A Builder's Tale - Chapter Fourteen

A Builder's Tale - Chapter Fourteen

                                                 Chapter Fourteen—A Builder’s Tale

                                  Carpe diem and on a Monday too 

     Then it was Monday, the day of lost weekends and mornings of no achievement.       Wilson stared at himself in the mirror, awakening.  He had always hated Mondays. He still did, rarely finding that get up and go, that seize the day energy on a Monday.  No… Monday mornings were for wishing they had not arrived.  It must go back to days of school, he thought…and the tyranny of primary education.  Monday, the worst day of the week because there were four more days to come… Ouch, eek, yikes, horrible… carted off to schools which could have been prisons… to hear dismal doofus teachers droning, accompanied by bells, flags, pledges and marching.  He hated Mondays, and Wilson knew (it was becoming obvious) that although freed from the Gulags of primary and secondary education, given the night before, he was in dire need of the continuing kind; education that might teach him to stop fucking up.

     His reflection in the mirror was awful, not improved any by his mood.  He saw no smile this Monday… No joy, no victory, no industry waiting, only sagging muscles on too white naked skin, flesh loosened from times gravity, and that silly organ-appendage, his penis, dangling beneath his gut like some creator’s afterthought.  ‘I guess it will need one of these, just staple the thing here¸ but it looks ridiculous. Tough.  Got no more time for this planet or that creature.  Ha-Ha…There are more important worlds to wander’

     Wilson was in a foul mood.  In addition, his mouth felt dry as dead weeds and tasted like a barnyard.  This because, in his infinite lack of wisdom, he had nursed then finished the whiskey bottle while listening to opera into the wee hours of the night, finishing with Verdi’s Othello and Desdemona’s incessant dying; suffering as much as she through that tormented interminable fourth act.  It was Verdi’s fault for writing that long lament, and Shakespeare’s too, for thinking up the play.  There was nothing for his mood but exercise.

     With this in mind, he headed down his stairs and out his door towards the lake and resurrecting water; sweating from his pores even as he shivered in the crisp morning.  Too many toxins, he thought, psychic, financial, and otherwise.  He walked out into the morning cold, and a lake which made his testicles shrivel into nothingness, plunging into the water to come up sputtering as he stroked, pulling the water against him and thrusting it away… swimming towards his sloop, and then towards another a hundred yards distant.  Nine laps, fore and back, and he would make a mile.  And after this mile, he felt renewed, patched up physically, enough to examine how to patch and repair his standing with women, his well-being, and his bank account.

     He would start first with money, deposit the check and then call Tim and demand more, then call ‘Dan the cement man’, and lie yet once again.  “We’re ready. Where are you?  I know, but I was too busy to call.” This would be the conversation, and he better damn well get the money because if he got Dan without it,  there would be footers poured and walls ongoing with bills unpayable.

     That fucking Tim and that dingbat Daphne.  Yes, the mass of men lead lives brutish and short, and he was one of them.  Thank you, Hobbs, you brute, and think happy thoughts and… Up, up, up you go...Peter Pan, Mary Martin, and James Barry gone flying freak of musical entertainment.  The music of Neverland, and I won’t grow up, played in his head.  Well… he had grown up… He would contact Tim, and then meet with Feely, and then try to find some happy thoughts.  ‘He was a tall man for one so brutish and short’.

     The shower steamed, pelting the marble floor as he scrubbed away the lake and the night before.  First cold lake and now waters geyser hot.  He could see his penis again, a resurrecting worm peering from flesh gone pink with steam.  The phone rang; he leaped to answer, his body pink and dripping.

     “Wilson,” it was Daphne, “Wilson, I’m concerned, and so is Philippe. He cannot understand how the house could take so long.  He says the new cabinets will be old by then.  That none of the builders here take more than a year to build a house.”

     Wilson looked at the puddle forming around his feet, “Alright… Daphne, can I call you back?”  Should he tell the ditz that he needed money and what the hell was she talking about?  They hadn’t even poured the concrete.  No, he better call Tim and leave her out of it.  “Look, tell Philippe to call me.  I’ll answer your questions, but I’ve got a meeting, and it concerns your house.” 

          “What’s your cell?” she said.

          “Don’t have one?”

          “What? … Philippe, he doesn’t have a cell phone.”

     “He’s from Northern Michigan” he heard in the background, as if that was sufficient to catalogue and file him.  All it took was ‘Northern Michigan’ for the   sophisticate Philippe, man of world culture and graph paper capable, Philippe from Grand Rapids, to put him in his place.  Ayyeeeey... Fuck!

     “Daphne, I’ll get back to you by evening,” he hung up the phone and whistled a few bars of ‘If I were a rich man....’ then switched to singing, entertaining the trees    outside his bedroom windows while dressing, then headed down the stairs to venture into town to see if Feely would accept a check resurrected from ripping.

     Feely sat behind a large desk, in a large chair, underneath a large painting, a small man; not small in energy, wisdom, enthusiasm, kindness, or life, but small in stature.  His dome like head gleamed with reflected light coming from a window that faced the harbor, his aspect a smile, almost a laugh, as he picked up the check that Wilson had placed before him. 

     “Having trouble getting paid, are you?  Or was it life that made you do this?  The Federal Reserve frowns on check ripping, you know.  But I suppose we can put it through, say it got lost, or should we say ripped-off, in the shuffle.  Ahem,” Feely coughed for effect. “I hope this does not become a habit.” 

     “It won’t,” said Wilson.

     “If you think it will help, I can extend some more credit.”

     “No more credit,” said Wilson. “You already own enough of me.”

     Feely chuckled. “You still own most of your boat...just kidding.  So, what’s the story with these folks?  I hear they have all kinds of money.  She too, from what I’m told.”  Feely, a small-town banker, made a point of keeping up on money. Who had it and who did not               

      “That’s what I heard too,” said Wilson.  “They don’t seem to like spending it, though.”

     “Of course, they don’t. How do you think they got it? Keep it?” 

     Wilson studied Feely, who placed his hands behind his head, tilting back in his chair.   He would leave it at that, unless Feely inquired more.   And Feely did not…  instead, he mentioned sailing and the weekly races, questioning who was Wilson racing with this year. 

     “No one,” said Wilson. “I won’t have time.  Once this thing gets going… I’m in a race with winter.  A race I fear I’ve already lost.”

     “It’s only July,” said Feely.

     “Yeah, but you’ll be sitting under that nice warm painting, and I’ll be freezing my fingers off waiting for the windows to arrive… Probably in falling snow.” 

     “You should have been a banker, or a lawyer.” said Feely. 

     “A banker, no offense, but numbers bore me, and as for lawyers… they should be illegal.”

     “Fine, you’re an artist, or you think you are.  I accept that, but art’s expensive, artists are poor.”

     “Architect, not artist, and I run the business, too.”  

     “I’ve noticed,” said Feely, holding up the check.  “Why don’t you sail with me for stress relief, comradery… escape, pleasure.  If this turns into a problem, the bank will help.”

     “Thanks, but no more credit, no more debt,” said Wilson, buttressed by the thought that it was good to have a banker as your friend.

     He left the bank, then turned north, his eyes focused across the channel towards Nancy’s club.  Alicia, Nancy; he should speak with them too, but not now.   Instead, he drove back to his house and office.  And within minutes he was dialing… The phone was ringing, one, two, six, seven times.  Wilson was about to hang up when a female came on the line, “Franchise’s West, home of the Mighty Burger, and coming soon Gourmet’s Everyone…”

     “Is Tim there,” he said.  ‘Is the fucking mastermind, tightwad bastard in?’ said his demon.  

     “Mr. Stevens is in a meeting; may I take a message?” 

     “Tell him it’s his builder. I need to talk to him.”  The phone went silent for a moment. 

     “Mr. Stevens will call you back. What’s your cell? He asked if you’re at the job.”

     “No, tell him I need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”

     “Just a moment. He will call you.  What did you say your cell was?”

Idiot, thought Wilson…I don’t want one, don’t have one, and I’m not getting one.    “Tell him to call my office number… Either number.  I’ll wait for his call.”

     Then he waited, and he waited more, eventually giving up on Tim, dialing cement man Dan, who was, to his surprise, already at the job.  “He needs to talk to you,” said his wife.  “He expected you to be at the job this morning.  I’ve been trying to call you.”  

     Damn… he was behind already… dashing out the door, jumping into his jeep, and racing toward the job.

Dan was at the site with three of his team… Cement men stacking forms and attaching cables, while Dan manipulated an old crane no longer white, but rusted and yellowing with lumps of foundation tar and hardened gray concrete, spotting its fenders and body.  The crane belched and coughed, as Dan reeved the engine and swung the arm, black smoke pouring from its stack forming a cloud that drifted north towards the Wainwright’s property.  Dan’s tool truck was there too, and also sitting on the edge of the excavation borders, an old panel truck that still displayed the sign Seymour’s Sweets along its side… Cavorting candy canes and smiling chocolates visible beneath slashes of rust and old concrete.  The only sign that either of these vehicles had anything to do with cement were the stacks of forms, and the poorly cleaned and hardened concrete coating them.

     “Wilson,” said Dan, descending from the crane.  “I thought you’d be here.”

     “I was busy, sorry.  It doesn’t look like you need me. What’s on the schedule?”

     “Just unloading. Maybe we’ll start the upper footings.”  Dan gestured to the first shelf in the excavation.  “Anything different from the plan?”

     “A couple of things on the turret.  I brought you a new copy.  You can look at it.  If you have questions, I’ll answer…”  Wilson’s voice dwindled off as he looked north, observing the long strides and frowning face of Janet Wainwright, heading towards them.

     “Fuck,” he said under his breath.  “Has she been bothering you?”

     “First, I’ve seen her,” said Dan.

     “OK, look, check out the plan… do what you can do, and I’ll meet you first thing tomorrow.  I’ve given you reference dimensions from every point.  If you get into it, and something doesn’t match...be sure to check with me.  I think they’re all correct.  I’ve got to deal with...”  He nodded towards Janet Wainwright, who was now closing on the site, her feet… long spades on skinny legs.  Seven-league boots, thought Wilson.

     “Janet, good to see you... how’s Conrad?”

     “Grumpy,” she said.  “Grumpy because of you, and that.”  She pointed to the crane, which Dan had revved back up, a cloud of dark vapor again pouring from its stack.  “That!” Janet momentarily held her nose, then placed her hands against her ears.  “That!  It stinks, it’s noisy, and Conrad can’t sleep.  Could you have him turn it down?”

     “I don’t know what to say, Janet.  It’s not the kind of thing you turn down… More of an on-off, and we need it on.”

     “It’s too noisy,” she said. 

     “I am afraid there’s going to be a lot of too noisy… For quite a while, Janet.   We’re building a house.  They don’t just happen.”

     “Conrad’s upset. He said he would call the Sheriff.” 

     “What? We are completely legal… Look, we’ll be as quiet as possible.”

     “Could you pause for a few hours each afternoon?” said Janet.

     “I don’t think so. We’ll try to be considerate, but…”  He pointed and shrugged.       “Sorry, I’ve got a meeting… I’ll come by later today, or tomorrow… I’ll talk with Conrad.  We cannot be fighting over this.  It’s happening!”

     “Make it early tomorrow, then. He’ll be unpleasant and roaring by afternoon.”

     “Dan, I’ll see you in the morning.” Then refocusing his attention on Janet…  “You and Conrad, too.”  

     It was a pretty day and he might have lingered for a while, walked the shore and perhaps spent additional time with Dan, planning and being polite, but with Janet’s presence, Wilson knew that if he remained, she would continue to annoy him.  So, he left her frowning…left Dan and his men belching smoke and hoisting forms, and hurried to his jeep.  He almost tossed it in for the day, stopping at MacGuilties bar, but it was only 1:00 and that was way too early for public drinking.  Plus… it would not do for him to be building while becoming a daily regular at a bar just down the road from the job, no matter what time of day.  If he found himself overwhelmed with need, the place to go would be his boat.  Swim out to it so no one knew he was aboard.  Turn the Anomie into a hideout with hatches battened… womblike… private from the turmoil, stress, whatever.  Maybe in the winter, if things got really bad, he might become a MacGuilties daily customer, but not now, he thought... not yet.

     Wilson gazed longingly toward his boat through the corner glass. Then shook off the desire to sail, instead descending to his office, where there were no new messages from Tim.  Not on the machine, not on the fax, and not in the computer-email… Zippity do-dah, nada, nothing.  There was a message from Sheinbaum inviting him to dinner, and one from Grace that said only “Hi.” 

     He called Tim and this time the secretary connected him to the ‘great man’.

     “Wilson, how’s my house?  Daphne’s concerned about your comment that completion may be two Christmases away.  We’re coming up again this weekend…With Philippe.  She wants him to examine your progress, help find a solution.”

     What progress, you lying jerk, thought Wilson.  “Tim, the check was short… A lot short!  We cannot be worrying about progress, if you don’t pay me.  Without being a pain, I’d like to remind you that our agreement clearly stated that I was not to be your banker and that you would provide funds timely as requested and required… I reread it last evening.”

     “Sorry,” said Tim. “This weekend… I’ll bring the rest.  I’ve been tight... the new restaurant, getting it under way.”

     “Can I rely on that?” said Wilson, his mind busy with a different internal dialogue… ‘So what, that’s your problem, not mine’.  But of course, it was his problem and it would continue to be.  “And I thought we agreed on no more Philippe, at least until later, much later I hope!”

     “We said that.  Yes… but Daphne…it’s her house, and she wants to talk to you.  She’ll call.  Can you pick us up... Just a second... There’s another call... This weekend... Ciao.

     Fucking Ciao. What’s with the ciao, and now Philippe, and more money this weekend…maybe?... and another Saturday with them, with him, with her.

     This was enough to send Wilson swimming sideways, and swimming in reality too.  But first, he grabbed a couple of tapes, a whiskey bottle and went down to his dinghy and rowed out to the boat, then back to shore to swim back out to hide and sit, think, and bob atop the waters.  He left the companionway open…who would notice?  He put on music, and selected a book, curled from moisture, mold darkening its edges.  Barry Lyndon, Thackery, and Merry Old England.  He thought of the line in the novel, perhaps stolen from the bible, his knowledge of that book limited, “What profit a man to gain the whole world, if he loses his soul… ”  Well, Michigan justice wouldn’t try to hang him no matter what happened, even if he shot Tim before it was all over.  Had they tried to hang Lyndon or just destroyed him? Both. No matter, Thackery was as old and moldy as the pages of his book.   Wilson put the Thackery back, selecting instead Ken Kesey’s, Sometimes A Great Notion, also growing moldy, but alive inside. And just into those initial passages, that beautiful description of Kesey’s imagined Wakonda Auga river, and just into the magnificent chords of the St Cecilia Mass, and just into his first sip of golden amber dreams and sustenance, something bounced against the side of the boat.  And in the something was someone, and this someone was Grace. 

     “Wilson.  I know you, Wilson… Hiding, are you?”

     “Few people would know or say it,” he said through the companionway as he heard her climb the ladder. 

          Grace dipped her head, seeing him in the shadows.

          “A bit early, isn’t it?”

          “Yes,” he said.

          “Want some?”

          “Why not” 

           “Not like you.” 

     “No, but exceptions...don’t get up. I know where they are.” Grace grabbed a plastic tumbler, pouring some Old Draper, then sipping it, then frowning… her face bunched, gone red. 

     “How can you drink this stuff?”

     “Easy,” he said, inverting his glass, letting the rest of the fluid fall into his mouth, then handing her the glass.  “A dollop more.”  She poured a small amount and handed it back to him.  Wilson smiled at the meager amount, making no comment.

     “Tough day,” she said.

     “Not really, no worse than usual… with this project.  I’m out here, hiding, thinking.  Trying to balance.  Whenever I attempt enthusiasm, try to find some meaning, purpose and pleasure in this project… It is usually easy in the beginning … But not this one.  No matter how I try to frame it…The Stevens do something to make me hollow… something that sucks the creative pleasure right back out of it.  He does not pay.  She is already impatient and unhappy… And we have barely started!”

     “I’ve observed,” said Grace.

     “And now, this weekend they’re coming up again, bringing that goof of graph paper... to supervise, I think. I continue to sense a nightmare, a bad one…But enough of me, since you're here...invading… Why?” 

     “I wanted to see you.  I felt awkward about yesterday.”

     Wilson burdened her with his eyes. “Don’t worry about it.  I was troubled, last night, this morning, but who needs it?  I’ve bigger problems than a couple of women and your response to them.  Which seemed odd, by the way.”  He threw up his hands.  “It was only a fish fry, and you’ve your new fellow, and the one before him and the one before him. So, no problem.  I get it, you and me, me and women… Life is plague enough.  No locusts required.”  He laughed short, softly.  Grace frowned, ignoring his statement.

     “What are you reading?” 

     “Kesey, listen, there is no one better!” And he read. 

     “Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range...come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge in the Wakonda Auga River...The first little washes flashing like thick rushing winds through sheep sorrel and clover, ghost fern and nettle, sheering, cutting....forming branches.”

     “Listen,” he said. “Then through bearberry and salmonberry, blueberry and blackberry, the branches crashing into creeks into streams...........”

     “That’s why I’ve always liked you,” said Grace, “even when I haven’t.” 

     “Who else on a Monday, hiding, after negatives, would be out here reading that, and listening to… What is it?

     “Fantastic, isn’t it?  Gounod, the St Cecilia Mass…” He rewound the cassette… “Listen to this beginning.”   Powerful, soaring, spine tingling chords filled the Anomie.

     “No one else I know… Your weird, but... it’s beautiful, and in its own way your Stevens ‘Old Saddle’ effort will be better, and massively beautiful too… I came to find you.  You weren’t at work. You weren’t inside.  I suspected you’d be here.  The dinghy on the shore almost fooled me…Then I heard the music.   Want to come to dinner.?  We won’t have fish.”

          “I’d like that,” he said. “How about a swim?”

          “No suit.”  

    “Whatever, I’m jumping in.”  He passed her in the galley, climbed the steps and dove into the water, and in moments Grace was stripping to underwear and following. “Why stop there? I’ve seen you.” 

     “From a distance, it looks like a suit.”

     They paddled round the Anomie, the fresh water soft and tactile…clean, and then Wilson started off with a vigorous stroke towards the sloop a hundred yards south, Grace following slower, while churning the water more.  Within minutes, they were hanging on its bow line, laughing and splashing at each other.  Then Grace climbing, sinking his head beneath the water as she climbed his body, pausing for a moment before speeding away with Wilson in pursuit.  He caught her partway and held her, treading water, supporting both of them, kissing her full… at the same time thinking, surprise, surprise.  Then they were aboard the Anomie smiling back and forth at each other under half shy eyes; two sets of eyes, too old to be embarrassed, and too wise not to be excited, anticipatory and wary.  Not from their momentary wet affection, but from their confused relationship.  

     Wilson let his lips rise slightly and wrinkled his forehead.  Grace shrugged thin shoulders as goose bumps pebbled her skin.  Then they laughed.  “Well…Well…  Why not?” she said.  “Come on, let’s shop for dinner.”

     Lake Michigan reflected in deep blue flashes as they traipsed the Drumlins, up then down, then higher, the lake becoming solid blue to the West, their route parallel, above the trees.  Barney came running at their arrival, leaping, slobbering, sniffing, and all dog.  Streams of afternoon sun lit the entrance of the old church, descending in high dust reds and golds.  Barney and Grace moved ahead of him towards the kitchen underneath the hanging baskets, one of which was flowering with small blue and purple blossoms.  Above, opposite on the shiny pulpit, sat Beezle in black yellow eyed majesty and annoyance, staring at their confused entrance, clearly the most at home. 

     Barney was soon sent back outside and Grace began to array pots and pans, platters for their dinner.  Wilson moved past her and climbed the pulpit.  From this vantage, the rose window hovered, producing expansive streams of rainbow light, colored dust, some filtering down to a smaller Grace preparing in her central kitchen.  It was a perfect place from which to toss a paper airplane, and Wilson almost wished he was a kid again, without the pull of sex, as he found a piece of paper and fashioned a design remembered from his childhood, sending it looping, soaring over Grace’s head, until it crashed beneath the flowers.

           “You missed,” she said.

           “I wasn’t trying to hit you.”

           “Come down from there and slice these carrots.”

     And he did.

     “And when you’re done, these and these.” She thrust some potatoes at him, then some mushrooms. 

     “Raclette,” she said.  “A steak and here’s some dip for the carrots.  And when you're done, slice this Gruyere.  We’re having mountain French provincial.”

     Wilson knew Raclette, a dish featured everywhere in Chamonix, his favorite place to ski on the planet.

     “We need some Marc if we’re having Raclette, he said.   

     “What’s that?”

     “French fire water,” said Wilson, “sort of like slivovitz, one of those clear concoctions that make you high and holy wasted.”  

     “No liquor,” she said. “I’m putting you on wine.  It’s better for you, and not so near despairing.”

     “Probably, but the music sounds better on whiskey, especially opera.  And the muse rarely visits me on wine.”

     “I know… Torment,” she said.  “But tonight, you’re on wine and sparingly, I want someone to talk to, and...” she smiled, wiping her sleeve across her brow.

           “And,” said Wilson?

           “And,” she said.

Wilson launched into his version of Maurice Chevalier singing La mere, toujours la mere...La-La, la-la.... I’m going sailing.... his voice growing large, echoing in the high vault.  

     “Ok, Ok,” she said.  His singing rising in volume.

     “You know I have a stereo,” continued Grace… not near as impressed with Wilson’s voice as he was.

     He found some old Joni Mitchell, and soon they were repaving parking lots while he peeled the potatoes. 

     As all Grace’s concoctions, the food was great, and their conversation traveled many topics until it paused at the Stevens, their past and present, what Wilson knew of them, and then their project and Wilson’s upcoming weekend with Tim and Daphne and, as Wilson put it, “the graph paper fairy”.  Grace saying, “you shouldn’t say that. You sound like one of your workers when you talk like that,” and he replying, “I know, and normally, I don’t.  I wouldn’t.  But… It’s what I think.  It’s what most guys think, if they’re honest, and that includes every construction worker I ever met who expressed an opinion….”  And then, “But, it’s a free country… I could give a damn if Philippe were not messing with my project…. Graph Paper!”  And Grace adding that she had some advice about Philippe and about Wilson’s construction worker perspective, too… “but perhaps later on that,” and Wilson learning more of her trip to Europe, the guy she had grown tired of, then left behind… And, and, and…. filling in the holes of time and life experience. 

     Wilson had been certain with the candles, the pheromones, that he was going to end up staying the night, their chatting conversation and dinner only a preamble to the main event.  But somehow, as they did the dishes, the sexual tension of the boat faded.  They became awkward, tired, cautious… The dinner candles snuffed, the energy drifting away with neither of them willing or able to reclaim it.   

      Instead, he headed home, frustrated.  Yet, things had shifted in their relationship once again.  He was certain of it.  They were going to meet in town tomorrow.  For a Monday, it had not been that bad a day.