Simon is out walking but he doesn’t see the man jump. Misses it when he hits the pavement. He sees the police lines and a gathered crowd. He notices the way everyone looks up, and he doesn’t need to be told. The bystander, to whom the man gave five dollars to clear the sidewalk, has been questioned by the police and wanders inside the yellow tape, holding the bill in front of him, not sure what to do with it. He keeps asking: Can I spend it? Is that okay?

People refuse to leave the scene, even though the police have constructed hasty curtains around the unfortunate’s pulped body. They cluster expectantly as if there will be an encore, some kind of instant replay. This kind of aerial act only happens once, but the public needs to see more, wants to see the melancholy and terror that lurk in the dusty corners of their lives. They need a public display of their private worries and so hope for a sequel. Death has become an art, but not an original one.

Twenty-three stories, three hundred twenty-two feet, eleven seconds of freefall, give or take a few seconds for wind resistance and body position. This is a painting he can only do once, so the man, out of consideration for his audience, made sure the canvas was clear. No one, after all, wants to be killed by art. He gave a man in the Crystal Court five dollars to clear the area below and took the elevator to the twenty-third floor and circled through the perimeter offices—lawyers, accountants, actuaries and secretaries, all leaping to their feet—until he found the right side of the building, and though the police had been notified, there wasn’t enough time to stop him.

The weight shattered the safety glass perfectly, sending a prelude of shards waterfalling to the concrete below. He didn’t scream or jump or fly or act in any way that requires some hasty verb. He simply walked out into the city-thick air.

The few who witnessed the impact won’t forget the performance, how the body actually bounced. How the skin wasn’t even compromised.

Sadly, the artist wasn’t very original—as usual, people from New York are well ahead of the Midwest when it comes to performance art; though the audience wasn’t as cynical as East Coast viewers, they didn’t make jokes about yuppie doom. They were from the upper Midwest. They didn’t laugh or ooh, or cry. In the days afterward, there were no cartoons that linked his behavior to market or seasonal trends. It was April. Instead, they wondered how embarrassing it must be for him. It lacked propriety. People felt bad, certainly. But with all the space, the trackless forest, they wondered if a city setting was really such a good idea. I mean, think of the children. What would they say if they had seen it happen?