Masonry

(Lewd and graphically sexual language, physical violence)

The scaffolding was built and level. The boys made sure when they left the day before, so the masons could start laying brick first thing in the morning. It was hot, so they started at six.

The first batch of mortar, already mixed and dumped into a mud pan, rested on a two-by-twelve running the width of the scaffolding, bowing under the stacked bricks.

Ernie, cigarette in one hand, troweled the mud in the pan to assess the consistency. “Looks okay. Keep it thin. It’ll dry out in this heat.”

“They’re doing fine,” Paul answered. “You’re doing fine, just keep it stirred.”

“Yes sir.”

After an hour, the sun was above the trees, and the shade was gone.

“Go fish around in the ashtray of my car. I think I have a roach in there.”

“Why do you always make them do that? It’s not right.”

“They’re paid to get us what we need.”

“Bricks and mortar, build the scaffolding, not that.”

Ernie smiled at Paul. “How’s the missus? You get laid last night?”

“Leave my missus out of it.”

“Well, you know, I ain’t got no missus myself, never did, never will. That don’t mean I can’t get laid good and hard. That’s a boy, Junior. Want a hit?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Prob’ly smart. Don’t start. You can be like Paul here. He don’t smoke either. Where’s my lighter? Here we go.”

The boys kept the mud stirred and the bricks stocked, and the men worked in silence. When it was break time, they all climbed down the scaffolding. The men lifted their caps moist with sweat under a shade tree where hatless boys stood hatless, hair matted, sharing a water jug.

“Hotter than a sonofabitch and the temp’s only rising. All right now, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, before lunchtime, you need to build the scaffolding another tier, got it?”

“Ernie, they have names. It’s Joe and John, right?”

The boys nodded.

“They knew who I meant. You boys ever been laid before?”

“Ernie, please.”

Back on the wall, plumb and level, the boys built the next tier of scaffolding before lunch break.

Lunch pail open in front of him, Paul and the boys chewed sandwiches, as Ernie sucked the foam off a second can of beer. “I tell you about this Mexican girl I been seeing?”

“Ernie, don’t start.”

The corners of Ernie’s mouth turned up to form a toothless smile. He lit a cigarette. “La puesy mas fina. I don’t know what they teach them girls down in Mexico, but I tell you what, she knows how to suck a dick.”

Ernie looked the boys in the eyes. “You ever had your dick sucked ‘til your balls ache? Like, literally, she sucks me dry.”

Speechless, the boys stared back at Ernie.

“That’s enough, Ernie.”

“I’m telling you, I ain’t ever been sucked dry before, not like this. I mean, she is something else. When she is done, there ain’t nothin’ left.”

Paul shook his head, closed his lunch pail, and walked to his pickup truck.

“I’ve got to take a piss just thinking about it.”

“Okay, boys, back to work. John, you mix the mud. Joe, brick needs stocked. Meet you on the wall.”

John pulled the rope to hoist a bucket at a time, bricks then mud, to Joe standing up top, next to the pulley planted in a corner pole. After each load, Joe sent the empty bucket back down on the rebar hook. “We’re good. Can’t take no more.”

John climbed up to stock behind Paul, while Joe stayed on Ernie’s side of the wall.

“I’ve known Ernie a long time. He and I worked together over twenty years. He’s made a lot of mistakes in his life, treated a lot of women badly. He ain’t happy. He don’t listen to me, says what he wants to say, but you don’t gotta listen to him neither, you hear?”

The boys nodded solemnly while Ernie climbed back up.

“Okay, ‘nuff said. Hand me that trowel, John.”

Taking his place on the wall, Ernie looked at Joe. “You squeaky clean, ain’t you?”

Joe shrugged. “I guess.”

“That’s okay. I don’t take no offense. Go see if there’s another roach in my ashtray. That’s a boy. You’ll see what I’m talking about when you get your dick sucked for the first time.”

“Ernie, that’s enough.”

“Well, it’s true, ain’t it?”

“We should be teaching these boys how to be gentlemen. That’s no way for a gentleman to talk.”

“Difference ‘tween me and you, Paul, is we need to toughen ‘em up. They already gentle.”

At two-thirty, direct sun overhead, Paul tapped the last brick in place. Ernie swigged his first beer since lunch and ran the striking iron along the mortar joints. “You boys start here tomorrow. Tear down this scaffolding. Paul and I got a different job next building a firebox in Kennett tomorrow.”

Paul pulled his flatbed into the driveway, entered the basement of his townhouse in Aston, and wiped his dusty soles on a welcome mat: “Bless This House and All Who Enter,” it said.

Upstairs the living room, plastic covered sofa set before a fireplace where a crucifix and a picture of the Pope hung, opened to the dining room, set for two on a table for four. Paul stopped at the urn on the mantle.

“Hi Honey, I’m home. Sure was a hot day, but we finished that wall.

“No, working at a different site tomorrow, building a firebox. Should be better shaded if they got the roof on it. Like always, I’ll do my best to make you proud.

“I miss you, too. Old Ernie’s still the same, but I ain’t given up working on him.

“Seeing a Mexican girl now, he said. ‘Course, unlike us, he never got married. At this age, I guess he never will.

“No, I don’t need no Mexican girl, or anyone else. I know you wouldn’t mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to it. You were always the only one for me.

“When you were still here, my temper got the better of me. I realize Ernie ain’t my enemy. Even if he was, that don’t excuse what Scripture teaches. I might not grin, but I do bear it.

“Oh, Ernie, yeah he smiled plenty today. He smokes and he drinks. He looks happy, but mostly he just gets satisfaction at my reaction. Maybe the Mexican girl makes him happy. Don’t rightly know.”

Paul took the urn from the fireplace mantle and stepped on a scale, the kind with digital numbers, in the dining room. One ninety-nine point five. He could remember that. He placed the urn back on the mantle and stepped on the scale himself. One ninety point oh. Nine point five rounds to ten.

“You were always a ten in my book, Mable.”

The next morning, Paul pulled up to the house in Kennett. The roofers hadn’t yet arrived, but plywood covered the frame. It was shaded from above.

Ernie mixed the mortar in the pan and firebrick was stacked on either side of it.

“No helper today, I guess.”

“That’s okay. We done this before many times.”

“True. Ain’t nothin’ new about it.”

“How’s the missus? You get laid last night?”

“Ernie, please. Can’t you find something different to talk about?”

Ernie smiled and pulled a cigarette from his pack. Lighting it, he said, “Do you know what an eleven is?”

Paul shook his head. “What are you talkin’ about? An ‘eleven’?”

“It’s a ten who swallows.” Ernie laughed and flicked the ash from his cigarette.

=========================

You a vely rucky man. Vely rucky. You sulvive blick. Blick to head.

=========================

Mable, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I guess it was what he said about a ten, and, like I said, you were always a ten to me.

No, I can’t repeat it here.

Just know that I ain’t probably long for this world if the law catches up to me.

===========================

Joe arrived at the Kennett house. Stapled paper covered the roof and blood stained the plywood subfloor. No Ernie, no Paul.

“Who you?” The call startled Joe. John stood beside him before the fireplace, firebox still needing built.

“I’m Joe. This is John.”

“Don’t John speak himself?”

“I talk.”

“Looks like another one of these crews finally got into it.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the guy that Mister Marvel sends to clean up the messes.”

“Do you know Ernie and Paul?”

“Ha! Ernie and Paul? ‘Course I know them. Been working with them

old timers for the past twenty years.”

“So, what happened?”

“You wasn’t here for it?”

“No, we were takin’ down scaffold at that Delco job.”

“That shoulda been a two-hour deal. What time you get here?”

“It was. Well, a few hours. We got here ‘round eleven. Just before lunch.”

“And?”

“And there was blood on the ground, I mean the floor here. We asked the roofers if they knew what happened, and they said they got here after whatever went down.”

“So, why ain’t this firebox already built?”

“We’re just hod carriers.”

“How long you been doing this?”

“Since the beginning of the summer.”

The man paused. His tongue protruded his cheek like a second nose and he clicked it, flicked it, like a snake and spat. His boot ground his saliva into the plywood.

“I’m trying to remember if it was at four weeks or eight when I laid my first brick. Block is easier. Heavier, but easier to learn to do right, level and have it look good. Brick’s more an art. Obviously, neither you boys ever been laid. Easier to lay, if you been laid. Broke my cherry when I was fourteen, went to work same age. That was twenty-five years ago. Hain’t gone back to school since, and I think I might a gone a couple years too long.

“So, here’s the deal. Mister Marvel wants all this to go away. Build the firebox, finish the job, eliminate the blood and so on. One a y’all needs to spread lime down here. Water it down lightly, then scrub it with a wire brush. Do that two or three times and holler at me for an inspection.

“Whoever don’t do that, you my bitch for the day. Stock that brick, mud that pan, and help me build this firebox!”

“What’s your name?”

“Lou-ee.”

Louis and John worked the firebox and Joe scrubbed the plywood with lime to pull up the blood. He wished he had the firebox. The process was slow and tedious and not clear it was working.

After three times with the wire brush, lime and water, the blood faded. Louis came to inspect.

“Good enough,” he said. “Now, you jump in and mix the next batch. John’s mud ain’t for shit.”

Joe mixed mud and John stocked brick and Louis slapped mortar on and built the firebox, cutting a brick in half on each tier with the back of his masonry hammer, finished by lunchtime.

After lunch, Louis said, “You all clean up. Make it spic and span. Mister Marvel told me Joe you report back here tomorrow. I don’t know who the mason is, but someone is assigned. Meantime, I need to address another clean up sitch. John, you come with me.”

======================================

Paul arrived the next morning. First time in his life Louis had to sweep up behind him. He preferred to clean up his own messes. That’s what he learned from Mable. No mind, seemed like he just might get by one more time.

Mister Marvel wanted him to finish the fireplace around the firebox Louis built. He arrived at six, like normal. The roof shingled, it was cool inside, with drywall delivered, waiting to hang. Joe was there, mud mixed, red brick stacked. No mantle. Joe troweled the mud. A breeze blew.

“Looks good,” Paul said.

“What happened to Ernie?”

“I’m a good Christian,” Paul said. “I ought not to say.”

“It was his blood here, wasn’t it? I cleaned it up yesterday. The lime and water worked.”

Paul nodded. “Reliable formula. Now, then, how ‘bout you start laying brick today?”

==============================

You rike-uh Chinee food? You rike-uh Asian gull? You rike-uh Asian gull sock yo’ dick? You rike-uh?

==============================

“What happened to Ernie’s car? It was here yesterday, but before Louis left, it was gone.”

“Mister Marvel has a tow truck. You know, for … situations.”

“Situations?”

“Yeah, like if someone gets hurt on the job, and then they need to be taken to the hospital. Someone needs to move their car. Mister Marvel makes it happen.”

“Did you take Ernie to the hospital?”

“I took him from the job site so he could be looked after.”

“You mean, like, taken care of?”

“Yes, exactly.”

=======================================

“You rike-uh dis chale? Dis weer-chale?

“No, you lerax. No try move. I take cay you.

“You rike-uh I make-uh yo deek are hald? I make-uh yo deek are hald, you rike-uh?

“You rike-uh no pant?

“You rike-uh dis rong sreeve jacket, tie on end?

“You lerax. I take cay you.

“You rike-uh come my mouth? You rike-uh come?

“You rike-uh nice hot? Nice hot, you rike-uh? I crose dole now. You lerax.”

“Missa Paur pick you up, take you home.”

=====================================

Paul pulls his pickup into the driveway of his house in Delaware County, wipes the soles of his dusty work boots on the welcome mat that said, “Bless This House and All Who Enter,” and with his free hand, opens the door and collects an urn to bring upstairs.

Crossing the living room with the plastic covered sofa and the crucifix and the picture of the Pope to the dining table with seating for four, now set for three, he steps on the scale with digital numbers. Two oh three. He writes it down. He placed the urn back on the mantle, then steps on the scale himself. One ninety point oh. Thirteen. Unrucky numble.

“Hi Honey! Mable, you remember Ernie.

“Ernie, you finally get to meet the missus. Best behavior, okay? Table’s set for you to join us for dinner. Who’s hungry? I know I am. Brought home Chinese food. Your favorite, Mable: Wanton soup and chicky fly lice.

“Ernie, you no rike-uh Chinese? Haha! Now I raff. I raff at you.

“Okay, Ernie. I was only joking. I’ll stop laughing at you. Tell you what: How ‘bout we do Mexican tomorrow?”

THE END