The Blue Mile by Kim Kelly Page A

desperate, he needed help, for someone to mind his sister today – hardly a criminal offence. And he’s a Bridge worker. I thought I would be kind, and –’
    â€˜Kind?’ Mother’s not in the least convinced of that, nor sympathetic: ‘You met a workman this morning, in a public park, and you have brought his sister here. To mind her. What – all day?’ Her face is sculpted of cold alabaster contempt. ‘Of all the vindictive and wilfully infantile things you could do, at this time. I should telephone the Department of Child Welfare – and turn you in as delinquent.’
    And at that, little Agnes’s hand slips free of mine, and the whole of her tiny person slips right out the door.

Yo
    M other of God and every saint that ever drew breath, no, it’s not possible.
    â€˜Don’t look down, look out, Pretty Boy,’ Tarzan is smiling at me from the scaffold he’s standing on. It’s suspended off the side of what they call top chord, the top line of the arch – and it’s the highest possible place you could be on earth, not including that fella sitting on top of the crane above us. Tarzan is trying to coax me off the Bridge construction itself and across a plank that’s attached to the scaffold. There’s a gap, though, only about a foot, but it’s the gaping chasm of death as far as I can see.
    â€˜Come on, mate,’ this other fella, Clarkie, shouts from behind me, getting itchy at me. He’s the ‘cooker’, heating the rivets in the oven that’s suspended on its own scaffold on the curved upside of the chord, that’s not made of curves at all but straight lines, and each one of them called a chord, too, just to keep me from confusion. I try to keep my mind fixed on that to get me across: these are all straight lines, flat surfaces, not curves, firm, flat, straight, and this particular joint of the chord I’m standing on is the size of a tramcar. I hold my breath. It’s only a step to the plank, to the scaffold which is also the size of a tramcar. Hold on to the upright of the scaffold and look out across the blue at the Gardens and I do it for Ag. I take the step.
    â€˜There you go,’ says Tarzan. ‘Now give yourself a minute, till your knees stop shaking.’
    He gives me about two seconds before he hands me back my bucket: ‘Don’t worry if you miss one – it’ll only hit a ferry.’
    That is a joke, I’m sure, and it does nothing to lift my confidence. I’m to catch the hot rivets with this bucket, which Tarzan will fix into the wall of holes in the chord here, with the contraption he’s holding, a gun he’s called it, which is attached to a hose that’s attached to . . . somewhere. I follow the hose with my eyes to see where it goes, but my eyes go down the great curve, and my guts go for another swim. This job is not possible. This Bridge is not possible. Defying the laws of nature. Straight lines or no, how does this curve not keep on curving to fall off the edge of the land and into the water from its own incredible weight? How can it be that I am standing on the side of it? I will not catch a single one of these rivets. I want to get down on my hands and knees on the bottom of the scaffold and stay there. And I would, too, if I could let go of the upright of the scaffold.
    â€˜Aye-o,’ Clarkie shouts from above and I look up to see a rivet screaming down at me.
    It’s white hot, and the size and shape of a cock. If I don’t catch it, I will get it in the face.
    I find the power to let go of the scaffold and raise the bucket.
    And I catch the rivet.
    Jesus fucking Joseph and Mary, there it is. In the bucket.
    I’m looking for some congratulation from Tarzan, but he’s busy picking out the rivet with his tongs now. Then quick about ramming it into the wall with the gun, with another fella, one called Dolly, ramming it back from the