Journeyman Page 13

  —I walk out to the truck for my checkbook last night. It’s late. I’m barefoot. I have Joey in my arms, and I haven’t eaten yet.

  Manny holds up the plastic bag, looking at the rattle, rotating it from side to side, the rattle writing in cursive on the inside of the bag through the tiny beads of moisture gathered there.

  —I hear this tst-tst-tst-tst in the dark, and the first thing I think is, Shit, bro, not tonight. Please don’t be a leak in the gas line, not tonight.

  Joe’s voice, his tone and cadence, sounds practiced with the telling of the story inside his own head on the ride over.

  —So I get the checkbook, and I’m standing there, with my face shoved out in the dark, just sniffing for it, you know, looking behind my wife’s flower pots, not realizing that Joey’s picking his nose at eye level with the damn thing until, I think, Dude, the hookup’s on the other side of the house.

  —You need glasses? Nolan asks.

  —I’m going to spring for the laser work someday.

  Manny pinches the rattle stub, takes it from the baggy, shakes it and whistles.

  —Muy viejo.

  —Fuck, yes, it’s old, Joe says.

  Then Guillermo says something to Manny in Spanish that Nolan doesn’t understand but that Manny relates to Joe and Nolan both:

  —In Mexico, our father, he have two, three this big.

  —Bullshit, Joe says to Guillermo. Este, este es el hombre.

  Guillermo shrugs and walks off. Joe continues:

  —My wife’s inside whipping up tofu stir-fry with the TV on. Her daughter’s on the telephone. Again. I set Joey down inside the door, turn on the light switch and, boom, there he is, bro, all coiled up and sticking his tongue out at me. Nearly crapped my britches.

  —This where you tell us how you messed up your arm? Nolan says.

  A smile, wry and satisfied, takes over Joe’s suntanned face.

  —Well, after the shovel came out, I started swinging like crazy.

  —At least you got the snake.

  —Yeah, but the wife’s flower pots weren’t so forgiving.

  Nolan comes through the front door after work that evening to the sound of music playing from behind Cosmo’s bedroom door. Articles of men’s and women’s clothing are scattered along the hallway floor. Pant legs pooled and long sleeves flat on the floor, as if reaching out for the ones who left them there. Nolan walks directly into the kitchen, grabs an apple, and is turning to leave when a loud thud sounds from down the hall, followed by a woman’s laughter. A few moments later, Cosmo’s bedroom door opens, and he walks down the hallway and into the kitchen, naked beneath his robe, his hand pressed against the back of his head, his eyeglasses crooked.

  —Some things just can’t be done, he says to Nolan while digging in the freezer for an ice pack. I don’t care how limber you are.

  —Gravity prevail?

  —Infinitely.

  Cosmo presses the ice pack to the back of his head and leans against the refrigerator door while Nolan rinses the apple in the sink and then wipes it dry on the inside of his shirt.

  —I’m going out for a bit.

  —Probably best for all parties involved.

  Nolan rides to the plaza and chains the bicycle to a newspaper stand in front of The Bull and The Bear. At the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank across the square, a group of carpenters work on scaffolding under flood lamps. From what Nolan can tell, they’re doing a light remodel of the façade to antique it for the film that is due to begin shooting in Burnridge in a week’s time. Several clusters of townspeople and tourists stand watching the carpenters’ shadows, thrown long against the brightly lit building. Nolan listens to the nail guns thwap and to the circular saws groan and whine.

  The marine layer has come in overhead, and the light from the flood lamps brightens the usual red-orange hue of the night to a milky blue. The entire plaza seems altered, somehow, in anticipation of the filming, more presented than usual. It reminds Nolan of a theme park he visited in southern California with a woman he was dating when he was twenty-one. They ate psilocybin mushrooms and walked hand-in-hand beneath the flashing lights and cartoonish images, the people dressed in costumes, the people play-acting characters. Nolan and the woman walked by a group of toughs who made fun of his boots and hat, but he and the woman both looked beyond them, eyes wide and humming, and passed on without further incident.

  —Headache, yells one of the carpenters working on the façade as a board falls clattering to the ground from the third-story scaffolding.

  Nolan wakes from the memory of the theme park to see his shadow cast before him, lean and tall and jean-jacketed and wearing his white Western hat. We maintain narratives, however false, to survive. Cosmo does. You do. Grant him his lies as he grants you yours.

  When Nolan pushes through the swinging doors of The Bull and The Bear, he finds Dave, the bartender, alone in the place, watching a baseball game on television. Nolan sits at the bar, looks it up and down, and then lifts his hands to Dave as if to say, where is everyone? To which Dave replies:

  —They heard you were on your way over.

  —Slip me a few bucks and I’ll drink elsewhere.

  —Nah, then those assholes would be here.

  Then, setting a napkin in front of Nolan:

  —What’ll it be?

  —Top-shelf whiskey and a half draft back, please.

  The bartender sets the shot glass on the bar and fills it. Then, he walks down to the draft handles. At the back of the barroom, near the bathroom doors, the green felt of the pool table glows under a stained-glass chandelier. A chalkboard, screwed to the wall beyond, bears names from previous competitions. Lou, Al, FC, Tom, Android. The jukebox stands unplugged in the corner beneath a set of plaques for Meatloaf, Spaghetti, and Chili contests. Dave sets the beer in front of Nolan.

  —Where’s numb nuts?

  —He made a new friend.

  —Yeah, I met her. Two trains, wrecking in the night.

  Nolan shakes his head and smiles, his eyes on the whiskey as he sips.

  —You really his brother? Dave asks, wiping down the bar with a damp rag.

  —I am.

  —And you admit to that?

  —You seem like the compassionate sort.

  —Ha, Dave laughs. Good one.

  —Looks like they’re cleaning up the old bank across the way, Nolan says, setting the glass down on the bar.

  —Hard to miss with all the lights. They’ll probably spend more time working on it than they do actually using the damn thing.

  —No doubt, Nolan says, watching the streaks momentarily catch the bar’s light before fading away completely.

  —From what I hear, Dave says, it’s going to be more of a car commercial than anything else.

  —I heard that, too.

  —Apparently it’s based on a true story, but they’re changing the ending so that the lady drives off into the sunset.

  —Probably wouldn’t make a very good commercial if the car drives off a cliff.

  —No, it wouldn’t. Dave smiles.

  Nolan looks into the empty shot glass before him.

  —Hollywood stretches the truth, he says.

  —Hell, we all do, they just make money at it.

  —En México, Manny says the next morning as he and Nolan are on the roof removing an old aluminum antenna and accompanying guy wires, I meet this man. He has many cow. They eat the grass. But two places, hay un cercado. How you say?

  —Fence.

  —Sí, two places hay mucho grass in the fence. Está muy alto. ¿Entiendes?

  —Sí, the grass is tall in the fenced area but no en los otros lugares.

  —I say to this man, “Why you no have you cows there?” He say, “Is special places. Is where I have my first time.” ¿Entiendes? No más un virgen.

  —All right. Nolan smiles.

  —Then, I say, “Y el otro place. ¿Qué pasó allá? What h
appen there?” He say, “Her parents watch there.” I say, “Her parents? They watch?” “Sí,” he say. I say, “What they say when they see you?”

  Nolan looks over at the Mexican, grinning that grin of his.

  —He say, “They say, ‘Moo.’”

  Nolan calls Linda on his ride home from work that day from the phone booth in front of the Chinese restaurant.

  —Hello.

  —Hear me out.

  —What do you want, Nolan?

  —Just hear me out.

  —Fine. What?

  —I was walking by this pasture the other day and there’s this guy there, with all his cows.

  —Are you really doing this?

  —Except, he’s got these two spots in the pasture that are fenced off where the grass grows tall. So, I ask him, “Why’re those two spots fenced off?” And he says, “Well, that one there’s where I lost my virginity.” “And the other one?” I ask. “That’s where her parents stood and watched.” “They what?” I said. “Yeah,” he says. “They stood and watched.” “What’d they say when they saw you?” I ask him. And he says: “Moo.”

  A second or two later, Linda states:

  —That’s funny.

  —How are you?

  —I’m fine. Really good actually.

  —Yeah?

  —Yeah, I’m getting ready for a date.

  Nolan doesn’t respond, and Linda pounces on his silence with:

  —And how are you?

  —I’m all right.

  —Where are you?

  —Northern California.

  —What’s up there?

  —My brother. He writes for a newspaper up here.

  —And here I didn’t even know you had a brother.

  Nolan can hear the radio on in the background, the voices conversing.

  —He’s a couple years older than me.

  —Are you staying with him?

  —Yeah, in his garage.

  —Lovely. Are you working?

  —I am.

  —Tracts?

  —No, a remodel actually.

  Linda doesn’t respond. He can feel her letting him fill the silence.

  —I’m mostly doing the grunt work on this one. It’s been pretty neat, you know, exposing the work of others, their cuts, the joints and seams and stuff. I like seeing that.

  —Is it old?

  —At least eighty years.

  —Wow.

  —Not a straight line in the place.

  —Let’s see you in eighty years.

  —Right. Nolan smiles.

  He bites the inside of his lip. He’s got her listening and he knows that if he allows her a word in edgewise he’ll lose her, so he does what comes least naturally: he talks.

  —Did you know old window glass gets thicker along the bottom sill than along the top? It settles with time.

  —Can’t say that I did.

  —I knew an apprentice carpenter down in LA; he said he found five grand hidden in a wall once. It was wrapped in a newspaper dated December 8, 1941.

  —Lot of money back then.

  —Lot of money today.

  —Sure it is.

  —Another guy I know found a stash of women’s underwear tucked away in a wall.

  —Did he keep them?

  —I don’t know.

  —Did he?

  —Yes.

  —Men are disgusting.

  —I once came across a bunch of business cards with dates inked on the back. One of them had a friendly “Up Yours” written on it.

  —Just another way of marking your territory.

  —That’s not it.

  —What is it, then?

  —A hundred years ago, everyone probably knew the people who built their homes.

  —Do you really think that’s true?

  —Not in every situation, no, but in most, I bet you did. Hell, I know it was a lot more than today.

  —OK, so?

  —Sometimes, I think about all the places I’ve been, all the walls I’ve raised, no one knows it was me except the guys I worked alongside, and even they—

  —What, you want your name in lights?

  —I didn’t say that.

  —What are you saying, then?

  —I guess leaving behind cards or signing a wall or a joist is just our way of communicating with each other. Of saying, look, I was here, too. It’s not always a signature. I’ve come across vulgar pictures, hand drawn and photographed.

  —You keep any of them?

  —No.

  —Did you?

  —No, but once, on a lath board in the closet of this one house, I found a pencil drawing of a swan, dated 1905. I kept that. Just some old timer’s way of signing his work, of saying, I was here, like putting your name in concrete.

  Nolan feels like he’s said all that he has to say, but there’s more, and he doesn’t know how to say it all, so he doesn’t, and in the silence that ensues he feels like he’s losing her until she speaks, and not to challenge him, not to snap at him, not to condescend in warranted hurt and understandable anger:

  —In the museum at school, there’s a collection of old Indian baskets.

  She hesitates.

  —I mean Native American.

  —I know what you mean, he says.

  —This one woman, her baskets are highly regarded. Apparently, she would put a mis-weave in every one she made. She never put it the same place, and never where you’d immediately notice it, but when you did, the basket never looked the same again, and you knew straightaway that it was one of hers.

  —I like that, Nolan says, the receiver warm against his head.

  —Me, too.

  —How is school?

  —School’s school.

  Nolan tests the waters:

  —Don’t tell me, then.

  —Don’t pretend you’re interested, she responds, not harshly, but in the way she would in the past.

  —I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t.

  —You also wouldn’t have left the way you did if you were.

  He pushed it.

  —Fair enough.

  —Yeah, she says, fair enough.

  —So how’s school? he tries again.

  —I don’t know. She sighs.

  —Why’s that?

  —I’m having second thoughts about the prospect of looking into people’s mouths and smelling their breaths for the next twenty-five years.

  —Don’t you all wear those little blue masks?

  —Very funny.

  —So, what then?

  —I don’t know. I really like my teachers, and for the most part I get along with all the other girls, but I don’t know. I think I might want to study something else.

  —Like what?

  —I don’t know. For the first time in my life, I really give a shit about school, and I’m good at it, and now I worry I’ve settled for dental hygiene because it’s safe.

  —Nothing wrong with that.

  —No, but, I guess I just never saw myself in college, and now that I’m here, even though I’m the oldest one in the class, I don’t see myself anywhere else.

  —Yeah, Nolan says.

  Linda gets quiet. He doesn’t want to press her further, but he doesn’t want to get off the phone with her either, so he says:

  —It’s a good group of guys I’m working with. This kid, Manny, and his older brother, Guillermo. You’d get a kick out of Manny. Kid never shuts up. He’s the one who told me that joke.

  —It’s a good one.

  —Yeah.

  —So, your brother’s a writer?

  —A reporter, yeah.

  —That’s got to be exciting.

  —There’s a firebug running around town here, setting old houses on fire.

  —I haven’t heard that word in I don’t know how long. Since my grandpa was alive, probably.

  —What’s
that, firebug?

  —Yeah.

  —That’s not what he’s calling him in the paper.

  —I hope not.

  —Yeah.

  —What’s it like there?

  —It’s wine country.

  —Nice.

  —Yeah. Chance moved here with his wife a few years back when he got the job at the paper. She was a yoga instructor. They bought a house for way too much and now he’s in it on his own.

  —Why’d she leave?

  —I don’t know.

  —Did you ask him?

  —We don’t talk about that kind of stuff.

  —You mean important stuff?

  —I asked, and he didn’t say.

  —What’s her name?

  —Dawn. She left him for the real-estate agent that sold them the house.

  —Ouch.

  —Yep.

  —How’s he doing with that?

  Nolan thinks a few seconds before answering.

  —He’s brittle. He means well, but he’s got his head wrapped tight around everything and it’s making him paranoid. That, and all the pot he smokes.

  —That’ll do it.

  —Yes, it will.

  —Maybe he’s the firebug?

  —No, I asked him.

  —Really?

  —Yes.

  —I was joking. What’d he say?

  —He said he was flattered.

  —That’s weird. Why?

  —It’s a long story.

  —Yeah.

  Nolan knows what’s coming, but he’s OK with it; he’s re-established a line of communication. He knows he can call again, and soon.

  —Listen, Linda says, allowing her words to taper off.

  —Yeah, I know. I just wanted to share that joke with you.

  —Thanks for that.

  —I’ll talk to you later.

  —OK.

  —Bye, Linda.

  —Bye.

  At the end of June, they celebrate Guillermo’s thirty-third birthday by going for tacos after work at a taqueria at the south end of town.

  —My treat, hombres, Joe says as they stand in an awkward group at the counter.

  —¿Sí? You treat? Manny smiles, looking up at the menu and pulling at his chin with his thumb and forefinger in mock contemplation.

  —Why don’t you go play something on the jukebox? Joe says.

  —¿Cómo?

  —Cómo, my ass, amigo. You heard me.