The next night, I looked up at the bridge towering above me. I’d been here before. Harborhead Bridge was a dinosaur, really big and at least a hundred years old. It carried four lanes of traffic running over the bay. I’d spent a fair amount of time messing around here with my friends, crawling over and under it to see what we could find. But I’d never climbed bottom to top, like Kieran had suggested.
Next to me, a big concrete column soared up to join with a massive nest of metal girders beneath the main traffic level. From where I stood, that main level seemed really far away. It must have been about nine stories above the water, because pretty big ships could sail underneath it. I could hear the gentle knock of the boats in the marina against the docks. And from way up, there was a steady roar of traffic crossing over the bridge.
I didn’t see Kieran in the shadows until he lit up a cigarette.
“You know, you continue to surprise me,” he said.
I walked over to where he was sitting and dropped my heavy backpack in front of him. The climbing gear inside made a muffled clank. “Why?”
“I totally figured you’d chicken out.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just do this,” I said.
“Not so fast. There are a few rules you need to understand before we play this game. First, the winner is the one who makes it to the upper room of the bridge tower first. You been up there before?”
“A few times.” Well, once. The big concrete column that stood in front of us stretched up past the main level of the road, turning into a smaller tower that held the suspension cables. I’d been up there once but hadn’t stuck around to explore much. The wind had been a killer. The well-lit ladders and metal-work leading up there had felt way too exposed to the cars going by below. I liked a few more shadows, a little less danger of falling.
“All right, rule two.” Kieran stood up and ground out his cigarette with his boot. Then, with one fluid motion, he reached down and scooped up my backpack. “No gear.”
He chucked the backpack into the dark, and I heard a muffled plop as it hit the water.
And sank. Kieran had a big shit-eating grin on his face.
“Game on,” he said. He turned and took off around the side of the column. I stared into the dark where my back-pack had vanished. Then I pulled it together.
“Screw you!” I finally yelled, but Kieran was out of sight. There was a hundred bucks of my best equipment in that bag! I ran after him, sprinting hard around the corner. But I’d lost Kieran already-no sign. Then I heard a scuffling sound from above. He was already heading up the bridge column using a service ladder. But that ladder started about ten feet off the ground-how did he get up there so fast? By the time I figured it out, he’d be too far ahead. I’d have to find another way.
I sprinted around the base of the bridge column and almost slammed into a small shed built against the side of the column. It must have been some kind of electrical room. There was a cluster of pipes and plastic tubes leading from the top of the shed and into the girders high above. All right, this was a start.
I grabbed the roof of the shed and pulled myself up. My hoodie caught on the edge of the sheet-metal roof, but I let it tear and kept going. Standing on the flat roof, I checked out the pipes leading up. There must have been a dozen of them in different sizes. What looked like giant metal staples held the whole mess to the concrete column. They were spaced regularly, a little thin and sharp, but nothing my gloves couldn’t handle. Not a great ladder, but good enough. Maybe thirty feet of free climbing, up to where the girders began. Then I’d have more options for climbing, with bigger handholds.
My gut clenched. This was not my style. I was the cautious, methodical one. But my fury at Kieran burned through the nerves. Hand over hand, I went up. After about ten feet, my shoulders started to ache. I just hoped I wouldn’t burn out before I made it to the girders. Once I was up there, I could find a place to catch my breath. Until then, I had to keep going or fall. Occasionally, I could hear Kieran somewhere out there in the dark above me.
“Screw. You. Kieran.” I grunted, each word punctuated by climbing up one more rung of my improvised ladder.
Then I was there. I crawled onto a support beam and sat, chest heaving and arms shaking. Traffic rumbled overhead. Looking around, I could see Kieran resting on another girder about twenty feet away. He looked wiped out. He might have given himself a head start, but he clearly wasn’t as strong a climber as me. I had a chance to beat him. And make him pay for my gear.
My heart still slamming in my chest, I started across the metal girders like a tightrope walker. One foot in front of the other, arms outstretched. I didn’t let myself look down, but the distant sound of the waves told me I was very high up. The girders were wider than my shoes but not by much. I was still unsteady from the fast climb up the column, and I started to wobble. I knew that I was asking for trouble, rushing like this.
It happened when I tried to transfer from one girder to another. Most of these metal beams had been pretty dry, but some grease or water must have leaked through from the traffic deck just above me. As I shifted my weight from one girder to the next, my front foot went out from underneath me.
You hear people say that in a life-or-death situation, time seems to go into slow motion. It didn’t for me. Way too quickly, I slid off the girder, reaching out for nothing but air.