All of us spotters gave each other a look. A look that we needed not put into words that P-Real could hear. The look that had the intensity that a normal serious climbing situation would have but this was different, it was three in the morning and this southern boy thirty feet above us on the side of a church, had been drinking whiskey all night. “You got this P-Real,” Roy says, defying what he may have been thinking, but sending up necessary encouragement.

“Yeah, man, looking good,” T-Drizz adds.

P-Real climbs five feet higher and is near the lip of the roof of the church, just below the cross, into the unknown. As he reached up to the top of the church a small chunk of brick falls down to the ground, hitting the rail, and making a “clink” sound. Unfazed and buzzed on adrenaline P-Real keeps searching for a handhold, the sound of his breathing just slightly increased. His tennis shoes standing firmly on a brick. His left hand on a brick, and his right hand searching for a hold to grab onto to climb up onto the top of the church.

A minute later he is still in the same spot now his left hand is feeling to top of the church for a hold. Another small chunk of brick, quarter sized falls down, this time landing on the grass. This prompts Lucy to speak her first words since P-Real left the ground, with a tone of a mother that has warned her disobeying children one time too many, “P-Real Sleeps you get down from there right now!”

A cold silence followed her words, and immediately P-Real started his retreat, gently climbing down the bricks, forty feet back to the ground.

The cipher made it through the summer without suffering any injuries. However, the more I talked about buildering with friends the more frequently I heard stories where people got hurt. Ironically these were usually top-notch climbers, who had spent countless days taking big risks on big walls and boulders; and these were their most severe injuries. Another trait that all these builderers shared was that they were men, without girlfriends.

But, just as the known dangers of STDs don’t stop random drunken hookups, people will still continue to builder, facing the many risks.

Buildering is very risky, but it is also an expression, a manifestation of energies. Something wild stirred up and buzzed, not ready for the night to end. Determined to live more. To transform. To builder.