The Night the Lineman Came Home
We had it closed in by a quarter to eleven. That put us at the head of 448th Avenue at eleven o’clock at night with the wind still blowing.
Rick came on the radio. “Jake, what’s it look like down there?”
“Ugly,” I said. I had my flashlight out the window. “Cedar across the line at the first half mile. I can see three spans on the ground. And there’s something wrong at the far end. I think a crossarm.”
“Your sixteen is up at four,” Rick said. “I want you boys off that road by two. That’s a long job and the ice is still coming off the trees. I’d rather you start it fresh at ten tomorrow.”
“Copy,” I said. And I meant to. I want that on the record. I meant to stop at two.
That was when my phone buzzed on the dash. It was Nicole, and it was eleven o’clock at night, and Nicole does not call me on a storm unless something is wrong.
“The generator’s running rough,” she said, without even saying hello. “Brad thinks it’s the cold. It’s been dying and he’s been getting it started again. The house is down to fifty-six. He won’t call you. I’m calling you.”
“Are they all right?”
“They’re all right. Kara’s got Harper in her snowsuit in the bassinet. But he’s scared, Jake. I can hear it in Kara’s texts. He’s scared and he won’t say it.”
“Tell Kara if it gets under fifty, they bring that baby to our place,” I said. “I don’t care what Brad says. You go get them yourself.”
“I already told her,” Nicole said. “I just wanted you to know.”
I hung up and sat there in the truck with the heater running and the wipers going.
Luis was in the passenger seat eating a gas station burrito he had warmed on the dash, and he had heard every word, because the cab of a bucket truck is not a private place.
Here is the honest truth about what I chose that night. I did not choose to put Brad first. Brad was already next.
What I chose was whether to quit at two, like Rick wanted, or to work through to four, the end of our sixteen, and try to finish it.
It was a big job for two hours. A cedar to cut off the line, three spans to pull back up, and whatever was wrong at the far end.
If it went bad, we would be up there at four with the job half done, and we would have to quit anyway, and everyone on that road would still be dark.
I looked at Luis. Luis has a little boy, eight months old, and his wife had been texting him pictures of the baby in a stocking cap all day. He folded up the burrito wrapper and put it in the door pocket.
“I’m not asking you to,” I said. “I want that clear. Rick said two. If you want to stop at two, we stop at two, and nobody thinks less of you. That’s my brother-in-law’s place at the end of this road. That’s not your problem.”
Luis pulled his rubber gloves out from under the seat, where he had them warming against the heater duct, and started pulling them on. “It’s thirty-one houses, Jake,” he said. “It’s not your brother-in-law’s road. It’s thirty-one houses.”
He was right. That was the thing. It was never about Brad. Brad just happened to live on it.