The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I can’t believe I’m home this early. How was your day?”
“Take those shoes off and sit down.”
“These are the clean ones, I put them in the garage this morning. Did Amy get the house listed?”
“She got the pictures back this morning, and she just texted that it’s up.”
“Footballs?”
“Yup, every pic stretched. I never would have noticed if you didn’t show me all those houses.”
“It’s uncanny isn’t it? How on earth could the best realtors in the area not see this guy’s pictures are all distorted?”
“Politics.”
“Story as old as stealing. If you got the right name, it don’t matter anymore what you do, it’s some kind of pedigree brilliance.”
“I see it every day.”
“Me, I can’t even hire a couple guys up at The Drip for day laborers without you make me get disability insurance, workman’s comp, for Christ’s sake you got us Homeowner’s insurance on land the shed just started today.”
“How far did they get?”
“They got three stud walls up. That Cody guy is something. So we’re putting up the walls, and he’s like, ain’t you supposed to have the top pieces on first before you stand them up?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Remember how we built your she shed with the roof frame right into the wall studs so we could get the angle? That’s why we were able to cantilever the roof so far out over the porch…”
“Yeah, I love that. You said you’re going to have to move this one though, won’t that roof make it tough?”
“Here’s the listing.”
“Oh, man! You two really did throw all our crap in the cabinets didn’t you? I couldn’t find that tool bag for a week.”
“That was Amy. I’m innocent. Good try.”
“Can’t blame a guy. I know it was you.”
“Serious, what if it sells?”
“It’s not selling. Nothing sells in the Winter, plus look at that price. It’s big high.”
“It’s the, I-dare-you price, that’s for sure.”
“If we get anywhere near that, I’m buying five tool bags and putting one every place. One upstairs, one down here. One…”
“I didn’t hide your bag of tools on purpose.”
“You know you did.”
“What do we do if it sells?”
“I dunno. I guess we get an apartment or something and start building the new place fast.”
“I can hardly get my car past the easement. How the hell you going to get construction crews up there and supplies, and all those concrete trucks you had parading through here while you were building the helipad?”
“Maybe we can up the price if we go get that paint after all.”
“Kitty’s too old to live in an apartment. She’s had a cat door and eleven acres all her life.”
“And a never ending supply of Chipmunks.”
“And that tree stump throne that keeps her little wild kingdom under control.”
“We’ll have to move that thing with the cat.”
“You’d need a litter box.”
“Woman, I ain’t having a litterbox. I’ll live in that shed they’re building first.”
“Your wildest dream.”
“Yep, that’s me; worked all my life to live like we do so I can live in a tool shed with a cat. It’s not selling at Christmas, so at least there’s a week.”
“Michael. Your tough guy shtick gives me confidence too, but I’m not living in a tool shed.”
“I never imagined you would. We’d still get the apartment for you and Clover. That dog would sleep in a culvert pipe as long as you’re there.”
“Clovvver. Yes, we’re talking about you. Don’t worry, baby, I won’t let that mean man put us in a storm drain.”
“It’s been a long time coming, and that place is our chance. The student housing deal is going through on the twenty-seventh, and it’s a brave new world. Patient money got us this far, with the triple net land leases but I’m sick of paying New York State income tax and property tax and school tax and county tax and city tax. It’s insane!”
“And the book keeping, woof.”
“We own a mansion that we don’t want, six bedrooms that are so un-home to us that it’s little more than a place to go poop inside. So the deal goes through on the twenty-seventh, and I can give that money a job by the following Tuesday, January second. The rent won’t be coming in, so we need fast dividend payments…”
“Over my head.”
“Yeah, right, a-squared plus b-squared pops out of her mouth twenty five years out of the high school that planted it there just to bust my balls about too-much-information, and simple percentages are over her head.”
“It was a worthy cause.”
“Humph, so Tuesday the money’s parked in the Schwab account, and I call to set up the LMA.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Did I say it wrong? Prefer Spanish?”
“We never borrowed money like that before.”
“We haven’t, but I have.”
“Yeah, and you put it all on the line, whole stack on red.”
“And without it, I never would have gotten that land off the ground, it’s been paying the bills for twenty-five years, our own bills all the while too.”
“This is different.”
“It’s this, or we put a mortgage on the house.”
“Oh, hell no!”
“That settles it then, Stef. Our home is our home, and our land sale just became our income.”
“No, Clover, honey, we’re not gonna be homeless.”
“No, not all of it. We still get the rent on the other three, until that sells too. But the build-it-on-income idea isn’t possible. Something had to give, and I went with the appendage.”
“Appendage? It’s half our income.”
“They assigned that tourniquet on your vest for a reason, Stef, so worst comes to worst, the thing that matters is saved.”
“It’s messy.”
“It’s clean. We park the money. We front the new place on the LMA, and we pay off the LMA when we sell this place.”
“Yeah, what could ever go wrong? Famous last words of every class-a felony I file, borrowed from the sales tax account to pay off that pesky Lamborghini. And it would have worked too if it weren’t for you meddling realities. And it’s not they’re criminals to begin with, it’s they have that puzzle piece mind tromping their smart asses right into a problem they can’t find their way out of later.”
“It’s not a crime to borrow money, Stefanie.”
“You don’t see it. Lamborghini isn’t the crime. It’s the crime comes out of no choice but to pay for the car now that…”
“Okay, that derailed. Let’s come back to earth. I’m not a criminal anymore. I haven’t even gotten pulled over in thirty years.”
“That’s just it. Nobody’s a criminal till the desperate math kicks in.”
“Honey, it’s not just me pulling this string. We’re fat, dumb, and happy down here in Hardin Valley, house paid for, doubled in value, no bills, but our family is in Sevier County, and that’s an hour each way for a coffee clatch, let alone a birthday dinner yet another half hour away in Gatlinburg. Not to mention all the hundreds of those dinners over the past ten years we rolled their eyes sightless with our claims of the imminent move to come.”
“So now it’s my fault you’re going to jail.”
“No, it’s your fault I’m running a stock account, a psych ward, and a whole mountain remodel from the front seat of a skidsteer while I watch Ouch and Oucher warm their hands down the front of their pants between screw hold and saw cuts. And then they hand me the tool to show them one thing or another and I get holler balls on my hands too. The whole time, I’m pecking and scratching the phone screen to find the perfect Christmas gift for the lady I love because the Ty Beanie Baby at the Stop and Rob up the street didn’t have that je ne sais quoi I was hoping would express my love.”
“Awwww, what’d you get me?”
“I ain’t tellin’ you shit. And just so you didn’t get any bright ideas, I stopped at Home Depot on the way home, and I bought a mailbox for the neighbor across the street’s landscaping design so the Prime truck will know exactly where to deliver my prize. You won’t be getting the box before I get home.”
“Okay, okay, so it fits in a mailbox.”