Crane

The crane

John K. McIver sat in his office on the tenth floor of the Associated
Asset Management building. It was 11.01 pm according to the retro-look
red digits of his desk clock. The computer concurred. The calendar,
featuring photographs of the Scottish highlands, told him it was
Saturday 9 November, 2002. Outside it was decidedly not a "braw, bricht
moonlicht nicht the nicht". No. This was Manchester - "Greater
Manchester" (where or what was "Lesser Manchester" and who would want
to live there?) - and the cloud cover was thick. At least it wasn't
raining. The crane was still there, as it been for nearly a month,
looming in the demi-light of big-city night.

For weeks he had been obsessing about the crane; more precisely, about
the life of a crane operator. His neglected computer flashed into
screen-saver mode - endless pipes interweaving pointlessly, sending
God-knows-what gas or liquid on some futile recursive journey. A futile
journey, that's what his life felt like. F___ing hell! He set his
Newton's cradle "executive toy" into motion. The balls clacked away,
transmitting their meaningless message of motion from one end to the
other and back again, air resistance (or whatever it was) sapping its
strength until the message was no more. A life with no legacy, balls
dangling pathetically on imprisoning strings.

How had he got into the rut? His parents? No. He refused to take the
Philip Larkin route of self-exculpabilisation: "They fuck you up, your
mum and dad..." They weren't perfect but neither were they especially
bad, and their advice was commonsense Scots probity - get a profession.
He had accepted the advice and a few years down the line had found
himself a chartered accountant. AAM offered him a job, and he took it,
moved to their Manchester office, and here he was four years, five
months and 27 days later, hating every second.

At first numbers had seemed friendly, offering him a non-judgemental
world where things were either right or wrong, and the potential for
hiding behind a computer - not having to relive the horrors of
schooldays where he had been the target of every bully. It's true that
the social burdens were not great and he had learned to cope with his
colleagues' banter, but the na?ve notion that the number game was
clinical and objective had rapidly been dispelled. He was nothing but a
servant of greed.

His worth was measured as the ratio of his salary to the tax he saved
the wealthiest people on the planet. Although he had never been
political, the pieces had slowly come together. Britain (the US, the
world?) was run by the super-rich for their own benefit, a "plutocratic
oligarchy". Nearly half the British press by circulation was controlled
by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian who had changed his nationality to
American for business purposes. He employed the best accountants in the
world and paid almost nothing into the coffers of the countries whose
politics he all but controlled. Midst topless beauties, his
prole-fodder tabloids fed messages of xenophobia and hatred. These
could be summarised as: "Down with dole-scroungers, asylum seekers,
single mothers, and all such scum!" This distracted people from the
real sources of their dissatisfaction and simultaneously justified the
reduction of tax revenue "wasted" on humanitarian causes.

John K. had noticed from TV programmes that men such as Murdoch
invariably had a fondness for his own country's finest product:
single-malt whisky. He had calculated that if one poured such liquor
(thirty quid a bottle) into elephant skins (three thousand litres per
skin) and stood these inflated skins nose to tail, then the profits
that dear Rupert made in a year could fill elephant skins that stood
all the way from London to Kingston-upon-Hull. How many elephants would
it take to pay for all the asylum seekers of the world, or treatment
for all the AIDS victims? What would Larkin, that old sub-fascist from
Hull, have made of this?

And here he was serving such parasites. No wonder he was finding it
more and more difficult to concentrate, and having to stay later and
later - weekends even - to meet his deadlines. No wonder the lure of
the crane. Just think: you moved Block A from Point 1 to Point 2, and a
building emerged under your hands. There was a purpose to every action.
At the end of the day you could see what you had done. You were an
essential part of a team but also distinct, up there in the sky, with a
view in most directions of tens of miles. You were doing an entirely
practical job but you could also dream, write poetry in your head
?

The lights went out. John K. jumped. His computer screen hissed
slightly as it faded. The surge of adrenalin came at just the right
moment to push his thoughts into new territory: action! With the
power-cut the crane was in darkness and he could climb it and sit in
the cockpit unseen!

Incorporated in the penknife he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk
was a sturdy pair of pliers. Back from the flattened grasping tips of
this device were cutting edges, well capable of despatching fencing
wire. The security fence around the building site succumbed. He tripped
over some rubble, bruising his knee and tearing his trousers - small
price to pay. Now he was touching the slightly rusted surface of the
crane where the paint had peeled. At last. Holy moment. He breathed
deeply and began the ascent of the slippery rungs. A light spattering
of drizzle felt invigorating as terra firma receded. He panted in
rhythm with his climbing. The cockpit was only a few yards now. The
rungs were wet and his hands were freezing. Never mind, soon he would
know what it felt like...

At 11.36 pm GMT on 9 November, 2002, Manchester experienced an earth
tremor registering 2.0 on the Richter scale. As with other tremors in
the series that hit Greater Manchester in October and November no
victims were reported. However, John Kenneth McIver was found dead by a
site foreman on the morning of 11 November. He had apparently fallen
from a crane on the night of 9 -10 November and his body had lain
undiscovered until the Monday.