1 00:00:01,919 --> 00:00:05,839 Speaker 1: I've been tearing things down for twenty six years. That's 2 00:00:05,879 --> 00:00:09,400 what I do, all I do, and I wouldn't have 3 00:00:09,519 --> 00:00:14,160 it any other way. My demolition outfits it's just outside 4 00:00:14,199 --> 00:00:18,079 of Hammond, Indiana. It's a one man operation. On paper, 5 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:23,760 I quote hire the guise an invoice. I source my 6 00:00:23,879 --> 00:00:26,640 men through a guy named Aldo who runs a crew 7 00:00:26,679 --> 00:00:30,359 call out of a parking lot south of Bormann Expressway. 8 00:00:30,879 --> 00:00:33,840 They're hard workers, cash in hand folk who show up 9 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:37,479 at six in the morning and don't ask questions since 10 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:41,920 then on Union. There's no insurance or safety certifications, which 11 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:45,799 is fine with me since certifications cost money and the 12 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:49,920 kind of men Aldo supplies don't have Social Security numbers Anyway. 13 00:00:51,079 --> 00:00:55,560 With al those men, I underbid legitimate contractors by forty percent. 14 00:00:56,520 --> 00:01:03,240 That's the margin, and business is good. The Murphy's meatpacking 15 00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:05,799 plant sat on a four acre lot on the south 16 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:09,200 side of Garry, about a mile east of the rail yards, 17 00:01:09,439 --> 00:01:13,400 with the freight trains stack up overnight. It stood two 18 00:01:13,439 --> 00:01:17,799 stories tall, made of brick and concrete, flat roofed built 19 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:21,640 in the late forties when Garry was still Gary Steel 20 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:27,480 mills running population growing the whole machine humming the plant 21 00:01:27,519 --> 00:01:31,319 processed cattle for thirty something years, closed in two thousand 22 00:01:31,359 --> 00:01:34,599 and three when the parent company folded and had been 23 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:41,599 sitting empty ever since, twenty years of nothing. The city 24 00:01:41,719 --> 00:01:45,359 wanted the site cleared. Redevelopment was the word they used. 25 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:49,719 The funding was probably federal. I could only imagine. The 26 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:54,560 timeline was imaginary, but the demolition contract was real, the 27 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:59,560 money was real, and my bed was the lowest. The 28 00:01:59,599 --> 00:02:03,519 survey photos made the plant look manageable. The site report 29 00:02:03,599 --> 00:02:07,239 mentioned asbestos in the roof tiles, which my bid conveniently 30 00:02:07,319 --> 00:02:11,360 didn't address. The inspector would check for abatement compliance and 31 00:02:11,439 --> 00:02:15,159 the final walk through. By then the tiles would be 32 00:02:15,199 --> 00:02:18,240 in a skip under six tons of rubble that nobody 33 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:23,439 was going to sift through. I hired four men. Frank 34 00:02:23,599 --> 00:02:27,800 was mid forties. Stocky had worked with me three times before. 35 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:32,000 He knew the corners I cut, and he showed up anyway. 36 00:02:32,719 --> 00:02:36,039 Because Frank had a wife and three kids, and demolition 37 00:02:36,159 --> 00:02:39,800 work in the spring was steady, he showed up, did 38 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:44,159 the job, took the cash, and went home. Derek and 39 00:02:44,319 --> 00:02:49,719 Edgar were younger, early twenties, referred through Aldo's call. I 40 00:02:49,759 --> 00:02:52,159 didn't know which one was which for the first hour. 41 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:56,280 They were both slight, quiet, and were in the same 42 00:02:56,319 --> 00:02:59,280 brand of work boots. They were already falling apart at 43 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:03,159 the soul. Edgar, the one on the left, I decided, 44 00:03:03,599 --> 00:03:06,960 asked me about hard hats when they arrived. I told 45 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:12,439 them they're in the truck. I didn't get them. Thomas 46 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:17,039 was polish, barely spoke English, built like a shipping container. 47 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:22,159 He showed up. I pointed at things, and he'd demolished them. 48 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:26,080 I didn't know how to pronounce his surname, and I 49 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:30,240 didn't try. I knew Frank's name because Frank was useful. 50 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:35,919 The others were you or Hey. I didn't need more 51 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:41,319 than that. Day one. We arrived at seven. The plant 52 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:45,159 was bigger in person than the photos suggested. The perimeter 53 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:48,439 fence was down in sections. The chain link peeled back 54 00:03:48,479 --> 00:03:52,560 and curled, as if something had pushed through from inside. 55 00:03:52,879 --> 00:03:56,240 The parking lot was cracked through with weeds, the aggressive 56 00:03:56,360 --> 00:04:01,400 kind ones that split concrete. The building itself was intact. 57 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,680 That was the first thing I noticed. Twenty years derelict, 58 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:10,639 and the walls were still straight, the roof still flat, 59 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:18,040 the brickwork uncrumbled. In Gary, That's unusual empty buildings here 60 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:23,800 get stripped by scrapers within months, copper piping, wiring, anything metal, 61 00:04:24,759 --> 00:04:28,639 but the plant looked untouched. The windows were boarded from 62 00:04:28,639 --> 00:04:32,519 the inside. The loading dock doors were rusted shut. The 63 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:35,279 main entrance had a padlock on it that took Frank 64 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:40,000 three minutes with bolt cutters. The smell hit us when 65 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:44,800 the door opened, A seep, low and constant, one that 66 00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:49,279 gets in your sinuses and stays somewhere between chemical and 67 00:04:49,439 --> 00:04:56,000 organic ammonia, maybe old blood, twenty years of whatever it 68 00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:58,759 soaked into the floors of a place that killed and 69 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:03,120 cut and process cattle for three decades. Still breathing through 70 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:08,879 the brickwork, the concrete remembered what it had absorbed. Edgar 71 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,560 pulled his shirt over his mouth. Thomas walked straight in 72 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:18,040 without reacting. I stayed outside, directed from the parking lot. 73 00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:24,279 It was a standard first day. We stripped the corrugated 74 00:05:24,319 --> 00:05:28,160 cladding from the upper story and the exterior panels, each 75 00:05:28,279 --> 00:05:31,959 the size of a garage door. Frank and Derek worked 76 00:05:31,959 --> 00:05:35,160 the boats with impact drivers, while Edgar and Thomas stacked 77 00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:38,879 the panels on the lot. I ran the rented excavator 78 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:42,040 for the sections that wouldn't come free. A Cat three 79 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,279 twenty had picked up half price because the hydraulic arm 80 00:05:45,319 --> 00:05:48,040 had a slow leak and the rental company wanted it 81 00:05:48,079 --> 00:05:51,560 off their books. It worked fine if he didn't push it. 82 00:05:52,439 --> 00:05:57,199 I pushed it anyway. I watched from the cab. The 83 00:05:57,279 --> 00:06:00,759 crew worked below me. Four men on a brick ledge 84 00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:05,720 two stories up, no harnesses of safety line. Derek was 85 00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:08,480 leaning out over the edge to reach a bolt. His 86 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:11,279 boots caught on a ledge that was eighteen inches wide 87 00:06:11,399 --> 00:06:18,759 and crumbling. I didn't say anything. If something looks dangerous, 88 00:06:19,079 --> 00:06:22,360 I tell the crew to handle it. That's the phrase 89 00:06:22,399 --> 00:06:27,399 I use, handle it. It means the risk is yours, 90 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:32,839 the assessment is yours, the consequence is yours. I'm at 91 00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:36,360 the perimeter with a coffee. My job is the contract. 92 00:06:37,079 --> 00:06:42,920 Your job is everything between signing and finishing. Three years 93 00:06:42,959 --> 00:06:46,120 ago a man died at one of my jobs, sit 94 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,560 and Portage. It was a commercial building, concrete block construction. 95 00:06:51,439 --> 00:06:54,360 The wall needed temporary shoring before we could take down 96 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:59,720 the adjacent section. Shoring costs time, and time costs money. 97 00:07:00,759 --> 00:07:04,319 I told the crew to handle it. They didn't sure it. 98 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:09,600 The wall came down. A man named a Man was 99 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:14,600 under it. He was undocumented, no next of kin and file, 100 00:07:14,959 --> 00:07:19,120 no insurance to process. I found his family through Aldough. 101 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:23,600 I paid them eight thousand in cash. I didn't negotiate it. 102 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:26,720 I picked a number and I paid it, and the 103 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:30,079 family took it because what else were they going to do. 104 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:34,160 I tell myself it was a one off. The guy 105 00:07:34,199 --> 00:07:40,000 should have been more careful. The risks are understood. Nearing 106 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:43,000 the end of day one, the upper cladding was stripped, 107 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:48,639 the panel was stacked, the skip half full. Good progress. 108 00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:51,399 The crew was packing tools into the back of my 109 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:55,480 truck when Frank came over. He had his gloves off. 110 00:07:55,879 --> 00:07:58,879 He was flexing his hands, something you do after eight 111 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:02,720 hours of impact dry, when the vibration has settled into 112 00:08:02,720 --> 00:08:07,360 your joints and won't let go. The plans say one 113 00:08:07,399 --> 00:08:12,319 basement level, He said, yeah. I was working by the 114 00:08:12,319 --> 00:08:17,920 loading dock this afternoon. The floor was vibrating. It's gary, Frank. 115 00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:24,120 The whole city's built on swamp. Everything vibrates, not like this, 116 00:08:24,839 --> 00:08:29,639 he shook his head, like machinery running. The plant's been 117 00:08:29,639 --> 00:08:36,320 dead for twenty years. There's no machinery. I know. He 118 00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:40,000 looked at the building. The late afternoon light caught the brickwork, 119 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:44,399 turning it the color of dried blood. The boarded windows 120 00:08:44,399 --> 00:08:48,919 stared back at us. If you stood still long enough, 121 00:08:49,279 --> 00:08:54,600 if the wind dropped, you could almost hear something, something low, 122 00:08:55,159 --> 00:09:01,159 like the building was breathing water table. I said, that's all. 123 00:09:02,799 --> 00:09:08,039 Frank looked at me, then at the building. He didn't argue. 124 00:09:08,639 --> 00:09:13,360 He never argued. That's why I kept hiring him. I 125 00:09:13,399 --> 00:09:15,639 stood in the parking lot and looked at the plant. 126 00:09:16,639 --> 00:09:21,960 The smell was still there, faint, a chemical organic seep. 127 00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:27,879 I locked the gate, drove home, ate dinner, went to bed. 128 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:37,519 Day one was fine. Everything was fine. On the second 129 00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:40,720 day we set up for another hard day of labor. 130 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:44,519 The ground floor of the Murphy's plant was a single 131 00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:49,720 open space, about twelve thousand square feet, divided by partition 132 00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:54,039 walls into processing zones. The equipment was still in place, 133 00:09:54,799 --> 00:09:58,919 stainless steel tables bolted to the floor, drain channels cut 134 00:09:58,960 --> 00:10:02,799 into the concrete. The overhead rail system running the full 135 00:10:02,879 --> 00:10:06,399 length of the building on steel eye beams. The hooks 136 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:12,960 were still hanging, dozens of them, every eighteen inches, curved steel, 137 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:17,240 dulled by two decades of dead air, dangling at head height. 138 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:21,919 Some of them had material on them. A dark calcium 139 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:26,360 like deposit crusted and hard built up layers around the 140 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:29,639 curve of the hook, like something had dried there, slowly, 141 00:10:30,279 --> 00:10:36,519 coat after coat, thickening over time. I didn't touch them. 142 00:10:36,879 --> 00:10:39,000 I told the crew to leave the rail system for 143 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:42,799 now and focus on the partition. Walls. Get into the 144 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:47,840 cold storage rooms, stripped the insulation panels, pulled the refrigeration units. 145 00:10:48,639 --> 00:10:51,759 The scrap valley on the steel were covered the excavator rental. 146 00:10:53,120 --> 00:10:56,799 Frank and Derek took the far wall sledge hammers. The 147 00:10:56,840 --> 00:11:01,200 partition was standard plaster board over brick. The plaster came 148 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:06,200 away in sheets. One swing went through the sledge on 149 00:11:06,279 --> 00:11:09,679 my head, punched through the brick and kept going. Derek's 150 00:11:09,759 --> 00:11:12,120 arm followed it up to the elbows before he caught 151 00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:17,679 himself stumbling forward, the handle wrenching in his grip, he 152 00:11:17,759 --> 00:11:22,200 pulled it back. The hole was about a foot across. 153 00:11:22,799 --> 00:11:27,240 The air that came through was warm. It moved through 154 00:11:27,279 --> 00:11:31,480 the hole in a steady current like exhalation. It carried 155 00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:36,480 a smell different from the plant's usual chemical seep, something organic, 156 00:11:37,240 --> 00:11:42,799 rarer than rot, the smell of a living interior meat 157 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:49,120 before its meat. The inside of something. Frank stepped back 158 00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:53,240 from the hole. Derek was still holding the sledgehammer, staring 159 00:11:53,279 --> 00:11:56,080 at the gap. With the warm air pushed through in slow, 160 00:11:56,559 --> 00:12:01,840 even pulses, they widened, it took out the surrounding bricks 161 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,159 into the hole was big enough to see through, then 162 00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:09,600 big enough to step through. Behind the partition wall where 163 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:13,039 the cold storage room should have been, there was a 164 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:20,559 concrete staircase. It led down. The stairs weren't on any plans. 165 00:12:21,159 --> 00:12:25,120 I'd studied the plans, not thoroughly, but enough to court 166 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:29,159 the job. The basement level was to the north under 167 00:12:29,159 --> 00:12:33,440 the main processing floor. This was south under the loading dock, 168 00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:37,080 and he went deeper than a single basement level should. 169 00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:43,320 The stairs descended maybe fifteen feet, turning once and opened 170 00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:47,840 into what looked like a corridor, concrete walls and floor 171 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:52,759 wider than it needed to be. The warm air rose 172 00:12:52,799 --> 00:12:57,120 from it in a steady updraft, carrying that raw interior smell. 173 00:12:58,440 --> 00:13:01,639 I showed my torch down. The beam reached the bottom 174 00:13:01,679 --> 00:13:05,399 of the stairs and into the corridor. I could see 175 00:13:05,399 --> 00:13:09,679 the walls, no paint or fixtures. The floor was clean, 176 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:13,840 as if it had been maintained. The torch beam didn't 177 00:13:13,879 --> 00:13:20,080 reach the end, Frank, Dereck go down and check it out. 178 00:13:21,679 --> 00:13:26,679 Frank looked at me. Standard assessment, check the extent, check 179 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:31,120 the walls for structural issues. See if there's asbestos. Report back. 180 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:36,960 Frank looked at the stairs. The warm air moved past him, 181 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:41,519 ruffling the collar of his jacket. Derek was standing behind him, 182 00:13:41,799 --> 00:13:45,519 still holding the sledgehammer, waiting for Frank to move first. 183 00:13:47,399 --> 00:13:51,759 I don't like the air, Frank said. Here's a basement. 184 00:13:52,159 --> 00:13:58,360 Basements are warm, not like this. Frank. I took a 185 00:13:58,399 --> 00:14:01,879 sip of my coffee. I'm not paying you to stand around. 186 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,120 He looked at me for a long moment, the same 187 00:14:07,159 --> 00:14:09,200 look he'd given me at the end of day one, 188 00:14:09,919 --> 00:14:12,519 the look that said he knew exactly what I was 189 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:18,679 and showed up anyway because money was money. He turned 190 00:14:18,799 --> 00:14:23,799 and went down the stairs. Derek followed. I stood by 191 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:31,679 the hall and waited twenty minutes. I checked my phone, 192 00:14:31,879 --> 00:14:35,519 scrolled through emails. The City Inspector's office had sent a 193 00:14:35,559 --> 00:14:38,879 request for the abatement schedule, which I hadn't arranged for 194 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:43,720 Espesso's compliance. I forwarded to myself and marked it on red. 195 00:14:44,679 --> 00:14:47,360 I'd deal with the next week, deal with it. Never 196 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:52,399 Edgar and Thomas were still working the ground floor, pulling 197 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:55,960 stainless steel tables from the floor bolts. The sound of 198 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,799 their hammering echoed through the building, the natural rhythmia of 199 00:15:00,039 --> 00:15:04,039 two men working at their own pace. The warm air 200 00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:09,240 from the hole pulsed in and out slow. I could 201 00:15:09,279 --> 00:15:11,480 feel it on my face when I stood close enough. 202 00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:16,279 A damp heat like standing over a subway grate in summer, 203 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:21,519 had shifted occasionally, the rhythm changing, speeding up for a 204 00:15:21,559 --> 00:15:27,679 few seconds and then settling back, like something adjusting. I 205 00:15:27,759 --> 00:15:34,279 finished my coffee. Then Frank came up. He stepped through 206 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:39,559 the hole, calmly, tools in hand, face neutral. Derek was 207 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:45,279 behind him, same pace and posture, same blank expression. They 208 00:15:45,279 --> 00:15:49,240 didn't look shaken nor relieved. They looked like two men 209 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:52,080 stepping out of a room they'd been in a thousand 210 00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:57,879 times before. They went back to work without a word. Frank, 211 00:15:59,120 --> 00:16:06,440 he stopped, turned, what's down there? Nothing? Empty rooms goes 212 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:12,960 back maybe fifty feet. He sounded off because he sounded okay. 213 00:16:14,159 --> 00:16:16,799 After sending him to do something he didn't want to do, 214 00:16:17,399 --> 00:16:19,519 I'd be met with a sharp turn. The rest of 215 00:16:19,559 --> 00:16:24,840 the day, the words came out even no emphasis, like 216 00:16:24,919 --> 00:16:32,039 someone reading a line from a manual. Anything structural, no asbestos, 217 00:16:32,919 --> 00:16:39,480 no good, We'll factor it into the schedule. He turned 218 00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:42,320 and walked back to the partition wall, picked up his 219 00:16:42,399 --> 00:16:48,399 sledgehammer and started swinging. Derek was already working. He gone 220 00:16:48,399 --> 00:16:51,200 straight to the wall without being told, picked up his 221 00:16:51,279 --> 00:16:56,399 hammer and started hitting the brickwork. Every impact landed at 222 00:16:56,399 --> 00:17:02,759 the same interval, same force metronomic. I filed it the 223 00:17:02,799 --> 00:17:07,559 way I file everything. Edgar's question about hard hats, Frank's 224 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:12,240 comment about vibration, the asbestos, and the roof tiles. I 225 00:17:12,319 --> 00:17:15,359 filed things. I note them and put them in a 226 00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:19,880 place where they don't interfere with the contract. That's management. 227 00:17:21,599 --> 00:17:26,160 I went back to the truck. From the cab, I 228 00:17:26,200 --> 00:17:29,319 could see through the plant's missing wall into the ground floor. 229 00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,640 All four of them were working. The sound reached me 230 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:37,200 through the wind screen. They were working harder than I'd 231 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:41,960 ever seen them, no brakes or conversations, just the hammers 232 00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:46,440 rising and falling. But they weren't working where I told 233 00:17:46,440 --> 00:17:52,000 them to work. The city contract specified exterior inn start 234 00:17:52,079 --> 00:17:56,039 with the street facing elevation, clear the access route, open 235 00:17:56,079 --> 00:17:58,519 the site for the heavy machinery there would come in 236 00:17:58,599 --> 00:18:03,599 week two. That was what I quoted. The crew wasn't 237 00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:09,920 demolishing outward. They were demolishing inward. Every swing was aimed 238 00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:13,319 towards the sub basement. The hole in the partition wall, 239 00:18:13,839 --> 00:18:16,440 the one Frank and Derek had come back through twenty 240 00:18:16,519 --> 00:18:19,279 minutes ago, was twice as big as it had been. 241 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,599 The surrounding brick work was coming down in sections, each 242 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:27,960 impact removing a specific portion, widening the opening with an 243 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:33,559 efficiency that looked almost architectural. They were opening it up. 244 00:18:34,799 --> 00:18:37,319 I sat in the cab and watched four men I 245 00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:40,839 was paying twelve dollars an hour reshape a Daregt meat 246 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:44,160 packing plant around a hole in the ground that wasn't 247 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:48,839 on any plan. I should have gone in, should have 248 00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:53,200 pulled them off the wall, redirected the work, reasserted the schedule. 249 00:18:55,359 --> 00:19:00,319 I didn't. They were working hard and fast, and they 250 00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:04,960 weren't complaining, And for twelve dollars an hour, that's all 251 00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:09,079 I'd ever ask of anyone. I took another sip of 252 00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:17,839 coffee and watched. The crew was working hard. That was 253 00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:20,920 the thing I kept coming back to. And they were 254 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:26,480 working fast, working without breaks. In twenty six years of demolition, 255 00:19:27,039 --> 00:19:29,480 I never seen a crew maintain that pace for more 256 00:19:29,519 --> 00:19:33,440 than an hour. These four hadn't stopped since Frank and 257 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:37,599 Derek came up from the sub basement. They were quiet, 258 00:19:38,039 --> 00:19:41,400 but some days were like that. Some crews never talk. 259 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:44,920 You but four men together who don't share a language, 260 00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:48,680 and the job gets done in silence. But the direction 261 00:19:48,799 --> 00:19:52,720 of the demolition was still wrong. They were still working 262 00:19:52,759 --> 00:19:57,000 inward towards the sub basement. But I could correct that. Tomorrow. 263 00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,000 People swing where the wall gives. The crew finds a 264 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:03,920 section of brick work that comes apart easily, and they 265 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:09,160 keep going. Because momentum is momentum. It's physics, I rationalized. 266 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,599 I went through the routine check the skip levels running 267 00:20:14,599 --> 00:20:17,599 ahead of schedule, which meant I'd need a second skip 268 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:21,240 by Thursday. Logged the tonage in the notebook I kept 269 00:20:21,279 --> 00:20:25,880 in the glove box. Called the City Inspector's office. Yeah, 270 00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:27,759 we're going to need to push the site visit back 271 00:20:27,799 --> 00:20:30,160 a week. We found a sub basement that wasn't on 272 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:32,640 the plans. Need to assess it before we can give 273 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:36,880 you an accurate completion date. The inspector asked about the 274 00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:43,359 abatement schedule, the asbestos in progress. I said, specialist teams 275 00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:48,839 coming next week. There was no specialist team. The asbestos 276 00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:51,440 tiles were already in the skip under a quarter ton 277 00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:55,400 of plaster and brick. By the time anyone checked, they'd 278 00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:59,759 been on Landfill and Porter County. The inspector said fine, 279 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:03,720 pushed the visit to the following Friday. I thanked him, 280 00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:08,759 hung up. I needed the extra week, not for the 281 00:21:08,799 --> 00:21:13,480 sub basement, for the safety equipment. If an inspector walked 282 00:21:13,559 --> 00:21:16,559 under the site right now, he'd see four men doing 283 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:21,160 heavy demolition with no hard hats, no high vis, no harnesses, 284 00:21:21,559 --> 00:21:24,799 and no dust masks waited for the particular they were breathing, 285 00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:29,319 he'd shut us down in ten minutes. The extra week 286 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:32,960 brought me time to stage the equipment scattered around the site, 287 00:21:33,279 --> 00:21:36,319 make it look used. The hard hats would be removed 288 00:21:36,319 --> 00:21:40,200 from the plastic wrap. The day before the visit, I 289 00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:43,279 went back to check on Frank. He was working the 290 00:21:43,319 --> 00:21:47,079 south wall, the same metronomic swing I'd noticed in Derek, 291 00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:51,759 same impact at the same interval. I stood behind him 292 00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:55,519 and waited for him to notice me, but he didn't. 293 00:21:56,759 --> 00:22:05,279 Just kept swinging. He stopped, turned the sledgehammer, hung it aside. 294 00:22:06,319 --> 00:22:12,079 His face was neutral, not focused, just the surface, the 295 00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:18,319 sub basement. How far does it actually go? Approximately fifty feet, 296 00:22:18,759 --> 00:22:26,440 single corridor, four rooms, branching east. Structural condition intact, poor concrete, 297 00:22:26,839 --> 00:22:35,079 no visible degradation, asbestos non visible. Every answer was the same, 298 00:22:35,599 --> 00:22:40,440 delivered at the same pitch, the same flat register, no thinking, 299 00:22:40,839 --> 00:22:45,200 like reading of a spec sheet. I'd worked with Frank before, 300 00:22:45,839 --> 00:22:47,839 a man who gave you more than you asked for 301 00:22:48,279 --> 00:22:52,000 because he paid attention and had opinions. He'd tell you 302 00:22:52,039 --> 00:22:54,799 the load bearing wall was in the wrong place, tell 303 00:22:54,839 --> 00:22:57,960 you the architect was an idiot. He'd tell you when 304 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,279 something wasn't safe, and you could choose to listen to 305 00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:06,799 him or not. But he'd tell you. This wasn't Frank talking. 306 00:23:07,559 --> 00:23:11,960 This was something that wore Frank's voice out. You're feeling 307 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:19,079 all right? Yes, His face didn't change. His eyes were 308 00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:24,720 on me, fixed, impossible to miss, no micro movements, no shifting, 309 00:23:25,519 --> 00:23:31,000 just two points aimed at my face and nothing behind them. Good, 310 00:23:31,519 --> 00:23:39,400 I said, keep at it. I walked away. The gas 311 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,279 station was two blocks east on Madison Street. The walk 312 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:48,440 was ordinary, crack sidewalks, dead lots, the particular emptiness of 313 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:52,240 South Gary, with the buildings outnumbered the people three to one. 314 00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,880 The gas station was a BP with a food counter. 315 00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,960 I bought a sandwich and a large coffee. The woman 316 00:24:00,039 --> 00:24:03,640 behind the counter was in a sixties heavy set, reading 317 00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:06,319 a magazine. She didn't look up from until I put 318 00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:13,240 the money down. You're working the odd plant. Yeah, Murphy's, 319 00:24:13,839 --> 00:24:15,599 She said it the way you said the name of 320 00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:19,720 someone you knew and didn't like. My uncle worked there, 321 00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:25,240 processing floor twenty two years till they closed it. Long time. 322 00:24:26,559 --> 00:24:29,359 People didn't like that place, even when it was running. 323 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:33,759 She gave me my change. There was a part they 324 00:24:33,759 --> 00:24:37,759 didn't use, a lower section. My uncle said they sealed 325 00:24:37,759 --> 00:24:41,559 it off in the seventies before he started something about 326 00:24:41,559 --> 00:24:45,519 the original building, whatever was there before the plant went up, 327 00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:49,279 so the company poured concrete over it and pretended it 328 00:24:49,319 --> 00:24:55,720 wasn't there. I took my coffee, probably just the original foundation, 329 00:24:57,279 --> 00:25:04,640 probably back to a magazine. I walked out. I filed 330 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,359 it the way I foul everything somewhere behind the asbestos 331 00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,640 and the inspector in the growing archive of things I 332 00:25:11,759 --> 00:25:16,400 decided were not my problem. I came back to the site, 333 00:25:16,759 --> 00:25:21,319 unwrapped my sandwich, and leaned against the truck. The crew 334 00:25:21,559 --> 00:25:26,920 hadn't stopped six straight hours of heavy demolition, without food, 335 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:32,160 without water, or sitting down. I'd never seen it. The 336 00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,599 human body doesn't work like that. You hit a wall 337 00:25:35,599 --> 00:25:39,640 at hour three, grip weakening, the hammer gets heavier with 338 00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:45,680 every swing you take five. They hadn't taken five once. 339 00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:50,119 The sub basement entrance was three times the size it 340 00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,000 had been in the morning. The opening gaped in the 341 00:25:53,039 --> 00:25:56,680 south wall, the warm air pouring through in a steady current, 342 00:25:57,319 --> 00:26:00,519 and the four of them were still widening it, still 343 00:26:00,559 --> 00:26:05,680 working inward, swinging in that perfect rhythm. I was chewing 344 00:26:05,759 --> 00:26:10,519 my sandwich when I saw Edgar's arm. He was swinging 345 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:15,480 left handed. His right forearm was open, a gash running 346 00:26:15,519 --> 00:26:19,079 from elbow to wrist. The blood had run down to 347 00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:23,640 his hand, over his fingers onto the sledgehammer handle. The 348 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,440 grip was slick with it. Every time he swung, the 349 00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,759 hammer twisted slightly in his wet grip, and he corrected 350 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:36,200 without flinching. I stood there with my sandwich and my coffee, 351 00:26:36,799 --> 00:26:40,000 and I watched the men bleed and work, and I 352 00:26:40,079 --> 00:26:44,920 did the calculation. Stopping Edgar meant pulling him off the wall. 353 00:26:45,519 --> 00:26:47,920 Pulling him off the wall meant driving him to urgent 354 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:52,359 care in Merrillville, which was forty minutes each way. There 355 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,960 was an hour and a half of lost time, plus 356 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,279 the rest of the afternoon. If he couldn't come back. 357 00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,079 One man down meant the schedules lipped. The schedule slipping 358 00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:06,400 meant the inspector visit couldn't be pushed again. The inspector's 359 00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:11,279 visit meant the site had to be shut down. So 360 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,839 I didn't stop Edgar. I'd seen lesser men carry on 361 00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:21,039 working with broken fingers. If it wasn't bothering him, it 362 00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:27,000 wasn't an issue. I finished my sandwich. The sub basement 363 00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:32,880 entrance kept growing, and somewhere underneath the calculation something stirred 364 00:27:33,039 --> 00:27:37,359 that I didn't look at directly. The sub basement wanted 365 00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:41,839 the building opened. The crew was the tool. Edgar's arm 366 00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:46,079 was damaged to the tool, and the damage was acceptable 367 00:27:46,799 --> 00:27:50,559 because the work was continuing and the work was all 368 00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:56,839 that mattered. It was my logic, exactly my logic, the 369 00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,039 same arithmetic I've been running for twenty six years. The 370 00:28:01,079 --> 00:28:03,599 cost of a man weighed against the cost of delay 371 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:09,480 and the man losing every time something beneath this building 372 00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:14,960 was running. The same equation I didn't think about that 373 00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:21,640 for long. I went back to my coffee. The hammering stopped, 374 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,640 a hard stop, just four sledgehammers hitting the concrete floor 375 00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:30,039 at the same instant, the sound ringing off the brickwork 376 00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:37,200 and out through the stripped walls. Then nothing. I looked 377 00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:41,279 up from my phone through the gap in the exterior wall, 378 00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,119 I could see the ground floor. All four of them 379 00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:50,319 were standing still, hammers at the side, arms loose. They 380 00:28:50,319 --> 00:28:54,640 were facing the sub basement entrance, shoulder to shoulder, looking 381 00:28:54,759 --> 00:28:58,599 like they were waiting for something to start. I put 382 00:28:58,599 --> 00:29:05,119 my phone down in the truck door. Then they walked. 383 00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:11,480 Frank first, he stepped forward without hesitation, just a man 384 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,440 walking doward a hole in the wall at a steady 385 00:29:14,519 --> 00:29:18,759 and deliberate pace, matched by Derek behind him, Then Edgar, 386 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:24,240 then Thomas. Four men walking in step, and I don't 387 00:29:24,279 --> 00:29:31,920 mean roughly precisely heel toe, heel toe. Every footfall landing 388 00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:36,000 had the same fraction of a second. Aker's right arm 389 00:29:36,119 --> 00:29:39,480 hung at his side. The gash was crusted black from 390 00:29:39,559 --> 00:29:44,519 elbow to wrist. He hadn't cleaned it. The dried blood 391 00:29:44,559 --> 00:29:47,839 cracked along the edges as his arms swung with each step. 392 00:29:49,279 --> 00:29:53,319 They didn't go down empty handed. Frank grabbed the scaffolding 393 00:29:53,359 --> 00:29:57,000 poles on his way past two of them. He carried 394 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:01,799 them one handed without breaking stride. Derek took the portable floodlights. 395 00:30:02,519 --> 00:30:06,400 Edgar collected the extension cables, looping them over his shoulder 396 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:11,559 with his good arm. Thomas took the tools, sledgehammers, pride bars, 397 00:30:11,759 --> 00:30:15,400 the impact drivers. All of it gathered into his arms 398 00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,319 like firewood. They stripped the ground floor the way they 399 00:30:19,359 --> 00:30:24,160 stripped the wall systematic. Everything that wasn't bolted to the 400 00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,319 structure was picked up and carried toward the stairs. The 401 00:30:28,319 --> 00:30:32,640 portable generator went last. Thomas came back for it last, 402 00:30:33,079 --> 00:30:36,920 picked it up by both handles, eighty pounds of steel motor, 403 00:30:37,559 --> 00:30:40,319 and carried it down the stairs without adjust in his grip. 404 00:30:42,119 --> 00:30:47,359 Three minutes maybe four. Then the ground floor was empty. 405 00:30:49,039 --> 00:30:52,599 The warm air from the sub basement entrance shifted thicker, 406 00:30:53,079 --> 00:30:56,640 pulsing in long, wet exhalations that I could feel from 407 00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:01,319 the truck. I got out, crossed the parking lot, walked 408 00:31:01,319 --> 00:31:03,680 to the gap in the exterior wall where the cladding 409 00:31:03,799 --> 00:31:07,200 used to be. The ground floor looked like something had 410 00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,759 died in it. The inward demolition had gutted the load 411 00:31:10,799 --> 00:31:14,640 barren structure along the south wall without the crew working 412 00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,240 to maintain the controlled opening. A steel eyebeam had dropped 413 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,920 across the main entrance, dragging a cascade of brickwork with it. 414 00:31:22,839 --> 00:31:25,839 The doorway was buried a ton and a half of 415 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:29,160 steel and brick piled in the frame like something had 416 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:33,279 coughed it up. I went to the loading dock. The 417 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:36,920 rolling doors were rusted shut. They'd been like that since 418 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,039 we'd arrived, but now a section of the upper floor 419 00:31:40,039 --> 00:31:44,680 had collapsed across them. Concrete slab rebarb poking through like 420 00:31:44,759 --> 00:31:49,960 broken bones, piled waist high against the corrugated steel. The 421 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,400 demolition had taken out whatever was holding that section up, 422 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:58,880 and gravity had done the rest. The exterior gap where 423 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,759 we'd strip the cladding on day one, the opening in 424 00:32:01,799 --> 00:32:04,720 the upper wall that we'd been using for access was 425 00:32:04,759 --> 00:32:09,000 twenty feet off the ground. The scaffolding was gone. The 426 00:32:09,079 --> 00:32:13,319 crew had carried it below while I was away. I 427 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,440 was halfway across the ground floor when I heard something 428 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:24,599 I groan from above, structural steel under stress. I looked 429 00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,440 up the upper wall on the east side, the section 430 00:32:28,599 --> 00:32:32,039 directly above the cladding gap i'd walked through was moving 431 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:37,359 a slow, inevitable lean. The brickworks separating from the steel 432 00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,759 frame in a cascade that started with a single crack 433 00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:46,960 and became a roar. I ran away behind me. The 434 00:32:47,039 --> 00:32:52,640 wall came down. The noise was enormous, brick, steel and 435 00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:56,440 concrete slab hitting the ground floor in a single compressed 436 00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:01,599 impact that shook the building under my feet. I turned around. 437 00:33:02,759 --> 00:33:07,279 The opening I'd come through ten seconds ago was gone, 438 00:33:07,559 --> 00:33:11,279 buried under a turn of upper wall dust, still settling 439 00:33:11,359 --> 00:33:16,839 in the gray light. I stood there, coughing and waiting 440 00:33:16,839 --> 00:33:20,599 for the building to stop moving. I stood on the 441 00:33:20,599 --> 00:33:26,599 ground floor and turned in a slow circle. Every exit 442 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,799 was blocked. An engineer would have seen this coming. A 443 00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:35,440 structural surveyor would have flagged it on day one. Anyone 444 00:33:35,519 --> 00:33:38,880 with a basic understanding of how buildings stay upright would 445 00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,000 have known that if you tear out the south wall 446 00:33:41,079 --> 00:33:44,240 without bracing the north, the thing in between is going 447 00:33:44,279 --> 00:33:49,160 to drop. But I hadn't hired an engineer. I'd hired 448 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:52,680 four men with sledge chammers and told them to swing. 449 00:33:54,319 --> 00:33:59,640 The only clear path was the sub basement stairs. The 450 00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:05,200 stairs well glowed that was new. The pale light a 451 00:34:05,279 --> 00:34:10,280 bioluminescence that pulsed from below in slow rhythmic waves casting 452 00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,280 the staircase, and a light that wasn't natural. It rose 453 00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,679 and fell in time with something I could feel through 454 00:34:16,679 --> 00:34:20,599 my boots, rising through the concrete slab into my legs 455 00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:26,800 hips chest, the frequency of something enormous and patient running 456 00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:32,719 underneath everything, like a second heartbeat. The sub basement was active. 457 00:34:33,599 --> 00:34:35,920 Whatever my crew had been opening up for the last 458 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:42,280 twelve hours was awake, warm, wet air that pushed up 459 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,760 through the stairwell, stronger than ever. And four men were 460 00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,480 down there. Men I'd hired because they were cheap, whose 461 00:34:50,519 --> 00:34:55,360 surnames I mostly didn't know, families I couldn't contact. Their 462 00:34:55,440 --> 00:35:00,159 existence wasn't recorded in any system. I'd build this up 463 00:35:00,519 --> 00:35:03,760 to be invisible, because the whole point was that nothing 464 00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,400 was supposed to go wrong in a way that anyone 465 00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:11,519 official could see. That invisibility was supposed to protect me. 466 00:35:12,599 --> 00:35:17,840 Now it protected whatever had them. No one was coming, 467 00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:22,480 because I'd made sure carefully, over twenty six years of 468 00:35:22,519 --> 00:35:26,199 cutting corners and shaving margins, that the men I'd hired 469 00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:31,480 existed in no system that would notice their absence. I'd 470 00:35:31,519 --> 00:35:35,599 built the perfect trap. I just hadn't known I was 471 00:35:35,639 --> 00:35:42,480 building it around myself. I sat down back against the wall. 472 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,760 The concrete was called through my jacket. The pale light 473 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,920 still pulsed from the stairwell across the floor, shadows stretching 474 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:58,559 in that slow organic rhythm. I waited for what I 475 00:35:58,599 --> 00:36:02,519 don't know, for the rubble to clear itself. Maybe I 476 00:36:02,559 --> 00:36:05,239 could find a way up onto the second floor, out 477 00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,840 through a window, down to the parking lot and into 478 00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:13,000 the truck away. That was my word. My brain kept 479 00:36:13,039 --> 00:36:16,039 reaching for the way. It reached for it. Three years 480 00:36:16,039 --> 00:36:19,320 ago in Portage, when a wall fell on a man, 481 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,320 and the first thing I calculated wasn't how to help him, 482 00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:36,360 but how to leave. The light changed, afternoon bled to gray, 483 00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,159 then gray bled to dark. I watched it happen through 484 00:36:40,159 --> 00:36:43,559 the stripped upper wall, the sky going from low cloud 485 00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:48,559 to iron to black. The temperature dropped with it. The 486 00:36:48,639 --> 00:36:51,639 concrete walls held no heat. The wind came through the 487 00:36:51,639 --> 00:36:54,679 gaps in the brick work, the gaps my crew had made. 488 00:36:55,920 --> 00:37:00,719 I pulled my jacket tighter, but it didn't help. The 489 00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,519 pulse never stopped. I could feel it in my teeth. 490 00:37:06,159 --> 00:37:10,840 My phone worked. I pulled it out around six full signal. 491 00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,719 I scored through my contact list but stopped. Who was 492 00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,559 I going to call the police and tell them what 493 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:24,199 the four men walked into a basement and didn't come back. 494 00:37:24,679 --> 00:37:27,000 I'm trapped in a building I was hired to demolish. 495 00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:32,000 The first question would be about the crew, names, documents, 496 00:37:32,199 --> 00:37:37,320 employment records, insurance. The second question would be about the permits, 497 00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,840 the third would be about the asbestos, and somewhere around 498 00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,320 question four or five, the conversation would stop being a 499 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:51,320 rescue operation and start being a criminal investigation. The moment 500 00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:54,920 I called any one, the entire operation would be exposed. 501 00:37:55,880 --> 00:38:01,719 One phone call and it all burns. I thought about Aldo, 502 00:38:02,079 --> 00:38:05,840 who supplied the cruise. But Aldo doesn't come to sights. 503 00:38:06,519 --> 00:38:11,719 That's our arrangement. He supplies the bodies. What happens after 504 00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:17,239 that is my problem. Then I thought about calling my wife, Sandra. 505 00:38:18,199 --> 00:38:21,840 But what would I say. I'd have to explain, not 506 00:38:22,039 --> 00:38:25,760 just tonight, all of it. She knows some of it, 507 00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:32,519 she doesn't know enough. I put the phone away. I 508 00:38:32,559 --> 00:38:37,800 did the calculation. I'd been avoiding it all afternoon. Four 509 00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,719 men went down. They haven't come back, and they're not 510 00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,199 going to come back on their own. I could sit 511 00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:49,800 here until morning. That was the ray Decker play played out. 512 00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,880 Daylight would bring options. Let whatever was below finish what 513 00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,400 it was doing, walk away in the morning, and drive home. 514 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,719 Call Aldo tell him the crew. It didn't show for 515 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,280 day three, sending the cash in an envelope. Move on. 516 00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,280 I stood up. I want to say I went down 517 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,400 because something changed in me. I felt guilt or responsibility 518 00:39:16,039 --> 00:39:19,519 some later, living conscience that rewired twenty six years in 519 00:39:19,559 --> 00:39:25,519 a single moment against the wall. I didn't. I went 520 00:39:25,559 --> 00:39:30,360 down because I couldn't sit still. The warm air rose 521 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,199 to meet me. The air was wet on my face. 522 00:39:34,679 --> 00:39:44,320 I took the first step and went down. The corridor 523 00:39:44,559 --> 00:39:47,599 was not fifty feet like Frank had said, but Frank 524 00:39:47,639 --> 00:39:50,280 had stopped being Frank somewhere between the bottom of the 525 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,760 stairs and the top, and the thing that came back 526 00:39:53,840 --> 00:40:00,199 wearing his voice had lied. The corridor went on. My 527 00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,199 phone torch got a thin beam through the dark. The 528 00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:07,599 light struggling against the air itself, which was thick, pressed 529 00:40:07,639 --> 00:40:12,519 against my face like a warm cloth. Every breath came heavy. 530 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,639 The walls were coated. I saw it first as damp, 531 00:40:17,199 --> 00:40:20,440 a dark sheen, and the concrete I put my hand 532 00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,119 on the wall for balance as the floor sloped downward. 533 00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:29,039 It was warm, warmth that came from the wall itself, 534 00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:34,840 and when I pressed, it gave slightly, like how skin 535 00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:39,920 gives over muscle. I pulled my hand back. A thin 536 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,440 strand of material stretched between my palm and the wall 537 00:40:43,519 --> 00:40:49,280 before breaking. The pulse was stronger here. My phone vibrated 538 00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,880 in my hand in time with the rhythm, the case 539 00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:57,000 buzzing against my fingers. The whole corridor was a single system, 540 00:40:57,559 --> 00:41:03,079 contracting and expanding in slow measured cycles. I was walking 541 00:41:03,159 --> 00:41:08,719 deeper into it with every step I passed rooms, the 542 00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:12,679 cold storage, the original concrete boxes where they'd hung carcasses 543 00:41:12,679 --> 00:41:16,280 in the sixties and seventies. The heavy doors stood open, 544 00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:21,519 rusted at the hinges, and inside. The walls had changed. 545 00:41:22,639 --> 00:41:26,719 The dark growth covered every surface, a continuous layer of 546 00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:32,159 organic material, slick and dense, pulsing faintly in the bioluminescent glow. 547 00:41:33,559 --> 00:41:37,920 The rooms had been repurposed. The surfaces had grown into shapes, 548 00:41:38,199 --> 00:41:44,519 into structures, configurations that suggested function without revealing it. One 549 00:41:44,639 --> 00:41:48,559 room had a mass in the center waist high, flat topped, 550 00:41:49,079 --> 00:41:53,360 the surface smoothed. It could have been a table if 551 00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:58,039 tables were grown from compacted tissue. Grooves ran from its 552 00:41:58,119 --> 00:42:01,920 edges to channels in the floor, angled downward toward a 553 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,159 drain that wasn't a drain. Another room had protrusians from 554 00:42:06,199 --> 00:42:11,119 the ceiling. They hung at regular intervals, evenly spaced, curved 555 00:42:11,159 --> 00:42:16,519 at the end like hooks on a rail. I stood 556 00:42:16,519 --> 00:42:20,840 in the doorway and looked at them, eighteen inches apart, 557 00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,760 the same spaces as the hoogs upstairs, the one still 558 00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:29,400 hanging from the overhead rail on the ground floor. I 559 00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:36,679 kept walking. The corridor opened. The space beyond was large, 560 00:42:36,679 --> 00:42:41,840 cathedral large. The ceiling was thirty feet overhead, supported by 561 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:46,960 columns of the same organic material. These thick, dark pillars 562 00:42:47,079 --> 00:42:50,320 rose from the floor and merged with the ceiling in smooth, 563 00:42:50,599 --> 00:42:55,079 continuous curves. The pale light came from the walls themselves, 564 00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,199 a cold bioluminescence that pulsed in time with a heartbeat, 565 00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:04,960 illuminating the chamber in slow rhythmic waves. And the layout 566 00:43:05,159 --> 00:43:09,280 was the same. I recognized it before I understood it. 567 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,599 The spatial arrangement, the flow from one end to the other, 568 00:43:14,119 --> 00:43:17,519 the positioning of the stations, the channels in the floor. 569 00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:23,280 It was the ground floor above me, the same processing 570 00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:27,960 line intake at one end, stations in the middle, output 571 00:43:28,159 --> 00:43:32,599 at the far wall. The overhead rail system was replicated 572 00:43:32,639 --> 00:43:36,360 in organic form. Dark ridges ran the length of the ceiling, 573 00:43:37,079 --> 00:43:41,599 parallel lines, evenly spaced with hooks of hardened growth hanging 574 00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,679 at eighteen inch intervals. The stain of steel tables had 575 00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:50,079 become slabs of dense tissue, arranged in rows grooves on 576 00:43:50,119 --> 00:43:54,800 the surface, angled towards the central collection points. The train 577 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,440 channels were carved into the living floor, converging at the 578 00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:04,079 far end of the chamber. It was a mirror the 579 00:44:04,119 --> 00:44:11,320 plant above, rebuilt in meat. Whatever had been growing beneath 580 00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:15,159 this building since before the plant was constructed had looked 581 00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:19,880 up at what the humans built and understood it as 582 00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:26,280 process input, conversion, and output, the systematic reduction of living 583 00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:31,880 things into material, and it had built its own version, 584 00:44:32,679 --> 00:44:37,079 using the template above as a blueprint. The meatpacking plant 585 00:44:37,119 --> 00:44:41,519 had processed cattle for thirty years. The sub basement had 586 00:44:41,559 --> 00:44:49,599 been learning the whole time. My crew was inside the system. 587 00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:54,079 I saw Frank first. He was near the intake end, 588 00:44:54,519 --> 00:44:59,960 the first station in the line, standing upright, motionless, his body. 589 00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:04,119 He partially embedded in the organic growth. It had climbed 590 00:45:04,119 --> 00:45:07,159 his legs to the thigh, encasing them in a shell 591 00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:10,920 of dark material, fusing him to the floor like how 592 00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:15,119 a post is set in concrete. His arms were still free, 593 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,559 his hands hung at his sides. His eyes were open, 594 00:45:20,039 --> 00:45:24,960 but his face was blank, real blankness, the total absence 595 00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:29,039 of expression that comes when whatever was producing the expressions 596 00:45:29,119 --> 00:45:34,079 isn't there anymore. Derek was further along the next station. 597 00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,800 More of him was covered. The growth had reached this torso, 598 00:45:39,199 --> 00:45:42,519 wrapping around his chest in thick bands, and his arms 599 00:45:42,519 --> 00:45:46,599 were extended outward, held in position by tendrils of the material. 600 00:45:47,679 --> 00:45:52,760 His hands were gripping tools, a pry bar, a hammer. Still, 601 00:45:53,119 --> 00:45:56,400 the tools had been absorbed into the structure. The handles 602 00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:00,639 fused with the organic growth, metal and tissue merged into 603 00:46:00,679 --> 00:46:05,920 a single surface. He wasn't building anymore. He was being 604 00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:12,239 built into. Edgar was near the center the processing stations. 605 00:46:13,119 --> 00:46:16,559 His injured arm, the gash I'd watched bleed for three hours, 606 00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:21,960 was completely covered. The growth had entered the wound, filled it, 607 00:46:22,639 --> 00:46:26,880 and spread from it. The organic material was thickest where 608 00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:29,559 his blood had met the air, as if the opening 609 00:46:29,599 --> 00:46:33,119 in his skin had been an invitation, a point of entry, 610 00:46:33,639 --> 00:46:38,519 and the system had accepted. Thomas was at the far end, 611 00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:43,280 nearly gone. The growth had reached his neck, his body 612 00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,679 below it was a shape under the surface, the outline 613 00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:49,559 of a man beneath a layer of dark tissue, like 614 00:46:49,599 --> 00:46:53,840 a body under a sheet. Only his face was still exposed, 615 00:46:54,679 --> 00:47:00,920 that same blank expression, eyes open, and somewhere behind the blankness, 616 00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:05,719 somewhere in there might have been a person. Twelve hours ago, 617 00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,960 they were still being processed, stationed by station. The same 618 00:47:12,039 --> 00:47:15,480 sequence the plant above had used on cattle applied to 619 00:47:15,599 --> 00:47:18,480 four men who had walked down a flight of stairs. 620 00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:21,239 Because their four men had told them to assess the 621 00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:27,400 structural condition, I sent them here. I pointed to the 622 00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:31,400 stairs and said, I'm not paying you to stand around. 623 00:47:32,199 --> 00:47:38,039 Try to get a reaction. But they didn't react. I 624 00:47:38,119 --> 00:47:41,519 stood in the chamber. The poll speed through the floor 625 00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:47,199 through my boots. The pale lights cycled, the system working 626 00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:52,639 around me. It didn't acknowledge me. I was not part 627 00:47:52,679 --> 00:47:57,400 of the process. I was standing in a slaughterhouse watching 628 00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:06,400 the line run. I'd always stood at a distance. I 629 00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:10,280 walked to Frank. It wasn't because I'm brave. I want 630 00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:13,320 to be clear about that. I walked to Frank because 631 00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,960 he was the closest. His eyes were open and something 632 00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,039 in them was still looking at me, the look that 633 00:48:20,159 --> 00:48:24,440 said I know exactly what you are. And I showed 634 00:48:24,519 --> 00:48:28,039 up anyway, because the money is money and you are 635 00:48:28,079 --> 00:48:32,559 the cost of earning it. I grabbed his arm, both 636 00:48:32,639 --> 00:48:37,880 hands above the elbow, where the growth hadn't reached. I pulled. 637 00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:45,159 The organic material resisted. His legs were fused to the floor. 638 00:48:45,679 --> 00:48:48,800 The shell around them was thick and fibrous, bonded to 639 00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,760 the surface in a root system. I could feel through 640 00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:56,280 the tension in his body. I pulled harder, planted my 641 00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:01,559 boots and leaned back, put my weight into it. Nothing. 642 00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:07,360 He didn't move. The growth held him had I go 643 00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:11,039 went to Derek, grabbed the tendrils around his chest and 644 00:49:11,119 --> 00:49:15,400 tore them with my fingers. The material was warm, with 645 00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:19,960 a texture somewhere between rubber and wet wood. He gave 646 00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:24,280 slightly under my nails, but didn't break. I tore harder. 647 00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:29,760 My fingers just slipped on the slick surface. I went 648 00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:33,519 to Edgar. His station was more integrated than the others, 649 00:49:34,039 --> 00:49:37,320 with growth connecting his position to those on either side 650 00:49:37,559 --> 00:49:42,119 in a network of dark ridges like veins. I grabbed 651 00:49:42,159 --> 00:49:48,320 one of the ridges and wrenched sideways. Something tall, not 652 00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:54,199 the growth around Edgar, something underneath, a structural connection, a 653 00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:57,599 ridge of organic material that linked his station to the 654 00:49:57,639 --> 00:50:03,760 adjacent one. A small tear, just a few inches, but 655 00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:10,840 something in the system reacted. The pulse changed faster and irregular, 656 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:14,440 breaking for the first time since I'd entered the sub basement. 657 00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:20,519 The steady patient heartbeat stuttered, skipped, and the growth around 658 00:50:20,599 --> 00:50:25,480 Egg's station contracted, pulling tighter, cinching inward, as if the 659 00:50:25,519 --> 00:50:30,320 system was showing itself up against the damage. The floor 660 00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,960 under my boots went slick, unstable. The surface that had 661 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,760 been firm a moment ago became wet and mobile, and 662 00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,519 my right foot slid out from under me. I stumbled 663 00:50:42,519 --> 00:50:45,920 sideways into one of the organic columns. I felt it 664 00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:50,440 flex under my weight, the whole pillar bending before springing back. 665 00:50:52,199 --> 00:50:57,800 Something above me groaned. I locked up one of the 666 00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:02,000 overhead ridges. The organic rad the grown replica of the 667 00:51:02,039 --> 00:51:07,119 steel system upstairs, was cracking. The growth along its length 668 00:51:07,199 --> 00:51:12,760 was splitting, the bioluminescent surface fracturing, and a section dropped 669 00:51:14,159 --> 00:51:17,440 it missed me by inches. A mass of dark tissue 670 00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:20,400 the size of a car door slammed into the floor 671 00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:25,679 beside me, splattering warm residue across my legs. The moment 672 00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:30,039 it hit the surface, it began dissolving, sinking into the floor, 673 00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:38,000 being reabsorbed, the system, reclaiming its own material. The system 674 00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:43,199 was rejecting me like a machine ejects a blockage, the 675 00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:47,480 way a processing line identifies an obstruction and shunts it clear. 676 00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:52,920 I was the malfunction, a piece of debris caught in 677 00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:58,079 the mechanism, and the mechanism was pushing me out. The 678 00:51:58,159 --> 00:52:02,599 floor tilted slightly a few degrees. The slick surface under 679 00:52:02,599 --> 00:52:06,599 my feet became a slope, angled toward the corridor, back 680 00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,880 toward the stairs, to the only path in the chamber 681 00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:14,760 that was still bare concrete. The system was channeling me. 682 00:52:16,679 --> 00:52:20,079 I looked back at Frank. His eyes were still open, 683 00:52:20,599 --> 00:52:24,079 looking at me. Whatever was left of the man who 684 00:52:24,159 --> 00:52:27,360 knew my name, who worked my jobs, showed up at 685 00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:29,800 six in the morning and swung a hammer until I 686 00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:37,000 told him to stop. He was still there, diminished, distant 687 00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:43,960 but present. He was watching me leave. I reached for 688 00:52:44,039 --> 00:52:48,239 him one more time, but the floor heaved. The surface 689 00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:52,519 buckled a wave rolling along the organic material, lifting me 690 00:52:52,599 --> 00:52:56,800 off my feet and throwing me backwards. I hid the ground, 691 00:52:57,079 --> 00:53:01,079 slid across a slick growth, and my back struck concrete 692 00:53:02,639 --> 00:53:06,760 the corridor, the bare concrete of the corridor. With the 693 00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:12,679 system ended and the building began, I scrambled, hands and knees, 694 00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:17,159 bootscraping the warm air at my back, now pushing me out. 695 00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,679 The air pressure changed, a steady wind blowing up the 696 00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:26,960 corridor toward the stairs, and I ran with it up 697 00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:31,480 the corridor, the bioluminescent glow fading with every step, the 698 00:53:31,519 --> 00:53:35,400 pulse growing fainter, the rhythm settling back to its slow, 699 00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:40,880 steady patients. As the obstruction cleared the system, I reached 700 00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:45,880 the ground floor and turned around. The sub basement entrance 701 00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:52,159 was closing. Dark tindrils of organic growth were reaching across 702 00:53:52,199 --> 00:53:57,000 the opening floor to ceiling, thickening. As I watched, they 703 00:53:57,039 --> 00:54:01,599 braided together, hardened, lay it over each other in rapid strands. 704 00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:06,280 The warm air cut off, the glow, dimmed, the growth 705 00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:09,960 sealed the gap in thirty seconds. A wall of dark 706 00:54:10,079 --> 00:54:12,840 organic material with a hole in the brickwork used to 707 00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:17,119 be already crusting at the surface, drying to that same 708 00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:22,639 calcified deposit. The pulse faded to nothing. The air in 709 00:54:22,679 --> 00:54:27,880 the building went still cold. The night air rushed through 710 00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:31,760 the gaps and the brickwork, and the ground floor was 711 00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:36,880 just the ground floor again, the smell of old concrete. 712 00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:41,920 The entrance was gone. My crew was below and I 713 00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:47,360 couldn't get back in. I stood on the ground floor, 714 00:54:47,599 --> 00:54:52,239 breathing hard. My hands were slick with residue, the warm 715 00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:55,559 organic film of whatever I'd been tearing at, drying in 716 00:54:55,599 --> 00:54:58,599 the cold air, tightening on my skin like a glove. 717 00:55:01,079 --> 00:55:05,719 I went down for the first time in twenty six years. 718 00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:08,760 I went to where the work was. I put my 719 00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:11,800 hands on a man, and I pulled toward the thing 720 00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,519 that was eating my crew, and I tried to get 721 00:55:14,559 --> 00:55:20,440 them out. And it wasn't enough. Not because I wasn't 722 00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:24,360 strong enough, or because the system was too powerful, but 723 00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:29,079 because the system had twelve hours twelve hours while I 724 00:55:29,159 --> 00:55:32,440 sat in my truck and checked my phone, drank my coffee, 725 00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:37,440 and watched through the windscreen twelve hours of integration of 726 00:55:37,639 --> 00:55:42,280 slow conversion. By the time I put my hands on Frank, 727 00:55:43,159 --> 00:55:47,440 there was nothing left to pull free. Four men went 728 00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,519 into a sub basement because I pointed at the stairs 729 00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:53,800 and said, I'm not paying you to stand around. And 730 00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:59,239 I sat in the truck for twelve hours. Then it 731 00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:03,480 was too late. The delay between the damage and the response, 732 00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:06,360 the gap between the thing I caused and the moment 733 00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:12,079 I showed up. That's who I am, not the man 734 00:56:12,079 --> 00:56:15,760 who doesn't go down, the man who goes down too late, 735 00:56:18,119 --> 00:56:25,599 and that the thing I'll carry. Dawn came the way 736 00:56:25,599 --> 00:56:30,440 it comes in Gary, slow and gray. I was sitting 737 00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:32,760 on the ground floor with my back against the sealed 738 00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:35,480 wall when the light crept through the gaps and the 739 00:56:35,519 --> 00:56:40,519 brick work. I hadn't slept. I'd sat against that wall 740 00:56:40,599 --> 00:56:44,639 for five hours, the cold settling into my joints, and 741 00:56:44,679 --> 00:56:47,480 I stared at the place with a sub basement entrance 742 00:56:47,599 --> 00:56:52,440 used to be. It was smooth. Now the organic material 743 00:56:52,559 --> 00:56:56,920 had completely crusted over. If you didn't know, you'd walk 744 00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,440 past it, think it was old concrete or bad cluster, 745 00:57:01,119 --> 00:57:05,079 a patch job from the seventies. The pulse was gone, 746 00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:10,480 the building was still. I found a way out in 747 00:57:10,519 --> 00:57:13,599 the daylight. The upper floor on the east side had 748 00:57:13,639 --> 00:57:18,719 partially clapsed inward, forming a slope. I could climb unstable, 749 00:57:19,239 --> 00:57:21,599 the kind of thing I'd have told my crew to handle, 750 00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:26,280 and stayed clear of myself. I climbed it, cut my 751 00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:29,440 palm and a piece of rebar. Reached the second floor, 752 00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:32,800 crossed to a window that had lost its boarding, and 753 00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:38,280 looked out at the parking lot twenty feet below. I jumped, 754 00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:43,039 landed badly, my ankle folded and pained, shot at my leg. 755 00:57:44,119 --> 00:57:46,920 I sat in the lot for a minute, breathing my 756 00:57:47,039 --> 00:57:51,000 hands on the cracked tarmac. The truck was where I 757 00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:54,800 had left it. I limped to it, got in and 758 00:57:54,880 --> 00:58:00,679 turned the key. I drove not home. I drove through 759 00:58:00,679 --> 00:58:04,119 Gary in the early light, past the rail yards, shuttered 760 00:58:04,159 --> 00:58:07,840 store front, some Broadway, the gas station on Madison, where 761 00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:10,320 a woman had told me about a lower levels sealed 762 00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:13,960 off in the seventies. I drove to the parking lots 763 00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:18,679 south of Boorman. Aldo was there. He was always there 764 00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:22,360 at six in the morning in a white van, a 765 00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:26,199 thermos of coffee on the dashboard. He was leaning against 766 00:58:26,199 --> 00:58:29,079 the driver's side door when I pulled in, talking to 767 00:58:29,119 --> 00:58:32,679 a man I didn't recognize. The man walked away when 768 00:58:32,719 --> 00:58:38,400 he saw my truck. Aldo looked at me. I must 769 00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:42,480 have looked like something I hadn't slept. My jacket was 770 00:58:42,519 --> 00:58:46,360 stained with residue, my hands were crusted with it. My 771 00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:52,320 right palm was bleeding through a dirty cut ray. He said, 772 00:58:52,679 --> 00:58:56,960 you're right. I reached the cross to the cloth box, 773 00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:03,719 opened it. The envelope was inside four payments cash, two 774 00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,320 days of work at twelve dollars an hour. I counted 775 00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:10,039 it on the Sunday night. Labeled it in the way 776 00:59:10,079 --> 00:59:15,639 I always labeled them first names only. I held it out. 777 00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:21,199 Aldo took the envelope and opened it. Looked at the cash, 778 00:59:21,719 --> 00:59:30,719 the labels, Frank, Derek, Edgar, Thomas, What families? I stared 779 00:59:30,719 --> 00:59:34,559 at him. I mean, where do I find them? You 780 00:59:34,639 --> 00:59:40,960 got addresses, numbers? I didn't. I had four first names. 781 00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:44,800 I knew Frank had a wife, or thought he did. 782 00:59:45,079 --> 00:59:48,599 He'd mentioned her once, maybe twice, in passing on a 783 00:59:48,679 --> 00:59:53,519 site in Portage or Merrillville between swings. I didn't know 784 00:59:53,599 --> 00:59:57,519 her name. I didn't know where they lived, if Derek 785 00:59:57,639 --> 01:00:01,000 or Edgar had anyone. Not a single thing about Thomas 786 01:00:01,079 --> 01:00:04,639 beyond the fact that he was Polish and strong. I 787 01:00:04,639 --> 01:00:06,960 wouldn't be able to find a single person in the 788 01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:11,960 world who was waiting for them to come home. Ask around, 789 01:00:12,599 --> 01:00:16,840 I said. Aldo looked at the cash and looked at me. 790 01:00:18,239 --> 01:00:23,199 His face did something I hadn't seen from him before, wariness, 791 01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:25,320 the look of a man who has been in the 792 01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:29,920 business of supplying disposable people long enough to recognize when 793 01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:34,440 one of them has been disposed of. I'll ask around, 794 01:00:35,039 --> 01:00:40,000 he said. His tone said he wouldn't. All I could 795 01:00:40,039 --> 01:00:46,840 do was drive away. I drove back to the plant. 796 01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:52,199 The ground floor was visible through the stripped wall. If 797 01:00:52,239 --> 01:00:54,920 I called the city tomorrow, tare them the sight of 798 01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:58,840 structural issues and said I was pulling out, they'd send 799 01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:03,159 another contractor with another crew. The new contractor would look 800 01:01:03,159 --> 01:01:06,480 at the plans, see one basement level and never know 801 01:01:06,559 --> 01:01:10,360 about the second. They'd demolished the ground floor, hit the 802 01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:15,079 sealed wall and think it was foundation. They'd build over it, 803 01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:20,760 or they'd break through, and whatever was down there would 804 01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:25,519 be waiting, the system intact, the line ready to run. 805 01:01:27,159 --> 01:01:31,199 I should call someone, the city or the EPA, someone 806 01:01:31,239 --> 01:01:34,800 with the authority to condemn the site, seal it, someone 807 01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,360 who could make sure no one else went down those stairs. 808 01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:42,800 I picked up my phone and did the same calculation 809 01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:49,079 as before. If I called, they'd come, they'd ask about 810 01:01:49,119 --> 01:01:53,119 the crew. They'd find no records. They'd find asbestos in 811 01:01:53,159 --> 01:01:56,079 the skip. They'd find a man in portage if they 812 01:01:56,119 --> 01:02:00,199 looked hard enough, buried under paperwork that doesn't exist and 813 01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:04,639 a cash payment that went nowhere. Everything I'd built for 814 01:02:04,719 --> 01:02:12,960 twenty six years gone. I drove home. Sandra was getting 815 01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:16,000 ready for work. She looked at me when I came in, 816 01:02:16,719 --> 01:02:20,400 the stained jacket, the cut, a face that hadn't slept, 817 01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:26,559 and asked what happened? Long job? I said, ran late. 818 01:02:28,679 --> 01:02:30,880 She looked at me the way Aldo had looked at me, 819 01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:35,280 the wariness, the sense that the answer she'd been given 820 01:02:35,679 --> 01:02:40,199 wasn't the answer she'd asked for. She didn't push, she 821 01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:45,000 never did. That's the arrangement. I come home, I give 822 01:02:45,039 --> 01:02:47,760 her numbers, and she doesn't ask what the numbers are 823 01:02:47,800 --> 01:02:53,519 built on the same arrangement I have with everyone. I 824 01:02:53,559 --> 01:02:56,320 stood in the kitchen and watched the poor coffee and 825 01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:00,440 thought about Frank's wife, the woman whose name I never learned, 826 01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:03,960 who would wait tonight and tomorrow night and the night 827 01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:08,719 after that for a man who wasn't coming home, And 828 01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:13,119 she called Aldo. Eventually Aldo would say He'd ask around, 829 01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:17,599 and nobody would because no one had a surname or 830 01:03:17,599 --> 01:03:24,039 an address. Frank would just stop existing without a record, 831 01:03:24,519 --> 01:03:30,519 no system that notices the gap. Sandra left for work. 832 01:03:31,159 --> 01:03:34,639 I heard a car pull out of the drive. I 833 01:03:34,719 --> 01:03:39,239 sat at the kitchen table. I'd given a hopeful envelope 834 01:03:39,239 --> 01:03:43,840 to Aldo. Four payments for four men. That was how 835 01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:49,360 I settled things, a transaction. The machinery of consequence handled 836 01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:56,440 the way I handled everything. Except I'd looked. I'd stood 837 01:03:56,480 --> 01:04:00,280 in that chamber. I'd looked at Frank, and Frank had 838 01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:04,719 looked back. I thought about the next contractor the next 839 01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:06,800 set of men who'd show up at six in the 840 01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:11,480 morning and not ask questions. I should make the call. 841 01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,559 I picked up my phone, I put it down. I 842 01:04:15,639 --> 01:04:19,960 picked it up and put it down again. I'll make 843 01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:24,599 the call, That's what I tell myself sitting at the 844 01:04:24,679 --> 01:04:30,599 kitchen table. I'll report the site, take what comes, the investigation, 845 01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:35,360 the charges. Twenty six years of invisible operations dragged into 846 01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:43,239 the light. I'll do it tomorrow, not today. Today. I 847 01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:46,000 need to think, need to figure out how to say 848 01:04:46,039 --> 01:04:50,760 what needs to be said without saying everything Today. I 849 01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:57,719 need to manage it. That's the word I use. Manage 850 01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:02,960 the morning passes, the phone sits on the table. I 851 01:05:03,119 --> 01:05:04,199 don't pick it up.