Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought about it for a few seconds. “Okay.”
    “You know how?”
    “Sure.”
    Belaying meant that you hung on the rope attached to the climber’s harness, so that if the guy grabbed air you could take his weight and keep it from being too bad a drop. A harness is just like a leather diaper with leg loops. To set up for a belay you need to run the guy’s rope through a device called a plate, then clip it to your own harness, then hang on to it with both hands. I’d done it in the high school gym.
    “I’m Duwayne,” he said, and he spelled it for me.
    “I’m Billy.” I spelled it, too. “How come your name’s spelled that way?”
    “‘Cause when I was born my mama didn’t know the right way to spell it. Same as Andruw Jones’s mama. Plays left field for Atlanta?”
    “Andruw Jones’s mama plays left field for Atlanta?”
    He frowned. “You dumb or somethin’?”
    “No, just funnin’. Don’t pay any attention to me.”
    And don’t you be a wise guy, I said again, to myself. The beanpole and I shook hands. I could see the sun shining through his ears. He wore an old Knicks sweatshirt and purple Lycra pants that had been patched in both of the knees and in the butt.
    He took off, climbing the boulder, from one bolt to another: a mocha-colored scarecrow. I stood on the ground, craning my neck, my hands on his rope acting as a brake, praying that he wouldn’t fall, and that if he did fall I’d be able to handle the rope and his weight. He was so tall that the bolts weren’t far apart for him, but still it took him a few minutes to get to the top. And he didn’t fall or slip, so I didn’t have to do anything except pay out the rope, bolt by bolt.
    He rappelled back down. Rappelling is hanging on to the rope, arching yourself backward and climbing down with your feet braced against the rock. Not hard at all, so long as you don’t slip.
    “How’d I do?” Duwayne asked me.
    “Outstanding.”
    It was my turn. I did it, with Duwayne belaying. Then I rappelled down. Never mind the details: the truth is, it was pretty much like doing it in the gym. No harder, no scarier. I didn’t even ask Duwayne how I’d done, because I knew I’d done well.
    “Awesome,” Duwayne said. “Spot for me?”
    That was different. You spot for somebody if they’re face climbing, which is bouldering with no rope attached to you or the bolts. It’s just a raw hand and foot climb. The spotter stands on the crashpad under the climber, and if the climber peels or grabs air or wipes out — rock climbers never use the word fall — the spotter’s job is to grab the falling climber’s head and shoulders before they slam into the ground. You’re all that stands between his getting the chop or buying the farm. Getting killed are two other words that rock climbers don’t use.
    “Sure,” I said.
    Duwayne chalked his fingertips and palms, and then he put on a banged-up white helmet that had been hanging from the handlebar of his bike. When he buckled the strap under his chin, it made his face look even darker than before. When he grinned, his teeth lit him up like a lamp.
    In face climbing you don’t use any bolts. You have to plan ahead, use the edges of your feet and sometimes your toes, and sometimes do what’s called smearing, which is hanging on with friction from the soles of your shoes. You get a finger grip on whatever holes and ledges there are in the rock. You haul your body up any way you can. You do face climbing in the gym on the artificial wall, where the routes are all marked and color-coded. You don’t go up too high, and there’s usually a couple of guys standing below to catch you if you peel.
    Up Duwayne went, with a great deal more care than the first time when he had a rope whose low end I was belaying and whose high end he could tie to the bolts in the rock. No rope now, no bolts.
    He made a few stops on the way, hanging on with fingers and toes until he got his strength back, and his nerve. He got