Word of Mouth
An excerpt from Visits from the Drowned Girl
by Steve Sherrill
There are a few things Benny had experienced from up high that he never told another soul about. Sometimes, in late summer, storms come up quick. The distant threat of bad weather wasn't enough to keep him grounded, but nobody in their right mind wanted to be three hundred feet up a metal pole during a thunderstorm. "Right mind," however, is awfully subjective. Benny just wanted to get done that day. Three summers ago, on a Friday, and he normally didn't do tower work on Friday because he worked for his uncle Nub on the weekends. But the flashing beacon and two other bulbs had burned out at the very top of a tower not too far from the county airport. Leaving the dead bulbs in place for the weekend was a dangerous proposition because of all the weekend flying lessons. All Benny had to do was go up and change the bulbs. He knew the weather report called for something wicked, but even without the weather-band radio harping away, or the little beep-beep-beep of the warning that scrolled across the bottom of theTV screen, Benny could've predicted an afternoon storm. It had been hot, sweltering hot, for three days in a row, and no rain. The rains were due.
"Come on, Benny," his boss said on the telephone. "You're quicker than anybody else. Forty-five minutes max, hour and half minimum. That's all it would take."
Benny hesitated, just to hesitate. He knew he'd do the job.
"It can't wait till tomorrow. You know that, don't you?"
By the time Benny got to the site, he could see the storm clouds banking on the southern horizon. When he got in harness, all he could smell was ozone. The storm was a mile or more away, so the sky overhead was clear, but the color shift had already occurred; everything that could reflect light did so with a yellowish pall. Forty-five minutes; maybe an hour. The wind picked up when he was halfway to the top of the rungs. Benny hurried. Because he was in a hurry, he clipped himself to the tower at intervals of twenty-five feet or more, instead of the usual ten feet. Besides, Benny never fell. He watched a wall of heavy rain overtake a small dairy farm a quarter of a mile from the tower. The cows got nervous when the thunder started; they trudged single-file toward the barn. With one bulb changed, the mist that moved ahead of the rainfall cooled Benny's face.
He'd forgotten to roll up the windows in his van. Oh well. Benny let the second bulb, the burned one, drop to the ground. Even through the gut-rumbling thunder, he heard the bulb explode on impact with whatever it hit. Before Benny made it to the top bulb, the most important one, he was in the thick of the storm. All the towers are grounded, so Benny wasn't that afraid of the lightning. But Lord—the wind and the thunder and the heartless black of the clouds so thick he could no longer see the trees, the field, his van, nor the ground below him. Benny went to reach for the last rung. He knew he'd clipped the carabiners in place. He remembered doing it. But he never expected such a gust of wind, such a thunderclap that seemed to have him at its core. Benny fell. It scared the hell out of him. Despite the carabiners. Despite his good common sense and plenty of experience. Benny felt himself lose grip, slip away from the tower, and begin that most serious dance with gravity.
So why is Benny still climbing towers? What happened next was the thing he couldn't get a grip on.
Steve Sherrill is assistant professor of English and Integrative Arts at Penn State Altoona. He can be reached at kss15@psu.edu.
