|
SKYSCRAPER By Chris Wise
Earl and I loved being up high. Neither one of us really ever had a fear of heights, so we enjoyed our jobs as window washers. It wasn’t the best job we probably could have found in the city, but we were content with it. The exercise was good, the pay was steady, the retirement plan was decent, and we got medical from the company. Sure, we could have looked elsewhere for work after the depression was over, but you know how it is. If you like your job you don’t usually go looking for a new one. We were hired on as part of the construction crew back in 1929. The work was the best either of us had seen since the Stock Market Crash of that year sent our little contracting business belly up. We started our firm as soon as we got home from the Great War and it lasted pretty well through most of the 20’s. The army sent us to France in the same unit, and that’s how we met. Earl had signed up young; he was only 17 when the ol’ U.S. of A. joined in the fighting. I was 20 and watched over him for the year that it took for the war to end. We came home to Prohibition and a booming economy, so we decided to have a go at being businessmen. Our decision prompted us to move to the city, where we met our wives. Business boomed for over 10 years and we were happy ‘til the Crash kicked off the Depression. The only jobs we could find after the firm tanked were manual labor. The one that paid us the best was on the construction crew putting up the new Chrysler Building. The Chrysler Building and the Bank of Manhattan went up to the clouds side by side. There was a big hubbub about which one would be the tallest building in the world. We worked like dogs to get that thing up in time but the Bank of Manhattan finished before us with a top height of 927 feet. It was higher than the announced top for our tower which was 925 feet. The papers declared it the highest skyscraper in the world by two feet. What the bankers and reporters didn’t know was that Mr. Chrysler had us building a spire for the top in secret and inside the elevator shaft of the tower itself. A week later, we hoisted the spire on top of the building and called it finished. The height to the tip of the needle was 1,046 feet; we beat the Bank of Manhattan for tallest skyscraper and even beat the Eiffel Tower, which topped out at 1,024 feet. A year later the Empire State Building went up and made it all a moot point, anyway. By the time the finishing touches were put on the top of the Empire State, we were watching it from the precarious position of the window washer’s rig. There is something soothing about being above the rest of the world. To get to work I had to fight my way through the bustle of New York City every morning. If you haven’t been there, then take my word that it is one of the noisiest places on the planet. People are always rushing around like ants, cars are always honking, the subway shakes the ground when it roars past underneath you, and the buildings just bounce all that noise around the streets. Going through that mess gave me a sense of wonder when I stepped out onto the rig first thing in the morning. Up high, the noise almost stops. I could hear the gentle droning of the noise under me, but it wasn’t an overwhelming racket like being on street level. Earl liked it up high even more than I did. I never did have a strong stomach for looking straight down but he could do it without flinching. I could look down at an angle easy enough, but that boy liked to look straight below him. He would peek at the empty air underneath the rig through the pipes in the bottom and stare down at the people for hours. I didn’t usually mind doing a little extra work while he took time out to enjoy the view. He was talkative and I preferred to listen to his jabbering than the sound of my squeegee against the glass. The squeegee was a godsend to our profession. It didn’t come along until ’36 and before it was invented we washed all the windows with rags. That was real sweat work. The glass cleaner always left streaks when you wiped it dry with a rag. That meant the windows either had to be wiped dry twice, or you switched to a new drying towel with every window. The squeegee fixed that problem with only one setback: the squeaky noise the things made. Earl fixed the noise problem by drowning it out with conversation. His observations were always interesting to me, and he usually just talked about the things that were going on below. Earl would watch the crowds walk below us and comment on the patterns he picked up here and there. He liked to watch the birds fly around underneath the rig as well. Sometimes we would leave a little bird seed on a ledge below us to attract a feathered friend or two. We usually got pigeons and starlings, although occasionally a jay would show up and bully the smaller birds off of the millet. Taking time out from work to watch the pigeons peck at a treat was usually worth it. They had a funny way of walking, and when food was involved they could get around pretty quickly. One day, however, we saw the pigeons pecking at the lunch we left for them scatter like a herd of spooked deer. They flew off in every direction, diving and turning recklessly to avoid a falcon bearing down on them. The falcon was a peregrine, and in the 30’s they were fond of nesting in the tall buildings and bridges all over New York. The first one Earl and I ever saw came along in 1933. It came tearing out of the sky like a bullet and hit a pigeon. All I saw was a blur and an explosion of feathers. It scared the crap outta me and I nearly fell off of the rig. You see, ‘33 was the year that FDR ended prohibition once and for all, and Earl and myself had been doing a little celebratory drinking on the job. The combination of cheap scotch and exploding bird sent me jumping about 3 feet in the air screaming, “What the hell was THAT?” Earl dropped his bottle of gin as soon as he saw it and stood there shaking. Neither one of us had ever seen a falcon before, and we didn’t quite know what to make of it. After it struck, the peregrine flapped its way up towards us carrying what was left of its prey. He landed on a ledge some 3 stories underneath the rig and made the pigeon’s broken carcass into lunch. I was shaking and holding onto the rig railing for dear life. Earl was completely mesmerized. He stared at the falcon until it landed and then heard the faint tinkle of his bottle smashing about 40 floors down. I downed the rest of my scotch in one swig and tossed the bottle into the trash bin with my free hand. I don’t think I let go of that railing for the rest of the shift. After that day Earl was determined to see that falcon again. He put out extra seed in the mornings and the pigeons and starlings took to eating it right away. He probably fattened up a whole flock before the peregrine showed up. It was several months after the first sighting we had and the weather was getting colder. The library had made him a veritable expert on the species by the time it showed its tail feathers again. It arrived the same way it had the first time, swooping down like a thunderbolt and crashing into a fleeing starling. I yelped when I heard the snap of bird on bird impact, but Earl was ready for it. He kept one eye on the sky for the falcon all the time and he caught a glimpse of it soaring before it dove down for dinner. I looked over at him after it dove and he just said, “Did you know those things can go over 200 miles an hour?” I replied with a “No.” He looked at me and said, “Can you imagine flying that fast?” I said, “I can’t imagine flying at all.”
That was the truth, too. I did a pretty good job of not letting heights spook me, but I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to tread air. Our rig was about as precarious as I ever wanted to get. Somehow, I got the feeling that Earl wanted a little more. He talked for the rest of the shift about what it would be like to fly. By the time we were done for the day I think he could have sprouted wings and soared on home. The falcon didn’t show up for another month, and it was getting really cold outside. It was November and things up on the building were quiet as usual. Earl had been feeding too many pigeons and they were making work take longer than usual. They liked to leave a mess on the ledges when they were done eating. The cleanup was a nasty job sometimes, but Earl insisted on continuing to feed the birds until he saw the peregrine again. We had gotten a new rig a few weeks earlier and we were still getting the hang of using it. Our old rig was a counterweight and pulley system. We had to pull on a series of ropes to go up, down, or sideways. The new rig was a fancy machine driven unit. We used a control pad with buttons that turned some motors on the roof on or off. It was a little shaky when it moved, and sometimes it lurched. It was pretty sturdy, though, and didn’t sway as badly in the wind. Earl was playing around with the controls when he saw the falcon again. It was a Friday and we were washing some of the lower floors. This time, he spotted it high in the sky, floating around like a paper airplane. He pointed it out to me as soon as he saw it. He said, “Look up there!” I responded with, “Where?” He put his arm right under my eyes and pointed at it. We watched it in silence for a few minutes and it dove down to catch something behind one of the lower buildings. He insisted that we stop working and take the new rig up to the top and watch for it. I liked it up away from the street so I agreed. It was really windy by the time we got to the top floor and all I had on for insulation were my work coveralls. The temperature was nippy but it didn’t bite my skin or make me terribly uncomfortable. Earl didn’t even notice the cold. He looked down into the labyrinth of buildings below us and watched like a man possessed. I sat down on the floor and dangled my legs over the edge. He finally pointed down without saying anything and we both watched as the falcon drifted upwards. The bird was riding an updraft and spiraling gently upward to our height. The wings didn’t flap at all; instead it just sort of held the tips out and leaned at an angle. The air currents must have done all the work, because he was rising up like a corkscrew, or like a piece of debris caught in a slow tornado. The falcon spiraled up higher than any of the buildings, floated motionless for a moment, and then bunched its body up and dove down again. It moved so fast that I could barely keep track of where it went. I saw the characteristic explosion of feathers far below us. Earl was gazing intently down to where it happened and gasped slightly. I took a harder look and saw the reason why. The falcon had done a somersault in midair and tossed the carcass of the pigeon to another falcon. Earl said, “That must be a female.” We watched them dance and dive for a long time, neither of us saying anything. After a couple of hours they soared away and we went back to work. When we finally made it back down to the floor we had been working on I swore under my breath. It was late in the afternoon and we hadn’t gotten nearly the amount of work done that we usually did. I said, “Damn it, Earl, we’re going to be up here all day.” He said, “It was worth it.” I just rolled my eyes and told him, “We had better work through our lunch break to get things caught up.” He said he didn’t mind and we got back to wiping down the windows and scraping off the ledges. We worked up quite a sweat by the afternoon so I suggested that we break for lunch after all. Earl asked me, “Are you sure?” and mentioned that, “We still have a lot of work to do, and we are a little behind.” I argued that it was getting nice out and I was hungry. He went along with me and we took a relaxing break for lunch and coffee. The sun had come out and it was warming us up a bit. The air was still a little chilled and very windy, but the warmth of direct sunlight beating down on us more than made up for it. We took the lift up to the crest of the building for the break, and the stainless steel covering the sides glittered like newly polished silver. After lunch we went back down to the first setback and picked up where we left off. It was probably a mistake to take a break because we didn’t go back to working at the speeds we should have. We were behind and working slower than usual. Earl and I talked at length about the falcons while we worked and he told me more about their mating habits than I ever really wanted to know. By the time the sun started to go down we were up to the 56th floor, most of the way up the highest setback. We finished up the 56th floor and were moving on up to the 57th when the sun finally went down completely. Almost as soon as it had slipped over the horizon the rig lurched to a halt. Earl played with the controls for a minute and looked over at me with eyes as big as dinner plates. He said, “Um, Ralph, the lift isn’t moving.” I said, “You’re shitting me, right?” He turned white as a sheet and just shook his head slowly. I could feel my pulse quickening. He started to tremble slightly and I told him, “We can’t panic, we can get down from here.” He swallowed hard and didn’t say anything. I put my hand on his bicep and said, “Look, I’ll just knock on the window and get whoever is inside to go for help.” I banged on the window a few times with my fist before pressing my face to the glass. It was getting dark out quickly and I didn’t see any lights on inside. I decided that the janitor would be along any minute if the office was indeed empty. We both watched the interior of the office intently for about half an hour before Earl started panicking. He started yelling at the top of his lungs for someone to let us in and beat on the window with his fists. I just sat down and put my head in my hands. He shouted and pounded on the glass for a solid five minutes before sinking down beside me, out of breath. I looked around us and didn’t see any of the surrounding lights on in the building. I said quietly, “I think we’re going to have to break our way in.” Earl said, “We could get fired for that, you know?” I said, “Yeah, I know.” He looked at me for a second and asked, “Well, what do you want to break it with?” I told him, “The bucket should work. It’s the heaviest thing we have.” He nodded, and picked up the metal bucket full of window cleaner. I told him to try swinging it into the glass. The bucket held about 5 gallons of water and cleaner so I figured it was heavy enough to do the trick. If it didn’t break it, I thought it would at least make a crack. Earl took the bucket handle up with both hands and said, “Here goes....” He swung the weighty bucket around like an Olympic hammer thrower and released it into the window. It made a dull clunk and fell below us. My heart sank into my shoes. I stood up and looked closely at the glass. It didn’t have so much as a scratch. Earl was regaining his balance from spinning around and looked at me. I choked out, “It didn’t work.” And he just solemnly nodded. I asked, “Do you have any ideas?” He shook his head no and we both sat back down. We only sat for a second before Earl jumped up. He asked me for my squeegee. He said, “I think I can use the handle to smash it in.” I told him, “Good Luck” and handed it over. He pulled the rubber stripping off of the top and tried to beat the glass in with the aluminum handle. It bent badly after only a couple of strikes. I offered to take a few swings at it and he gave me the handle back. I took it up with both hands and cracked the butt of the handle into the window with no success. I tossed it over the side of the rig with exasperation. I sat down next to Earl and asked him, “Any ideas?” He said, “Nope, I guess we just wait.” I reminded him, “It’s Friday night, if we wait until Monday we’ll be ice cubes.” He asked, “What warm clothes are you wearing?” I told him, “just my coveralls, jeans, a work shirt and a sweater.” He sighed and said, “I only have my coveralls, shirt, and pants.” Neither of us said anything for a while after that. We sat on the rig huddled next to each other while the night drained away the heat and the wind from below tore up at us. We watched the city lights go out one by one. We knew that yelling down wouldn’t do us any good. No one would hear us and it would only waste energy. The wind howled around us and the rig swayed slightly. The city grew dimmer as the night went on and eventually we ended up lying down beside each other. We looked into the clear sky air and watched the stars twinkle. I pointed out the constellation Orion to Earl. He pointed out the Big Dipper and I could see his hand shivering slightly. I sat up and unzipped my coveralls. He sat up as well and asked, “What are you doing?” I told him, “You need the sweater more than I do, your teeth are chattering.” He looked down and told me, “Keep it.” I insisted that he needed it more and that I could spare it. He told me, “You’ll need it just as much come Monday.” I tried to argue, but he just nodded his head no. I lay back down. Earl rolled over onto his stomach and put his face on his arm. He was peering straight through the grating in the rig floor and watching the lights below. I tried to find another constellation to get some conversation started but Earl said something to me first. He told me, “Ever since we first came up here I’ve loved how empty it all is. All that air below us and space around us makes me feel free up here.” He looked over at me. I nodded and he went on. “The only thing that seemed more liberated than the two of us were the birds. I love watching them glide along below us. I especially love watching those falcons fly.” I said, “So I’ve noticed.” We sat and listened to the wind for a moment and I could feel Earl shivering ever so slightly next to me. I felt guilty for keeping my sweater. I had a little more middle age padding on than he did, and I wasn’t freezing cold yet. No sooner had I thought about trying to talk him into taking my sweater again than he stood up. I stood up with him and we both leaned on the railing looking down. I tried to breach the topic with, “Look, Earl, I really can spare some heat. Why don’t you take...” but he cut me off by saying, “Being able to fly sure would be handy right about now, eh?” I just responded by giving him a pleading expression. Then he said, “Only one of us can take the weather up here for the entire weekend.” I told him, “I know,” and asked, “What are you getting at?” He unzipped his coveralls and stepped out of them. I tried to say stop but he just told me, “It will work.” I asked what would work and he told me. He said that I could use his clothes to keep warm until help arrived. He handed the coveralls to me while he shivered and took his shirt off. He was scrawnier than I thought, and with no shirt on his teeth started chattering something fierce. I told him to put his damned clothes back on, but he insisted. He said he would fly down and get someone to come up. Before I could object to his idiotic idea he had backed up to the other end of the rig. I ran over and grabbed a hold of him by his shoulders. He told me, “Use the clothes, you’ll need them soon.” Then he tripped me and pushed me down. I tried to grab at his feet, but he gave a little starting jump over me and sprinted across the length of the platform. I could feel every footfall reverberate through the grating in the floor and I screamed out for him to stop. I rolled over onto my hands and knees with my hand out just as I felt a jolt in the floor. He had taken a flying leap over the far railing. I grabbed at the grating and pressed my face to it. Below I could make out the form of Earl diving downward with his arms spread out like a falcon’s wings. I watched as his body went outward and downward over the edge of the second highest setback. He got smaller and smaller as he went down and out over the street far below. He dove below my line of sight. I shut my eyes tight and stifled a cry when I couldn’t see his form anymore. I listened intently for any sound, any sound at all. The only noise I heard was a strong wind gusting up the side of the skyscraper.
END __________________________________________________________________ |