Did you ever play hide and seek in the woods? Choose an oak tree the size of a medieval tower, behind which you wait? When the seeker arrives at your tree and starts walking around it, you do the same. When he stops, you stop. He keeps circling, so do you.
If you stay silent, this diametrically opposed choreography can go on for a long timeâunless your pal suddenly turns about and runs into you.
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A guard (the same guard?) appears on our roof, preceded by the static of his walkie-talkie. Jean-François, by the tower's corner, has time to lie flat under the tracks and play dead. I am trapped near the center of the roof, with only some concrete walls and steel structures between the guard and me.
He walks around the core of the roof. So do I.
He stops. I stop.
He keeps circling. So do I.
He leaves. I stay.
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One such dance is enough!
I quickly gather a few empty cans and other junk, and construct midstaircase a miniature Calder mobile no human being could avoid banging against in the dark.
I bring Jean-François over, to make him aware of the trap and to make sure he admires its cleverness as much as I do.
With peace of mind, we return to our work.
Before I let the walk-cable go into the voidâthat is, before I signal for Jean-Louis and Albert to pull the yellow rope to which I have tied one end of the cabteâI do something Papa Rudy taught me.
I take the other end of the cable, make one half turn around a steel column, bring the two parts together, and hold them side by side with a U-clamp loosely bolted by hand. A nice touch is to leave a little wrench with the right socket nearbyâif need arises, one can tighten the two nuts of the clamp. The whole thing is childish, but it reassures me that the cable will not go anywhere, as Omankowsky used to say.
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Jean-Louis and Albert pull the yellow rope. Jean-François and I pay out the heavy cable. The wire crosses fluidly and disappears slowly into darkness.
Soon we all must slow down. The cable is heavier, it passes one foot at a time. Then it becomes easier, as if the steel rope is taking on a life of its own. The cable accelerates its descent. Jean-Francois and I try to slow it down, but its weight and speed are too great, it threatens to pull us into the void. We have to let go.
Instantly, the cable dives full-speed into the abyss, with an apocalyptic scream. I hurl my friend out of the way as deadly loops of wire jump overboard. I dash to the other end of the cable. I grab the little wrench. I tighten the U-clamp as fast as I can. Behind me, I hear the roar of 200 feet of out-of-control cable. Just as the clamp is finally tight, the last loops of cable unfold so swiftly that I dive to the side.
The shock is terrible. The column vibrates. The clamp slides. The strands under the clamp emit a little blue smoke.
Silence returns, as if nothing has happened.
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On my side, due to the devil's fastest rigging job, the cable is actually in place.
On the other side, the cable now hangs in a giant U at the end of the yellow rope, which my accomplices will have to pull and pull and pull and pull.
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Why the Herculean punishment?
Horror! Night has given up on me. It has ordered dawn to unfold gradually the drapery of its lighter tones.
Anxiety tints my blood. Time is of the essence. Am I going to make it? No room in the clock for mistakes.
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When I tighten the cable, any error in the rigging will mean death
of the coup, death of the cable, or death of the wirewalker. To make sure I have not committed any errors, I decide to describe aloud each component of the installation, and at the same time, to pass my hand over itâyes, touch itâand check it, with my eyes calmly focused.
Because this is the most important rigging of my life, I need a master of ceremonies. I ask Jean-François to watch me, to make sure I overlook nothing. I know how silly it is to invite a nonrigger to such an exercise. But Jean-François, his face turned serious, boosts my confidence by being there, and I suspect he will sense if I make a mistake.
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“Okay. The inclined column serving as anchor has its upper web tightly packed with overlapping pieces of wood and protected by thick carpet.” I pass my hand to check, while explaining to Jean-François that the wood will act as a one-way spring in case the towers sway. The overtensioned cable will bite deeply into the wood fibers if the two roofs move apart. A second later, of course, as the rooftops return to their original position or move closer, the cable will go completely slack and stay that wayâa deadly solution for the wirewalker, but a safe one for the installation, the buildings, and the people below. Anyway, it's the best I could come up with.
The reason for the carpet: I never have and never will hurt any edifice with my wire. I do not wish to leave even the tiniest scratch on the towers I love.
Jean-François nods attentively, and I go on.
On top of the carpet, a wire-rope sling stronger than the walk-cable is wrapped one-round-turn around the steel post. The two eyes of the sling, protected by heavy-duty thimbles, go into the big Lyra-shackle. And the pin of the shackle is marlinespike-tight. I introduce the marlinespike point into the pin's head and cannot screw it further.
What connects the shackle to the rear of the Tirfor is a Crosby weldless oval link, and the Tirfor pin has its safety latch on. The Tirfor handle is in place and has been twisted a quarter turn to
lock it onto the machine's sleeve so that the person working the handle will not accidentally pull it free, lose balance, and fall. The Tirfor cable is already in place: its pointed end sticks out of the rear of the machine and meets no obstacle to prevent it from traveling further back; the other part of the cable, terminated by a thimbled eye and an oversize hook, is coming out of the Tirfor's mouth and is elongated toward the void. It shows no kinks or meat hooksâthose deadly steel splinters sticking out. The heavy come-along is resting on a pad to keep it from vibrating. The hook of the Tirfor cable, with its safety latch engaged, catches the thimbled eye of the walk-cable, which is secured by sevenânot five as is customaryâheavy-duty cable clamps tightened to the right torque. Under the clamps' saddles and U-bolts, the 6 x 19 cable is compressed, but is not birdcaging at allâmeaning that the wires in the strand aren't opening up. The walk-cable is perfectly cleaned. Of course, tension and sunshine will always squeeze out a small amount of the grease that lubricates the cable's coreâunless you can afford to order a cable specially manufactured without grease. So on this side, as soon as the north tower team gets their end of the walk-cable and ties it to their anchor column, I am ready to pull.
On the cable, already invisible in the void, the two cavaletti plates are correctly positioned and bolted; I remember checking them. And from the plates, the two cavaletti wires (one long, one short) to be anchored at the north tower are dangling under the cable, and their ends, coiling a few extra feet, are tied securely near the connection of the yellow rope and the walk-cable. The two cavaletti wires on my side (one short, one long) are ready to be anchored and tightened by means of block-and-tackles that are already elongated. There is a figure-of-eight knot terminating each block's ropes for added security. The balancing pole is out of hiding and correctly assembled; the little bolts holding the sleeves are not overtight. And the rubber inner tube wrapped around its centerâanother safety feature from Papa Rudy, so the pole will not slip if it touches or hits the cableâis secured generously by electric tape.
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“Well, I think this is it,” I say to Jean-François, who's as pleased as I am. Then we go back to work on a myriad of details and adjustments.
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On the north tower, the main job has hardly started. The cable lost between the two structures is harder to bring back than I thought. Jean-Louis and Albert use their arms to pull the yellow rope. Then they use their arms and legs. Then the intercom starts ringing on my roof. I give Jean-Louis instructions on how to improvise mechanical advantages.
The advance of daylight creates a cloud of anxiety, soon of veiled panic, over the entire operation.
The end of the cable is within three feet of Jean-Louis when Albert, who has not stopped arguing since the beginning, announces he is about to quit. “He believes we'll never make it,” says Jean-Louis with bitterness. “By the way, he insists on talking with you.”
Instantly comprehending that the north tower is paralyzed by a clash of egos, a language problem, a lack of rigging knowledge, and the growing daylight, I share with Jean-Louis my only solution: I need to come over! “Right now, I'll run down to the lobby, run across to the north tower, and run up to your roof! See you in less than an hour!”
“Philippe! Stop!” screams Jean-Louis over the void, then continues over the intercom. “You're going to get caught ten times before arriving here! But even if you do arrive, and you spend a couple hours getting the cable and anchoring it, you'll be caught here without your balancing pole, because don't try to tell me there's any chance for you to accomplish a complete back-and-forth from roof to roof without being caught! Plus you'll have no more legs anyway!”
I tell him that once I secure the cable on the north tower I can use the cable itself to get back to my tower, inching my way across with my hands and feet.
“Or else I go across right now,” I say, obviously having lost
touch with reality, “hand over hand along the cable, and then along the yellow rope. If the rope is strong enough to pull the cable, it's strong enough to support me ⦠No, you're right, it's madness. Give me Albert!”
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“Albert, listen! You're completely right. It looks like we're never going to make it before the construction workers arrive. But we've gotten so far, it's worth a try. I'm sure if you and Jean-Louis win another foot of yellow rope, you'll be able to grab the two coils of cavaletti wires: the cable will then be much lighter. And in the meantime, to make it easier for you guys, I'll find a way to release a little bit more of the cable on my side. But you know what? You're completely right, I agree with you one hundred percent. If we're still at it when it's bright daylight, it will mean it's too late, we'll never complete the rigging, and then it's wiser to give up. I'm not going to walk if the installation is unfinished, of that you can be sure!”
I hope my tone conceals the lie. I hear a vague sigh of approval on the other end of the line. A minute later, I feel the cable inching its way closer to the north tower.
While waiting, I turn my attention to an entanglement of thin wire-ropes around and below my departure corner. Most wires are merely wrapped around the sharp edges of the structure without any protection. Here and there, a few clamps are used, but they are assembled the wrong way, and they are not tight enough. A few turnbuckles not fitted with safety latches complete the scene. I lean over and see that, several floors below, this dangerous rigging holds a narrow aluminum working platform, long enough for thirty men and running almost the entire width of the facade. I am concerned for the men who may not realize they are venturing onto a virtual suicide board. So I go to work securing the mess until the next intercom call. And from now on, whenever I have a few seconds or a few minutes, I keep reinforcing the rigging for my brothers, the aerial construction workers.
“It's almost daylight!” I groan, my eyes wide with fatigue.
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To hell with being nice. It's panic time, every man for himself. Forgetting I had sworn never to ask Jean-Francois, who has vertigo, to work on the lower ledge, I force him to join me immediately on the deadly cornice to anchor each of the two cavaletti wires to their respective tensioning block-and-tackle.
His back to the void, my friend climbs down the channel girts like a terrified snail. On the ledge area, he helps me while staying under the protection of the inclined columns, as far away as possibleâthat is, 35 inches!âfrom the 1,350-foot drop.
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I bump into Jean-François, I knock him over; he is in my way.
I shove him; he is too slow.
I encircle him in a dance of frenzy, allowing him no time to understand he's toilingâagainst his willâbetween life and death.
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Things are moving much too slowly: I bark orders in English, and Jean-François looks at me dumbfoundedâI forget he does not understand a word of the language. I yell insults, I shout at him for not doing what I ask.
I instruct him machine-gun styleâ“Arrange-this-the-right-way! Take-care-of that-thing-there! Come-here-continue-what-I-am-doing!” âwithout being sure exactly what I mean, and without remembering that Jean-François knows absolutely nothing about the art of rigging. When, to my astonishment, my friend dares to crawl onto the six-inch-wide window-washer indexing tube right on the edge of the abyss, I push him, pull him, jump over him, abusing him ever more loudly: “Faster! For god's sake, hurry up! Hold this! Shit, are you deaf? Not this, this!”
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It is now close to full daylight.
The brightness in the sky magnifies my fury, increases my agitation, and intensifies my violence. To make it complete, the intercom crackles the worst news yet: “Listen, Philippe, since you told us you no longer care if we make an extra security loop to anchor the cable, Albert has completely given up!” says Jean-Louis in a sickened tone. “It's been half an hour that I pull and pull all by myself like a donkey, and the cable is coming only a millimeter at a time! But it's done; you have your first two cable clamps in the right place, well tightened. But let me tell you, he ⦔
I hang up and spring to the Tirfor area.
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Downstairs, Annie lowers her binoculars and comments: “It's six a.m., they still haven't tightened the cable. Something is wrong!”
At 6:10, she's the first to announce, “The cable is moving! I see it going up! Philippe is tightening the cable!”
Indeed, standing on the roof's crown, one hand clutching a channel girt for dear life, the other vehemently working the Tirfor handle back and forth for precious tension, I am tuning my wire for the celestial symphony to follow â¦
“But why is he stopping every five minutes?” Annie questions aloud.