The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“So, um, there’s a guy pulled in down at the equipment yard.”
“Is it that Boyd?”
“No, grey Hyundai.”
“I don’t know anyone with a Hyundai.”
“He’s down there.”
“Why didn’t the Ring ping?”
“He’s there, but he hasn’t passed that yet.”
“Where’s the golf cart?”
“It’s at the trailers.”
“Helpful.”
“I guess go down and greet whoever he is and bring him up.”
“Will do.”
“Hell, I’ll go with you and drive him up in the golf cart.”
“Kitty wants in.”
“Let her in. I can’t believe I’m outside in a T-shirt in February.”
“It’s nice. Won’t last though.”
“Won’t be long, and the rain’s got us locked out for today.”
“Watch your step.”
“I should have thrown on boots. It’s already a sopping mess.”
“Rusty’s a digging fool today. I couldn’t keep up.”
“Looks like all soil at this point.”
“Good solid shale at the base though.”
“That’ll be fun. Call and get us an excavator with a rock hammer today. Rain’ll have ’em lazy, so they’ll deliver.”
“Sunbelt?”
“Shop around. Stef’s got my mind on the money. Try A&A – everyone. Get it done today though. You can see he’s got a blue rock knob showing, and we gotta start at it, or we’ll be here a month.”
“Herc Rentals is usually cheapest.”
“Just call all four and get the best price. Get it for a week. It’ll be around two-thousand. Meanwhile, I’ll call Ag Pro and see if I can buy one cheap. If this takes three weeks, that’s six-thousand.”
“At least – But don’t forget that you’ll have to rock hammer that driveway wall too.”
“Yeah, I’ll be buying one for sure.”
“Do you still want me to get a rental?”
“Yes. Nobody’s going to have a rock hammer in stock, and now that we started, we gotta finish before an inspector comes rolling in here and sees we’re digging without a permit.”
“Good point. Maybe that’s the building department now.”
“Probably not. They drive white vehicles. This Unistrut held up good.”
“It’s way stronger than the wood for solar frames, that’s for sure.”
“Plus, with the feet buried, we have a grounded array.”
“I still would have liked to see that cattle fence idea.”
“You’re a sadist – looks like he’s getting out.”
“You think he saw us?”
“Probably. That dude don’t fit a Hyundai.”
“Gotta be his wife’s car or something.”
“Tow truck’s in the shop or something.”
“Tow truck?”
“First thing came to mind – he looks like a tow truck driver.”
“I been meaning to mention this – every time I pass and see it, and then I forget.”
“What?”
“Do you see how the water’s cutting across the road right here in the middle of the hill? I think we can fix that with a simple culvert across.”
“I’m probably not keeping this bit of road though. It’s basically the back of the dam, and I don’t want cars coming up this way.”
“Even still, this runoff will cut the hillside almost across.”
“He sees us now. Why’s he just standing at his car?”
“He’s talking – it’s a Bluetooth.”
“Maybe he’s that contractor – I didn’t even write the name down.”
“High hopes.”
“Fozzie Bear high. Sounds like he’s barking at whoever he’s talking to.”
“He’s getting chewed out.”
“Must be nice to have young ears.”
“He’s saying, I didn’t mean that, no ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Now he’s waving and saying hey.”
“Yeah, I got that part, smartass. Hey.”
“I’m Jeff.”
“I’m Michael.”
“I was just on with your old lady.”
“Old lady, ha? How’d that go?”
“She’s a handful.”
“How’d you even get on the phone with her?”
“Your email – I tried calling your number when I got here, and you didn’t answer, so I called the other phone number you had in your email.”
“I left my phone in the shed when I came down to meet you – who are you?”
“Jeff with Smokey Mountain Builders.”
“Truck in the shop?”
“Nope. That’s my ride.”
“You’ll have hell with that thing in here.”
“Is this the right site?”
“This is it.”
“There’s no way any of my guys put up with all this mud.”
“We ain’t fans neither, but we’re here for the forest, and the forest don’t like gravel everywhere.”
“Does the house go here?”
“Oh, no. It goes up the hill where we came down from.”
“Got a parking area up there?”
“Nope. It’s a hillside, and we’re digging the house seat right now – we can’t put in a front driveway until the foundation is in.”
“Front driveway won’t matter if you can’t get the trucks in here.”
“We get in just fine.”
“My guys won’t do this.”
“That’s probably for the best. I’m glad I saved you the walk up, though.”
“I wasn’t walking that. If you hadn’t come down, I would’a just split after I hung up with your old lady.”
“Stefanie. It was nice to meet you, Jeff.”
“Same here. Good luck with this, man. You’ll never find a builder though.”
“That’s encouraging. Keep busy. Thanks for your time.”
“Hey, let me ask you, why don’t you get a dirt crew and run some rock in here put the driveway in properly?”
“Well, Jeff. I don’t ordinarily answer a question with a question, but that one sorts me out of order. What do you mean when you say properly?”
“This looks like a budget job.”
“Ain’t they all. Elaborate, if you would.”
“I can’t see the whole place, but I just drove more than a quarter mile twisting and turning through thick forest with the car vibrating all the while.”
“And what do you suggest?”
“I suggest you cut down fifty or sixty of them trees, and you straighten the road.”
“It’s two wide sweeps. Did you get stuck at all?”
“No.”
“Did you spin out? Slide off?”
“No. It’s bouncy though.”
“Bouncy. And it has those curves in it.”
“Well, yeah. I pulled in, and I can’t see up the road like, and I gotta drive in before I know the road even continues to the next curve, and I get through both of those before I even get to here, and I can’t see nothing from here, neither.”
“So the privacy.”
“No, it’s the bouncy and the privacy and the trees pinching in on the road.”
“I mean, did your car get scratched by branches or something?”
“It’s a nice car. Is it a twenty-four?”
“Just got it last week.”
“It’s nice. So the branches aren’t like in the road or whatever, right? I mean, we cut them back pretty harsh, must be thirty feet between the closest ground-level ones.”
“It’s like a tunnel.”
“Yeah, the canopy is up there and thick for sure, but that’s not scratching your car or anything.”
“If you cut out a bunch, you’d get a clear view of the sky.”
“How about the gravel? Is that thick enough?”
“You’ll never get trucks in here is all I’m saying.”
“We just had concrete trucks in here pretty as you please a couple weeks ago.”
“You already started?”
“No, we had a shotcrete wall blown in to hold back a hill we cut.”
“Oh, you already have a dirt crew.”
“We are the dirt crew.”
“What do you do?”
“I rob banks.”
“---”
“It beats letting them rob me. What else do you see, Jeff?”
“You got a lot of rock in here already.”
“Probably close to a hundred trucks at this point.”
“Are you serious?”
“It was an undisturbed forest floor full of springs and brooks when we got here, and I could hardly walk it up to here. This little driveway goes almost another quarter-mile up to a switchback that’ll turn back into the house garage.”
“Half-mile of driveway. That’s a lot of walking – uphill.”
“It’s pretty gradual, but – Tanner, go get the golf cart, and we’ll take Jeff up and see the money shot.”
“I didn’t see that.”
“Yeah. So, have you ever bid a job that’s got a hundred trucks of rock lost to the ground just to get you in and make the plan?”
“That’s a lot of rock.”
“One truck at a time.”
“So, hop in.”
“I didn’t even hear you coming.”
“It’s electric.”
“How do you charge it?”
“Solar panels. Hop in. You’ll see.”
“This really is a nice place.”
“Your tune’s changing a little.”
“Road’s even more bumpy in this golf cart.”
“Not ready to give it up yet. That’s fine. You’ll see. It’s a pretty good gig. We got four full-timers and plans for a fifth, and they’ll be available to your own guys when the time comes.”
“My subs don’t speak English.”
“The mountain of Babbel then. I speak Spanish though. How do you communicate with them?”
“I don’t come to the jobsite much. I work with the owners, and they’re native, so they handle the worksite.”
“Wait, you don’t manage your worksites?”
“I do. I just don’t have to show up to do it.”
“I guess it wouldn’t do you any good to show up if you can’t talk to the workers. But how do you make a change or adjust a course if you do it remotely? Like, what if a stair railing is going in on the wrong side or something common?”
“They send me pictures, usually.”
“So like a video game.”
“Probably a little more complicated than that.”
“I spend all day up here with these guys. I can’t imagine leaving them all alone to make every decision on their own.”
“I imagine it every day.”
“Well played, Tanner. But you don’t mean that.”
“Hell I don’t. But you’re right. It drives me nuts – and everyone else too – when I can’t find you to ask how you want this thing or that.”
“Do you get a lot of that, Jeff?”
“They never quit calling, buddy.”
“I figured as much – I assumed the best-case scenario on the vibrating pocket.”
“They never stop.”
“Why don’t you just answer?”
“They can wait. What are them trailers?”
“That’s just tools and supplies.”
“And the road fork, that go toward like the neighbors?”
“No, that one on the right goes up the back of the dam to the pond.”
“So, I noticed the other day this thing struggles on this hill, but with all three of us, it’s nuts.”
“It’s rough, ain’t it? Still, fifteen ain’t bad.”
“Beats walking.”
“Oh --- wow, this is a construction site up here.”
“Well, yeah. What did you expect?”
“More of that down there.”
“See what we did with that right road, how we connected it up here to this one? The plan was to close that one up the back of the dam and have everyone come in this way, but --- Tanner, I think we’ll connect the two roads right here, make a loop for a turn around at least during construction because Jeff here got me thinking there’s gonna be a lot of trucks with the crews, and they’ll need someplace to park and turn around and stuff.”
“They still won’t like it.”
“I mean, don’t they have trucks?”
“Vans, mostly, but a lot of the guys just have cars.”
“Cars will never get up here before I finalize the road.”
“They won’t work this.”
“I mean, these guys park down in the yard every day and walk up.”
“Yeah, we do. And we really appreciate it too, Bossman.”
“Bossman, ha? We’ll see about that later.”
“So you have two dig sites. Did you start up there and realize it’s wrong and then come over here --- this still ain’t right.”
“You’re an interesting guy, Jeff.”
“You’re not digging the house seat there, are you?”
“Well, yeah. It’s center lot, right beside the pond. There’s a wrap around deck goes the full circumference around the house, and on top of the foundation it’ll be like fifteen-feet above the water. It’ll be gorgeous.”
“You’re awful close to that runoff.”
“I’ve heard that before. I had the nearest corner at twenty-feet. I’ve planned it back to thirty now.”
“Have you been up here when it rains?”
“Haven’t been up here when it’s not raining.”
“I’d like to see that when the water comes through.”
“It’s invisible. Look at the leaf litter on the floor. The water doesn’t move the leaves.”
“I’d still like to see it.”
“You’ll get your chance in about an hour if you stick around for lunch – you want anything? Tanner, get Rusty’s and Devin’s order and let’s get that rolling.”