The Works

story seventeen · figures 49–51

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THE WORKS · THE COUNT, ELEVEN YEARS OF IT — the drawings against the cable, the hands, the lit floors and the notice on the fence THE WORKS · THE COUNT, ELEVEN YEARS OF IT the drawings against the cable, the hands, the lit floors and the notice on the fence THE DRAWINGS · 19 reissued in September, and still 19 · the notice on the fence agrees 22 the fourth year · his hands say twenty-two 26 two winters ago · twenty-six 23 this evening · he counts the lit floors from the bottom 23 and again · twenty-three floors THE CABLE, THE HANDS, THE LIT WINDOWS THE ENGINEER WENT UP IN THE HOIST AND COUNTED THROUGH THE GLASS AND CAME DOWN AND SAID NINETEEN, and did not look at him for the rest of the day. In September the drawings were reissued — and so were his own paper timesheets from the fourth year: the hours are all his, booked against floors he does not remember lifting to. HE GETS TWENTY-THREE. HE GETS TWENTY-THREE AGAIN. HE GOES HOME.
49 · The Works
THE WORKS · WHAT IS KNOWN, WHAT IS GUESSED, WHAT IS SPECIFIED — eleven years of building a thing nobody on site has been told the purpose of THE WORKS · WHAT IS KNOWN, WHAT IS GUESSED, WHAT IS SPECIFIED eleven years of building a thing nobody on site has been told the purpose of KNOWN · no windows ordered above the twelfth · lifts specified with no buttons inside · a drain in the middle of every floor · above the fourteenth: provision for water · coming out, and none for water going in · the rain is contracted · wet at eleven on Tuesdays GUESSED · the book at the tea hut · a hospital — the man who proposes it is fined a biscuit · a hotel · the records · lately: one machine, and the floors are its cabinets · the odds are chalked · the arguments are formal · it is the best hour of the week NEVER SAID · the building has no name · referred to on every document as the works · the hoarding showed a building that was not this one · it came down in the second year · and was not replaced · the man from the counterparty thanked them and left ELEVEN YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO BE PAID TO LIFT THINGS INTO A SHAPE NOBODY WILL NAME. He has stopped saying the number out loud at home. He can retire in four with the site pension, which is a real thing and pays on the day, and the crane will go to the boy who is better at it. THE SITE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS BUILDING AND HAS NEVER ONCE BEEN TOLD.
50 · The Works
THE WORKS · FOUR RECORDS OF THE SAME BUILDING — three of them are issued and can be reissued · one is a pad on a nail THE WORKS · FOUR RECORDS OF THE SAME BUILDING three of them are issued and can be reissued · one is a pad on a nail THE DRAWINGS nineteen reissued in September · and the count did not change THE SITE NOTICE ON THE FENCE nineteen still there this evening HIS OWN TIMESHEETS, PAPER, YEAR FOUR reissued too the hours are all his · the floors are not ones he remembers THE LIFT LOG the wrong numbers a pad on a nail by the hoist · nobody was told to keep it · nobody agreed to · all of them keep it THE ONLY BOOK ON SITE THAT CANNOT BE REISSUED IS THE ONE NOBODY WAS TOLD TO KEEP. It goes back years, the numbers are in the men’s own hands, and they are the wrong numbers — which is to say his numbers. Paper on a nail, kept by everyone, agreed to by no one. AT THE END OF THE DAY HE SETS THE JIB INTO THE WIND, AS YOU MUST, AND IT FINDS ITS OWN DIRECTION.
51 · The Works

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