The Tower

Or “I hope the statute of limitations has run out”

Near midnight. A summer night edging toward a summer morning, sometime in the middle of the week. And there we were, where we certainly and absolutely should not be. We must have rolled past half a dozen “no trespassing” signs to get here. And now, after a lot of tries, a lot of effort, I was sitting at the top of the wall, staring out into a night-shrouded landscape, my two buddies beside me.

I’m positive the statute of limitations has run out by now, but I think I’ll keep some of the details of our trespassing quiet, all the same. Friend 1 and Friend 2, we’ll call them. Location X, we’ll say. A campground, with a wooden climbing wall—a four-faced tower with slats and knobs of wood nailed into place to serve as finger and toe holds.

During the day, when it was in season, this was meant to give young people something to conquer. It was a tool for building muscle and skill and confidence. And it was supervised—every young boy or girl who scaled the wall did so in a harness and a helmet, a rope and a pulley keeping them from falling. An adult supervising down below. Many, in fact.

But the three of us weren’t kids at a camp. We were young adults, drinking age but not drinking. Not all three of us, anyway. And we were climbing without the harness or the helmet or the ropes. Whether you could consider any of us “adult supervision” is debatable, but let me settle the debate—we were not supervised.

We’d come to this wall many times before, and attempted it from all four sides. I was always a good climber, and so I could make a really good run at the thing. But the other guys would always make it all the way to the top, and I never would. Because for all my climbing skill, I was short something. I lacked something.

I wasn’t confident enough. Which meant I was afraid.

But this night, I was determined. And, egged on by my co-trespassers, I refused to do anything less than reach the top.

We’d done things like this before. Those two guys had managed to prod me into accomplishing all sorts of things that I’d failed at over and over. There was a set of climbing ropes at the high school football field that I’d eventually managed to climb with only my hands, because of them. There were high rails I’d walked while they watched. Fences I’d climbed. Pull-ups I’d done. Miles I’d walked.

This wasn’t the first challenge and it wouldn’t be the last.

I always seemed to stop in the same spot—my fingers able to reach up and grasp the top, but somehow I couldn’t go the extra step of pulling my body up and over. The thoughts made me heavy, you see.

I kept thinking, This is high. That’s a long way down. What if I get up there? How do I climb back down? If I fall, will they get help? Take me to the hospital? Leave me to figure it out on my own?

Anything was possible. These were good guys. Still are (one of them, at least. The other… we haven’t spoken in decades). So I would have been alright. But these were early years, and I was used to being surrounded by the people I counted on. I had doubts.

I don’t know why that night was different than the others. But once I got to that spot, instead of climbing right back down and waiting for my buddies to follow, from their high perches, I paused for only a moment. I looked around from that high vantage point. I closed my eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. And then, I pulled.

I was always a good climber. The skill came naturally to me. And for once, I was relying on that skill, instead of letting myself think my way out of trying.

In only seconds, I was propped up on my palms, and I could easily lean forward, roll onto my side, then get to my feet.

I stood, right at the edge of the wall, staring out into the dark forest surrounding the campsite.

The moon was out that night, and so there was light. Enough to make out some details. Enough to see the ground below.

There was a breeze, cool and comforting.

I’m pretty sure the guys must have said something, but if they did it wasn’t exactly a cheer. No you did it! Nothing like that. I had only done what they’d done a dozen times so far, so what, really, was the big deal?

As guys do, I quickly adapted my own exuberance to that mood. I was pleased with myself, but it would break bro-code to admit it. I was proud of myself, but saying so out loud was as good as admitting I had a Cabbage Patch doll.

So, instead, I took a seat. I dangled my feet over the edge, and clomped the heels of my BKs against the wood of the tower. I pretended that this was no big deal, while I quietly let my heart calm back to its regular rhythm, and I felt an ingrown smile.

I’m sure that doing that, having that experience, was formative in some way. It may have led to some big change in me. Maybe that night translated outward into my life, and as a result of sitting at the top of that tower I one day wrote a short story or a novel that did well. Maybe clomping my heels on that wood gave me the courage to propose to my wife. Maybe pushing myself to pull myself upward gave me the fortitude to be daring and bold in my career and in my life.

Maybe. Probably.

We often don’t realize the value of pushing ourselves to accomplish something. Just the accomplishment can be enough.

But I bet, on that day when God sets me before Him and tells me what He saw in my life, this will come up. I’ll probably be chastised for breaking the law just being there. But I bet I’ll be given some small praise for finally pushing past my self-imposed limits.

And that, thinking back on it, makes me want to do it all again.

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A NOTE AT THE END

I have a lot of tales of my youth that implicate me in petty crimes. I didn’t set out to be a hoodlum or no-goodnik. In fact, having been raised primarily in a little Baptist church in Brazoria County, short of friends and spending most of my time alone with a head full of Saturday morning cartoons and a heart full of Jesus, I tended to stay out of trouble, most of the time.

Which could be interpreted as “I just never got caught,” as much as “I was always good,” and with equal alacrity.

Kara tells me that when she looks at my school pictures, I looked like a troublemaker. And I suppose I was, in a way. I was never much for the usual kind of trouble—I didn’t smoke or drink or do drugs. In fact, I’ve tried exactly two cigarettes and six cigars in my life, and didn’t touch a drop of alcohol until I was 23 years old. I’ve never even tried illicit drugs, and don’t particularly feel compelled to. I was a good kid. But I did court trouble.

Trespassing was kind of a regular thing for me. Though, honestly, I wasn’t doing it intentionally. I just never knew a barrier existed. I always felt free to be wherever I was, and go wherever I felt like going. Fences were minor obstacles, not barriers. So were locked doors and sealed rooms—I learned how to get into places pretty early.

I never stole anything. I guess that may be how I justified it. Mostly, I was curious. I wanted to know, What is it that they don’t want me to see?

So I would find ways into church offices or locked classrooms or private barns. I would crawl through or under or over any fence that got in my way. I drew the line at actually breaking in my breaking and entering—I wouldn’t damage anything, because that, somehow, always felt wrong. I just wanted to be in a space and see a thing, not smash something or take something.

So I was kind of a troublemaker, but it was a quiet, often unnoticed bit of trouble.

I never bullied anyone (though Kara says I had that look, too). I did get into fights, but it was almost always because a bully was picking on someone else. I have friends in my life to this day who were kids I jumped to protect. Usually getting my butt kicked in the process. But damn, I never could stand a bully.

I did steal things every now and then. I’m definitely not proud of it. I took some money from a coffee can at a public pool once—I felt so guilty about it, I gave all of it to the offering plate at church the next Sunday. Not sure that balances out.

I took a pair of sunglasses from a Spencer’s Gifts in the mall, one time. That one bothered me, too, but for some reason I never did anything about it. Maybe I should swing by a Spencer’s this afternoon and buy a pari of sunglasses, just to leave them in the store. Too little too late?

I did things like this in my teens and twenties. But by the time I was in my 30s I wouldn’t think of it. I somehow became the guy who would go back into the store after noticing on the receipt that I was undercharged for something. I would spend hours scanning through photos on a digital camera I found in the parking lot, to see if I could find a way to return it to its owner. I would even drive to a Spencer’s in a mall in PA to buy a pair of sunglasses I don’t intend to keep (now that I remember it).

I’ve heard that character is what you do when no one is looking. I think it’s equally what lessons you choose to take from what you’ve done. Even if you trespassed in a campground in the middle of the night, to climb a tower and sit at the top. I suppose, if you took some bit of accomplishment from it, and that led to some positive developments in your character… well, maybe that’s alright, after all.

I wonder if I could call that campground and make a donation…