I'm lucky to be alive

I grew up in NYC, a neighborhood known as Yorkville (upper East side of Manhattan) 85th st to be exact. On the corner of 3rd Ave there was a fairly new 4 story building called the Walter B Cook Funeral Home. One day me and my friend Danny went up on the roof to play. That's what 14 YO NYC kids do sometimes for fun. There was about a 4 foot gap between the building we were on and the building next door. Also, the building next door was 5 stories tall. On the side of the other building there was a fat green pipe which was used to carry rain water from the roof down to the sewer. Danny, who was part monkey I'm sure, said he could jump across the ally way and grab onto the pipe and climb up the the other roof. I said no way. He said watch me and jumped. He grabbed the pipe and climbed up onto the roof. I was amazed. If he missed, he would have fallen to his death. I stood on the edge of the roof debating if I should follow him as he egged me on. I confess I was scared and wasn't sure if it was a good idea. As I was standing on the edge of the roof a man, probably the janitor, came up on the roof with the handle of a shovel and came right towards me yelling. He got in front of me and swung the handle like a baseball bat and hit me in the left leg just below my knee. The pain was indescribable. I jumped down onto the roof and ran for the door and ran down 4 flights of stairs with this madman right behind me still yelling. I made it out of the building and unto the street and headed west up 85th st. The guy was still coming after me. Even though my leg was still hurting I knew that there was no way this guy was ever going to catch me, in fact my thoughts at the time was I was going to run this guy until he had a heart attack.

I often think about this event and wonder what would have happened if I fell off the roof. Of course I would have died and this guy would probably spend the rest of his life in prison, or worse. My friend Danny witnessed the whole thing.