I was on the roof with Ransom and Molly and Faith. It was just starting to get really dark, like, not dusk anymore but true, no-nonsense dark. Ransom went in to get another Coors. I drank my beer and then said, I�m going to go climb that ladder to the roof. Because, see, there�s a higher roof, to a taller building, a small utilitarian rusty steel ladder hanging down onto our lower roof. The rungs don�t start until several feet off the ground, so I had to jump and shimmy and rely on upper arm strength to get up. The rest of the way was cake because Molly and Faith were cheering me on, and the secret to climbing things is to never look down. Look up, look around, but never down. My father had a paralyzing fear of heights that prevented him from going up the Eiffel when we were in Paris and when we crossed the Chesapeake he'd switch with my mom and she would drive the four miles across the DelMarVa waters while he shielded his eyes and told us two boys in the back to be quiet, goddammit. So anyway, I got up there and roamed around the roof, irrationally worried it would cave in beneath my feet and I would fall into someone�s apartment unit amid a shower of drywall and asbestos while they were having sex, or something. The roof was connected to other roofs, the block�s buildings all connected and built onto each other like cancerous cells, and I could�ve hopped over to the US Bank skylight or crept around above the dreadful Sports Column. Instead, I stood there and looked at the treeline, realizing that Iowa City in fact has a treeline, and into the windows of other, taller apartments up and across Washington, and the neon of other establishments still open in the nine-o�clockness of this Wednesday, and it hit me yet again: I�m going to miss the shit out of this town. Not that I�m really going anywhere, anyway. No going-away parties for me. Just buy me a beer next time I walk in.

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