The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So, you survived a second night.”
“Starts to look like a pattern. The dam survived too. I haven’t been out there, but the water’s up where it belongs.”
“Up?”
“Plan worked.”
“So far. We have to get the old pipe out today, and that’s gonna be wet hair.”
“Hairy?”
“Meh. It’s early.”
“Talk it through. Got a smoke?”
“Coffee too. I’m gonna need the butler get me some groceries today though. No milk.”
“Smoke, coffee, story, go.”
“I’m gonna smoke two cartons a week with this arrangement. No banishment to the bunker or the porch.”
“Not ready yet? How about the switchback?”
“Meh.”
“Wanna hear about my morning instead?”
“That’s the one.”
“So morning here is about 5:30. Little Clover at the door crack to the hallway like she’s huffing paint.”
“Good start.”
“So I cut her loose on the Cotters, and I go pee, and we’re not up three whole seconds, and Clover pushes open the bathroom door with a Grand’s Biscuit in her lips, looking at me like, ‘Do you know this Mammy lady reads minds?’”
“Oh, that’s delicious. More.”
“So, I walk out, and Clover’s standing at the front door. Biscuit gone, full eye contact, peek at door, back to me. Clearly ready for pee-mail, and we go outside, and she squats the second she gets to grass and flips it round for the door, pulling like the wagon’s stuck.”
“I see it.”
“And I can’t get the storm door open fast enough. She kicks it and huffs, left behind a tuft of fur on the frame to drag me in and show me her next wonder.”
“I’m so leaned in.”
“She takes me to the table where I find Tommy eating over easy eggs, bacon, toast, and a coffee. He doesn’t put milk in his.”
“Good morning, Michael.”
“Hi, Karen. Put me on speakerphone. Hi Karen.”
“You must be beside yourself all the duckies in the same pond again.”
“It’s wonderful. You should be here too.”
“I know, but someone’s gotta build this place. I bet Tommy gets those eggs every morning.”
“Not ever mornin’.”
“Hey, buddy. Don’t talk with your mouth full, makes me jealous.”
“S’why I did it.”
“Good try. It’d be snug for sure. And Kitty only tolerates Clover because she’s five times her size. She’d claw Pooty’s bug eyes out of his head.”
“Pooty won’t bother her.”
“No, she’s gotta be here, get used to the new place. Same old Kitty, all new tree stump so sit on. That’s the plan. I’ll come up tonight after the boys leave for the day.”
“Alright, people. I gotta get ready for my commute.”
“Bye, guys. Seeya tonight.”
“Bbyyee, Mmiicchhaaeell.”
“That commute got slippers in it?”
“Most of it. I might have to go pick up a file from Audit later if I can’t get the VPN setup. What rig you taking, the skid or the excavator?”
“I’ll be sloshing out that old pipe.”
“Scene’s a little murky.”
“I put the new pipe up about six inches higher than the old one. That raises the water permanently, but it temporarily puts the old pipe below the waterline.”
“So the old pipe still has water in it?”
“About six inches.”
“Is that dangerous?”
“Six inches is a lot of head pressure. Pi R Squared says roughly half a gallon per foot.”
“Don’t math-mouth me first thing in the morning, Michael. Besides, you’re solving for V.”
“Shorthand. Take a gallon jug to the mouth of the pipe and it fills up half with water.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“So, we cut the pipe out five or six feet, fill the void with dirt, pack it in with the treads, and we have a plugged dam.”
“Just leave the rest of the pipe behind?”
“Oh, no. Can’t do that. It’s just we gotta plug the water first. Then we dig out the pipe in sections and pack-fill.”
“So, not dangerous?”
“Meh. We’re digging out the top of a dam that we didn’t build, and other than my ceremonial first-shovel hard hat, not one of us has even the likeness of an engineering degree.”
“Then what?”
“Well, I’m assuming from three hundred feet away that the temp spillway worked. I can see the pond is full, but – well…”
“There it is. Why don’t you just go look?”
“I wanna share it with the guys.”
“Awe, so sweet.”
“Shutup, Stefanie.”
“What else is on the agenda?”
“I got a long list.”
“Need a barn wall?”
“I already rearranged the letters when I put the sheets on last night – Kitty, rapt. I no sooner get the fitted sheet in place, and she’s up on her spot.”
“Did you put the sheet on right?”
“It’s a king sheet, and the futon is a full, so it fought me, but I got the Kitty shadow arranged right, and she slept on target – half the night anyway.”
“Other half?”
“Gut crusher.”
“When are we handling the deposit?”
“I got my pockets turned out over here. The land, two months payroll, all the materials; all my income is outgo – and then some. I’ll probably pay down the tractors and feather the rest back to the money market.”
“Nest got a little sparse.”
“It’s still close. We have a good start. If we can keep the actual house under six hundred, and it takes the whole year and a half to finish, the income bridges.”
“How close?”
“You have the same passwords I have – it’s close.”
“Real close.”
“I know, babe. Two bedrooms helps though.”
“If you really spend one-three on the land, we’re screwed.”
“Well, the land was five thousand an acre, and that helped. The machines were two-fifty. Four guys, a year and a half, that’s another two-forty. It’s a half a mile of road, and we’re already in a hundred trucks there. Three-quarters already booked or billing. One-three’s not out of the question. We still have house septic, the big solar order, the workshop, geothermal, the actual house and at least one-fifty to your contractor.”
“Good try. You’re not building the house.”
“We don’t have it.”
“I told you not to spend boulder money and cry poor.”
“Why do you get all the clean told-ya-so’s, and I gotta hide under the bed for mine?”
“Genetics.”
“We’re real light.”
“Because you had too much time in that skid steer just like I said.”
“Two? You get two told-ya’s in the same paragraph?”
“Pound the table all you like. The record stands.”
“If I didn’t do it, the house wouldn’t be sold.”
“True, but now we’re living in tents, and we got enough to start but nowhere near enough to finish.”
“Any ideas?”
“Nope. That’s you. I’m safe and warm and Clover’s got a biscuit plug. Take your time.”
“I got four heads popping up over the dam top now and three-hundred feet before they’re on me. No time to waste.”
“Love.”
“Love you too.”
“Mornin’ boys!”
“Yeah, that hill.”
“Cold enough out there?”
“Ain’t no warmer in here, bossman.”
“It’s a little warmer.”
“Not much.”
“Smooth hands says it all, Tanner.”
“Ouch.”
“And we’re off. Cody fast out of the gate, point out the folly of my ways, Rusty in the middle with a dam grievance, and the run-in shed ain’t warm enough for Tanner.”
“Breakfast might warm him up.”
“Any seconds?”
“All four.”
“Okay, then. Day starts with a break. But I’ve been in here since last night, and I want to see the spillway.”
“Dam held.”
“Close the door behind you. Let’s go.”
“So, what’s on the agenda?”
“We got a busy day, but right now it’s yesterday’s dam start. Any luck, finished today.”
“Hundred-forty feet in one day?”
“No. That’s not our style. We’ll put in a couple sticks to drain the water further down the back, land it on the hillside so it’s natural earth, and go finish the solar. I’m not so sure I can take much more than the two heatless nights.”
“Wait, you’ve been sleeping in there without heat?”
“Well, yeah, Devin. We don’t have the batteries installed, and even if we did, we wouldn’t have enough solar to charge them.”
“Gahhllee, what are you trying to prove?”
“It’s not all that. Have you people ever had a cat? That beast is a heat seeker, and at a hundred and two degrees she’s a heat giver too.”
“Better man than me. I’ll take my mother’s house in a sub-division with heat and electricity.”
“And pancakes, yes I know, Devin. Why don’t you call the grill and order the food? Get me a Coke, coffee and orange juice with mine.”
“Not this again. It was coffee, Coke, orange juice.”
“Oh, this again. I need milk too, Devin. Get me a half a gallon of milk at the Wye along the way.”
“Where’s the card?”
“It’s on top of the mini-fridge next to the computer. Bring me that USB-c flash stick too. I need a copy of this recording Cody has.”
“Yeah, right. I can just text it to you.”
“You already have it, Rusty?”
“Yup. It’s my lullaby. Long time comin Cody needed someone tell him off like that.”
“Fuck you, Rusty.”
“Now, Cody. You sent it to him. Don’t be all pissy he’s not using it same dumb ass reason you created it, whatever that was.”
“So, um, can I have a copy too?”
“Cody Norman’s Greatest Hits. Apparently you could sell that thing. I bet the live bait man would love a copy. Did you buy bait there and come fish here? I hadn’t considered that.”
“All the same.”
“Aw, come on Cody, don’t get mad. That’s the part you always miss. We are what we are. You said yourself it doesn’t make you bad. What you miss is, you’re not being punished here by it. You’re just being asked to keep accurate books.”
“Accurate to who?”
“Accurate here.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means write what happened. Tell it clean. Leave the equation to the man with the chalk, whoever that is at the time. Take it one step further. Some people are gonna convict you no matter what you do to audit them. Their mind’s made up.”
“But that say more bout them than it do me.”
“More. Same read, same man, different mood. Totally different read.”
“Meghan call that butter her up.”
“We got no need imagine you spread butter all over Meghan.”
“Um, thanks Rus. That image helps big.”
“The real image is this spill pipe. Look at that. It’s like we planned it.”
“It’s perfect.”
“Ya, that’s lucky stuff. It don’t look like it went under the pipe at all. Just stop perfect at the lip.”
“Hell, Cody, get in that ex and let’s push the pipe through and seat it and make it real.”
“On it.”
“Yeah, right. That’s so awesome. I been watching this pond fill over the top since we started moving dirt in.”
“Dirt’s next again. Crank up the skid and start ferrying land bridge to seal this pipe in.”
“How many you want?”
“Keep em coming. You too, Cody. Push the pipe in so it’s sticking out over the water four or five feet.”
“What for?”
“We aren’t building the whole one-forty today. Probably just put in two sticks to carry the water past the foundations onto the natural hillside.”
“Still, why so far out?”
“It’s enough to flex it up and turn off the water when we come back to work in the rest. Lift up the tag of pipe, and we’ve got a shut-off.”
“You got it, bossman.”
“There. That’s it. Now nose in some of that pile from my dig. Nope, not like that. Don’t push the pipe around. Just light nose, little at time.”
“Like that?”
“Yup, Rusty, put that over here. It’s so messed up. I talk to the man, and I know he can’t hear me.”
“Ya, I do too. Dig sites all the same, man wave his hands all around talkin to theyselves.”
“There. Dump it. Open the window. Keep em coming. We need this hillside to stretch cleanly down at slope over the pipe. Cody, head over with him and loosen the bridge up ahead of the bucket.”
“Tanner, you playing the self-starter over here?”
“You got that covered. The racks need racking.”
“Devin’s back.”
“Perfect timing.”
“Holy, he’s making a run at the hill.”
“No way.”
“Looks like.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Dude. I don’t want you guys parking up here anyway.”
“He’s gonna make it.”
“Looks like.”
“Great, now I need a guard tower.”
“Food’ll be hot though.”
“I thought sure that hill had me safe and private up here, but the hill’s got nothin on a kid got something to prove and a country fried steak.”
“Stone cold, Devin.”
“Did you record that, Cody? I could use it to dare the mailman.”
“I got the food, bossman.”
“He didn’t spill my drinks did he?”
“Here, coffee, Coke, orange juice.”
“Turnabout’s the flavor.”
“Eggs the only flavor I smell.”
“That does smell good, boys. Put it on the fridge. Here’s the hamper. The lawn chairs are behind the recliner.”
“Too many asses in here fer me. I’ma eat outside.”
“Yeah, Cody. I’m with you.”
“Can’t do that guys. We gotta debrief the site and get organized.”
“Gimme one of them steaks.”
“Here ya go.”
“Everybody got it?”
“All good.”
“Ya.”
“Yeah.”
“Got mine.”
“Yours is a trophy, son. Good go up the hill. But let’s not do that again. You guys park at the split.”
“Move over, Cody.”
“It’s snug, but it’s a must-have.”
“Warm up quick though.”
“Rusty, if you fart in my house, I’ll cut loose Cody’s twisted mind on the retaliation.”
“I ain’t man enough for all that.”
“Nobody is. Okay, we have the plan on the dam. Tanner and Devin are on solar racks. Where we at?”
“The first rack is almost ready. The second one needs a couple more stake posts, and the third is about an hour out.”
“And the wire’s pulled?”
“No, because we need to disassemble this end first, and that means no charging until we’re done.”
“Good eye. Okay. So concentrate on rack one. Use eight new panels. Once they’re all clamped down – did you figure out those clamps?”
“Um, they’re easy.”
“Okay, so get a full array wired harvest side to the disconnect. Pull the shed side wires and land them in the new array. That doubles our current PV, and it buys time for the battery work. Then take apart the wood rack madness and put those panels on rack two. Build three and then we shut down and land the wires. When that’s done, I head to Wears Valley.”
“Is that a Ring?”
“Yep, devil heard my plea. It’s the mailman. Dropping Amazon boxes at the yard.”
“Sissy.”
“There’s a TV in my back seat by the way. It was sitting in the driveway when I went to get food.”
“I gotta do something about this driveway. They’re going to leave the wrong thing down there at the wrong time, and it’s going to get stolen.”
“Yeah, right.”
“At least I’ll have Netflix tonight and DirecTV comes tomorrow.”
“DirecTV in a tool shed. Ain’t right.”
“Ain’t right live without it, Cody.”
“I do.”
“We’re different. So, here’s the long game. When we finish the dam, you two get back to the back driveway and the switchback. That road needs drainage to the gully. Those felled trees need bucked and dragged. Place all the branches in a row along the pond side, and I can start mulching that out. We gotta clean up the trailers, sort and organize all three and bring all the extra and later stuff – the lathe tools, for instance – to storage. Basically, the next two weeks are finish the spillway pipe, road building and solar-good-enough.”
“Are we going to straighten up the easement too?”
“That and more, Rusty. Let’s get to it. Who’s getting this garbage? We ain’t leaving this here to draw bears.”