Steven Gould - Peaches for Mad Molly

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PEACHES FOR MAD MOLLY

Steven Could

Sometime during the night the wind pulled a one-pointer off the west face of

the building up around the 630th floor. I heard him screaming as he went by,

very loud, like this was his last chance to voice an opinion, but it was all

so sudden that he didn't know what it was. Then he hit a microwave relay off

542 ... hard, and the chance was gone. Chunks of him landed in Buffalo Bayou

forty-five seconds later.

The alligators probably liked that.

I don't know if his purchase failed or his rope broke or if the sucker just

couldn't tie a decent knot. He pissed me off though, because I couldn't get

back to sleep until I'd checked all four of my belay points, the ropes, and

the knots. Now if he'd fallen without expressing himself, maybe?

No, I would have heard the noise as he splattered through the rods of the

antennae.

Stupid one-pointer.

The next morning I woke up a lot earlier than usual because someone was

plucking one of my ropes,

adagio, thrum, thrum, like the second movement of Ludwig's seventh. It was Mad

Molly.

"You awake, Bruce?" she asked.

I groaned. "I am now. " My name is not Bruce. Molly, for some reason, calls

everyone Bruce. "Shto etta, Molly?"

She was crouched on a roughing point, one of the meter cubes sticking out of

the tower face to induce the micro-turbulence boundary layer. She was dressed

in a brightly flowered scarlet kimono, livid green bermuda shorts, a

sweatshirt, and tabi socks. Her belay line, bright orange against the gray

building, stretched from around the corner to Molly's person where it vanished

beneath her kimono, like a snake hiding its head.

"I got a batch to go to the Bruce, Bruce."

I turned and looked down. There was a damp wind in my face. Some low clouds

had come in overnight, hiding the ground, but the tower's shadow stretched a

long ways across the fluffy stuff below. "Jeeze, Molly. You know the Bruce

won't be on shift for another hour." Damn, she had me doing it! "Oh, hell.

I'll be over after I get dressed."

She blinked twice. Her eyes were black chips of stone in a face so seamed and

browned by the sun that it was hard to tell her age. "Okay, Bruce," she said,

then stood abruptly and flung herself off the cube. She dropped maybe five

meters before her rope tightened her fall into an arc that swung her down and

around the corner.

I let out my breath. She's not called Mad Molly for nothing.

I dressed, drank the water out of my catch basin, urinated on the clouds

(seems only fair) and rolled up my bag.

Between the direct sunlight and the stuff bouncing off the clouds below the

south face was blinding. I put my shades on at the corner.

Molly's nest, like a mud dauber's, hung from an industrial exhaust vent off

the 611th floor. It was woven, sewed, tucked, patched, welded, snapped,

zipped, and

tied into creation. It looked like a wasp's nest on a piece of chrome. It did

not blend in.

Her pigeon coop, about two floors lower down, blended in even less. It was

made of paper, sheet plastic, wire, and it was speckled with pigeon droppings.

It was where it was because only a fool lives directly under under defecating

birds, and Molly, while mad, was not stupid.

Molly was crouched in the doorway of her nest balanced on her feet like one of

her pigeons. She was staring out at nothing and muttering angrily to herself.

"What's wrong, Molly? Didn't you sleep okay?"

She glared at me. "That damn Bruce got another three of my birds yesterday."

I hooked my bag onto a beaner and hung it under her house. "What Bruce, Molly?

That red tailed hawk?"

"Yeah, that Bruce. Then the other Bruce pops off last night and wakes me up so

I can't get back to sleep because I'm listening for that damn hawk. " She

backed into her nest to let me in.

"Hawks don't hunt at night, Molly."

She flapped her arms. "So? Like maybe the vicious, son-of-a-bitchin' Bruce

gets into the coop? He could kill half my birds in one night!" She started

coiling one of her ropes, pulling the line with short, angry jerks. "I don't

know if it's worth it anymore, Bruce. It's hot in the summer. It's freezing in

the winter. The Babs are always hassling me instead of the Howlers, the

Howlers keep hassling me for free birds or they'll cut me loose one night. I

can't cook on cloudy days unless I want to pay an arm and a leg for fuel. I

can't get fresh fruit or vegetables. That crazy social worker who's afraid of

heights comes by and asks if he can help me. I say, 'Yeah, get me some fresh

fruit.' He brings me applications for readmittance! God, I'd kill for a fresh

peach! I'd be better off back in the house!"

I shrugged. "Maybe you would, Molly. After all, you're getting on in years."

"Fat lot you know, Bruce! You crazy or something? Trade this view for six

walls? Breathe that stale stuff they got in there? Give up my birds? Give up

my freedom? Shit, Bruce, who the hell's side are you on anyway?"

I laughed. "Yours, Molly."

She started wrapping the pigeons and swearing under her breath.

I looked at Molly's clippings, bits of faded newsprint stuck to the wall of

the tower itself. By the light coming through some of the plastic sheeting in

the roof, I saw a picture of Molly on Mt. McKinley dated twenty years before.

An article about her second attempt on Everest. Stories about her climbing

buildings in New York, Chicago, and L.A. I looked closer at one that talked

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Steven Gould - Peaches for Mad Molly

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