19) What Goes Up…

“I’m going to throw up…” you sit down on the ground, head between your legs. You knew this was going to bother you, but you didn’t expect such a visceral reaction. You hand your phone to Jackie… “You’ve got to film this… I can’t… I need to go inside.”

She takes your phone and continues where you left off. You head inside to get a drink of water and to calm your nervous system.

The 65’ lift had just been delivered and watching David go up into the basket nearly seven stories off the ground as it bounced and swayed had set you over the edge. You have a tremendous fear of heights… you can get about four rungs up on a six foot ladder before your palms begin to sweat, but watching your husband that high up… you weren’t expecting that to bother you as much as it did.

Every time the basket was moved, the machine made a shrill warning sound: BEE-DO-BEE-DO-BEE-DO-BEE-DO… loud enough that you could hear it from inside the church. While the noise was a bit maddening, you told yourself that the noise wouldn’t be possible if your husband was to topple out of the basket and fall to his untimely demise… and so you learned to take comfort in the loud warning… BEE-DO-(STILL ALIVE)-BEE-DO-(STILL IN THE BASKET - LIVING) - BEE-DO…

You just couldn’t help shake the feeling that something awful was going to happen. So much so that you made him promise you that he would take all safety precautions… that he would get the safety harness and tether himself to the roof. David had worked as a solar electrician many years ago and none of the guys wore fall protection. One time he drove past a house that they were working on… the metal roof steep and slick, four stories off the ground…

“You’re tied in up there right???” You had asked as he pointed it out…

“To what Vanessa? What would we tie into? You just wear slip proof shoes and exercise caution…”

“YOU’RE NOT TETHERED TO ANYTHING UP THERE????” You began to panic…

He just laughed and kept on driving.

“Do me a favor… don’t ever fucking show me something like that again… especially when I now know that that’s where you’re going to be working for the next week. I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

That was the last time he ever pointed out a job site he was on.

This time though it was non-negotiable… if we were going to rent the lift, there was 100% going to be fall protection. PERIOD. He had agreed and you took some solace in knowing that not being afraid of plummeting to your death was half the battle (your nerves would unsteady you on any roof) and that the other half was a safety harness… just in case.

You kept reminding yourself that this wasn’t something new for him, that he was comfortable with heights, and that he was a professional. Still… watching him in that basket… the way it bounced harder with every foot it climbed, you felt your lunch coming back up, your knees weak… Jackie had taken over and you had gone inside… BEE-DO-BEE-DO-(STILL IN THE BASKET - ALIVE)-BEE-DO.

The lift was rented to remove the bee hive, the bees unfortunately had to be humanely eradicated as they were posing a threat to all of you - coming into the church in droves, and due to the time of year, every bee keeper you had called in the 50 mile radius had told you that removing the bees now wouldn’t give them time to establish before winter, they wouldn’t make it. They had to be removed and unfortunately, there was no way to preserve the colony. The lift had also been rented to assist in replacing missing windows and most importantly: repairing some of the awful leaks on the roof.

THAT was what had you most worried.

“It’s a 12/12 pitch,” David had told you as he laid out the safety harness on the ground, inspecting all the parts…

Your palms were sweating.

“You know what that means?”

“That it’s steep as fuck if I had to take a wild guess?” You say.

“Yup. For every twelve inches you go forward, the roof climbs twelve inches. It’s very steep.” He said matter of factly.

“This is making me so nervous.” You pick up the safety harness and give it a hard tug… no broken seams or give, it’s solid.

“It’s fine, Vaness.”

Then you set that down and went to the line, the tether that would keep your husband safely anchored to the roof should he slip down that 12/12 pitch… there was a one way metal catch on the line. He could climb up and the rope would go with him, but if he were to fall, the metal clip would catch and hold him. You tug with all your might on the thing that would ultimately be a life or death decider and take some solace in watching how the mechanism catches, making it impossible to slide down the rope.

******************************

“I can’t wait until this lift is gone,” you tell Jackie later that day. “I know he knows what he’s doing… but fuck it makes me so nervous…him up there… I’m putting a whole lot of trust in a nylon harness and palm sized piece of metal… and I just don’t like it…”

She shakes her head in solidarity. “The lift makes me nervous too. I thought I’d be able to get up there and help him,” she had told you that heights don’t bother her either… “but the bouncing… the bouncing freaks me out…”

********************************

Before you had closed on the property you and David had looked at pictures of the building’s exterior, a formidable behemoth of brick and stone, soaring towers and roof… The pictures made you dizzy when you really thought about the sheer size and height. The same pictures though seemed to titillate your husband.

“What color, if you could paint it any color, would you want the weathervane up on the belfry?” Your husband had asked matter of factly…

“I mean gold I guess… hey… you’re not thinking of going up there are you????”

“I’m going to go over every inch of this church,” he had excitedly proclaimed…

“What? Why?!” You asked incredulously.

“Because it’s mine.”

“Well it’s mine too and I sure as fuck am not going to go over every inch of it.”

He shrugged, “I guess we’re different there too.”

“Jesus Christ David… there’s no reason to even go up to the top of the belfry.”

“Oh I’m going up there. Gold it is.”

“Just leave it the fuck alone… seriously, it’s fine as it is.”

He had laughed.

****************************************

“You know if you fall from that height… you could still live… so that’s something to think about…” Jackie had said.

“Yeah but if you fell 65 feet… would you even want to be alive??” You asked.

“I’m just trying to be positive here…”

“I’m just trying to be realistic.”

You were so nervous… your husband had come inside, a piece of ornate gold metal in his hand…

He told you that it had rusted off the weathervane when he was painting it and the metal had fallen off in his hand.

“You fucking went up there?????”

“I told you I was going to, didn’t I?” And then excitedly, “It was nuts because I had to hang out of the basket,” he’s laughing, “and I was rocking all over the place… I actually couldn’t even reach the very top of the weathervane because it was so windy and I couldn’t quite reach it… I was thinking about putting a step stool in the lift to take with me…. but you should come look at it… it glistens in the sun now…”

And it did indeed glisten. You were glad you had no idea he had been up there. You were relieved that he had gotten that whole, ‘paint it gold… going over every inch of this place’ bit out of his system and you were thrilled that the lift would be gone in just two more days.

The beehive had been removed… a thick trail of glistening honey oozing out of the dumpster… it couldn’t be utilized on account of the pesticides. You wanted to cry when you thought about it… every bee keeper had told you though that it just had to be done… but the loss of bees, the waste of the honey and comb… it was a lot. You had gotten choked up over the mound of dead bees under the massive hive, “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry…” that was over now though, and everything had been sealed and treated… no repeats of this ever again, you had promised yourself (and the dead bees).

The lift, the bees, all of this had been incredibly emotional. You weren’t sleeping well knowing that the lift was still parked right outside the church. Yet with each task checked off, you were that much closer to getting your sanity back.

All of the windows that had needed the assistance of the lift had been installed and at this point, all that was left was the roof work. This made you the most nervous. You just couldn’t shake that awful feeling that crept up into your throat every time your husband went up in that thing.

***********************************************

“Elliot… Hey Bud… I’m going to need you to go inside right now… Ok?”

You had come outside to ask David a question. He was on the lift working on patching the roof. Elliot had come outside before you and you had heard David talking to him. You couldn’t see either of them on account of them being on the south side of the building and you being on the western side, but you could hear them… there was no BEE-DO-BEE-DO-(still alive)-BEE-DO… but you knew he had to be ok… you could hear them.

You assumed that David was tossing debris off the roof and didn’t want Elliot to get hit. You figured that your question for David could wait and so you went back inside and continued unpacking more boxes in the sanctuary.

Twenty minutes later David walked in, still in his harness. He looked sweaty and pale… was he shaking?

“Holy shit… holy… fucking shit…” he said to no one in particular…

His voice was off, trembling even… and you could see his hands shaking as he began unbuckling his harness…

“What’s going on???” You were at full attention now…

“What’s going on is I’m about to write a scathing product review….”

You’re staring at him… you have no clue what he’s talking about, “What do you mean?”

“The fucking safety equipment broke while I was on the roof. Vanessa, I was falling off the fucking roof and caught myself… the metal latch failed and wouldn’t catch… I had a split second to wrap the rope around my arm… I caught myself and had to slide across the length of the roof to crawl back into the basket. When I got to the basket I just sat there and composed myself for what felt like a fucking eternity. That’s when Elliot came outside… I told him to go inside because the last thing I wanted was for him to see his dad fall to his death… and when I finally stopped shaking, I slid into the basket and came down… the fucking latch just broke… almost seven stories up on that roof and that fucking piece of shit just failed…”

“OH MY GOD!!!!” That feeling in your throat was back, the weak knees, the dizziness, the nausea… you had to sit down.

David stripped off his faulty equipment handing you the broken latch. The latch you had pulled on with all your might… now it easily slid both up and down the rope without catching…

“What in the absolute fuck!!!???” You said.

“Pffft… well lesson learned… you get what you pay for I guess… time to give Bezos a piece of my mind…”

“You know, if you pay for safety equipment you should get safety equipment that works, regardless of price… like wanting to save $50 shouldn’t equate to plummeting to your death… that’s some fucked up shit… it’s not like you bought a pair of pants or something and the quality sucked… safety equipment is safety equipment…” you’re furious now. Your husband almost plummeted to his death.

David shook his head in full agreement.

“Oh my god David… now what?!” You asked him.

The color had returned to his face, he wasn’t shaking anymore,

“FIRST… I’m going to go change my underwear… THEN I’m going to go write a one star product review.”

He was given a full refund later that day and they didn’t even ask him to send in the broken clasp…

Above: view of the belfry from the lift (before the plywood had been removed). The flashing on the side of the belfry where it meets the roof still needs to be fixed, the first fix did not stop the leak.

Top Row: window installation from the interior. The framing had to be built first from the outside.

Second Row: A view of the building’s exterior and the dizzying height… second photo in after the plywood was removed from the Belfry. Looks so much better now!

Third Row: Another exterior photo of the sheer size of the building and also two photos taken from the lift.

Fourth Row: first photo taken from the lift… David’s equipment failed on the far end of the roof, he had to slide almost 85’ across the peak of the roof to get back to the lift (the orange frame of the basket shown here).

Last Row: the weathervane after it was painted (notice how the top isn’t gold - you will never though, hear me complain about that).