And then the boom brushed against the power line…

It was windy and I was about to be two and half hours late for dinner.

It started in the late afternoon. Construction site, guys putting girders together for an office building. There was a guy working the big crane. The steel was long, heavy. Two guys on the ground would attach the choker cables, then back off while he lifted it free.

He’d pluck that girder off the stack, swing it around. When he had it stabilized, they’d step back in, grab hold of the ends . A bit of do-si-do… swinging the I-beam around. Then a slow lift to the riveters.

Somebody should have seen this coming.

The wind came up. You wouldn’t think it would affect something that big, that heavy.

Side pull, they call it. The guy working the crane was looking down, not up. The boom brushed against the power line. Too close for that kind of work.

Now the girder was hot. And when the first guy came in to steady it, he died the instant he put his hand on the beam. I heard what happened, made some calls, talked to people who’d been there, the police, the ambulance driver. Then I sent in the story.

And now it was late. A typical Florida night. Breezy, but warm. We were sitting on the deck of my friend’s place, one of those duplexes standing on stilts, with the parking slab underneath. I was telling the story.

We saw the car coming, weaving all over the road. It was the guy who rented the other half of the duplex. He got the car most of the way into the driveway. The door opened and he fell out onto the ground.

We went down to help. He could barely stand. He saw us, started to babble. He was sobbing and yelling and nothing made sense.

We started carrying him up the stairs. And finally we could understand him.

I just killed a guy, he said. Shouting now.

You know anybody who needs a crane operator who kills people?

Then he stood tall and pushed us away. He couldn’t get the key in the door, so he smashed the glass and reached in to open it.

We heard dishes breaking and stuff smashing against a wall. And then it was quiet.