“Go! I’ll see what I can do from  
up here,” he said and took my wallet   
from me, well, picked it up off the    
ground really. I was already running,  
as fast as I could, towards that tree. 
     Thirty seconds, thirty-one sec-   
onds, thirty-two seconds.              
     When I got close to where the tree
and bridge almost met, I got that irre-
sistible impulse again, but I didn’t   
have time to think about it and just   
dived over the side.                   
     I saw a branch, about twenty feet 
under me, and from there, it was about 
ten feet to the ground.                
     All of this didn’t register with  
me until after I’d already jumped.     
     I grabbed the branch on the way   
down, and almost got a good hold of it,
when it slipped out of my hands. I fell
* the rest of the way, about ten feet,     
but still remembered to roll as soon as
I hit the ground.                      
     For some reason, as I rolled and  
started running back down towards the  
river, I remembered that old joke about
the fall not being what killed ya, but 
that sudden stop at the end. That’s    
what really gets ya.                   
     It’s true, and I laughed then, but
I wasn’t laughing now.                 
     Thirty-nine seconds, forty sec-   
onds, forty-one seconds.               
     While I was jumping, or rather,   
falling to the ground, the cop had     
found his bullhorn and was trying to   
get the attention of some people nearer
the riverbank.                         
     Two of them ran down closer, but  
the bag had already disappeared.       



CHAPTER 1: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15th
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