The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Good morning, Love.”
“Love.”
“I know why I’m up so early. What’s your excuse?”
“Phil and I are going to Chattanooga for one of his cases.”
“He picking you up?”
“Yeah, fifteen minutes.”
“Who’s taking Clover out during the day?”
“We’ll be back by lunch or just after.”
“Driving all the way to Chattanooga round trip by noon. That sucks.”
“Men, field trip.”
“Today’s the big test on the driveway repair.”
“That’s exciting.”
“It should be good. We put in almost a hundred man size boulders, a whole truck worth of graded stone, and we topped it at slope to run the water off toward the road. If it holds the concrete trucks, we have a construction site.”
“Cost a lot combine the whole first two weeks of gravel and this.”
“This weekend was nuts! The hundred boulders cost an average of a hundred-sixty-five each all in, three trucks of rock was like twenty-five-hundred, and the guys.”
“I didn’t see all those charges, but I did get the alerts that you did another three withdrawals. You have to listen to me. You cannot keep taking out five-hundred-dollar withdrawals like that. Suspicious Activity Reports are a real thing, and you’re actually using them for cash pay. That’s not legal.”
“Yeah, crime of the century.”
“Michael. It’s not the value of the crime. It’s just that it’s a crime.”
“It’s wrong. The whole economy up there is cash.”
“Poor communities are the only places left in America where cash even moves anymore.”
“Yeah, and plane loads of the stuff to foreign countries.”
“Michael. If you want to change the laws, run for Congress. For now, you’re the poster child. Get those withdrawals posted in the invoice, or you’re going to have trouble.”
“Fine.”
“Did you say you bought a hundred and sixty boulders?”
“A hundred boulders. A hundred-sixty dollars average each.”
“That’s like sixteen-thousand dollars…”
“More than that with the DOT stone and the pay. Plus the last load was three pallets, and it bent the axle on that trailer we bought for the shed lumber.”
“So the trailer’s destroyed?”
“No, but we’ll need a new axle.”
“So you spent twenty-thousand dollars on the neighbor’s land to make a pretty view from the other neighbor’s porch?”
“More or less. I’m in the dirt, Stef, and I’m not stopping to ask permission.”
“I think you could have just handed them ten-thousand and saved the money.”
“It’s not only that. If we put in construction gravel, that whole span looks – humanized.”
“We’re humans.”
“Well, the responsibility that comes with being human is to do things the best you can, not just put down the cheapest easiest garbage you can fill nature’s hole with so you…”
“Greenpeace, easy.”
“These aren’t progressive ideas. They’re carry-on ideas. If we stop dialing back the half-measures to smaller and smaller fractions…”
“I’ve heard the good steward speech.”
“Well, it’s true. There is no more conservative notion than to take care of what you have and to take responsibility for your own actions.”
“Fine, but you’re the one says we need more money. Don’t spend it all hoping that I’ll let you build the house because we don’t have the money for a contractor.”
“That’d be some long game shit, right there. I’ll play it out today while I spend another budget stack on the retaining wall.”
“Michael!”
“It’s okay. We got this. I hear trucks. Gotta go.”
“Hey, Matt.”
“That driveway looks awesome!”
“I thought sure I’d be getting another spray contract over there.”
“No chance. I went with the natural fix.”
“Wasn’t free though, was it?”
“No, you would have been more reasonable, that’s for sure. Did you spot for the concrete truck?”
“No, your man did. He told me it looked perfect though – and those drivers will let you know if it bothers them.”
“Cool, I’ll get out of the way. That guy coming in behind you with the aforementioned vinyl wrapped truck is a contractor come up try and talk me into the GC build includes the dog washing station and the built in cotton candy maker.”
“Good luck.”
“I’m Michael.”
“I’m Michael too. Here, I got you a business card.”
“Thanks.”
“This is some site. Is that the retaining wall for the house?”
“No. That’s just a workshop.”
“Okay. Our subs won’t like fitting in someone else’s dig.”
“That don’t make sense. You gotta hire a survey to put down the footer points anyway. Hole’s either big enough, or it’s not. What’s that got to do with your subs?”
“Hey, bossman. Trucks came up fine. You guys did a good job there.”
“Thanks, Cody. In a minute get the machines kept up, grease and muck-out. I’ll come with you in five. This shouldn’t take long at all.”
“So you’re going to dig the seat?”
“Yep.”
“We can’t guarantee the water flow if we don’t dig it.”
“That was easy. Sorry I took your time.”
“If you decide you’re better off, give me a call.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Hey, Matt. That looks good. I watched the boys set the pins and the mesh, and they’re impressive.”
“Yours look good too. Do you want me to taper and swale this bottom?”
“It’s a couple hours more work, but it needs done.”
“Yeah, we got a job waiting, but we’ll get it.”
“We set the slope so you can carry the swale to here. Do you see it?”
“That’s thirty feet. We didn’t plan for that. The truck’s almost out.”
“Order a clean-up.”
“A clean-up load would take an hour just to get here. There might be enough.”
“He hit the horn. That’s why I came over.”
“I think he just meant he’s low, not out.”
“Usually…”
“We’ll have enough.”
“We measured at twenty-five yards. They came in light closer to eight yards so they could get up the hill – and they planned for a third truck.”
“Yeah, that happens. Sometimes I guess wrong.”
“Thirty-three percent looks more like renegotiating.”
“Excuse me?”
“You ain’t done, Matt. I won’t judge unfinished work, but you just insinuated that you’re cutting at two trucks, and pump mix on a two-inch line dictates that the trucks come in light at eight. That’s sixteen yards, and it starts to look like a sweetheart deal.”
“Are you calling me…”
“Don’t finish that sentence, Matt. That equation’s got a line under it you can’t erase with the other end of the pencil. You know what you did, and I know what you did. And best you can do now is finish up. Here’s your check. Finish the job and get lost.”
“What just happened?”
“What do you mean? You were standing right there.”
“That went fast.”
“No two-step required, Cody. That man knew what he was doing.”
“So, um, what was he doing?”
“You don’t see it either, Tanner?”
“No.”
“He bid for twenty-five yards. The math there is thirteen-hundred square feet at six-inches – a proper wall.”
“Yeah right, I see it.”
“Rusty’s got it. Two trucks is four-inches thick, not six. Plus, look at the sequence – asks me if I want him to swale the bottom to the drain we built for him.”
“So?”
“It’s step one of the two-step; ask if I want him to do his actual job, or is it my decision that he skip it.”
“I saw a different thing.”
“I know you did, Cody. You saw me cut to the chase, and you saw you on the other end. And at least now you know I’m consistent. You come at me with bullshit, the only combination is I swallow, or I smear it on my pinched tight lips, and I take option B, and I take it from space Z.”
“Yeah, but why you pay him?”
“That’s the part B thing. That’s the shit on my lips. Take that one out to the end, and you see I got no choice. Sure, I win in court or whatever, but all I did was lose. Ayers still walks the community got my shit kiss on his mouth, we still have a four-inch thick wall, but can’t bad talk me, and now I got trade-community troubles. He eats the shit too this way. This way I don’t have to leave the worksite to show up in the courthouse to file nor to fight. I don’t have to chase the cheater across three counties getting levies on his bank accounts for the damages. I don’t have to lose both things, the benefit of a proper built wall and my precious time. I got rid of him cheap.”
“You don’t pay for the service. You pay her to leave.”
“Exactly, Rusty. And in the end, the benching was the job. The shotcrete was just the finish. We benched it, and that was a legal wall with nothing on it. Under all that topsoil you boys moved is shale, that’s class-A soil, and a fifty-up-fifty-back cut qualifies as supported, no mechanical wall required.”
“How you know all this shit?”
“Years, Cody. I learned it just about the way you learned it and just about at the same age. One day you’ll be the old hand.”
“So, he’s paid, and he don’t come back to break the windows.”
“And if you play it out – didn’t happen this time – but this happens a lot; guys run the gag, ask if you want the wheels back on the car after the rotation – you know what’s coming. If you pay him in full, sometimes they see the err on their ways, and they set the nails in the trim rather than leave the shiny heads stick out.”
“That’s some image clouds.”
“Called mixed metaphors, and sometimes they show the storm’s brewing.”
“So, um. Here’s a storm, toilet lid’s stuck shut with concrete.”
“It’s the windows, then. Devin, get that thing off there. Tanner go to the trailer and get one of those toilet seats. Put it on.”
“Bossman, yer sick. I knew’d they’s a reason you buy toilet seats.”
“Started out honest. Supply up early, get the locks, the solar, and the toilet seats, get ahead of the game even modestly. Now though, looks more like so wasteful I get a new toilet every time I gotta take a shit.”
“Seven toilet seats though. Plan says four toilets, this outhouse, and the coming workshop. That’s six.”
“The world made me buy seven. When one breaks, money will have discontinued the one I like, and I’ll have a mismatched life.”
“All the same.”
“What’s that, Cody?”
“Now you act can’t afford ears?”
“Can’t afford miss a good joke.”
“Wasn’t a joke.”
“So, all the same, that’s me rich and wasteful, unable to accept change or lessness, is that it?”
“Them seats, they’s expensive. Bad enough you can’t put your seat down gentle yourself, you gotta get a soft close lid do the work for you. Then, not just soft close plastic seat nine bucks, you gotta get you one of them seats wood heavy under the paint so’s it don’t stick in the air.”
“And, Cody, why do you think this is wrong?”
“You throwin’ out a toilet seat cost two hours my work, dig across that bench that you ain’t need sprayed in the first place, but here you is throwin’ fourteen-thousand dollar at that job, make ever body watch you waste money we ain’t got.”
“Cody, friend, bought and paid for, you ain’t wrong, but you’re not even close to right.”
“Yeah, Cody. That man spend his money his way, you spend yours your way.”
“I ain’t your friend, paid or otherwise. I’m here to work…”
“And why do you work, Cody? You got thirty years coming of this shit, why do you do it?”
“I do it feed my family.”
“I mean, you could feed your family with berries and roots. Why work with someone gives you such bile?”
“I don’t know what bile is, but I got my reasons put up with you. Don’t gotta explain myself neither. What you want next? You want I build you another shed, or maybe I feather your nest over there with some other luxury you act like’s a hardship.”
“I’m not sure I can answer all that. Maybe you’re right. I’m not the one to judge it.”
“That’s it. You judge all you like. That man just work, and you tell him leave off. He ain’t do nothin’ wrong. He just sprayin’ a wall, mind his own business n you run him off, but not before he finish up. No, you let him finish first before you run him down, this way you git yer wall, and you git yer high-and-mighty too.”
“Jesus, Cody. What’s this about?”
“Devin, you mind your business.”
“Stop! Everyone. Cody, if you want to tell me how you see me in your world, that’s fine. I’ll listen. I won’t be the person to punish you for your feelings – I’ll leave that to you. But you gotta understand I meant it when I said that I will protect these men. This tirade has a best-before-date on it, and you’ve run past fresh. I’m going to walk away and get this site back to work. You should do the same.”
“Coward.”
“Run that one back, Cody. See what it gets you. Play it back with your recording from the grill. Tell me what it tells you. In the meantime, get the chainsaw, get Rusty and Devin, and get up on that deer trail and start cutting trees for the road to come.”
“Yeah, right. Let’s get back to work.”
“So, um what am I doing?”
“You’re going down to the trailers. You’re going to sort and organize. Get all three of them lined up neat and tidy so I can install a camera that catches all three doors.”