The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Ain’t I said they slick bottom like all that.”
“Yer so full of shit!”
“Well, it ain’t. I says slick bottom, sure, but every body know slick don’t mean smooth.”
“Ha, ya said smooth too, pap.”
“Look, I ain’t stand here you ’cuse me I’m makin’ up a full ball of yarn ’thout I got no cotton spin it with.”
“Spin what?? Choo mean cotton? Yarn made of wool, Deddy.”
“And I ain’t say them shoes don’t make no tread neither. I say they make track the way only a office shoe make.”
“No, you say slick. You say smooth. You say it Deddy. You say it plain as this gravel crunchin’ under foot, plain as this shadow is the sun and the tree alike, plain’s that hoot-hoot, woo, hoo’s callin’ in reinforcements on that rat he must got up there in the field. You callin’ in the lie back up the lie.”
“Boy, you got a narrow mind.”
“Narrow? Is you serious? Who was it saw the way gits us in this holler? Who was it saw the way save the hole? Who was it see what’s next and plan ahead?”
“Yeah, right.” Plan ahead, he say. Him that say it ain’t never plan a thing all his born days. Fall over backerds into all he got, and come to me, plan on the board get us a stack of cash, git rid of this Yankee, and get us the holler back in one swoop. “How you that see it? How it’s you plan all that?”
“Who git the job, Deddy? How ’bout that?”
“That’s him. That’s Cody.”
“He watched you put the camera in. Nobody’s this dumb.”
“Especially not this guy.”
“Is that the guy from the trail cam batteries?”
“Yup. Dad I think.”
“Yeah, keeps calling him Deddy.”
“Oh, I thought that was some name.”
“Deddy. It’s daddy. Like Smokey and the Bandit.”
“Oh shit, I thought he was saying Daddy all these years.”
“Tryin’ tell ya, boy. Ye ain’t got the ear fer it.”
“Oh Christ. It followed me home.”
“Been here all along, baby. Born ’n raised in these hills.”
“Ouch.”
“Why you keep saying that all the sudden?”
“Turn left here. We’re eighteen minutes out. They might be able to get the skid out of there and home and under the garbage before we get there, but they didn’t both come just for the one machine.”
“We could stop for lunch and they couldn’t get that excavator home before us.”
“That’s what doesn’t make sense. I’m telling you, this guy is sharp in a way. Could run Colgate if he didn’t hate the product so much.”
“See? Deddy? We been fixin’ the spillway. An lookit them smooth shoe prints got the little circles in ’em you didn’t mention back when you know so much. You can see he all over the place.”
And you is too, lookit them flag boots. You’s all over in here, ’cept you got on differnt boots, ain’tchoo? I see you boy, you got on workboots, but you can’t hide from me. I know’d that walk soon’s I seen it. That’s Cody gait. An I know’d it too when he come home, pocket full’a cash. Ain’t no man pay money day-one so’s you gotta come back day two, and he in them flag boots. They too clean be spendin’ all day in fresh cut dirt. Here I thought the boy lyin’ ’bout work at all, and here he is, workin’ in work boots got new sole on ’em. Where you git them boots, boy? And why you hidin’ ’em?
“Deddy?”
“What. Boy?”
“I’s sayin’ you wrong, an’ you look like you plannin’ throw me in the pond.”
“That’s how you do. You takes one thing and makes it into a differnt thing, and you wrong in the first, crooked in the next. Here you is, callin’ out yo Pappy like as I make up sign…”
“Deddy, you do. You should come with one of them disclaimers, ever word or idear out your mouth should start, Once Upon a Time.”
“That’s the pond cam.”
“I can’t look at that. I’m driving.”
“No, honey, you’re off-roading. And if you get one inch closer to this guy in front of you, I’m going to sign his bumper with a Sharpie.”
“You should talk, Michael. I drove cuz last night I had a bad dream of all the tombstone shaped mailbox names flying millimeters past my face.”
“Cop, got her radio status check, reading the MDT screen, woopin’ the loud hailer at traffic, siren blaring, all the while scoping a Golden Doodle reel, and she can’t watch a Ring cam’s got two holler rats on our dam looking at the spill pipe.”
“And shows what you know, them owls ain’t ringin’ the dinner bell, they’s markin’ home turf, warn some other owl, these my rats. He ain’t sharin’.”
“Once Upon a Time, Deddy. You forgot Once Upon a Time.”
This boy got no roots. Ever’ body know four-hooter announce-call and four hooter mate-call is differnt.
“Deddy, don’t pout now, so what, you don’t speak Owl.”
“Cody, you bess be careful pull this drain pipe like you sayin’.”
“I’m the only one can, Deddy. Tanner don’t know that machine. He drive it place to place ’n fuel er up, but he ain’t no operator.”
“You bess be careful’s all I’m sayin’. Pull this pipe, like let the whole dam go. That man know that?”
“That’s my job, Deddy. I’m the one’s gotta know the danger in the dirt. Let’s go look over that bridge.”
“I wanna see them machines.”
“Deddy, this way.”
He see I’m go this way, and he head up deeper in the holler, an’ he bess catch up, less I git that machine and head on.
“Deddy.”
Maybe I grab one of them poplar logs on the way out, keep Layla warm with clean burnin’ wood. Damn kid sell all my stove wood, gotta go pay fer propane. Ain’t cheap neither.
“Deddy.”
All he had left that cash stack he brung home, one twenty in the pack, and I gotta get propane with it, and sure thing he gonna notice I snatched it too. But that baby need heat, and that good fer nothin’ ain’t buy propane, sell a whole rick of my stove wood and won’t git no propane fer the baby.
“Deddy you wander off like you got the old-timer’s. Bridge this way.”
“Is that guy talking to himself?”
“Looks like.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Thinks I can read minds – I can’t build a house, but I can read minds.”
“Volume, idiot. Hit the speaker on the screen and listen.”
“Can’t see the screen, but the ghosted button in the image she spots like Smith and Gomez.”
“Hit the button.”
“It’s hit. Watch the road.”
“Why’s there no sound?”
“He’s not still talking. Six minutes out. Turn right here.”
“Cody, you ever wonder why all your life in dollars and cents ain’t add up to just these two machines here?”
“What he say?”
“Hard to see a man pay all that money for a machine and pay a man a fraction of it.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Pay more the machine new. Same new man, they pay less.”
“It only records thirty seconds or so.”
“Old man Teague, he got a dozer out front. I see it every day. I know that dozer. Blalock pay two million dollar for that machine the day he put me in the cab earn ten-dollars an hour move the dirt make him a millionaire today. Here I am. There that dozer. Here, thirty years later, all my income combined, I still ain’t earn what that dozer earned on day one all at once.”
“Deddy, that dozer ain’t just pop up on old man Blalock’s yard that day cost two million. It gather up that value all along the way. Man buy land. Man dig ore. Man design a machine. Man buy the design. Lots other parts In that dozer too. I took the wire out years ago. And there’s hose and fluid and…”
“I know, Cody. But steps makes a man too. Processes. Systems. That machine ain’t exist they’s no man in it. And what’s all make a man worth if we go value the man make the machine so high the thing gain value, man don’t do the same, get value along the way?”
“Well, Deddy, you still here, that dozer ain’t.”
“Dozer’s right there in the yard.”
“But that ain’t no dozer no more. And you still a man.”
“What’s the plan? Am I driving right in, or set up an LP/OP?”
“I mean, I got the context. I even see the - slow down, it’s right here - I even see the letters, listen post. But we’re not storming the joint.”
“People stealing your stuff, and you wanna negotiate.”
“Not negotiate, plot, plan. React wisely.”
“Michael, they know the cameras are here. The only reason we’re here before they leave is because we were already on our way when they showed up.”
“Dumb luck. That doesn’t obviate a proper plan.”
“Obviate? What the.”
“LP/OP over here is going to bust my balls for obviate. So, they already hear the tires on the gravel at this point.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m here all day every day. The trucks come, the trucks go. I hear them on the gravel long before they get here.”
“So what do I do.”
“They know we’re here.”
“We go up, match the energy and see where it goes.”
“Is he waving? Are you serious right now?”
“Hey,”
“Hey.”
“What’s up Cody? Today’s Saturday. You ain’t no carpenter – especially not on Saturdays.”
“We. I. Meghan don’t work till four.”
“So you got your buddy together, come steal my shit while you’re waiting?”
“Now, you listen here, I ain’t no fuckin’ thief!”
“Easy, Crumb Bum. And I wouldn’t lead with that either, Mr. Norman. Camera batteries says different. I guess this the chance you color in the blanks.”
“Cody, I come up here see my son work. I ain’t come up here be talked like this by some Yankee jump conclusions like a chess horse.”
“I come at it straight – bit more like a Rook.”
“Look out, Deddy, he’s different.”
“He differnt all-right. Listen here…”
“Look, Mr. Norman. We’re on the wrong foot. We’re stuck on the foot misplaced itself when it walked onto my place scoping the goods, all the while just worried this holler is lost to him. I saw you there at the pond. You saw the cam on the tree, loud and proud, but you missed the cam in the grass. I saw you, and I kept that in the pocket. I watched you there, and I saw your longing. And if we want to start over, I’m happy to join you in a gentleman’s talk about your boy here and all the time you’re scared about losing in this amazing place.”
“Bullshit, Michael! This guy steals, and it’s my ass too. No way. You give this prick a job. You give him a chance. You risk not only your ass, but mine too. You watch his deddy come up here at night like the predator his rap sheet says he is, and… You know his record as good as I do. He’s a thief, him and his son, and you ain’t cuttin’ him slack – I’d rather be dead. I’m calling…” Stef’s phone rang just barely more loud than the rage ringing in her ears, “That’s Amy. I sent it to voicemail.”
“Just like I said, Saturday. They always pull that last minute showing bullshit. Let’s take it down a notch…”
“No, no notches, Machiavelli…”
“Machiavelli, ouch.”
“What is that, that ouch..?”
“Evaluate, plan, react. Remember? Read the room.”
“You stay right there, old man, think of a reason I shouldn’t do as I’m told and let her lock your ass up.”
“Stef, listen, go call Amy back and reset? You don’t have to, but I think you’d want to if you had a second to think it through.”
“You, Cody. This ain’t some casual visit with Daddy, you’re casing the joint. And Stef might be thinking to call her friends and trump up charges to go with your two misdemeanors, the last one plead down from a Felony charge, but you’ll wish for that system to grind you up if you fuck with me again.”
“Michael! Did you order Amy to list the house as an owner finance?”
“Oh, shit!”
(Anger always starts with fear.)
(A proportional type in the mass)