Day 156: Bollard

Sat on a cold stone bollard outside the expo centre, under a brooding sky, waiting for the go-ahead to start packing down the display. John in the cab of the van checking whether his Ryder Cup bets have come through. Steve wandering in his cut-off shorts. His father off on a reccy somewhere. A dark bird flapping against the wind. Cords tied to metal pipes snapping in the breeze. Concrete and rusted iron girders. Splintering wood. The sounds of private jets taxiing on the runway. Transits and artics snaking into the distance ahead and behind. Marching mashed potato clouds clumped one against the other. Sombre land, utilitarian, sad.

…

Echoey hall emptying of use. Clatter of dropped boards, metal plates. Plastic Coke bottles kicked into aisles. Workmen in hi-vis carrying bits of stands in twos, threes. Clank of ladders. Men in groups, strolling. Other men by themselves, leant on pallets, hunched on the floor, bent over their phones. The scriiitch of duct tape pulled from the roll. Gathering darkness outside the loading bay doors. The melancholy of evenings, of eternal afterwards - after weekends, after Christmases, after all excitement and action completed, the central illusion abandoned - the illusion that the event would save you, would show you something you don’t already know, would provide the glamour and sense of belonging that you have for all of your life lacked. But there is only this. Ripping up cheap carpet and flinging spent screws to the ground. Vinyl stickers torn from their displays. Vans loaded, detritus abandoned, and workmen driving off into dusk without once looking back.

Day 152: Builds

Another day down. We were grafting in the man mines until 1ish, and then it was a lot of standing around, finding little jobs to do, waiting on various people, touching up paintwork, flattening vinyl stickers, that kind of thing.

Steve and his dad are good at their jobs. It's a running joke that for years when Steve told me he worked as a joiner with his old man I pictured them knocking together bird boxes in the garage of the family home. In actuality they're a hugely popular firm who make enormous displays for the country's biggest tool manufacturers.

The amount of work that goes into the shows is staggering. Clients are met and requirements hammered out. Designs and plans are mocked up on 3D modelling software. The clients choose from options, changes are made, iterations iterated upon. Months are spent cutting wood, measuring, sanding, assembling, painting. Graphics are printed. Banners made. Pieces are labelled. All the bits are loaded onto the vans. The tools. The barrows. The tubs of wires and plugs and screws and palettes and pipes. The vans are driven halfway across the country, everything is unloaded, carried to the stand space.

The stand finally goes up, often for the first time fully since it was conceived, with all the stress of worrying whether it will actually work. But they've done it so many times, have the experience to know what it'll be like, how many pieces to build the walls out of, how to structure the supports, how to raise them, where to feed the wires.

And hooking up all the electrics, daisy-chaining the bulbs, running extension leads.

And inevitably a million tiny things go wrong, and they have to take each one in their stride, brainstorm solutions, get to work against the clock. To be able to shrug and laugh enough to not let the pressure crush them, but to take it seriously enough to always solve the problems. I guess this mindset is key to so much.

And they gouge chunks out of their shins, and scrape their hands, and bruise their arms. They get cramp in the legs and end up massaging themselves in the hotel bathroom in the middle of the night.

And finally they drive home, for a night, or two, while the show is actually on, and then drive back for the evening of the last day, when the public leave, and start disassembling it all, break it down rapidly and effectively, pack it all back in the vans, and take it home.

Abd over the busiest period they're doing three or four shows a week, Steve somewhere in the country, his dad somewhere else.

I mean, I'm utterly fucked, shattered and sore, and I've only worked a handful of days, doing the easier jobs, not worrying about design or organisation or anything with any responsibility.

So I'm impressed, I'll admit. The skill and strength and stamina is impressive. There's no way I could do it.

Although I am still better than Steve at Mario Kart, and that's what really matters. So at least I've got that.

Passing out now, in the hotel bedroom, with Steve snoring in the bed beside me and QI on in the background. Last day of the build tomorrow, then two days back at the pub, then coming back for break down, then a day working at the pub, then finally I've got a day off. Christ I'll be ready for it.

Day 136: Men

It's hard work pretending to be a man. You put on heavy work boots and thick work pants, pockets covering pockets which are in turn filled with more pockets, and in all the pockets there are screws, and you have a drill hanging from your belt, and you're bending down and stretching up and lifting things and carrying things and climbing ladders and screwing and hoisting and plugging and taping all the long day long.

And there are so many men, other men in work boots and work pants, their bellies hanging over their belts, thick arms and leathery hands; belching, joshing, ribbing; talking about cricket; asking you to check the transformer, like you have a clue what a transformer is, or does. And the end bit of your drill keeps falling out and you don't know how to make it stay in, you sit there trying to hide what you're doing from the view of the men as you fiddle with your drill, but you know they can see you, and your end bit falls out again, and it doesn't matter that you've read Camus or that you appreciate the abstract impressionism of Mark Rothko or that choosing between "who" and "whom" is the easiest thing in the world to you, because you can't drill with a drill, and you're not a man, and you want to give up and cry.

And you go to the toilet and there are men shitting in all the stalls. Men coughing, men shifting their weight, men playing Jewel Quest at full volume on their phones. Men shirking responsibility, men taking moments to themselves. All sat bowed, vulnerable, separate but together, communing with the gods. Plops, grunts, the unrolling of roll. The lighting harsh. The blues and the greens. The echoes of the room. And you go in a stall, and you shit, and it is good.

And the day passes. And you graft. You do everything there is to do. And after a day of grafting you get in the van and Steve drives you up the motorway, and you are empty in that glow of honest exhaustion, and you smell the sawdust in your hair, rub the blisters on your hands, feel the ache in knees and thighs, and the sun goes down, and BBC Radio 2 plays, and you are a man, in a manner of speaking, and you are fine.