Laughing at the clouds

There is nothing like the first day on a job. Seeing the new faces you'd be working with as well as the new surroundings that would have you spend half your day inside of. This job was nothing like an cozy office job though, there was no walking around cubicles and sitting at a desk until your ass was numb. No, this job was different. I had fallen asleep in my work truck until a sour stench of sweat had awoken me. My eyes opened to look upon a new face i'd be working with. A face that had been beaten by the harshest of weather and a body that had been punished daily by the greasy food it consumed. As I fixed my eyes upon his under bite he let out a gargle of words as he tried to talk with a handful of chewing tobacco in his mouth. "Wakey, wakey, my sweet were ready for you and Logan to head up". As he said those words my eyes went beyond this mans outline to see the structure I would be climbing. Standing as tall as 250 feet I would be climbing up the side of this beast to reach the top. There I would be changing out the metal lines that had kept the structure from falling. The foreman told me and the crew that this structures lines were to be changed out a few years ago and that our small contracting company finally won the bid on fixing the structure. I was basically told that I would be about to climb a hydro tower with expired pieces. Suddenly the man that had stood in wait for me to get up had a violent mood swing and slammed the door screaming obscenities. His change of behavior was probably brought on by effect huffing gas and the sweet release of heroin had on his shriveled brain. I already knew I would hate this guy.

I looked up the tower holding a pair of safety hooks that would keep me from falling to my death. I saw that Logan had been wearing a sweater even though it was plus twenty outside. I had only worn a wife beater and still i was sweating. I didn't take into consideration like he had done that the temperature would change until i would inevitably reach the top. "I'll go up first Kid!" Logan yelled as he started to climb, this allowed me some time to look at where we were. We had set up in the middle if the bush, possible bear sightings were known in this area so the foreman had brought one of his shotguns from home. The ground was covered with long grass and broken trees from the skid steer operator giving us room to work. "You coming", I felt embarrassed as the guys on the ground started to laugh and make jokes. I looked at all the ugly worn out faces as I headed up the tower. Logan laughed and yelled down at me, "Don't worry about those pussies their to chicken shit to do our job". The climb was exhilarating, the higher we had gotten the cooler and more crisp the air had become. I could now see over the trees once making it to the top, there was a river right next to where we were working. There were fishing boats full of families having an outing on such a beautiful day. I could only see there kids because of the bright orange life jackets they wore. I couldn't help but smile whenever I'd seen one of the boats start reeling in a fish. Some people even waved at us as we worked in the tower. For the first five hours we were up the tower Logan had worked endlessly on his side while I did the same. He had spoken of stories of when he was a gang member of the Indian posse. I didn't believe him at first but the stories he told felt to real to be made up. "Break time kid!" he started to wave down at the workers on the ground as he threw down a rope. Within minutes they were sending up our meal bags. I had made myself chicken salad with a bottle of water. Logan just stared and smirked at my meal as he pulled out a whopper burger from MC Donald's. He laughed at told me that life was to short to worry about what I ate. After a few minutes of eating Logan pulled out a small bag of joints he had rolled before coming to work. It was like refusing money so I had taken a few fake hits. Never allowing the smoke to enter my lungs i pretended to get high. I wanted to be clear headed as it was still my first day at work and all. It took a little bit of time for Logan to start working again so I watched the families as they continued to fish. Then the boats started to leave one by one, even the ones that had just shown up had left within the hour. I didn't know what to think of what was happening so I waited for Logan to finish.

The wind started to pick up as we were changing over the first structures line. Now in order to change the lines the guys on the ground had to send us up another line after we cut the original. So we were left with three working lines for the time being. The structure had swung just a little as we cut the first line, it felt sickening as a rush of adrenaline moved through my body. We waited until the workers at the bottom sent up the line. We quickly attached it and moved to the second line to be cut. I tried to give the first line a look over before moving to the next spot on the structure but before i could Logan started to yell at me to help. I keep thinking to myself that maybe I would have seen what was wrong, everything might have changed if I had seen what Logan did wrong. We started on the second line and as Logan cut to release the metal line from the tower the swinging motion from the release of the line caused the first to snap out of place. The fear that had set across my body had become overwhelming. The structure started to swing violently as there were only two lines keeping the structure from falling and killing me and Logan. During that moment rain had started to poor upon us. Now rain was fine but when I heard the sound of thunder my heart fell from my chest. In any thunderstorm were ordered to not work no matter how far the storm may be. One energized line would melt me and Logan in the tower. So as I started to panic I heard the sick laughter of Logan. He had looked at the black storm clouds and seemed to enjoy what was happening. I wanted to start beating his face in as I realized we were trapped in the sky. If we went down we ran the risk of dying from the tower falling and costing millions of dollars worth of repairs and days of no one having power in the city over. If we stayed up and did our jobs we could be burnt alive from lightning energizing the line. So we stayed up and worked. The longest 18 hours of my life and the sound of thunder behind me was like a man holding a gun to my ears and shooting the ground in front of me. The men below us all hopped into their trucks and escaped the pouring rain as me and Logan did our jobs. I started to imagine ways in which i could survive the fall, maybe as the tower collapsed I could make a jump to the river. I even thought that that the structure would fall slow enough for me to climb to the side that would be now upwards at the structure laid to rest on the ground. Imagining death made for me to hate every second until the very end and even then my day wasn't done. So one by one we swapped the lines and double checked them. Logan kept laughing saying that the river was to far to jump to if the tower went down. I guess he was thinking about how he could survive as well. "I guess I could knock you out kid and use your body as a cushion as we hit the ground". I told him to shut the fuck up and work. The thunder behind us still roared and flashes could be seen more and more clearer. I started to think about the last words that i had even said to my mom and dad and older brothers. I imagined what they would tell me after i told them this story. I did whatever i could to make me look forward to being alive after we were done. Then the lightning stopped and the rain ceased to fall. I had never felt more connected to life than when i had seen the sun poke itself out behind the clouds. I could see the foreman dancing on the ground, it looked like he was jigging like the First nations people I knew did during the sun dance festival. The sun started to fall into the night sky and me and Logan started to head down. One step at a time the air started to get harder to breathe. The difference between the heat and air quality could be felt as I felt a flash of dizziness hit me as I touch the soft earth below my feet. I looked forward to telling of what happened here.