The Hooks I Dug Out of the Shed

The first climb

The first thing we did was the thing every lineman should do every single time. We inspected the gear.

Straps, buckles, stitching, the keepers on the D-rings, the gaffs. You do not trust your life to something you have not looked at that morning.

Then we buckled the climbers on. The shank runs up the inside of your leg, the stirrup goes under your boot, and you strap it snug at the ankle and below the knee.

Snug, not tight. Too tight and your leg goes numb by the third pole.

Jace wore my belt with the tail let all the way out, just to have something to hang his fall restriction strap from.

It was ugly, but for practice climbs in my own yard it would do, with me watching every move.

The fall restriction strap is the piece that changed this trade. It goes around the pole and cinches down if you slip, so a cutout costs you a few inches instead of your life.

You climb with it around the pole the whole way up and move it as you go.

“Hips out,” I told him at the base. “Arms loose. Don’t hug the pole. The closer you hug it, the more your gaffs want to come out.”

He knew all this. He had climbed a hundred times at line school.

But it is different on a pole in your mother’s yard with your burned buckle stapled to the next pole over, and I could see that he was thinking too hard.

He set his right gaff, stepped up, set his left. Short steps, eight or ten inches. Heels in, knees away from the wood.

I set my own gaffs on the other side of the pole, a little lower, and started up with him.

My left knee popped at the third step like a knot in a pine log. I kept going.

I had told myself I would make it to the halfway mark, about twelve feet, and stay there as long as he needed.

At twelve feet I set my gaffs, leaned back into my strap and let the belt take my weight.

The pole was solid and gray and smelled faintly of the old treatment. I had not been off the ground on a pole in eleven years.

Above me, Jace stopped about four feet up from where I was. He leaned back into his strap and looked down at me.

“You okay?” he called.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Look up, not down. Keep going.”