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CHAPTER 10, EXCERPT 1
The next three days were dry and mild and the crew made good progress on Pillsbury’s Palace. The dormers were roughed out and Moran was having daily discussions with King Richard concerning the details of the remodel. Moran would come back from the talks shaking his head and grinning, saying Pillsbury was constantly coming up with new ideas, new features that he wanted. Moran said the man was talking a showcase job, no expenses spared; make it the envy of London Road.
This was good news to Frank because he’d begun to realize the fallacy in thinking this gig would be a stepping stone to a better life, the first step down the path to respectability and steady employment and all that. The acid trip had clearly made him delusional. Temporarily. Now he was just hoping this gig would last until the leaves started changing and maybe he’d have time to find something indoors before full-on winter came to call.
Over the course of the week, Nurse Judy had made only rare appearances outside, and when she did cross Frank’s path she wore her prim and proper face and barely acknowledged his presence. And it was getting to him. Stuff he was feeling wasn’t going away. He’d avoided Nikki all week, not returning her calls and ignoring her pleas on his answering machine—if pleas wasn’t too strong a word—to come out to the club, “like he used to.” She also offered to let him use the Honda whenever he had a need and that made him feel like a total hangdown.
Thirty-six year old man needs to use his girlfriend’s car. Old perv’s got one hand in the girl’s pants and the other in her purse. Man’s a withering parasite. White trash.
And, man, he didn’t need any more reasons for self-persecution; he was a goddamn expert already.
On Friday morning Frank was looking out his kitchen window at the gray, threatening clouds when Moran’s truck swung in. Minutes later, stepping in to mingle with the scent of old Coney’s, cheap cigars, puke and decaying fast food, Frank believed the stink was the worst he could recall, the aroma coming off Moran’s tall steaming paper cup of Holiday coffee only making it worse. And he could only open the window a crack because now it was raining.
By the time Moran turned into Pillsbury’s driveway, it was pouring. Frank saw Waverly across the road in the Olds, the hippie grinning behind the rain-streaked windshield, thin smoke escaping from the partially open driver’s window. Moran brought the truck to a stop at the end of the driveway and shut off the ignition. Old Chevy pickup gave a snort and a buck and went quiet. “No outside work today if this keeps up,” Moran said, gazing at the raindrops hammering and bubbling on the truck’s faded white hood. “But I think I can find enough for us to do inside to keep us here until noon at least. Today is payday, so maybe Pillsbury will be so pleased with all the work we got done that he’ll give us the afternoon off on his dime.”
“You think so?” Frank said, his voice rising in disbelief.
“Not really. But a man can dream, y’know? More likely he bitches about all three of us being in his house at the same time.”
Waverly came to Moran’s window, knocked on the glass and pointed at the sky, raindrops bouncing off his high cheekbones. “Okay, Keith, I know,” Moran said to the closed window. “We’ll go in the house so you can stay dry. Grab my tool box out of the back, would you?”
They went inside and checked all the new construction for leaks. Finding none, they completed the finishing stages on the interior of the dormers. Next they measured the outline for the new set of glass doors Pillsbury wanted at the back of the house—the rich man evidently desiring a showy deck to keep up with the neighbors. Every house you saw on London Road these days seemed to have a new and impressive lakeside deck.
Waverly, the gopher and lowest on the totem pole, had, over the course of the morning, made several runs to the dumpster with hunks of scrap wood and assorted debris and was now sitting on a sawhorse, his damp black curls pasted to his forehead, a trail of wet muddy prints leading to his green-striped Adidas sneakers. Watching Moran brushing sawdust off his blue denim Oskosh B’gosh overalls, Waverly said, “We get paid by check or cash, Danny?”
“Pillsbury gives me a check and I total up the hours of my crew and pay them accordingly. Got you down for twelve and a half hours, Keith. Ought to be enough for you to get drunk on tonight.”
Waverly gave him the finger. “Fuck you, man,” he said. “It’s thirteen if it’s a minute.”
“Thirteen hours it is then,” Moran said.
“Blow me,” Waverly said.
“Before or after I pay you?”
“How about both?”
Moran grinned and walked toward the stairs. “Thirty-six hours for both of you losers.”
Frank was standing where he could see the bottom of the stairway, waiting there in case Nurse Judy came down like she often did at this time of day. Behind him he heard Waverly say, “You know what this rain means, don’t you, Frank?”
Turning, Frank said, “Water is falling from the sky?”
“There’s that. But also, man, this time of year after a warm spell, first big rain usually brings the smelt into the rivers.”
“Ah, the smelt run, Zenith’s rite of spring. Hordes of drunken smelters littering the shore with beer bottles, biting the heads off little silvery fish and pissing in strangers’ backyards.”
“Good times, man. You partake?”
“Not for a while. The novelty has kinda worn off for me. My ex and I used to like going to those tents that sell the dinners—and I still like a good plate of deep-fried smelt every year, it’s a tradition I guess—but I haven’t actually smelted in years.”
“Speaking of tradition,” Waverly said, “You been back to the Metro since Sunday?”
“No, man. Betty left a couple pissed-off messages on my machine and I’m not quite ready to face her. Knowing her and knowing me, I might just end up behind the bar again if I let her start her rhetoric.”
“Is that a rhetorical statement?”
Frank threw him a frown and then turned to Moran coming off the stairs waving a check. “Here we are, boys, the goose has shat. I’ll take this down to the bank and meet you guys at the Metropole.”
“Ah man,” Frank said, “not there. Betty’ll tear me a new one if I walk in there. Woman’s got a bullwhip for a tongue. Also, I’m not sure if that’s the best place to be seen distributing cash. Based on my ten years of experience, y’know.”
“How about the Shoal then?” Moran said.
Frank said, “It has to be a bar?”
Moran said, “Best place to buy you guys a drink for making this job go so smooth.”
Frank said, “I was sorta hoping to stay out of the bars for a while, having spent half my life in one.”
“Turning pussy?” Moran said, a dull look taking over his freckled face. “Or just getting old?”
“Little of both, I think,” Frank said. “But all right, I’ll meet you at the Shoal—for one. The one you’re gonna buy, Danny boy.”
“Let’s rock and roll then, boys.” Waverly said.
(To be continued)
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