The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Door’s open.”
“Kitty’s on the stump.”
“Where’s he at?”
“I dunno.”
“Cat, whar’s that Yankee at?”
“She’s stumped.”
“So, um, I guess we just get to work.”
“House seat’s dry. Me ‘n Russ get on this.”
“Devin, I know you’re tired of the silt fence, but we gotta get it in. Dig a hole without a permit is bad enough, but doing it without a silt fence is just begging embarrassment.”
“Let’s place the eel.”
“That bad, ha?”
“Buddy, I pounded a hundred stakes, and my blisters told me to stay home.”
“Heard. That eel ain’t no pleasure cruise neither, though. Those wood chips add up fast when you start to pull the sock around the pond.”
“Can’t we just hook the end of it to the skid and drag it?”
“Still, it’s a ten-inch tube full of wood chips, three-hundred feet long, and the skid won’t place it along the water’s edge.”
“I really can’t swing that sledge hammer again. Half these blisters popped. Look.”
“You should go to urgent care tonight and get an antibiotic ointment or something.”
“I got Neosporin.”
“You can’t swing a hammer, that’s for sure, but I don’t think you can pull this eel either.”
“Cody ain’t giving up that skid.”
“He would, but that hillside is no place for an untrained guy in a rolling blind spot. We’ll train you on it though. Promise. Today’s not the day.”
“I’ll just wear gloves.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to work with your hands like that.”
“It’s just blisters, buddy.”
“Let me see it again. Yeah, see? That’s not something you can drag erosion roll with. Those eels are like weaved and scratchy with the wood chips sticking through, and that blister’s huge.”
“It’s not a blister anymore.”
“Even worse, though. Look at it. It’s almost into your palm, and it’s already got dirt under the skin flap.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re not pulling the eel with that. Google it, treating a large broken blister on the palm.”
“I did last night when I popped it.”
“You popped it on purpose?”
“Sort of. I grabbed a door knob, and it broke, but it didn’t like empty all at once, so I popped it a little bigger.”
“What’d it say?”
“Do your blisters talk to you, Tanner?”
“What’d Google say?”
“Keep clean, don’t tear off, ointment, doctor if my hand falls off.”
“That settles it. I’ve never seen a blister so big in my life. That thing goes all the way into your palm, and you’re not pulling eel. So here’s what you’ll do. Put on gloves, grab those little clips we left on the shelf in the trailer, and start tidying the hanging wires on the back of the solar racks, and when you’re done with that let me know. I’ll get the rest of the silt fence in.”
“That won’t take long.”
“I know, but we left them out, and you can spend the day on all those almost finished things, clean and organize the tools if we run out of those. It’s either that, or you go to urgent care.”
“Clips on the top shelf?”
“That’s what I thought. Look at him up there. He’s tough on that machine, but he works that dirt like the machine’s attached to him.”
“He hates that machine.”
“Why you say that?”
“It’s just the look in his face when Rusty gets the excavator.”
“It’s like a ballet though, look. Dude’s got like a circle no bigger to work in than the machine itself, and got no idea how he picks up that dirt, lifts it above the machine so he has room to spin around, all the while bringing the bucket down around the rock wall – on a hillside driving off to dump it. I’d dump half my load or flip the machine.”
“He’s an artist. He hates it here, though.”
“I know, but it don’t make sense. It’s literally perfect for him. He’s his own boss, but he doesn’t have to go bidding jobs every day to keep the work coming in.”
“Imagine that.”
“I have.”
“Not pretty.”
“It’s not all that bad, but this job made me think. So, you have a company, and people call, and you go look at the work, and you talk it over, it’s like a job interview every day of your life. Cody ain’t fit for that, and I think he knows it, but as a team, Me and Rusty can do bids and he can run crews and machines, and he’d have all the alone time in a machine he could stand, and he’ll get all that for nothing more than keeping the first job until the job is done.”
“That’s the hard part. He already started.”
“Quitting?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think he is. I think he just wants to work part time for full time pay.”
“He’s not getting full time pay though. Monday and Tuesday he left early, and Wednesday, Thursday he didn’t come at all.”
“Plus, they garnish his check.”
“He’s trying to get cash pay.”
“It won’t work.”
“Hey, Tanner!”
“Did he hear us?”
“Y’all best push that door open thar, ‘n let that cat inside.”
“No, he can’t hear us standing on that bucket.”
“Lookit that cat. She want in.”
“I see her, buddy.”
“No way he heard us in that machine.”
“How long was he out of it?”
“I didn’t notice him.”
“Kitty, how long you been sitting on the porch – there you go. Go on in.”
“I wonder if he knows he left the door open.”
“I doubt it. When I installed it, we got interrupted, and he told me to put a deadbolt on it, but we never got to that either. I bet it just slipped when he shut it.”
“He definitely didn’t put the cat out with nobody here.”
“Nope. Just an accident, but I gotta get on this door today. It’d be best if I get it fixed before he gets back.”
“Let’s get on it then.”