Cinder Rhythm

I love it.

The scrape, scrape, scrape, scraaape of the metal pressing along the cinder. The plink, plink, plop of mortar from the trowel. I know what to do, plop, scraaape, pick up, place, plonk, scraaape away the mortar which seeps out from the pressure. My fingers feel like sediment, calloused from handling the cement. Sturdy, stuck, hard, callous. 

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Sally is dressed in a floral pinafore; the same one every day. The same look every day. She offers me a roll; I take and hmmm like every other day. I hear the plink, the plonk, the scraaape as she continues at the counter. The sound is comfortable and keeps me in the rhythm, the structure I wish for.  Stripping and washing, I feel my cemented hands scratch along my arms, legs, belly. Consistent, soft skin versus rough fingers. It’s a familiar feeling.

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Up, up, up we go. Higher the wall goes and so do we. Bus is his name. He scraaapes and plonks with me. Or beside me. The only thing to separate us. We find ourselves in a rhythm working on the structure of the building. A wall here, one there, another over there. I say goodbye to Bus as I leave. He waves. I nod. We work together every day. I hear the trowel, mortar, and cinder as I leave; the scraaape, plonk, plonk, and scraaape harmonizes with the tap, tap, tap, tap of my steel boots.

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Sally is dressed in a floral pinafore, the same one. The same thing everyday. She offers me a pastry, I take, I bite, and hmmm like every other day. I hear the plink, the plonk, the scraaape as she works at the counter. The sound’s keeps me in the rhythm, the structure I wish for.  Stripping then washing, I feel my cemented hands scratch along my arms, legs, belly. Hard and rough, I wash but the grey never leaves my hands, grounded in the cracks keeping them held together—my body would fall apart without it. 

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Bus is propped on the scaffolding like Michelango in the Sistine Chapel. Looking at the sky as if it's his greatest work. Instead, the structure beside and under him is his grey work. My grey work. We don’t talk as we stack the cinders but we both sit back and eat for lunch, sandwiches and carrots; our wives are similar. You think? I pause to look at him, but he’s lost in the strokes of blue and white above us. You think? he eventually parrots back. I shake my head, he shakes his. We start back at the wall and I feel like a tire, worn from the constant scraaape of cement on the road. Slowly tearing, breaking down, popping. 

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Fridays Sally and I head over to her parents home for dinner. She makes casserole and a pie. They have ham or chicken, corn, and potatoes. Today is roast chicken and each bite feels like a scratch to the back of my throat, slowly crawling down. We laugh, we eat, our chairs scraaape when we leave and we are out the door.

Singing cicadas greet us outside the house and I finally listen. Sally is briskly walking to the car but I listen and the buzz around me clicks and slides into place. I can hear. I can breathe. I am lost.

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I drag myself to work Monday. Monday feels like no day, like no purpose. So I plop, scraaape, pick up, place, plonk, scraaape until the tips of my fingers are raw under the gloves. They are not callous, rough, tough; they don’t feel like cement anymore. When I move the cinder into place it takes my breath and shoots it through the new wall. It is not stable anymore. I am not stable. Bus looks like a living machine, moving, creating, and unstoppable. I am like barley, blown by the smallest bit of wind. There is no structure, no rhythm. I am lost in this noise and lost without it.

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Sally? I catch her doing the same thing, in the same floral pinafore, she hands me a treat and I nearly cry. I can hear the plink, the plonk, the scraaape as she works. The same noise. The sounds that kept me in the rhythm now kills me; the structure I wished for crushing me. I strip and wash. My cemented hands feel like roadburn along my arms, legs, belly. Abrasive, disorienting. My body is deteriorating because of the same thing every single day. 

I can't do it. I just go back to the plink, plonk, scraaape, or I will be chaos. I am chaos. I am lost. Lost lost lost.

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You think? I greet Bus. He stabilizes. Again: You think?

I don’t.

Can I?

You shouldn’t.

But I can’t not.

Then you must.

I should go.

You should.

Goodbye Bus. I could hear the plink, plink, plonk, scraaape as I walked away. I felt it down my face—my fingers scraaaping away the feeling. I shouldn't leave but I can't stay here. Bus feels it too, but can't go. I can but I shouldn't have, and yet I did. 

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Sally is sitting at the table when I come in. I am early since I left and her floral pinafore is hanging by the pantry. Wife, I couldn’t—I can’t. She looks up and it’s like she knew. The feeling of lost goes sideways. I am lost, she is here, we will be okay. I am unstable, moved, emotional, and so so tired of my day. I strip and wash and sit under the water. My hands are red and soft from the heat. My arms are bronze and lean from the sun, my legs white from the year-round coverage. My belly feels light from not seeing grey for the first time in years. Not being grey. I am conflicted, it looks wrong but feels natural like I had put casing over my body, and now that it's off I don’t know how to function. In the past I loved it, and now I have left it. The lightness deep in me tells me I will be okay. We will be okay. We can move forward without the mortar, the trowel, the cinder.