The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Morning kids.”
“That’s a long walk from the Y.”
“One thousand three hundred feet, Cody.”
“We could line up along the pond.”
“Devin, your car couldn’t get up here.”
“Yeah, mine sure can’t.”
“It’s about six-hundred steps.”
“Are you seriously counting?”
“Well, yeah. For instance, you parked eight minutes ago, and I’m sure you punched in to your little apps. So, it cost me two-dollars and sixty-seven cents to get each one of you up the hill. That’s ten-dollars and sixty-eight cents to get my whole crew from their parking spaces to the worksite.”
“Bossman, I punch in when I leave my house.”
“So, that’s stealing, Cody.”
“How it’s stealing, Tanner? All them service call companies does it. They charge the time from when the truck leaves the yard, and most of them guys dispatch from they house.”
“Tanner, he thinks he got me there. That’s a disclosure item though, Cody. It’s upfront pricing requirements. You did not negotiate this into my billing at the time of pricing, therefore you cannot punch in and charge for traversing that three-quarters of a mile from your house to mine. Now, if you want to sue your own company for that commute time, you’re welcome to do that, but there’s a camera right at the property line, and the Ring cloud records your arrival time; today, seven fifty-three. You walked up the hill, and you were one minute late to get your assignments.”
“Assignments is part of the 1099 test.”
“Look at the arc of the conversation, Cody. It started out you get paid from parking. I told you what it cost me to walk you up the hill. You tell me you’ve been punching in from home for the last five weeks. I told you we didn’t negotiate dispatch pricing because you’re not a dispatched company, you’re a contracted company. I’m willing to pay you ten bucks to come to work. I don’t care how you all divide it. That’s not my worry. Ten bucks. Bill it.”
“Started cuz you cheap.”
“The irony is that my plan was to give you guys a billing lesson with your day’s work because in my mind I’m not just giving away a company, I’m giving away the knowledge how to run a company – and that, more than any single other thing on all green Earth is a point of view. My intent was to show the difference between an owner’s point of view and an employee’s point of view – notice I didn’t say POV, Rusty.”
“I couldn’t have designed this lesson better with a whole human resources training packet.”
“So, um. I don’t think I learned anything there.”
“Order breakfast. Go get it. Tonight’s my last night sleeping in a home, and we got a lot to finish.”
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How’s the Department of Revenue today?”
“Packing up the last couple things to take to Karen’s tomorrow morning. I’m taking the day off to get myself set up there.”
“I wish I could help.”
“It’s just a couple boxes.”
“Did your batteries come?”
“No, but they’re out for delivery. The freight company called to confirm that we have a loading dock.”
“Where’s that located?”
“The front seat of that skid steer.”
“Why don’t they just ship in a truck that can get up the driveway?”
“It’s not that they can’t get up. Look at the entrance. The same thing that saves us from prying eyes and curious lookie-loos is the thing that makes a truck driver assume it’s impassable. All you see is an uphill blind curve gravel driveway. They’re like Coyotes, if they can’t see a way out, they’re scared to come in.”
“Coyotes do okay with an AR though.”
“Every conversation I have today’s going south fast.”
“It’s your own fault, Parables.”
“Name’s Slippers.”
“Mikey Slippas.”
“Christ. It’s gonna be a year of this love by phone call crap, and she’s got a comfy office with a ball-bust rolodex.”
“You chose it. Could have got an apartment.”
“Keep up the redout. I’ll rest a little easy knowing my forty-two year old wife is sleeping in her childhood twin bed with her seventy-pound love-doodle.”
“How old am I?”
“April 27, 1982, Ma’am. You’re in your forty-second year.”
“Forty-one.”
“Forty-one years and two hundred seventy-seven days.”
“Forty-one.”
“Oh, momentous day. FedEx just crested the dam. He’s up the driveway.”
“No way. What does he have?”
“I think he has my futon from Amazon. Devin’s back with the food too. Chat later.”
“Love.”
“Love.”
“This thing’s heavy, bossman.”
“Delivery’s free though.”
“Nope, cost about three bucks for us to carry it from the dam.”
“Yeah, right. Got you there.”
“Leave it out there. We’ll build it after breakfast.”
“I love this country fried steak.”
“That’s one thing we can agree on, Cody. So, today we have a lot to do. I move in here tomorrow after the closing, and we’re not ready yet. The cactus lived, so I guess there’s that, but the weather report calls tomorrow night’s low at twenty-seven.”
“You’re gonna freeze your begonias off.”
“I’ll be fine. We get twelve batteries today. That’s the maximum size Pytes describes as one battery stack in the hub. The heater ran all night last night on the lowest setting, sixty degrees. And it drained the batteries to twenty percent.”
“Didn’t you order more batteries?”
“Yes. I ordered a bundle the day we put this unit in. Freight company called, and they’ll be here this morning. The problem is that if we install sixteen batteries, we get eighty-kilowatts, but we can’t charge that much.”
“We have a juggling act to perform today, and guess what takes a back seat.”
“Not the dam again.”
“That’s it, Cody. The dam’s gotta go on the back burner again while we take the rest of the solar panels from the first order and get them installed as fast as possible. We basically have to get the batteries installed - and this will be much more complicated than the first rack – and we need to build three racks of eight solar panels each.”
“What, no math lessons this time, bossman?”
“Nope, this is a triage lesson. We have twenty-four hours to get these batteries installed, and we can’t uninstall these four because they’re nowhere near balanced with the twelve that are coming today, which arrive somewhere around fifty percent. So we need to charge at least six kilowatts to these batteries all the while we’re building those batteries.”
“So, um. Are we building these racks out of lumber again?” “Nope. Unistrut.”
“Is there a hidden pile of Unistrut and bolts around here somewhere?”
“Nope. They’re on the day’s shopping list. Get a Dr. Infrared DR-968 heater. Here’s the link. That Duo is almost useless below forty degrees, and a spot heater feels warm even when the room isn’t. We could probably even rig up a little case around it so when it’s set to fifty-degrees, it heats up and cycles off more often.”
“You’re in the weeds, bossman.”
“Sorry. Thinking out loud. Okay, so we need three racks for panels. The open circuit on these panels puts the string size at eight. Three racks of eight is just over ten kW nameplate. Call it thirty kilowatts harvest. That’ll be close with the heat.”
“Still thinking out loud?”
“Yes.”
“Think how many Unistruts we need out loud.”
“Cute. Take the card and take Devin. Head that way, and I’ll text the shopping list. We have a busy day. We gotta receive all the solar gear, get it up here, get the batteries installed, build this futon, and start on the solar racks. Hurry.”
“Will do.”
“Rusty, set this futon up. Cody, follow me. We need to measure stuff and get ready.”
Shopping List:
Superstrut 1-5/8 x 10ft, 12 gauge, half slot – 60 sticks
– get the silver galv, $34 each when you buy 10+
– that’s two carts. Get a flatbed.
Spring nuts, 3/8-16, for 1-5/8 channel – 192
– they come in 5-packs. That’s 40 packs. Buy the peg.
– if they’re short, NEWHOUSE brand 5-pack works same
Hex bolts, 3/8-16 x 1" – 192 – buy the box not the bin
Flat washers, 3/8 – 200
Lock washers, 3/8 – 200
Superstrut flat 90 angle fittings – 24
Superstrut post bases – 12
Self-drilling screws, #12 x 1" – 1 box
8 AWG THHN, black – 500ft 2 spools
8 AWG THHN, red – 500ft 2 spools
Zip ties, UV black, 11" – 1 bag
Dr. Infrared DR-968 heater – 1 – heater aisle, ~$126
– NOT the one with the humidifier
2 tubes clear silicone
And one Post Hammer to bang in the struts
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What did you just spend thirty-three hundred dollars on at Home Depot?”
“I need a place for the cocaine and hookers. Gotta get supplies.”
“Cocaine and hookers, ha? Maybe get meth instead. We can’t afford the good stuff.”
“That double values the coupon. The meth hookers are way cheaper than the cocaine hookers.”
“I’m gonna revoke your hall pass.”
“That don’t fit the metaphor.”
“What-did-you-buy?”
“Well, I ordered those solar panels last year…”
“Stop. Today, Michael.”
“We need racking for the solar panels.”
“Home Depot sells solar gear?”
“No, they sell Unistrut.”
“What the hell is Unistrut?”
“Don’t blame me. I tried to explain, but you wanted today. I have to put up those solar panels I bought last year, and Unistrut is like Erector Set for grown ups.”
“We were all girls in my family, Michael.”
“Yeah, but you knew what it was, or you wouldn’t have gender rolled it.”
“You know. I think the time apart will be good for us.”
“I’m feeling fonder already.”
“What is this list?”
“You asked what I bought. I sent you Tanner’s shopping list.”
“I love this man, I love this man, I love this man.”
“Love you too. Seeya in a couple hours.”