ve got your friend, ‘Mr. 1’, in custody. We know you did the jumps and we expect you and 'Mr. 175' to come turn yourselves in.”

He kept on talking some other bullshit about charges of reckless endangerment, but I hardly heard a word. This was too fucked up to be true. We had just jumped off a fucking building and survived it! We got away! How could things go wrong now?

“Wait a minute”, I thought. “Too fucked up to be true? Maybe it really [I]is[/I] too fucked up to be true!!! What if “Officer Murphy” is actually ‘Mr. 1’?!!! How can I tell?”

I’ve never been a quick thinker (obviously), but this time I knew exactly what to do. If it was ‘Mr. 1’, he was probably at the security gate to my apartment complex. It was one of those gates where you punch in the apartment number on a keypad at the gate and it rings the phone of that apartment. You can talk with them and to open the gate, you simply press the “8” key on your phone. As soon as you do, you hear a tone and the gate opens.

I pressed “8”.

Yep, I heard the tone.

“FUCK YOU, ‘MR. 1’!!!!!”

‘Mr. 1’ was quite the comedian that day. He had us really shitting bricks with that little stunt. I asked him how he managed to sound so incredibly official and he told me that he had been arrested after a BASE jump by Officer Murphy, so he learned the rap first-hand.

Yep, I’ll take a good ol’ laidback tower any day.

Walt

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BillyVance    35

BillyVance
Yeah I would have shit my pants if I was in your place after that call... :D I don't think I would have thought that quickly that it was my friend trying to fool me... I'm a pretty gullible guy sometimes... :S

Good story! B|
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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waltappel    1

waltappel
Quote

Looking back on it, of course. Weren't you pissed, at least for a minute, at the time? I would've been...



Not in the least. 'Mr. 175' and I left the building the easy and quick way. We left 'Mr. 1' on the roof and he was on his own as far as getting out of there.

He was ok with that plan, but it bothered me. I don't want to leave anyone behind--ever.

I was so damn glad to see that he had made it out of there ok that he would have had to do something a hell of a lot meaner than that joke for me to get mad at him.

Walt

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