Sublime…
By Mitch Berg
Paul Demko’s cover story in this week’s City Pages is the sort of stuff that the Pages do best, when they bother; cover a regional story that nobody else will bother with, and do it very, very well.
In this case, it’s a story about Saint Paul’s High Bridge over the Mississippi – its history, and its long-standing attraction to suicides:
Johnson parked her car on Cherokee Avenue and walked out onto the imposing structure, which soars some 150 feet above the roiling Mississippi River waters. At 5 a.m., the bridge was deserted—the morning commute wouldn’t start for a couple of hours yet. She could see stunning views of the city’s downtown skyline, the Cathedral of St. Paul, and the Mississippi River.
Looking down into the water, all she could see was inky blackness. It was a strangely comforting abyss. She climbed up onto the two-foot railing and clung to a lamppost. For the first time in months, her mind was empty.
Then she let go.
A great (if sobering) story, delivered with facts and humanity. Well worth a read.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Huh. I stopped at Richfield liquors tonight in prepreation for a later gathering, and saw the cover. I assumed it was some 35W paraniod rant so didn’t pick up the mag. Will do so this weekend.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Pretty much everything that Demko does is worth reading. I’ve been very impressed with his coverage of various sorts of MPD naughtiness, for instance, and his stuff on the Duy Ngo case was utterly terrific.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Good article. Hell of a sad thing, though. I can’t imagine circumstances where that would make sense to me, fortunately. If I were going to kill myself, I think leaping from a great height would not be on my list of ways to do it. I’d be scared sh*tless. Probably I’d freeze in a death grip on the railing or something. Man.