The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Okay, so get the level…”
“I didn’t bring a level.”
“How you two figure we’re going dig a hole, put in a four by four and slip the mailbox over it without a level?”
“I ain’t no carpenter.”
“Yeah, I got that yesterday, Einstein the Texan Parrot.”
“Ouch.”
“No way I survive this. No way. Put the numbers on. I’ll meet you up the hill.”
“But it’s crooked.”
“So are you. Put the numbers on and walk up. You little shits. Forget the level on me, will ya.”
“I think he really meant walk up.”
“He did say, no bucket rides, yesterday, but then he drove us down this morning.”
“That’s how them guys do. Rules for me and rules for you.”
“It ain’t that, Cody.”
“It’s that. He ain’t wanna be inconvenience wait for us walk down the whole hill, so first thing he break his own rule, make his life easy.”
“Even if that’s the case, that made my life half as hard as it had to be because I didn’t have to walk down carrying all the shovels and posts and the mailbox – box, plus he took all that back with him, so, win, half win.”
“You remember Wiggins?”
“Yeah, she was my guidance counselor.”
“Mine too. You can’t just hope…”
“Gotta hustle too. That was the dumbest shit ever.”
“True though.”
“She lives right there.”
“Like, there, there?”
“Yup, in that trailer… But she said that stupid hustle to guys like me, all I do is hustle.”
“Hustle?”
“Well, ya. Scrappin’, laborin’.”
“It’s not hustle when you’re always behind.”
“It’s hustle when it’s hustle. I hustle.”
“Sellin’ shit so you can skim the rock ain’t hustle.”
“You bet yore ass that’s hustle. Go on, shave a junkie’s rock. Tell me you ain’t hustlin’.”
“I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
“I don’t smoke no more, anyhow.”
“Yeah, you mentioned you’re not a carpenter.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Lookit, there’s a bear.”
“Oh – It’s like we’re not here.”
“It knows we’re here, bet that.”
“All in. Beautiful.”
“What’s with the bucket riding?”
“It’s the insurance.”
“He say it’s the insurance?”
“No, the insurance is in my name. It’s in there.”
“Why he put it on you?”
“I told you. He sent me to the lawyer, set up a company, paid for my remodeling license. The lawyer set up bank accounts, and arranged to have them handle the payroll. All I do is clock in on my phone, upload the data on Tuesday, and I, we, get paid on Friday.”
“I never got no job like that, keep my own hours.”
“It’s not really a job. I own it.”
“What do you mean you own it?”
“I own it. It’s all in my name, the corporate name.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, for real. I did it all with the lawyer.”
“Where’d you get the money for the lawyer?”
“He transferred it to the account after we set everything up. I wrote a check to the lawyer.”
“This a scam or something.”
“If it is, it’s a good one.”
“How it’s a good one? This guy got your good name, and he creatin’ corporations and stick you with the crime.”
“It’s not. I’m telling you. I did it all with the lawyer.”
“Lawyer my ass. Where’d you get this lawyer?”
“He…”
“Yup, I know’d it. It’s a scam. Given means gamed, Tanner.”
“So, um, let’s follow this out. It’s all a scam. What’s he want?”
“He wants a house and he wants to pay day labor fees to get it.”
“So? Wouldn’t you?”
“It’s just a new node, man.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“A new node. He not just hirin’ labor build a house his way cheap, he hirin’ something he can brag his friends about how smart he is. Lookie here, I didn’t just hire labor and work cheap, I’m so smart, I make ’em take ownership.”
“How’s that a node or whatever?”
“A node man, like Wiggins said. A node. A stake in the ground. A new place to put a new thing when it don’t fit with the old ones.”
“What the hell.”
“Like, if you so smart you create new info, it can’t go with the old info, so you git a new node.”
“I never got that lecture from her. She gave me a lot of trade pamphlets and shit.”
“So, it’s your network, like. Your associates.”
“Yeah, just what we need - your associates.”
“Yer one of my associates.”
“Will you two get up here? I know you’re just itching to get back on that shed, but while we’re here, I want to show you the dam.”
“I wanna go look’it that bridge you an Peter’s buildin’.”
“Oh, you thought I meant a tour around the worksite.”
“Not again.”
“Then clap that maw shut and look at this. See how the water’s coming out of the spill pipe?”
“I’m not blind.”
“Has sight, cannot see. Listen then if we’re going on a tour of your senses, try hearing. It’s just a trickle, but the water coming out underneath is steady into the stream.”
“I see it,” Tanner said.
“Good, and you got it out before Cody could smartass the point.”
“Ouch.”
“That’s next. We gotta build a shed. Cold ain’t just coming, it’s here, and we need a place to work.”
Cody looked to the excavator, “So we need to dig out that pipe and put in one along where the mountainside meets the dam.”
“Insight, the sixth sense. Bullshit’s near twin. I know Tanner told you about this project already.”
“Man, guy can’t catch a break off you.” Cody laughed.
“You catch lots of breaks, like how you spit that nasty chew all over where we’re trying to work, or how about the only reason you pay attention at all is so you can clock how to skip the level. How I don’t mention those,” in Cody’s accent, “Them’s breaks.”
“Ouch.”
“You got that all in one day work?”
“That and more.”
“Different.”
“Ouch. So this is next. We gotta get that shed rollin’ today. First thing,” he interrupts his own thought, “Come on, little duckies, follow me,” while walking around the pond toward the build site, “First thing we gotta do today is get the lines marked for the roof line. We’re going mark the drain side at 9 feet and the other side is already ten feet, but check it because we just used the raw studs…”
“Plus we got the bottom plate in there.”
“Good eye, Cody. So mark off ten feet on the other side. Then it’s A-squared plus B-squared equals C-squared.”
“I’m out.”
“Yeah, he ain’t no carpenter.”
“No probs. No angles, probably can’t figure the rise or the run either… so let’s go with this. Cody, grab that board. Make pretend these are the marks I just ascribed…”
“Fuck’s ascribed mean?”
“Do you prefer I use this board to teach the angle and beat you with a different one, or can this one do double duty? You ain’t stupid like everybody thinks. You’re just careful to interrupt at the right moment so the information don’t get in.”
“Ouch.”
“Gonna ride me like this all Winter?”
“It’s a scale. Dumber you get, the more of these I got loaded up. So it’s your call, really. I’d prefer to get this shed roof started and get back to the bridge.”
“Sit in your warm truck’s more like it.”
“Sure, I could do that, but then how’d you figure out this shed so you can hurry up and go sit in that warm excavator for the dam job.”
Tanner added, “And I could stop freezing my ass off while you two compare dick sizes.”
“I promise you, Cody is the bigger dick. Hold this board up. What you do is hold it up there at the high line mark and the low line mark, and you scratch a line, like this. That’s your angle. There’s an angle finder in the truck too. A thousand ways to knock this off.”
“Ok, so we put on the band, and then we cut off the studs above the new roof line on this low side.”
“Yup, deck it with that half inch CDX, and we’re out of tomorrow’s rain. I’m outa here. You got this?”
“Yup, go sit in yer warm Hummer. Don’t forget the seat warmer.”
“I don’t use that thing. Makes me feel like I got a poopy diaper.”
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How’s it going up there?”
“Has its moments. At least I got here before Tanner again – but barely. Dude came rolling in at 7:30, two minutes after I parked.”
“Good try, kid.”
“And Cody hit the driveway camera like five minutes after that.”
“Did you tell him yet?”
“Nah, that one stays in the pocket. But I did dig in a bit to make sure, and you’re right, it probably is his dad. Sounds just like the guy too.”
“It’s Norman.”
“Who the hell is Norman?”
“No, Norman, Cody, 1221 Dripping Springs Road.”
“I’ll run him.”
“So, I’m sitting there in the truck, he comes rolling in, damn near hit his head on his passenger window to get the view whether I’m here before him or not.”
“The imagery. It really makes my afternoon fly by.”
“You’ll keep up.”
“So, they showed up. They’re working. What’s on the agenda?”
“It’s Geometry class for the brilliant. So damned smart the theory can’t sneak through. So we’re scratching rocks on the wood where lines go and cutting the angle with a vine.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Sometimes the jokes are just for me.”
“What – is – on – the – agenda?”
“Yeah, the agenda. Roof deck today. I teased Cody with the dam work. Poor kid thinks he’ll be in the machine digging up pipe.”
“You did hire these people to do the work, Michael.”
“Yeah, when you meet this guy, you’ll understand that it’ll be a while before I allow him to dig the top and back out of a live dam impounding more than two hundred and seventy five thousand gallons of water.”
“Of course you know how much water’s in there. Did you count the fish too?”
“Not yet. So, compensation insurance or not, I’ll be in the seat when the dam gets breached.”
“Breached?”
“Yes, breached. The millions-year old landslide clearly created the thing. You can see that, but the top was managed at sometime way way back. There’s a culvert pipe in it.”
“How can you tell all that?”
“Culvert pipes are…”
“Wiseass, the landslide.”
“Because it’s not natural looking, but it’s settled in like it was always there.”
“So you don’t know it was a million year old landslide.”
“You can almost see where the dirt is missing from the hillside above.”
“So you’re guessing?”
“Fine, guessing. Point is the thing is here, there is a culvert pipe in it where somebody tried to manage the water over the years for the fishing…”
“There you go again, for the fishing.”
“Holy Christ, are you writing up interview questions for a case?”
“No.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re sitting at your desk, and you’re writing up interview questions for some witness or subject, and the attitude is bleeding over to the-dam-that’s-on-the-agenda.”
“I’m the one asking the questions.”
“Cute. So, it’s Dam intro, Shed roof, Me and Peter, and the mailbox of course.”
“Is it jewelry?”
“It’s a rough cut gem in the wilderness with a driveway I’m not convinced UPS will try to climb.”
“You can’t give me land with no house for Christmas. Has to have a house on it. So, say, by my birthday?”
“Which birthday? Not forty-two. Maybe forty-three.”
“No way it takes a year and a half.”
“It might. I don’t have a road in. I don’t have a foundation hole dug. We don’t have a contractor, we don’t have ready money, we don’t have septic, electricity, water, and we don’t even have my tools here yet to build any of those things. We don’t even have a house plan. I’m paying these guys and all of the materials from my own income right now.”
“Is it a tire inflator?”
“Ouch.”
“It’s right there on page three, Michael’s Misdemeanors and How He’s Going to Pay For Them, Tire Inflator.”
“While I was at it, I ordered twenty four solar panels, an inverter and four batteries. Bill is coming up next week to set up some better cameras, and I need internet for those. It’s not the whole system, of course, but it gets us started, and I got the order in for 2023, so we can claim the 30% tax credit for before it expires.”
“Internet and power in the same week. Getting closer to forty-two every day.”