Moving out to the edge of that balcony was like getting used to swimming in deep water. Thinking back to my first high balcony experience, it had initially taken a few tentative approaches before I was able to stand at the rail and look down. The railing then seemed frailer and appeared to be positioned at the right height to flip over at the waist. Had I spent too much time living on the ground, no higher than the second floor? Once, or many times, actually, upon returning to that balcony after many years away, the sense of vertigo was enough to propel me back inside. Things that departed those balconies were irrevocably altered, changed by the air, the journey down to the mezzanine. The high balconies were high enough to put you in a different world. Throwing anything off them would be anti-climactic. They were so low they just weren’t worth the effort to stand on. I always assumed the lower balconies meant something different to those low floor dwellers. From the ground it was possible to identify my balcony by the angular fin of concrete that made the tower appear slightly larger at the upper floors. The afternoon of the fire trucks we all walked down the internal stairwell. The wings popped off when it hit, but could be put back together and thrown off again, though smaller pieces were missing. Slices of bread are actually aerodynamic to a point. Batteries make a loud thwack when they land and remain, for the most part, intact though badly dented. Eggs do what you might expect, but from that high up, 34 floors, the pressure would often break them apart before they attained nirvana, and thus throw out glinting fish nets as if they had been thrown over the rail to catch schools of flying fish. As mentioned above, they remained visible like little mirrors on the mezzanine. The thing about coins is that they would flutter down, spinning end over like they had been designed for this. Pennies, it was said, would plough through the skulls of pedestrians if a direct hit so this was genuinely avoided at all costs.
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Ice cubes are difficult to follow down unless they catch some sunlight, but they crack when striking bottom, or sometimes pop. If you have ever wondered what happens to different things when they are thrown off balconies from on high you have come to the right place. When the wind was right the smell of jet fuel would slide over the harbor.
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Some of the noise lifted itself free from the streets. The strange thing about being up there in the middle of the sky was that the sounds of the city rose up with clarity otherwise obscured on the ground. Holding myself in the in-between space like a jack, wedged between two floors and looking out over the rail to the vanishing point.
Was back a safe distance, or so assumed, with palms pressed to the balcony above. I was once fearless at such heights and would sometimes stand on a patio chair to have the sensation of being clear of the rail. Just a slight web of metal anchored into concrete. Chin on the warm aluminum extrusion of railing, I could fit my knees through the verticals. It feels more natural to be in motion, to be flying.
It’s an odd sensation to be in the air at such heights, stationary. I once stood parallel with the jets as they banked and tipped their wingtips a little. A Brief History of Balconies entails the examination of subjectivities above ground, on little bits of buildings in air, looking down, at pennies on the sidewalk, oddly visible from the 34th floor, which appears to be the same level as jumbo jets coming into Logan from wherever they were coming from and above the sea.
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