The Riggers

[Tytn]

I'm not sure how this will pan out, so please bear with me

[Tytn]

Dawn was a blue clear sky, orange yellow tints in the distance as the crew cab van slid along the dual carriageway. It was quiet, they didn’t even have the radio on. It was warm yet cool. It would warm up later but now it was only 12-14 degrees outside. The height of summer.

The driver looked his usual stoic self, eyes staring at the horizon, and red tinged in his eyes from having not long woken up. The guy in the middle was dozing, relaxed back in the seat. Not long now. If the sun was in his eyes the driver would have donned his dark plastic wrap around shades, but it was not dark enough yet. Sometimes sunglasses so early in the morning could help you drift back off to sleep. Not helpful in a driver.

He was the newbie on the crew, only a few weeks in and already worked hard, but it was money and that was important to him. He got home most evenings shattered and had to have an hours rest before he did anything, often needing to drink more liquid and have a shower to sluice off the remains of having sweated almost non stop throughout the day. He used to think that a litre of water a day was enough but now he could go through that in the morning with ease.

It wasn’t long before they left the road and up the slip to the left, slowing for the roundabout, the driver seemed to take it all in before they joined the local roads, not needing to slow down and effortlessly slotting in around other traffic

The depot was set back from the road, and as they the pulled up they saw they were not alone. Whilst the roller shutter door wasn’t open, the driver of the wagon was there, a six wheeler with a crane. The driver was poking around at the back with the straps, his bags dumped at the cab end.

Their van pulled into the parking spaces and then, silence.

Then the door cranked open and they piled out, cool air around their legs and arms as the bare skin met the summer dawn. It would get hot later, and so they wore short sleeved t-shirts and shorts, but they were all in their 20s, except the driver. He was older. Much older.

He came over and chatted with his driver, but Shane had only seen the rest here a few times.

‘Right, best empty the wagon. Anyone got keys to get in?’
‘Sorry mate, only the bosses do… talk of the devil’ as a sleek black executive car pulled in. The guy who got out was rather large, probably the width of 3 or 4 Shanes, overweight and already flushed red and sweating before moving a few steps from his car. He handed out various keys. A silver bunch to his van driver, some black ones to the wagon driver and he himself lumbered up to the offices, hitching his suit trousers up, a reminder that his belt either wasn’t tight enough or it had held at he wrong place. His shirt looked untidy already and Shane was glad he didn’t have to wear a shirt anymore.

He had briefly worked in the mail and post room of a large office block before they had relocated to another city, but in that time he proved he didn’t like working indoors and preferred outside. So here he was.

‘Shane, get on the back of the wagon’ called out the driver. He was pulling a pair of faded orange straps out of the box under the tail of the truck. One already slung over his shoulder. He left the box lid open as the other two were already undoing the blue or red ratchet straps over the load on the trailer. The straps that when the truck was in motion, would hold all the cargo down securely. The driver indicated a spot where he could climb up, using the guard rails and grabbing the stillage’s on the back of the flatbed. Shortly later Shane was up there, higher than anyone else around and it felt a bit cooler up here already, a gentle wind flowing over the hedges before he got to work.

It was crowded with stillages, some double stacked, some with long scaffold tubes on, shorts, and cages with fittings and boards inside. He helped remove the straps and only then realised there was noise and vibration of the engine. Various clunks and hisses as the stabiliser legs slid out and locked, dropped down to push on the tarmac. The big arm unfurled itself, like a long morning stretch. He spotted the various safety interlocks, flipping open to allow use, working to free up the large metal thing, as thick as he was. Each new movement timed with a quivering black hydraulic line or something.

‘Shane, get on the straps, chop chop’ called out his driver, Derek.

He knew what to do, having seen it done a few times. Arms snaked down with the thick strong strops under the centre of the stillages, the metal crates, and pushed the strops through underneath. Other hands reached under and pulled it from him, the coarse webbed material rubbing against his hand until he could pull it back. His side of the strop he pulled into position so it would stay on the outside of the crate then pulled them up together and looked around.

The crane hook was above him and as he looked up and saw it, it started to descend. He stepped back and the driver got it right above the main crate before stopping. He hurriedly slipped on the strop eyelets, then reaching down took the other two that were offered up from the ground and he carefully hooked them in place too. Before the crane arm moved a voice called out and a white hard hat sailed up, he caught it deftly and slotted it onto his head. He already knew walking into scaffold at head height was painful, and he didn’t want to do it to the crane.

The crane took up the slack as he stood back a bit, and then as it moved on the test lift he made sure he would not be crushed but it sliding inwards, and twirled his finger upwards whilst reaching out to the edge of the truck where the driver operator stood. The universal sign for going up, and when it cleared he stepped back and moved to the edge of the load bed. He tapped his upper arm and held up 1 finger then a thumb.

The first boom of the truck lifted, and the twin stack rose straight up with its one ton load. Once clear of catching anything he put a thumb up to the operator who swung it away from the load bed towards the ground and Shane got on with the other strop.

This one went under the rusty brown coloured metal stillage that held the 16ft lengths of scaffold tube, along with shorter lengths packed in and made tight. Once again the end sections of the strop were moved outside of the raised arms of the stillage so when lifted they wouldn’t slide inwards and the cargo could drop. He got the 4 eyelets ready and looked up to wait for the hook to swing over. Once near him he held up his hand and in an area knew the driver could see made hand motions again. Twirling finger, pointing down. The hook lowered. As it was further back on the load bed the driver lowered the main arm and raised the second arm, causing the hook to slide back down the load bed but without extending the extension. He figured it was because this would be a heavy lift.

The hook came in, he hooked on, stepped back and then over to more stillages as he made his motions. The crane arm rose, and lifted the 3 ton stillage up over the load bed but this time over to the driver’s side. It slid down and rested onto the ground in the parking spaces the managers used. Another crew member released the strop and the hook rose again.

This time the extension had to be used, but with each lift, the double stacked stillages rose and were stacked near the long poles. It wasn’t an easy area to work on the flatbed. Various metal bits stuck out, and care had to be taken not to catch yourself on them, as a gash or injury could result in being off work, which he didn’t want to find out its cost. He had work boots on, steel toe capped, and they had ankle protection and a leather cover that protected his shins but above that it was only shorts, and so easier access to tear skin.

A water bottle had been handed up, and he had drained over half in a few gulps before the hook had come in again. A glance around, eyes meeting and he tossed the bottle down to his mate who stuck it in the van.

From inside the building he heard another diesel start up, then die, and recognised the sound as their fork lift truck. A bit more coughing and it failed to start, but by then most of the truck was empty.

The deck was empty, so he climbed down and joined the others putting the ratchet straps and strops back into the toolbox, before closing it up with the last of the strops.

The crane arms swayed as it telescoped in, then folded back into position behind the cab, locking in place with a deep thud as it was properly seated. The stabilising legs rose and slid back into their housings and, after a moment, the driver shut the engine down to idle, then off after a minute.

The deck was swept off, strap locker closed and once again Shane was on the back of the truck sweeping the loose bits off the back towards the parking spaces and away from people.

Standing on the deck he finished off the rest of the water before giving up the broom and climbing down.

There wasn’t time to waste as he was instructed to banksman the truck back as it manoeuvred and then reversed out to the main carpark. Still before 7am and before anyone else would be here, but soon was pulling out onto the road for its first collection. Shane returned to the van and they took it into the warehouse to empty.

They carried a lot of kit from the previous job last night and for the next 15 minutes they all got together to strip off the 109 u’s and o’s, the laylos, decks, kick boards and fittings. The 3 and 4 meter standards as well as the odd length regular tube. Once off, the van was swept out again and they all piled in. The water bottle was drained, and the others had their own too, revelling in the cool liquid as it gushed down their parched throats, revitalising them, reinvigorating them, before pulling out onto the road to follow the truck.

‘Right. Time for breakfast’ called out the driver as they headed West.



======chap 1 end======

[Tytn]

The sun was up, the windows open and so kept them cool with ‘260’ Air Con – 2 windows, 60mph. Now it was getting closer to rush hour, the traffic building up, their progress slowed. It still took them a good half hour to catch up with their crane lorry, trundling along at 50mph, also with the windows open. They had heard that the heater in the truck was stuck on ‘hot air’ which wasn’t good in summer. Fine in winter, but the driver didn’t seem in any hurry. Air horns and flashing lights signalled each other as they passed, and they carried on. The quickest way for them was cross country but a Macdonalds breakfast was calling them, so they stuck on the motorway until they had moved from The M40, M42 and onto the M5 northbound. The services would not be far away now

South of Birmingham, and at the M42 M5 junction the traffic had slowed to a crawl, and already more than one of them was wishing they had come off the junction before to skirt up the A38. Derek driving looked worried and shifted in his seat, Shane kept quiet but in the cramped cabin had already had to move significantly to remove his shin protectors. Rob in the middle complained at his movement at which point the other two had revealed to Shane that while the truck was being unloaded this morning they had had 2 trips to the supervisor’s office to get the plans, then the revised plans. Each being met with a fresh mug of coffee.

Normally coffee was limited in the morning as it gave you ‘the buzz’ but it didn’t help when you had a couple hours on the road in traffic, and so both Rob and Derek were on edge and for the first time in ages Shane felt more relaxed.

He still had to pee himself, but knowing he was not alone in the dilemma helped him out no end. But he tried to put his past coping techniques to his mind and remain calm and try not to move. Already Rob had muttered curses when they had crossed the white lines in the road and the cats-eyes bumps.

The heat of the morning sun indicated it would be a hot day today, and the fans in the cab only blew the air that was around them. Hot air, which didn’t help. Derek looked worried, Rob was chewing his lower lip and on more than one occasion had glanced at the maps on his iphone to work out where the next stop was.

Shane kept quiet, the radio filling in the gaps as the traffic reporters updated them on the delays, problems and issues. Various road numbers came up, and Rob muttered bad words as he checked
‘Next junction shut, coach broken down’ he moaned
‘Can we make it to the next one?’
‘Gonna have to, they’ve setup a diversion, up to the next and turn…’
‘So that’ll be even busier! Dammit, I so wish I’d not had that extra coffee. If he’d just given us the correct details before hand…’
‘Go before leaving the depot?’ Shane interjected. That got him a scowl, and Rob muttered
‘Didn’t need…’ but didn’t finish as he let out a gasp, and closed his legs, clenching tightly and muttered curses
‘At least you can close you’re legs’ Derek gasped, his own hand slipping to his waist, fumbling with his belt to loosen it then the button at the top of his work trousers. He had to be able to move his legs as it was a manual gearbox van.
‘Slip road?’ asked Shane
‘Fine’
‘So you’ll stop?’
‘No, we’ll get fined…’ Derek filled in. ‘I can tell you how much, but suffice to say it means you’re working for free this week’

So they carried on, in relative silence. Shane new roughly where he was, he used to visit family around here and they were on the edge of the black country. They moved into lane two, and passed the miles of standing to slow traffic for that exit where the diversion was, then the traffic eased considerably and they speeded up, the air cooled, and they were moving fast. Shane remembered where he was
‘Black country south? Shall we come off at the next exit?’
‘Why?’
‘Direct route to Shropshire, where we’re going and…’
‘not sure…’ Rob uttered, but Shane reached down into the door pocket and came out with the atlas, he skimmed to the page he wanted, and showed Rob, who agreed quickly, and so they were back in lane 1. But as they came onto the slip road Shane said
‘No, lane 2, the middle one, on the slip’ but he was ignored, and so they got to the bottom and he finally squirmed himself, wincing as his aching bladder protested strongly that his own morning coffee followed by a litre of water was taking the traditional route out rather than being sweated out. He felt himself harden at the thought of the others next to him also with their own precious and painful burdens but tried to will it back down. It didn’t always work and it still came up of its own accord but he couldn’t let them see one of his secret interests.

Rob turned to Shane, for a moment then turned back. At the bottom of the slip road, there were traffic lights and they were in lane 1, to take the first exit. Shane gasped, wincing, then called out
‘Look! 2nd exit? Or is that 3rd?’ and they saw what he was indicating. The yellow M on a pole, next to an exit
‘How the crap have I missed this before now?’ muttered Derek
‘Weren’t we here last week?’
‘Yeah, for the Rutherford Job. I knew there was an Asda there…’
‘Drive in to Asda, but before the store there is a left then right and there is a drive through’
‘Sod the drive through’ moaned Rob. Legs clenched together, hand gripping the dashboard. Derek was concentrating, and thanks to the fact they were empty, there was significant acceleration available. Even before the amber light was on the traffic light pole, he was pulling away hard, and moving across to take the superstore exit. Horns sounded, but there was no collision. The shot up the access road and all three let out moans as they hit the first speed bump. Shane clamped his teeth closed and bared it. They slowed for the next one but still went over at some speed before spotting the infamous fast food restaurant and pulling in.

Doors sprang open, Rob pushed out and Derek had to slow to refasten his belt and button, but they were all hurrying for the store doors. Rob almost pushed Shane out of the way, but Shane instead held the door open and both his colleagues rushed in.

The fast food restaurants were made to a similar design and they were all familiar with them, although all but Shane hadn’t been here before. But he let them go first.

When he entered the Gents, Derek the Chargehand, was at the first urinal. Head leaning on the wall above the urinal, knees braced and his tool out emitting a pressure lance of clear piss. Rob was next to him, legs braced but just holding on and looking like he was in heaven and the stall was open, so Shane strode in. He had got a good clear look at something he shouldn’t have done and felt himself harden up again, hoping it had not happened in front of them and they didn’t notice. He was glad there was only 2 urinals in here though.

His nerves always got the better of him and this time it was a little different. The pain and discomfort and the quiet realisation that actually, he could have waited longer. But he closed the door, snicked the lock and after lifting the toilet seat waited for his own personal waterfall. His boner eased slowly, the thoughts encouraging him to make use of it but his own bladder protesting strongly. But wasn’t that often ‘the best time’. Not today, and so he willed it down to think about things that caused it to drop. Such as dropping that scaff bar on his foot last week, or when the three 21ft poles he’d carried with a colleague had moved at the last moment to crush his index finger in the pile. The pain was impressive for such a little digit, and it had bought tears to his eyes.

He could hear water sloshing in to another water tank nearby but still knew he had company as they were talking about their recent experience and ‘how close’ it had been, but it was only when he heard the sinks in use and the dryer did his nerves finally begin to let the fluid out and he relaxed, legs braced as he pissed strongly into the bowl.

On and on it flowed out, and as he finished he felt amazed and light headed, his body felt damp from recent sweat and despite knowing that he could have held a bit longer, was still amazed at how long he’d been going for.

He tidied himself up, washed his hands and strode out shaking them to dry them. The others were there
‘Double sausage and egg mcmuffin, pancakes and syrup with a large coffee’ came the grin
‘We’ll pay for this one, you earnt it, saving our bacon there’ Rob was a new man now, survived from his ordeal, and Shane was the hero, and it felt good.

But he wouldn’t have ordered a large coffee.

[Brian]

The details in this make me wonder if it's based on a true experience. And then I'm wondering which of Derek, Shane or Rob our esteemed author is.

They all nearly didn't make it. If any of the three had had an accident, which would it have been? I bet on Rob.

[Fred]

I particularly enjoyed the careful detail in the first section. I reread slowly it so that I could picture the activity, and the descriptions made it a real story, not just a "pee story". An excellent start with potentially interesting characters!

[Tytn]

I have already featured in that story but not in a role that would have probably recognised me...

But I have been away now for a fortnight and it is time to be able to write about it a bit more.

[Tytn]

They decided on taking the direct route out, through the bottom of the ‘black country’ and out towards their worksite, in Shropshire. It was warming up nicely and they didn’t fancy being on the motorway, plus they had had a text from the office saying there was problems on that route and their lorry driver had just messaged in.

So they took the A road. Initially the roads were light brown, dual carriageway with red anti-skid tread near traffic lights but soon as the street lights finished the road changed initially to deep black tarmac and then light grey. The footpaths faded back from the road or just away entirely, the hedges were green and verdant and between the gaps or the low points they could see on the south side lots of lush green fields, mixed colour forestry and woodland and spread out houses. Soon onto single carriageways too, the traffic slowed as the pressure built up.

The heat also built, a sunny day and the fans seemingly not able to push the air around, and so it was uncomfortable for the three in the van.

The driver was sipping from a bottle of water, the lad in the middle was lightly dozing and Shane, against the window, had the warm air from outside flowing against him and his face. He had had a few half gulps of water from his bottle of water but knew he would have to be careful.

The strong smell of fresh tarmac wafted over them, just as the driver swore
‘What’s wrong’
‘Don’t you smell it?’
‘I can smell something…’ he started at which point they turned the corner to see a long line of slow moving traffic
‘Somewhere ahead they’re resurfacing. That’s the smell of fresh tarmac’ and this was the point when Shane’s bladder reminded him of the coffee.

It was going to be a long morning.

[greatwater]

I really enjoyed this. Thank you!

[burstingguys]

Can't wait to see where this goes