Hammer Time Emergency
August 16, 2022 – Parker, Colorado, USA
It was hard for Brandt Livingston to keep track of all the new housing developments. Builders kept transforming hay fields into communities, with names generated by combining nouns from outdoorsy magazines: Snow Ridge, Summit View, Quail Run Meadows.
The latest project, Hollow Pine Parkway, was unfinished except for a single house located on a freshly paved semicircular street. Brandt drove past a hundred house skeletons to get there. A few of the future homes were covered in gray-blue skins, but most were only naked wood frames.
The one completed house was missing any landscaping, but on top of the charcoal-colored roof sat solar panels installed by Brandt’s company. Supernova Solar’s business was thriving thanks to subsidies and incentives. In only two years, Brandt had been promoted to an installations manager. He made good money, but not as much as the sales guys who spent their days convincing homeowners to pay for panels each month instead of paying electric bills.
One of Brandt’s work crews had finished the Hollow Pine job and it was up to him to do the final inspection. He usually did inspections with at least one of the installers around, but they were already on other jobs. While completing a check-off alone was unusual, it was not a big deal for a new house. Putting panels on a new roof always went smoothly.
Brandt parked his work truck and walked up the fresh cement walkway to the front door. After three rings of the doorbell, Missy Rey answered wearing headphones. She was a short woman with a long nose and a chin which disappeared into her neck.
“I’m here for the final panel inspection,” Brandt said in a friendly voice.
“Finally. They’ve been banging around up there all week,” Missy replied dramatically. “It got so loud, I had to wear these while I worked.” She pointed to her headphones.
Brandt knew she was exaggerating about the time and the noise. Instead of contradicting her, he simply said, “Sorry about that. I promise not to make any noise while I’m on the roof.”
“I wish I could believe you,” Missy replied with a huff.
“You’ll see. Won’t take me long.” Brandt tried his best to sound friendly when he asked, “Say, how did you get your house built so fast? They seem to be stalled out on all the other places around here.”
Missy shrugged her shoulders. “Beats me. They gave me a move-in date and so I moved in. You need anything else?”
Missy closed the door after Brandt shook his head.
Given the customer indifference, Brandt was eager to finish up and be on his way. He walked to the tall ladder, which reached up to the roof above the house’s second story; it had been left by the work crew and Brandt had climbed that same ladder hundreds of times. He planned to scurry up for a quick look around so he could say he followed procedure.
The ladder flexed as Brandt moved up the rungs. He had lost any fear of heights and he did not hesitate during the climb. The only tricky part was transitioning between the ladder and the steep rooftop. Brandt took a first sure-footed step onto the roof’s shingles and leaned forward. His second foot pushed off at a bad angle as it released from the ladder. The ladder slid ominously before losing contact with the house. It fell to the ground with a tremendous CLANG.
Brandt’s heart thumped wildly as he dropped to the roof. He quickly realized he was in no danger of falling, but he was definitely stuck. If any of his work crews found out he had knocked over a ladder, he would never hear the end of it. He decided to call one of his fellow managers for help and beg him to keep quiet about it. He reached for his phone. It was not in his pocket. He had stupidly left it sitting in his truck after answering a text message.
No phone. What next? Brandt surveyed the unfinished neighborhood. No people or vehicles were in sight. Brandt remembered a truck installing electrical lines, but it was probably a half mile away. They would never hear his shouts. His only hope was getting Missy’s attention.
“Hello! I need some help!” Brandt called out.
Nothing around him moved.
“Help! Help me!” Brandt called louder.
Still nothing. He called until his voice hurt. Either the house was incredibly soundproof, or Missy was still wearing her headphones and stubbornly ignoring him.
Brandt scooted next to the rack holding the solar panels and sat with his knees pulled up to his chin. He was now in a survival situation, and he needed to assess his threats and his resources. His biggest threat was the sun. With no clouds in the sky, radiation poured down on him and the roof. He was already sweating. Surrounded by the baking, dark shingles, the roof had to be over 120 degrees, with no shade.
And of course, Brandt had no water or sunscreen. He had planned to be up there for only a minute. Why would he grab a water bottle? He could feel his brain cooking in his skull. He tried to remember the rule about exposure and water deprivation. Could someone last three days or three hours? What if he passed out and rolled off the roof?
Would falling off be any worse than baking to death? Brandt stared down at the ground and contemplated the drop. If he hung from the edge, he might only have twelve feet to fall. He might break an ankle or a leg, but that was not permanent. He would heal. Brandt thought about the pain and sound of snapping an ankle. He shuttered and called again for help. No reply.
Maybe he was missing something. Maybe the crew had left water or a phone on the roof. He always warned them about leaving stuff behind, but maybe they had accidently forgotten. Brandt dropped his head to shingle level and looked under the panels. He did not see any bottle or phone shaped objects, but there was something unusual within arm’s reach. Brandt scooted toward it and stretched out his hand. His fingers clutched a hammer! Somehow it had slipped away from the crew and been abandoned.
Brandt immediately pounded the hammer against the roof and the metal rack holding solar panels. BAM. BAM. BAM. Surely Missy would hear the pounding, even wearing her headphones. After his promise not to make any noise, she would race out the door to confront him.
BAM. BAM. BAM. Brandt continued to pound. He stopped only to look down to the ground at the spot where he imagined an angry Missy would appear. The spot remained vacant.
Brandt began to scream in between each swing of the hammer. BAM. “Help!” BAM. “Help!” BAM. “Help!”
Brandt’s hands were wet with sweat, making the hammer hard to grip. He looked up toward the relentless sun. He saw a distant bird; it was probably a circling buzzard.
How long before someone at work came looking for him? Did anyone besides Missy live at the house? Were they gone but returning home? Would anyone arrive in time to save him from dehydration and kidney failure?
As Brandt continued to hammer, he grew angrier at Missy. Why was she so stubborn? Did she want him to die? He had tried to be nice. Why was she so bitter? He was too young to go out like this, alone and sizzling.
In the midst of his bewildered pounding, he suddenly realized Missy might not realize he was sending her a message. Rather than random tapping, he needed something that sounded like a signal.
Brandt flashed to a middle school class where he had learned about Morse Code. At one point, he memorized all the letters, but the only thing he could remember was S.O.S. Short-short-short; long-long-long; short-short-short.
Brandt concentrated his hammering on the metal solar panel rack and tapped out three quick BAMS, three long BAMS, and three more quick BAMS. He paused and repeated over and over. He looked at the ground hoping to see Missy, but she did not appear.
“It’s no use,” Brandt cried to himself. There was no way Missy knew Morse Code. No one under 60 years old knew Morse Code. Still, he tapped in desperation. Short-short-short; long-long-long; short-short-short.
Suddenly something materialized below the ladder. A tween girl stood in the exact spot where Brandt hoped to see Missy.
“Are you okay?” the girl called.
“No! I’m not okay! I need help!” Brandt called back.
“I thought I heard a message. S.O.S.”
“You know Morse Code?”
“I know S.O.S. I saw it on Stranger Things.”
Brandt laughed and then almost cried in relief. “I guess you can’t lift up that ladder.”
The girl looked at the ladder on the ground. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then can you get your mom? I need her to call someone from my company.”
“Will it still mean that I was the one who rescued you? You’ll owe me?”
“For sure. You’ll probably save my life. I’ll owe you.”
“Okay.” The girl smiled with self-satisfaction, walked toward her front door, and called, “Mom!”
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