"Coat-racks!" Stig was adamant. "We can sell 'em as coat-racks."
"Sell what as coat-racks?"
Stig was always trying to sell something as something else.
"The old hydro poles by the railway line."
"Hydro poles? They'd make pretty big coat-racks," I said.
"Not the whole thing! We take the cross pieces with all the insulators, turn 'em sideways and mount 'em on a wall. Two hundred bucks, easy. We sell loose insulators for 20 bucks a pop down in the city and add five bucks if it's still got a peg poked up its ass."
Stig had his thinking look on his face.
"You know, we could roll up the wire, 'cause there must be all copper inside them, what?"
What nothing. For once Stig's idea wasn't so stupid. He was right about the wires. There were miles and miles and miles of them alongside all the tracks. They must go right across the country. They used to turn switches and stuff like that, but the railways started using satellites instead. They let the wires go dead. They let them rot, too - just letting the poles fall down any way they like: easy pickings for a fellow like Stig.
He was right about everything else, too. I've seen myself how much people charge for old glass and that wasn't even in the city. I thought his coat-rack idea could work. Slap on a bit of paint, or call it rustic. Some'll pay good money for stuff like that. That's how Stig got me out on snowmobile. I followed him way the hell back off the trail. I pulled a bobsled - better, he said, for the cross pieces. He had an ordinary box sled and said we'd toss the loose insulators in there. He said he'd already found a spot. We just had to follow his old tracks. The spot was perfect, he said, because none of the poles had fallen down along that stretch. They’re still fresh, he said.
He was right about that, too. There was a whole long straight row of poles and none of them were down. All the insulators looked ripe for picking, all the wires still strung between them all the way down the stretch.
"You sure they're dead?" I asked.
Stig ignored me.
We had two chainsaws with us, but Stig wanted to make the first cut. I didn't care. He said he wanted to do it just right, so we left the snowmachines down the line where the bushes would keep the railway folks from seeing them. We walked and Stig picked the pole just about in the middle and started up his saw. I stood back. He cut out a big wedge on the side where he wanted it to fall – away from the tracks – and then tramped around in the snow to make the third cut on the other side.
"Get ready!" he shouted when he was just about through, stepping back when his saw bit air.
Nothing happened.
Stig let the motor stop and then gave the pole a push. It teetered a little one way and then back, but it stayed upright. It looked like the wires were holding it there.
"We'll need to take another one down," Stig said.
Five poles later and they still wouldn't fall. I've never seen Stig so pissed off. I was thinking I should take the chainsaw away from him. He was hardly even taking any care any more, just hacking through the pole as fast as he could, no wedge or nothing. When it wouldn't go down he just cursed it and stamped to the next, attacking it like all the others. I was glad when his saw ran out of gas and sputtered off by itself. He cursed that, too, and it looked like he was going to throw it, but something caught his eye and he just cursed that instead.
"That's it," he shouted at me and pointed. "That's what's doing it: It's that tree!"
He was right again because a few poles past us there was a big tree had fallen across the lines and was pinning them down, pulling them really tight. It sure looked like what was holding our poles up and I wondered how we were going to get it off. I wanted to think about it some more, but Stig already had the answer.
"I'm going to pull that son of a bitch down," he said and stamped to where we left the snowmobiles.
He didn't say he needed me for anything so I just had a smoke. It really was a nice day – sunny and not too cold. Without the saw running I could hear birds in the trees and wind and stuff like that – and far away I'm pretty sure I heard a train. It was a good smoke.
Stig started up his machine and drove towards me along the poles he'd just cut, but then he did a little loop in the woods around me, coming out not too far from the big tree. He had me take a rope and go back to tie it as high up as I could, so he could drag it off.
It was a spruce, so it wasn't too hard to climb, especially as it was laying down pretty straight. I was still thinking about everything and I wasn't sure if his rope was good enough for the job and I was thinking he should maybe cut the tree first, before he pulled it, but I climbed up it and tied the rope and got down again and Stig never gave me a chance to say anything. I was walking back to him where he was gunning the motor and he couldn't hear me. He couldn't wait so even before I got to him he took off fast, spraying me with snow, 'cause he must have figured the faster he pulled the rope tight the easier the tree would come down.
Well, he was right about that, too, but I was right about the rope. When the rope came tight the tree kind of bounced and the snow machine bounced too and the tree came over sideways, but then the rope was tight again and it snapped. I could hear it and then I could feel it because I was right beside the rope and it wrapped around me and jerked me off my feet. I just had time to grab the rope myself so at least I'd be dragged frontwards and I yelled at Stig to stop and for once he heard me and stopped, looking back to see what I was yelling about. I rolled over onto my back so I could get the snow out of my nose. That way I could see Stig had been right about the tree holding the poles up. The tree was down and the first pole was starting to teeter, first one way and then the other, and then it started to fall. The second pole was right beside me and I knew where it was going to come down.
"Go on, drive!" I yelled. "Go on, man!"
Stig couldn't hear me though, 'cause suddenly there was this train running right alongside us and blowing its horn. Stig must have seen the poles coming down anyway because he booted it, jerking me on the end of the rope and dragging me backwards. First I was too busy to notice anything else happening because I was watching one pole after the other slam down right behind me, the coat-racks pounding themselves deep into the snow right where I'd been seconds before, but then I saw these faces staring out at me from the train windows – a few little kids with these shocked little expressions on their faces seeing me almost get clobbered by those hydro poles. I tried to give them a smile and a wave – let them know I'd be all right so they shouldn't be afraid – but Stig had come to the end of the trail and had to veer around the sled he'd left there. The rope hauled me clear into the air and then let go of me. Lucky for me I didn't hit anything except a thick drift of snow, but I sank into that pretty quick. It took me a few minutes to dig myself out. The train was gone and Stig was looking at all the poles. They'd fallen just like they were supposed to, but the wires had wrecked all the insulators, shattering them when they pulled tight and snapped.
"Barn boards," Stig said. "What?” "Barn boards," he repeated. "We take the broken insulators off and sell the cross pieces as barn boards. You know how much people will pay for stuff like that?”
Michael Johansen is an award-winning Canadian author and journalist who has reported for television, radio, online and print media. He has three published books, the most recent entitled The Boy Who Walked. He is currently an editor on Indonesia's English-language newspaper, The Jakarta Post.
