A Moment at the Edge of the Void

Recently, a young woman perched on a skyscraper near the television station where I work. We heard about it first in the newsroom. “There’s a jumper down the street. You can see her from the assignment desk.” People rushed to the window.

Later, I learned I could turn to Channel 12 on our internal television system to watch her. There she stood, in shadowy black and white, the dark silhouette of a woman against a gray sky.

She was wearing jeans and a heavy jacket, and she looked like she’d been on the road. She seemed rugged, weather-beaten, street-wise. I imagined that she’d probably been through harsh times, a hard childhood perhaps, maybe times when she had hope but the tide turned wrong . . . probably large doses of loneliness.

I continued my daily routine, tuning in to Channel 12 now and then, to see her still standing there, fixed and immobile as the world continued its business. Was she wondering whether it was worth it--taking a step back for a few frozen hours--weighing the compelling pull of existence against the choice of the void?

What must she have been thinking? I projected my lifelong doubts and the doubts of all of us into that hazy gray figure. We all have moments when we wonder about the meaning and worth of life, yet few of us reach that critical crossroads.

We reported the story as a traffic tie-up. “We have a warning tonight if you’re headed for the Hollywood area. A major traffic jam near the corner of Hollywood and Vine.” The “jumper” was mentioned almost as an afterthought.

An executive producer looking at our in-house picture exclaimed virtuously, “We’re not going to show that!”

As I left work, traffic on the streets surrounding our parking lot had slowed to a crawl. Cars on Sunset Boulevard were being diverted to the tiny street going past the station. One co-worker on her way home had turned back, preferring to wait it out in someone’s office and heatedly discuss the drama. But I decided to venture out. It took 10 minutes to drive the two blocks to Hollywood Boulevard.

I felt like I was part of a slow, sad funeral procession.

On Hollywood, the traffic was just as snarled. A couple in a van next to me took out binoculars to watch the tiny figure on top of the skyscraper. People going into the Pantages Theater were stopped, mesmerized, looking up.

Now and then, I tried to catch a glimpse of the suicidal woman. But other buildings got in the way. And when I did see that skyscraper, I wasn’t sure whether that tiny speck was her. It seemed she’d been swallowed up by the darkness. But the slow procession of traffic assured me she was still there, looking down on us all.

Flashing Lights, Flares

I imagined her view. Tiny arteries of headlights where the traffic had been diverted. A few black patches where streets had been closed off. Pink flares outlining the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. And the flashing lights of police cars.

Perhaps she felt in control for the first time; someone who’s been trampled on by life, feeling a victim, suddenly risen above it all.

Huddled in a doorway on the street, she might have been just another piece of human debris. She could be seen and dismissed, like the pictures of anonymous homeless people we show every night on television.

But she had decided to stand out. She may not have known why. It seemed to me she must have felt that she was powerful.

I imagined she had a mother somewhere. A woman who gave birth about 30 years ago, and was now wondering how it could have come to this. Maybe there was a friend who talked to her just the other day. That person may have tried to give some advice for the woman’s problems. And probably there was or had been a lover somewhere--someone whose life had touched her intimately. But it hadn’t been enough.

On the drive home, I flipped back and forth between the two all-news radio stations, listening for word of the story. Now and then, there was a mention of the traffic tie-up in Hollywood. So I figured she was still up there.

The next day, there was the usual joking and chatting as I came in to work. I asked a producer what happened to “our jumper.” I was told that late in the night, she had finally taken one step forward, toward the edge, and a police officer had run forward and scooped her up.

Later, I got a different version from a co-worker who talked to an eyewitness. The woman’s mother had been there for hours with a psychologist. The psychologist finally talked the woman out of jumping. A police officer went forward and offered his hand. She raised her hand to meet his.

Then she was taken away on a stretcher to a psychiatric hospital.

That is probably the last we will hear of her. We don’t follow up on stories like this. It’s only the drama of the moment that attracts us.

She probably found a reason for living in those tortured hours. Maybe she wanted to test humanity to see if it would reach out. And it did.