What if We Pushed Over the Washington Monument
Trent Algayer
It sounded stupid at first.
Matthew Perry said it. He sat behind me during the meetings sometimes.
Matthew Perry also happens to be the name of an important American Naval Officer who opened up diplomatic trade relations with Japan in 1853.
Matthew Perry is also the name of the actor who played “Chandler” in Friends.
But this wasn’t either of those Matthew Perry’s. Or any of the other ones. This one sits near me on Thursday nights after work at a rec center gymnasium in Tangier, Virginia. I crank my head to look at Matthew to try to determine his demeanor after delivering such a statement. He was probably joking. These sorts of suggestions weren’t wholly unusual, but his words hitherto had never been treated with this level of seriousness. People sat up in their chairs. They stopped checking their email. Stopped twiddling and fiddling.
We end every meeting with a fifteen-minute brainstorming session about how we can improve the group. Future events, fundraising, community outreach, etc. Like I said, last month when Matthew raised his hand and said, “Something something we should steal the flame from the Statue Of Liberty.” Something something “It’s covered in gold and right there for the taking,” he added. But we as a group concluded New York was far, and the transportation situation to get all of the volunteers there and back would be a complete nightmare. Plus the security. And the 354 stairs to the top. But something was different about what he had just said. Everyone listened.
Our troop leader, Fred Sanderson, stood behind a wooden podium at the front of the room. Whether intentional or not, he was perfectly centered under the basketball hoop. So much so that if someone shot and made a basket, it would fall directly onto his head, and interrupt his sentence and probably knock his glasses onto the floor. Believe it or not, Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 was shot in the chest while delivering a speech in Milwaukee. The bullet struck his 50-page handwritten copy in his coat pocket, and it saved his life, and then he finished the speech. For that reason, Fred Sanderson always kept a printed out and stapled agenda book on his person, right over his heart, just in case there was a similar attempt on his life. Which never seemed to come. Maybe it was more of a metaphor. But I don’t think he knows exactly what a metaphor is, and neither do I. He repeatedly asked us to refer to him as Mr. S rather than his legal name. No one knew why he did this. We saw the entirety of his last name printed on the attendance sign-in sheet, but we theorized that this made him feel like a secret agent, and that this was his secret club, and we let him have his little secret. He had colored markers and a whiteboard, and would transcribe the peanut gallery’s comments onto it.
Mr. S unsheathed his red Expo Marker, held the cap in his teeth, and wrote in all capitals
WHAT IF WE PUSHED OVER THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT?
Everything he wrote was in all caps. It was abrasive to one’s senses. Even mundane nuts and bolts were translated like this. “OUR ANNUAL LEUKEMIA 5K HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED DUE TO PREDICTED WEATHER”
When I first joined I would often leave with a headache, but after a while I got used to it.
The sights and sounds of the rec center on a hot summer’s night were not for the faint of heart. Despite this, the food at the meetings was always something to look forward to. At times, it seemed like each club member’s central concern was to impress the other members with his wife’s cooking. We rotated who brought what. Brisket. Coleslaw. Potato Salad. Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, these little barbecue sliders when it’s that one woman’s week, you get the picture. I wouldn’t eat lunch on the first and third Thursday of every month because I wanted to leave room. No one wanted to address this fact outright, but it was universal knowledge that you had to eat as soon as the food was uncovered, because it would be coated in fruit flies if you showed up 30 minutes late. Once Mr. S bit into some room temperature baked beans and found some fruit flies who had drowned in his broth. That day he wouldn’t let any of the members leave until they killed a few fruit flies each. He said he understood people’s frustrations and that “it might be hard to feel like you are making a difference if you are just smashing insects one at a time, but if you do this for long enough, day after day, they will have to run out eventually and we won’t have this problem anymore.” It became a ritual, he would take people’s car keys and put them into a big bowl, and at the end of the meeting he would hand out one small single ply napkin to each member, which you would have to use “Kill 4 Before U Go.”
“Matthew, I really love the enthusiasm. But can you sort of elaborate for everyone in the room what you mean by that?” Mr. S said as he put the cap back on the marker triumphantly.
“Oh,” said Matthew, like he wasn’t expecting any follow up questions. His contributions had historically been ignored.
“Well, the other night I was reading the book Yertle The Turtle to my daughter, by Dr. Seuss, and Yertle, the main character, gets all of the other turtles to stack on top of each other so that he can crawl on top and see super far into the distance. And everything that he sees he thinks is his land now, and it got me thinking, got me thinking about a whole lot of things.”
Some people in the audience didn’t know what he meant by this, but I felt like I did. In college, I noticed girls at parties would often dance atop tables or other unstable furniture to highlight their presence. Or on the news, whenever the Philadelphia Eagles won the Superbowl or after whatever important soccer game in South America, the fans of the winning team would storm to the streets and climb onto the highest structures they could find, onto traffic lights or street signs, and stand proudly above the tideline of humans. Inexplicably, there was a level of respect that was deserved when someone managed to thrust their body to these heights.
Speaking of which, in 1924 when mountaineer George Mallory was asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he famously replied, “Because it’s there.” This is how Matthew Perry must have felt about the Washington Monument. No, not the guy from Friends.
George Mallory was last seen only 800 vertical feet from the peak, but his body was found frozen solid by a research team in 1999, 75 years later. It is still debated if he ever reached the top. I would like to think he made it.
Matthew, heartened by the acknowledgment he’d suddenly received, continued with newfound enthusiasm. “I’ve run through the plan in my head 100 times, and it’s not even that crazy of an idea. D.C. is only four hours away. It’s outside for god sake. No metal detectors, no nothing. It’s just standing there in a field of grass, waiting for us. If we get enough people, I think we can really do something special here. We would be stupid not to.”
Ellen O’Connell always brought her baby to the meetings. We couldn’t say that she couldn’t because it wasn’t against any of the rules, but on more than one occasion, she was caught breastfeeding in the aisle and was met with judgmental looks, albeit no direct confrontation. Ellen was one of the few women in our chapter, so we wanted to keep her around for optics, but every meeting that baby would start crying. But during this specific meeting, the baby slept like a rock. It was like she knew something important was happening, and she could hear the building excitement in people’s voices, and to start crying now could and would change the course of human and American History.
Also written in big text on the whiteboard were these words:
“LOWER THE TAXES”
“SKEET SHOOTING FIELD TRIP NEXT WEEKEND (OPTIONAL)”
“DAYS TO PUT RECYCLING BINS ON CURB?”
“PREP FOR CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE”
“THE SINKHOLE, 4301 JOSHUA THOMAS LN, CLUB MARKETED TOWARDS GAY PEOPLE, PLEASE AVOID. TELL FRIENDS AND FAMILY.”
But none of these things mattered once Matthew Perry said what he said. And I will always be the guy who was right next to him when he said it.
It has been six months, and so much has happened. We are standing in front of the big Finger in the sky. We joked on the long drive here that it also looks like a pencil, and also a penis, among so many other things. And I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what this statue had to do with George Washington, but I was too embarrassed to ask for clarification since this project had already gotten so far off the ground. I tilt my phone away from the other passengers, and build up enough courage for a Google search. I learned a lot.
Did you know it was the tallest man-made structure on earth for a little over four years?
The walls are only about 7 inches thick of marble and granite. And get this, it’s hollow.
This might be easier than we thought.
We were being immature when we called it a penis, because in reality it is a
“555 foot tall Egyptian style stone obelisk.”
There is an elevator inside, and 8 viewing windows, and apparently it was built partially by slaves between the years 1848-1865, and then it was completed by white men in 1888. Which complicates how I feel about the task at hand, but I’m not exactly sure how or why.
Ever since “The Idea,” all the meetings have revolved more and more around what would eventually become known as “Project Lumberjack.” In this intervening period, we lost some members who didn’t believe in what we were doing. Mr. S worked tirelessly networking with the Suffolk and Richmond Chapter Leaders to combine in our efforts and recruit new members. More people started showing up at the meetings. It got so crowded that Mr. S had to make some phone calls in order to reserve the middle school auditorium instead. Our little family is bigger and more beautiful than ever, but it’s mostly dudes now. The other chapter leaders would stand upfront beside Mr. S and they would take turns talking. One’s name was Nicholas, and he seemed like a pretty normal guy, and the other one, I kid you not, wore a scary Halloween Store mask and answered only to “Ghostface.” I saw “Ghostface” in the parking lot once, and his car didn’t match his personality. I didn’t get a good look at him either; he drives with his mask on, probably for a couple miles just to be safe. First we were told to not speak each other’s last names aloud. Then we were encouraged to use only code names. “Ghostface” said that it would take too long for us to come up with our own names, so he put a bunch of pieces of paper in a hat and then everyone took turns picking, and everyone wrote their new name on the whiteboard.
“Eagle”
“Falcon”
“Blackhawk”
“Sparrow”
“Phoenix”
Mostly birds. I wonder why?
I received “Panther,” which I thought sounded sleek but didn’t seem to suit me as a person.
Some people got screwed. Matthew Perry became “Michael Jackson,” which someone put in as a joke. Ellen O’Connell got assigned “Darth Vader” and quit the club shortly thereafter.
Everyone treated Matthew Perry differently for a couple of months, like he was a genius inventor, but I think soon people realized that “The Idea” was bigger than him, it was actually bigger than all of us. People started to laugh when they heard “Michael Jackson” over the walkie talkies, and everything slowly returned to normal for him. Any one of us could have done what he did. We all felt the same thickness in the air, but he just managed to put it into words. Nicholas was one of the troop leaders so he got to pick his code name and he decided on “Nick.” Mr. S, “Nick” and “Ghostface,” also ask that we meet more frequently, every Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesdays became dedicated to figuring out how to get to the top, and Thursday’s were all about how to topple it. The meetings were so focused on planning that the quality of the buffet dinner gradually declined. I used to joke to my wife that “I don’t even agree with half the stuff they say, but the cornbread is literally to die for.” She noticed me eating a big lunch before a meeting recently and she sensed something was wrong. I thought about telling her that maybe everything had gotten a little out of hand. That this all sounded so simple on paper. But actually doing it was different.
I kinda figured the excitement would dissipate with time. Once, a few years ago, during a brainstorm, someone suggested we “pull a 9/11 on the White House,” and we spent a few weeks discussing the logistics of “9/11 2,” which didn’t last long despite its very clever name.
Today was the day, and it was surprisingly a beautiful one. The sun was shining and people seemed to interpret that as approval from God or Mother Nature or Whomever about what we were about to do. After weeks of trying to gather volunteers to drive their personal vehicles 4 hours north to DC, “Ghostface” resolved that the cheapest and best option would be to rent a school bus. “This way, we show up as a team, as a united front, and no one has to show their license plates, so we don’t have to worry about this 5 years from now.” We were told to wear disguises, but that was left open to interpretation. “Cover your face and any distinctive tattoos or markings, that’s all we ask.” Some of the guys did a group order on some white head-to-toe morph suits, which they thought was very mysterious, but I thought it made them look like sperm cells. My son was a ninja for Halloween this year. Sometimes he still ran around the house wearing the black scarf headpiece, and as a last resort, I asked him if I could borrow it for a few days. He didn’t ask for what.
I didn’t have the heart to fully commit to the ninja thing, so I just wore my normal clothes.
I couldn’t decide which shirt I wanted to wear because the thought passed through my mind that it might be the last t-shirt I ever wear, or at least the shirt I’m forever wearing in my mug-shot.
The drive up here was a quiet one. You might think we would be playing Aerosmith to get pumped up or in the zone or whatever, but no one seemed sure how to feel. Too much had happened. When they woke up that morning everything they were about to witness was predetermined. “Pelican,” who sat near the back of the room, called out sick the morning of and people murmured to each other calling him names. People applied facepaint, and responded to old text messages, and slept, and snacked, and played games on their phone, and did all the normal stuff you do to pass the time on a long car ride. No one sat near the bus driver. There were several empty rows behind the unassuming man being paid to operate the bus. He was Black, and we all acted like he wasn’t there. Or that he was there but he wasn’t Black.
When he finally put the vehicle in park he said, “Well Gentlemen, enjoy your costume party,” and no one corrected him.
We ran towards the base of It. We didn’t know where else to start. Some of the “choppers” brought jackhammers and other small scale construction equipment, which weighed them down in the first wave. The buff guys who didn’t have any manual labor background were assigned the role of “pushers,” who would push after the “choppers” had chopped. I was a “climber.” When trying to determine who would be what, there was a brief interview with the three chapter leaders and I lied and said that I had years of technical climbing experience.
“Yeah, two summers ago I climbed Mount McKinley, it was beautiful,” I said confidently. But really I just liked climbing trees when I was a kid. When asked by Mr. S why I wanted to be the one to climb to the top, I responded, “Because I want to be a part of something special”, and they seemed impressed. It was genuine. I do want to make history, even if it’s just for myself. If I make it to the top, maybe after a few years, I will tell my wife late in bed one night. I wonder how she will take it?
I’m actually a pretty fast runner. Not that fast in most circles. When I was a kid I thought I was fast, but then I ran track for one year in high school and I found out I wasn’t fast. But apparently in this context, I am considered fast. So fast that my ninja mask flew off, revealing my face. Now I was just in a t-shirt and jeans, my favorite t-shirt, just in case I died. My mask landed in the grass and I thought about going back to get it, but I just kept moving. There were a few security guards and park staff; they were so grossly outnumbered that all they could do was focus on stopping one person at a time while dozens swarmed past. There were a lot of people here I didn’t recognize. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone dressed as “Michael Myers” trip and fall, and I found it surreal and funny for half a second, but then I kept running. I think I was the first person to touch the structure. Not the first ever. Maybe not even the first person today. Maybe a woman taking her dog for an early morning walk reached her finger out on a whim and slid it along the polished stone for just a moment. Or maybe she didn’t, there is no way to know.
I was a “climber” so I climbed. The “choppers” ran their loud machines, chipping away shards of the rock. The “pushers” started pushing.
There isn’t any easy way to describe what happened next if you didn’t see it with your own eyes. But over the years I found the best way to explain it to any curious party is with the crabs in a barrel analogy. We all used each other’s bodies as leverage, and a tower of flailing arms and legs formed. Here someone else going down means you are moving up, and vice versa.
One time while driving across the country in my 30s, I stopped for gas somewhere in South Dakota, and in the center of town, there was some sort of event, or jamboree, or whatever you call a party in a flyover state. There was a greased pole competition where young men piled atop each other to try and ring a golden bell at the top. They were all shirtless and caked in mud. They looked like animals, not like savages, like actual barnyard animals. That was the only thing I’d ever witnessed in nature that even remotely resembled my current situation.
I was about halfway to the top when someone dressed as one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles passed right by me. I don’t remember which Ninja Turtle though. Whatever Renaissance artist they were, they had a technique that clearly involved a lot of skill and superglue. He would lather his chest, and then jump and stick, and then peel his chest off enough to shimmy a few inches, and then he would reapply the superglue and repeat. It was very impressive. I was disappointed for a second that I wouldn’t get to be the first, but I thought if anyone deserved it, it was this real life unnamed Ninja (Turtle).
He was about 80% to the top when he unstuck and slipped, and fell. His body zipped right past mine. I thought about sticking my arm out but I didn’t. SPLAT. There were a few seconds of screaming that was soon swallowed by the commotion. More people started to fall.
You’d hear a SCREAM, then a SPLAT. Then SILENCE.
I held on with every ounce of my being. I used muscles I didn’t know I had in my shoulders, and tensed my thighs to grip the big penis in the sky. Which sounds bad.
I was almost at the top, but I couldn’t remember what I wanted to do when/if I got up there.
I had done pushups and calisthenics preparing my body for the past 6 months, but I never paused to figure out what I wanted all the way up there. The view was really nice from right were I was presently stationed.
I was already Yertle The Turtle, The King Of The Pond.
Then someone tugged on my pant leg and made this difficult decision for me. They used me like a ladder, and I went sliding down, leaving my body with the rock version of rug-burn. People crawled over me as I had crawled over them. And then I let go. Literally and figuratively.
I fell for a while, and then I kept falling.
It knocked the wind out of me. The first time this happened I fell off a rope swing at the park, and figured I was dying since I had never not been able to breath before.
But I was still alive so my next fear was getting trampled. I landed on the incline of the human ant hill, and was lucky enough to just tumble and get stepped on a few times by the colorful costumed characters running through my periphery. I would say it was like a dream, but it was all far too specific to be made up. This was real.
I crawled and crawled. I reached a far enough distance from the hill that I thought I could safely stop and lay in the grass and gather myself. I looked behind me. The “choppers” chopped, and the “pushers” pushed, and the “climbers” climbed. Someone was at the top when it fell. It made the loudest noise I had ever heard. Everyone screamed, and laughed, and cried, and high-fived, and ran. Dust billowed. I was too far away to see who it was at the top, but close enough to know it wasn’t me. I could only see the shape of a figure for a few seconds. They stood victoriously with their fists clenched overhead like Rocky Balboa.
But they did it. I saw it with my own eyes. Then I watched “Rocky” fall to his death, but sometimes I leave out that detail when I retell the story.
I got to my feet. I walked and walked until I was back at the school bus.
I didn’t recall seeing any of the Chapter Leaders in the heat of the moment. I realized why when I saw them hitting golf balls off the roof of the school bus into the sea of their soldiers. They clinked beer cans and sat in lawn chairs. In the months leading up to today, I had been quietly hoping to catch “Ghostface” at the urinal or soap dispenser, and share a moment of levity that had nothing to do with business. I no longer wanted this. He sat there with his mask on his forehead sipping the froth from his beer, and I realized he was just another guy.
What I wanted now was to go home and sleep in my own bed with my own wife and my own pillows. I got on the bus and picked a seat at random. I figured it wouldn’t matter since there would be less people making the return trip. As I was getting comfortable, I heard a sneeze from the back of the bus and my curiosity got the better of me.
It was Matthew Perry. He didn’t have a scratch on him. He never got off the bus.
This was all his idea, for better or for worse.
“Jeez Louise, how did it go out there?”
I don’t know how to answer him.
He smiled. At this point all he could do was smile.
I smiled back.
Trent Algayer is from Middletown, NJ. He is in the class of 2024 and is majoring in film. He thinks creative writing is super cool.
Trent wrote this story in a creative writing course taught by Professor Franco, who selected the piece for inclusion in WHR.