“Mister Barron remember me?” he says to the growl that passes for What da fook d’ya want? in Bricklayer lexicon.
The Bricklayer wipes a corded forearm across his dripping face to squeegee the sweat and transfer a mud smear from his arm to his expression.
He remembers all right. The look on his face is like his unforgettable hemorrhoid-ectomy from yesterday.
“You know I . . . we talked in your rec room on your daughter’s wedding day.”
Silence.
Okay can we go now?
“Sir?”
“Guy with the stupid last name.”
“True, I suppose.”
“You been eating the same shit as Jason kid?”
“What?”
“You got the monkey-butt comin out your mouth.”
“Oh. Too much garlic yesterday. I brushed extra hard but—”
“How’d you track me down kid?” Some silent signal brings his posse to his side.
“I called the number in your ad in the yellow pages. Some lady said to find you here.”
“That wasn’t no lady. That was my sister Reba. It’s a family concern.” Cassern.
“Mister Barron I need—”
“Kid tell me this ain’t no shakedown or nothing like that.”
The posse leans in to hear him say it. The sons have grown since the wedding.
“Nosir. No shakedown.”
The posse leans back to the upright but still poised to leap on him and beat him to a rag if commanded. Maybe tear off his arms. Start a fire.
Roast a doofus.
“That wouldn’t be a healthy thing to do Guy—not a healthy thing at all cuz we like had a deal remember?”
“Sir I’m not here for anything to do with the wedding. That deal is done and I remember perfectly.”
The Bricklayer looks around. “Then what? You looking for work?” Both he and the posse find this hysterical. Their laughter punctuated by obscenities of incredulity.
“I could put you on as a hod carrier.”
Guffaws that go silent on yet another silent cue. “You know what’s a hod carrier Guy?”
A dead Guy’s pallbearer?
Guy feels his spine go stiff.
Oh good God Guy now is not stiff-spine-time.
“Mister Barron I didn’t come here to be a hod carrier but I didn’t come here to be the butt of your stupid bricklayer jokes either.”
Oh crap.
The crew lets out of moan of ecstasy. There will be blood.
The crow’s feet deepen and darken at the corners of The Bricklayer’s eyes. He studies Guy’s face. Guy gives it back. He feels a gulp that wants to stick in his throat but he does not allow even a swallow to pass his palette. The Bricklayer crosses one arm over his chest and sticks his left little finger into his right bagel.
Thinking over your foolhardy bravery.
The Bricklayer nods once on the bias. “Okay I’ll give you that.” A one-sixteenth turn of his head and the posse disperses to their various jobs at the site. It’s a retaining wall that curves around a landscaped hillside, dipping beneath the surface of the earth now and then and rising like coils of the Loch Ness monster.
The Bricklayer smirks. “You gotta helluva pair a brass to bust my balls in front of my crew like that which is half my sons.”
“Yessir a family concern. But. Sir I wasn’t—”
“Whaddya want kid?”
“Just more of your advice.”
“I gave you advice?”
“You said I should quit school and start up a business doing what I did for you.”
The Bricklayer nods. “I see you changed outta that stupid shirt.”
“I took that advice too sir.”
The Bricklayer nods again sending drips of sweat down channels of dust-mud on his face. “Now you want some business advice.”
“Yessir if I could take a few minutes and pick your brain—”
“You’re better off picking your nose.”
“I’d maybe buy you a drink?”
The Bricklayer stares for the longest second that ever ticked a clock. “We ain’t likely to frequent the same establishments kid.”
“I could buy a bottle and meet you somewhere.”
The Bricklayer’s muddy nose wrinkles as if it detects a fart.
“Wouldn’t have to be in public sir.”
“Like I’m gonna meet up with you in secret?”
“No not like that either sir.”
“Then what?”
Guy is out of ideas.
The Bricklayer points a cracked and blackened fingernail directly beneath one Guy nostril.
He means for you to shut up.
“I can see that.”
“See what?”
“Uh your point. I see your point.”
“You want advice? Fine. I don’t need no drink. Besides which we prolly don’t drink the same vintage. But. I can tell you all you need to know right now. On the spot.”
On da spot.
Guy slides his notebook from his back pocket.
“Sure kid go ahead and take notes on the first rule of business.”
Guy scribbles: First Rule.
The Bricklayer leans over to read what Guy is writing as if to make himself believe he’s meeting Stupidity himself in person complete with notepad and pencil.
The Bricklayer rips pencil and paper from Guy’s grasp.
He’s gonna hit us.
Guy recoils.
“I ain’t gonna hit you.”
“Thank you sir.”
“You’re welcome dope. You wanna know the rule or not?”
“Yes sir.”
“You gotta have a customer. That’s the rule. You can remember that without writing it down in your little spiral can’t you?”
“Thank you Mister Barron but what—?”
“Get lost kid. I got work to do.” He holds out the pad and pencil.
Guy takes it and turns away noting that the pencil has snapped in the grasp of the brick hand. There’s a message in that.
Getting lost here boss. Getting lost.
“Bye Twinkie,” says one of the posse.
Don’t look back unless you want to end up like Lot’s wife.
“Kid!”
Guy whirls back ready to zig beneath a flying brick and zag away at top speed. He is not met with a brick but The Bricklayer’s tanned and dusty smile.
Somehow, like the bricking crew before, Guy reads an invisible signal to approach. The Bricklayer sweeps his hand across the landscape decorated by his brick serpent.
“Whaddya think a my wall kid?”
“Honestly?”
The Bricklayer narrows his eyes.
He ain’t lookin for honesty butt-wipe. Give him fulsome praise and platitudinous flattery.
“Sir it’s like a work of art that maybe I’d expect to see on the grounds of a museum.”
The Bricklayer nods thoughtfully squinting one eye at the wall in this new light.
“You know except for the part you’re re-bricking.” Guy points to a smashed segment of wall his sons are pecking apart with chisel hammers. “What? Didn’t meet your standards?”
“Standards. Yeah. Something like that. Nice of you to say the thing about the museum. And because of that I’m gonna give you a couple more things you didn’t ask for.” He shakes his head. “And you don’t gotta write them down neither.”
Guy stands nodding as if he knows what The Bricklayer is talking about.
“That wall is wrecked because of some ass-wipe that vandalized it kid. I think I know who.” One rough brick hand clasps Guy’s soft shoulder. “You got any ideas?”
Guy remembers the pencil and Sophia’s warning about The Bricklayer’s squeezes. He can already feel the snot streaming out of his nose like two worms of toothpaste. “Sir I didn’t . . . I mean it wasn’t me.” Guy goes silent as he sees The Bricklayer’s face forming the word Idiot. So Guy blurts. “I’m thinking Jason?”
The Bricklayer pooches his lips. “That’s what I been thinking too. He was here working—well his definition of working. Just a hod carrier—which is just a gofer that runs the mixer and carries bricks and mud to the brickers by the way.”
Guy smiles at the little kindness in The Bricklayer’s explanation.
“But the smelly little bastard—” He wrinkles his nose at Guy. “—he knew what this wall meant to me.”
Guy goes silent as he sees the pain in the crow’s feet. “It was like you said. A piece a art and he knew that.”
Da smelly bastid.
“Is there anything I can do to help you . . . avenge this vandalism?”
Have you lost our mind?
“Avenge.”
“Get even.”
“I know avenge kid.” He shakes his head in dismay. “Me an my boys get to feeling outgunned by the monkey-butt we’ll maybe give you a jingle.”
You believe he said dat wit a straight face?
“Right. I guess I did sound a little ridiculous.”
“A lot ridiculous.”
Guy’s turn to guffaw. Nerves.
“But I wouldn’t want to hurt Jason. Not over this. It’s not like he messed with my Sophia or nothing.” A silent moment of reflection and a darkening of his complexion. “If he ever done that.” He shakes his head clean of darknesses. “Well forget that. Maybe it’s a one-and-done kinda deal. I’ll put out the word. Let it get back to him that maybe if this is the end of it I’ll absorb the loss. You know give him the chance to save face—make his statement and move on. Live and let live.”
“That’s generous sir.”
“Unlessen he pulls that crap again.” He says this wistfully, looking at the wall, seeing Jason’s withered hand reaching up from beneath the spot where brick meets grass.
It’s a long half hour of awkward silence. Or maybe just ten seconds.
Guy nods and leans away from the moment so as not to embarrass the deadly sentimental bricklayer.
“Kid.”
“Sir?”
“I got one more thing.”
“Yessir.”
“Member what I said before. You get you a cash flow going and you can come back for a taste a that venture capital we talked about.” His belly bounces with a chuckle and the sentimentality is poofed. “I’ll take a look at your books and see if it’s worth a few bills. Y’know if you’re running in the black.”
So it’s black that’s the good color. Just what Marty said.
“Yessir thanks for the invitation to do business.”
Or else he’s mocking you.
“Second invitation.”
No it’s a threat.
“Yessir. Thanks.” Guy doesn’t hang around to find out. On the way back to his car he realizes he is heartened at the exchange. Cash flow. He said cash flow. Guy just knew it. There is such a thing. Wait till Marty hears.
Guy sits awhile in his Camry staring. Eventually he takes out his notepad.
Customer. Gotta have a customer. The Bricklayer said he needn’t take notes. He writes the words anyhow, just to get the feel of them coming to life beneath the point of the broken half-pencil in his fingers. Then he begins writing his first business communication with the nub. Finally he starts the Camry and leaves in a cloud of blue smoke.
It’s all he can do to force himself to enter the newspaper building. Just the act of opening the door unnerves him.
“What the hell am I doing?” he asks Himself.
The people in the lobby all give him the same look but neither Himself nor any of them has an answer to the well-dressed street denizen invading their civilization with his schizoid gibberish.