Read To Reach the Clouds Online

Authors: Philippe Petit

To Reach the Clouds (23 page)

As I walk down the aisle to freedom, a beautiful young girl waves at me from the bleachers. I do not know her, but I recognize her from my street-juggling crowd. I smile in return.
The steps of the courthouse are filled with reporters and journalists who scream when they see me. The questions are the same as before, but this time I listen and answer. I do not appreciate the phrasing of most of the questions and make a point of correcting it as I answer:
“No, I am not a daredevil,
I am a writer in the sky!”
“No, don't connect this with looking for a job
—I do not need anything!” All I wish to describe is the beauty of seeing from such
heights the city waking up, and my elation at reaching the clouds and surprising the sky.
Through the commotion of mikes and cameras, again I see my pretty spectator smiling at me. She is waving for me to join her.
 
Her name is Jackie. Piercing blue eyes, boyish brown hair, adolescent demeanor—she looks wild and gentle at the same time. On the radio, she followed the events since my last crossing and learned where I was to be judged. She wanted to be
“the first citizen to personally congratulate me.”
And she does, by planting on my lips a sensuous kiss of many flavors: the flavor of freedom, the flavor of victory, of admiration, of tenderness. She rests her hand on my neck and proposes to accompany me
“wherever is my destination.”
I discourage the press from asking more questions. I collect journalists' business cards for interviews to be scheduled later, and I look for Jean-François who, once again, I had forgotten. Delighted with the success of my first open press conference, he is sitting on the steps, patiently waiting for me to take him home.
Home! My friends must be in a frenzy waiting for our return.
Jean-François does not know the town or speak the language. Nevertheless, I order him to rush home and to tell everyone I have gone somewhere to give one last interview. Just before I disappear with Jackie, I look back and see the judge pushing aside my friend and stealing his cab.
 
My next interview does not happen in front of microphones and lenses, but under a silky comforter on a waterbed. It is revenge and abandon, an immense joy, the warmest entanglement, an ephemeral delirium of the senses. After all I have been through in the sky, all I have been through under the ground, after all the questions, exhausted, elated, I need, I deserve, I want the first step in my new life to be splashed with decadence, an explosion of passions.
 
I arrive late to the evening radio interview I had agreed to give.
It goes so well that the producer sends me home in a limousine and encourages me to keep it all night.
 
“First, let's rush to Chelsea!”
A television crew is waiting for me inside the apartment! Jean-Louis and Annie have tried unsuccessfully to throw them out. I'm about to succeed, in exchange for a very brief interview, when Jean-François, naked and dripping from the shower, comes into the living room looking for a towel. He is unfazed by the TV crew bribing him for comment. Three hundred dollars richer, we are finally left to ourselves. We jump into one another's arms and scream at seeing me on TV: the story is leading all of the network news broadcasts. Jim Moore bursts in with a big surprise. He spreads on the carpet the newspapers he's been collecting all day. I am on the front page of them all, in Jean-Louis's pictures—but here and there other photos show up.
 
Celebration is short: Jean-Louis and Annie are angry. I'm hungry.
I win.
I force my friends into their first limousine ride. For a moment we playfully try everything: lowering and raising the partition and windows, tasting the whiskey, zapping the tiny television screen for more views of “the Frenchman's walk.” But my mood turns somber. It is late and my favorite restaurants are closing.
We end up in a noisy joint with sawdust on the floor, coerced into ordering from a sandwich menu. JP and Barry arrive, eager to celebrate. I force the assembly to hear my long version of the south tower ordeal. But the best part of the meal comes when I finally learn what happened in Jean-Louis's north tower.
“Well,” begins Jean-Louis, taking his time eating and keeping us in suspense, “at first, it all went according to plan—you know, the plan. But then …”
I learn that as soon as they reached the hiding place, Albert decided to change the plan: he wanted to wait for night instead of climbing to the 110th floor at 6:30 p.m. as agreed. Fortunately, Barry was still there and could translate Jean-Louis's points using rudimentary French. But alone in hiding, Jean-Louis and Albert continued to fight. Because their whispering seemed so loud, they ended up scribbling their argument on a paper towel, but the language problem made communication difficult. Jean-Louis chose to stop quarrelling and wait for the right time to come out and start climbing, no matter what, knowing that Albert would be forced to follow.
“And that's exactly what I did,” continues Jean-Louis, recalling how they ran up the stairs to the 110th floor, and how they dove behind a wall of cardboard when they heard a guard approaching.
From then on, Jean-Louis's north side story is similar to mine, except they're not hanging on a beam over a void, they are crouching for hours, not changing position because of the noise it would generate. And high above their heads, an enormous wooden beam sits in fragile equilibrium, threatening to fall on them as drafts of wind make it sway. Like Jean-François and me, they can't tell if the guard is still there or has left; at times they hear him methodically checking the floor. Like us, when it's dark and everything is quiet, they come out and head for the roof. Like us, they hear voices above and hurry back to their refuge.
When all is quiet again, they argue about who should volunteer to scout the roof. Jean-Louis wants Albert to play a tourist hoping to take night shots of the city. If Albert is caught, Jean-Louis can shoot the arrow and try to rig alone. Albert finally agrees and takes a camera out of his shoulder bag. “From the beginning, I knew he had cameras with him,” sighs Jean-Louis. “But what could I do, abort the coup because of that?” My friend explains how Albert returned from the roof without having seen anyone, how they tried several times to go up to the roof and how each time, always at the last moment, they had to retreat in terror, hearing voices right above them.
I interrupt Jean-Louis to explain that it was the party on our roof.
“The most fantastic moment for me,” says Jean-Louis, “was when I saw you raise your hand to answer my shooting signal. I knew the coup was ninety-five percent done. And when I saw the arrow hitting the side of the building—yes, I saw it—it became ninety-eight percent!”
“And after, at the moment of the first crossing?” I ask. “What did you think?”
“Oh, I was dead, empty, and mad as hell about Albert almost ruining everything by refusing to help! And I knew you too were completely dead. You should have heard your voice over the intercom! I could see how loose the cable was, how badly guy-lined, and I thought, he's not going to be able to get. across, it's insane! During the first steps, I was shivering. After pulling kilometers of lines, my fingers were simply not obeying me! My arms were absolutely dead! I was unable to control the focus of the first pictures! I was trembling with exhaustion and with, you know … It was frightening to see you venture onto such an untuned installation!”
It turned out there was no live footage because Jean-Louis never had the time he had been counting on to check and test the movie camera. Instead of risking it, he decided to ensure the reportage by first taking a few pictures. By the time I was lying down in the second crossing, he was ready to get the movie camera. But when he saw the cops invading my roof, he knew more would be coming for him within seconds. He barely had time to hide and, after the cops had passed, to escape.
Once on the street, he ran to the phone booths to meet everyone but, his tongue painfully pasted to his mouth by exhaustion, fright, and lack of water, he couldn't tell his story. Jim Moore dragged him to the nearest bar and ordered him eight large orange juices, which, to the amazement of the barman, Jean-Louis drank without stopping.
 
“Now look!” I tease Jean-Louis. “If this is the arrow”—I pick up my fork—“and this is my roof”—I clear my side of the table—
“this is where I found it!” I place the fork on the very edge of the table, ready to be dislodged by the softest vibration. “Well, that's exactly where I was aiming. I knew the arrow would be safe there!” replies Jean-Louis, laughing. Joy resurfaces as we all trade bits and pieces of an amazing story, interrupting one another loudly across a table full of empty glasses. Barry tells how he stayed glued to his desk all afternoon to monitor the telephone, except when he ran to the bathroom. But in those few minutes, his secretary informed him, there was a call—an unintelligible voice and no message. Barry bit his nails, fearful of an emergency concerning the coup, until Annie appeared as planned and life went on. Jim mimes and tells of his friends who were puzzled all afternoon by the bored professional voice answering his phone: “Hello, Fisher Company at your service. May I help you?”
 
The chairs are being stacked around us, the lights have been turned up to full, glaring intensity: we are being thrown out. Just before we all enter the limousine, Annie embraces me and whispers in my ear—at last—“My angel, you were superb!”
The telephone starts ringing early in the morning. It doesn't stop. All of America is calling.
I receive offers to do television commercials, write a children's book, record a song, make a movie, walk across ridiculous sites; magazines battle for an exclusive, impresarios vie to “handle” me. Barely understanding, I keep scribbling notes on little pieces of paper and stacking them. I cry for help to Jim. He's coming tomorrow. We'll sort out the mess. I'll throw out most of the offers. No way will they succeed in changing me into a millionaire!
 
Jean-Louis and Jean-François head for the airport.
All the way to Paris, they laughingly ask everyone, “How
much?” For Jean-Louis, betrayed by greed, it is the expression that symbolizes the American spirit. Upon landing, he goes directly to the office, as he'd promised his employer.
French newspapers transform my friends into celebrities. When Jean-François returns to his village, what impresses the locals most is that he spent time in a New York City prison. He can't tour the marketplace without being hailed: “Hey, jail-boy!” “How are you doing today, jail-boy?”
 
“After half a crossing, I knew you were all right. I never saw you so at ease on a cable. You were gliding, magnificent,” confides Annie fondly. Finally alone, we plan to have an intimate dinner. But instead of a fine restaurant, it's a hospital we are seeking—Annie's been bitten by one of her cats.
The first person I stop in the street says, “Go east on Twenty-third all the way to First Avenue, make a left, the hospital is right there, but I'm warning you, you won't find any towers over there!” I nod my thanks and keep walking, then pull up short. “Annie, did you understand what that person said? He said
you won't find any towers.
It means he knows who I am. It means he recognized me! Someone recognized me!”
A few minutes later, a lady interrupts our progress. “Excuse me, are you the guy who walked between the twin towers on a tightrope?” I give her an autograph.
Two blocks farther, an old man waiting for the WALK sign stares at me: “Are you the guy who walked?” I'm happy to answer yes.
In front of the hospital, two teenagers bump into us on their way out; instead of a “'scuse me,” I get, “Are you the guy?”
The nurse invites Annie to sit on a stool, looks at her wound, and turns to me, smiling: “Are you … ?”
“Oh, yes!” I say with pride. “I am the guy! And if you want to know if it was windy up there, I can assure you it was! What else do you want to know?”
The nurse tilts her head, as if suddenly I have become her mental patient, and completes her query: “Are you … related to the injured party?”
Nixon resigns. I barely recognize the name.
Francis sends a telegram: RICHARD IS GONE, PHILIPPE IS KING!
One night at the Village Vanguard, Bob Dylan sings a new song in my honor, “Don't Fall!” I'm sure I've heard of him.
A direct call from Johnny Carson: he wants me on his show. “Johnny who?” I ask, before explaining that I hate television and do not wish to appear on a talk show that gives so little time to its guests and tends to reduce all topics to joke opportunities.
“To endorse Sweet 'N Low? I do not understand what you want. But let me tell you, I'm not sweet and low, I'm harsh and high!” I hang up, hoping Jim will come soon.
The telephone does not stop ringing, the offers keep pouring in, and Jim keeps helping.
By now we're getting professional!
I answer the phone; people are happy and amazed to reach me directly, to hear the sound of my voice. I understand nothing of what they want. So I pass the phone to Jim. (He knows who Nixon, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Carson are.) Jim listens, puts the caller on hold, tells me what it's about, and if I am so inclined, I agree to a meeting. I open my blank date book, flip through the empty pages, and wait. Jim is terribly sorry to announce, “Philippe's next month is completely booked … Except at the beginning of next week … Yes, we might be able to squeeze in a lunch or a dinner …”
Just like that, we're now being fed very well twice a day: to impress me, to win me over, or just because I'm French, the business vultures always take us to great restaurants.
In the beginning, I betray my hatred of commercials, my contempt for product endorsement, even before attacking my entree. But after a few meals, I learn to pretend that the deal interests me
until I've finished my third dessert. Then, after an espresso, I go for the kill: “Let's summarize: to promote your fast-food chain, you want me to walk the wire disguised as a hamburger? Oh, but I will never, ever do that, not even for millions of dollars!”
The engineers painstakingly performed the teardown operation in the rain, starting right after I was taken off the roof. The policemen diligently laid out on the floor every item of equipment, down to the nuts and bolts. They photographed and inventoried it.
I receive duplicates of the paperwork, with an invitation to come pick up what's mine.
 
Breathing heavily, three bulky policemen bring the miscoiled walk-cable from storage. They are at a loss to understand how two skinny Frenchmen carried it. I'm tempted to take it from them in a quick display of Supermanhood, but I know my body will be severely punished. Since the authorities are playing the restitution game to absurdity—the printed inventory includes (3) USED FLASHBULBS, (1) BOTTLE COVER, (1) TOWEL—I decide to play as well. After carefully scanning the list and checking the equipment, I earnestly declare that there are items missing. After a long moment of confusion, I offer, “Oh, I remember what I'm looking for—the broken helmet, the three gloves, the plastic bags, the cardboard boxes, and most importantly, the large wooden crate—must still be in the towers, hidden!”
I'm given an escort of athletic detectives, all fans quite happy to break the dullness of the day, and up we run. With the excuse of a failing memory, I climb up and down each tower, retracing with delight the forbidden itineraries, even opening a few doors I had not dared to try before. We retrieve the junk and add it to the pile of equipment. I sign the release. My bodyguards load a police van, drive me home, and help bring the ton of equipment into my living room.
The maintenance man raises his eyebrows. I sign autographs.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey makes me an offer I can't refuse. I must explain to the Security Department how I did it. Twelve very serious men in gray suits sit on both sides of a very long table in a very secret conference room. I sit at the end of the table, like a Godfather.
I ask for a blackboard and lots of chalk.
For several hours, I let them have it: I describe the spying, the sneaking, the disguises, the interviews, the deliveries—everything. Almost everything. I sketch itineraries, draw hiding places, scribe arrows pointing at weaknesses in the security system. I answer questions and conclude by offering suggestions on ways to improve security at the World Trade Center.
The audience is grateful and overwhelmed.
I am recognized everywhere. My street-juggling audience has doubled in size. In my mailbox, I find love letters and profound statements from awe-inspired citizens.
Even Albert contacts me.
He is remorseful; he wants to talk, bring part of the money he made selling his pictures for me to pass on to Jean-Louis. Fine. Annie reacts vehemently; she will not allow him in the apartment. When I agree to a meeting on the street, she does not hide her disgust: “Albert wants to see you again because you're a celebrity; you are ready to see him again because you don't like to make enemies.”
I feel differently. Notwithstanding the betrayal and the giving up, I know the coup would not have happened without him. So why not let him acknowledge his wrongdoings, and accept his reparations? I go to meet him.
I call Jean-Louis, who says, “Pff! Give the money to Jean-Francois.” Case closed.
What a great punishment! I twist the sentence of the court—to juggle for small children in a park—into a major high wire walk over Central Park.
Without seeking approval, I announce my intention to the press and invite TV networks to follow my preparations. Unable to curtail my efforts, the politicians happily join the press coverage.
So here I am, under a stormy night sky, ready to set foot on a 600-foot inclined cable anchored to a tree at one end of Belvedere Lake, rising above the water and arriving 80 feet in the air at a tiny window atop the tower of Belvedere Castle.
Five thousand cheerful New Yorkers are waiting.
The sky opens and pours endless thick rain. The politicians do not know what to do. I grab their megaphone and address the crowd: “Friends! You could stay and watch. I could walk under the pouring rain. But the walk would not be beautiful. And it would
not be pleasant for you and for me. So come back tomorrow—same place, same time—for a wonderful evening and a great walk!” Thunderous applause competes with thunder. Running in the mud, the crowd disperses. The politicians look at each other and improvise a press conference under umbrellas.

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