The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Hey.”
“What --- How you do that?”
“I didn’t think you’d be coming back, Cody, way we left it.”
“Me neither. How you make it sound like you callin out from over there, and you here this side?”
“I’m a sneaky some-bitch too, Cody.”
“Where’s your truck?”
“I parked up the hill at the shed, and I walked down to find out why this camera isn’t pinging. You got by the other day, and Stef got by yesterday.”
“It’s ringing now.”
“We’re standing right in front of it. Stef walked by the other day on the gravel, and no notification. The sensitivity was too low.”
“When Bill broke that branch off, he logged in. Maybe he set the sensitivity too.”
“Yep, so tell me, what did your dad think of the holler?”
“He’s still mad you called him a thief.”
“He’s a thief. Both of you are. It’s the official record.”
“You just say shit. No warm up.”
“No two-step needed, Cody. The biggest lie of all is the South has manners. The South is full of euphemism and bullshit, nobody ever comes at a thing head on until the fight is on.”
“Well, you best learn put a little less accusation up front.”
“It’s not an accusation, Cody. You’re a thief, twice convicted. I only see one Cody, and you want me to talk to two of you, the Cody that you think you are based on what you wish nobody knew and the Cody that is standing in front of me wearing the record.”
“I got a record. That don’t make a man all he is the one thing he did the one time.”
“No, Cody, that would be true if the world didn’t know you didn’t get a paper trail without getting a warning along the way, and if not a warning, almost get caught before you actually got caught. Nobody gets caught the only two times they ever do a thing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“See? That’s the thing. I do know that, and I see it deep-time too. I tell you you because I was you.”
“All you the same. Thinks you know.”
“So, you’re literally using the exact same logic on me that I’m using on you. All you, you say, just like I say all you. And you see fault in mine, see yours as sense made.”
“All the same.”
“I won’t pretend to know the facts, but I lived the formula, and I’ve driven by that garage a hundred times. Live Bait hand stenciled in two foot red letters above the obvious once service station door. You’re in that garage stripping that wire from the rafters, dirt dauber tubes shower down in your eyes as the wire breaks free. That’s when you get caught. You know that garage. You been there before. Maybe you worked there once for a company, or it’s your friend’s old place. Maybe it’s a relative. You know that place, which means you didn’t steal from a random place you passed by one time in a cold walk to pick up a new rock. That would be fine, but you hurt someone you know. You may even have been close.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, Cody. And you know that I do. I don’t have the details because I haven’t spoken to the arresting officer, but I can speak to him, and I can ask what the facts of the case are. I can call the prosecuting attorney that negotiated the plea bargain from Felony to Misdemeanor. They’ll talk to me, Cody. I’m on the inside now. But know this. I was not always. I broke into my cousin’s house while skipping school a dozen times because he didn’t lock his back door, and I knew that because he gave me day work as a boy. I stole spare change from the change can at his bedside table to buy cigarettes. I broke in that house a dozen times, and I took that change every time. I broke into my best friend’s house one day because that’s just what I was doing that day. I rode there on a bicycle, I simply cannot remember where I got that, but I probably stole it. All I know today is it was purple, and it wasn’t somebody’s prize possession or anything. It was a clunker. The chain worked, the tires had air, and it worked, but it wasn’t a special thing to someone. That’s the impression I have here telling it today. I rode that bike to my friend’s house in the middle of the day. My friend lived far away, like ten miles or more. I rode there, and I went in the garage because I knew they kept a key there, and I went inside. I didn’t take anything, but I ate while I was there. I sat down in their home and ate their food. And I left, Cody. I broke into a bunch of places in my lonely childhood, and that’s the thing I see in you. Above all else I see lonely.”
“No, you the lonely one. You lonely now, hire men, pay them to be your friend.”
“Now who’s skipping the two-step? Is that what you see? You see me a lonely man?”
“Well, yah. You come here a list of people you help, and most don’t work out, and you keep giving. And you take in them’s don’t want you, but you pay so good they gotta put up with you. You findin vulnerable people, and you taking advantage of them. You leave the change can cuz you don’t need that no more, but you still stealin. Give money for work and steal people owe-you just the same.”
“So, now both of you get here before me again. Is this a thing now?”
“Mornin’ Tanner.”
“Hey, Tanner.”
“What are you two doing over there? Last I heard it’s culvert pipe day.”
“We’re just buying friends, ain’t that right, bossman?”
“Buying… Definitely miss all the crazy. I saw Rusty at the Wye, he’ll be here in a minute. Are we on the dam?”
“Today’s dam day. Let’s walk up to the bridge. Dam day starts there.”
“It’s New Year’s Day. New year, new delay on the dam sorta.”
“Gahhllee, we’re not pulling the pipe today?”
“No, friend, can’t start there. We need fifty dump trucks of dirt down the back first to stabilize it.”
“So, call Claiborne and get fill?”
“Oh, shit, no! We’re starting the dig for the workshop goes on the other side of this bridge. Gotta dig this whole damn mountain bottom off and get a level pad forty feet by sixty.”
“Yer gonna need a dump truck.”
“Nope. Right after we get you started, me and Tanner are going to Smokey Mountain Trailers, and we’re buying a dump trailer and an enclosed trailer on the New Year’s sale. By the time we get back, you’ll have pushed in spoils dirt into this gully here, and we’ll have a temporary land bridge from the dig site to this stretch here on this side. We’ll drive the spoils down along the side of the pond, turn in to the dam top and pour it over the back.”
“Um, so, what’s the enclosed trailer for?”
“The enclosed trailer has two uses. We got an offer on the house in Hardin Valley this weekend, and we need to move in the next thirty days. We’ll start with my tools and let the trailer serve as the tool shed because I’m about to move into that shed over there.”
“How you get yer old lady move in that shed?”
“Nope, not Stefanie. We haven’t landed her yet, but my fate got decided the minute the phone rang yesterday.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You can say that again, Rusty. I see you’re last again.”
“That’s a big hill.”
“Just busting balls, buddy.”
“How did you sell your house on a Sunday?”
“I --- We accepted the offer. Next comes contract. Then it’s move. We don’t have time for the whole house selling lesson right now. Here’s the run. Cody, get that excavator. I rough measured this in my mind’s eye. You need to walk up this hill with the bucket downhill holding you to the land until you get here. Dig a straight line, tractor wide. Dig your way to level ground. Drop the dirt down the hill. Rusty will place those two culvert pieces that we have from the road build – the scrap segments in the equipment yard.”
“You mean the mud pit, bossman?”
“Yes, Cody, the mud pit. We’ll get to it.”
“Just wondering.”
“Just wondering, ha? So, Rusty, once you place the two sections of culvert in the waterway, you will start grabbing Cody’s spoils…”
“I ain’t touching Cody’s spoils.”
“Christ, I just told these men I’m about to move into a shed, and they’re about to dig my whole grave, and they got genital jokes.”
“He said genitals.”
“God help me. Rusty will grab the spoils with the bucket, and spin and drop them on top of the culvert pipes. I don’t love splitting the middle of a culvert pipe like this, but we’ll dig fast and get out of there before the seam can wash out the middle of the foundation. First spoils build the base of the thing so that it’s topsoil down… that means topsoil will be the scrap left behind when we pick up the bridge when we’re done with it. Any questions?”
“Gahhllee, I got a dozen questions, but for now, get the ex, grind it up this hillside, pound my auger blade home and dig myself a level shelf. Drop spoils over the edge?”
“Um, so, what about me?”
“You’re with me. We gotta go get the trailers. I already arranged everything. You walk in, give them the check, and meet me in Hardin Valley. I’ll text the address.”
“Smokey Mountain Trailers in Lenoir City?”
“That’s the place. They’re expecting you.”