The captain stood there with his arms crossed looking upwards. “Doesn’t look safe. I wouldn’t do it.” His men silently nodded knowing assent; my confident explanations fell on deaf ears. We said a few more words, but I wasn’t inherently their problem — there was no fire, and slowly they drifted away, back to their waiting trucks, another alarm call resolved with no risk to life or limb. Not yet, anyway — and my stupidity wasn’t going to happen on their watch.

After they’d left, my clients all stared at me questioningly. “Are you sure about this? This isn’t worth anyone getting hurt. Maybe we should try something else … ““Nope,” I said, “I’m sure. Let’s see how this lighting’s going to work.” And rung by rung I started up.

Okay, I’m writing this, so I didn’t die, and no, I didn’t set off the beam detector again – I think we called the insurance company and got them to authorize us to shut if off for the duration of our mockup, I forget. But I did miscalculate a couple of things …

At that steep angle, and with my notable weight inducing the inevitable curve to the ladder, by about 30’ up it’s becoming tangent to the wall. Barely enough room to get my fingers around the rungs, and oh-so-little purchase for my toes. Standing tippy-toed in size 13’s, in other words. Oh, and it’s hot. Heat rises, and 40’ in the air I was into a whole other climate zone. So there I am having a high-dive moment, my clients now toy figures below me, dripping sweat, holding a 10’ pole with a small but not weightless light on it as steadily as I can while holding on with one hand to a ladder effectively applied to the wall. On tippy-toes. Shouting back and forth to people far below who want to evaluate the effect from multiple positions, having me aim at various locations, each change requiring lowering the pole, adjusting the light, raising it again ….

It worked, the lighting concept was a good idea, I survived. But the firefighters – duh – were right. Just not about the aspect they’d identified. Just in general, it wasn’t safe. But I was never afraid, exactly. Wearily anxious towards the end, maybe, but after all — and especially given where we were — we already knew the eyes of god were upon us.