When I got to the site Tuesday morning, Jesse and Myron were already out in the yard sanding the twelve-inch hemlock floorboards we’d managed to dry out, the legs of the sawhorses in the mud and old snow. A pair of Asscrack Harrys were humping sheets of drywall into the front room, where Jesse’d gotten plywood down, and the radio was going. Billy’s old radio, which Amber had passed on to Jesse.
Johnny still hadn’t showed by ten o’clock, so I called his cell and his house, then tried Amber at the office; she hadn’t seen or heard from him. “Anything else shaking?” I said.
“Some guy called about the ad. And somebody else, but they hung up.”
Jesse and I started hanging drywall in the upstairs while Myron stayed with the floorboards. That was a waste of him but I didn’t trust the Asscracks not to leave marks with the sanders; they both looked about sixteen, though the one with the tattoos running up his neck had finished high school. I put him to work stapling rolled insulation between the studs in the dining room and sent the bodybuilder one over to Security Supply in North Adams, where I had an account, to pick up toilets for the half baths, rolls of PEX and a list of other stuff; the toilet in the master bath, with the wooden tank up top, had been ruined too, but that I’d had to special order. This afternoon I’d get him started cleaning up everything we’d taken out and stored in the shed—the claw-foot bathtub, the antique sinks with the brass fixtures, the wood-burning Glenwood kitchen stove that Holtzman’s wife actually cooked on once in a while. She claimed you could taste the difference.
When the noon whistle blew down at the town hall, the guys brought out their lunches—Myron’s wife always packed something hot for him in a zippered bag—and I got in my truck to go by Johnny’s house. It was getting colder and starting to cloud over. His Pathfinder wasn’t there, so I sent him a text—Where U?—then drove to the office and found Amber on the Internet as usual.
“What stinks in here?” I said.
“Coffee was tasting like shit, so I ran some white vinegar through the coffeemaker to get all that scunge out. I was just about to vacuum. This place is going to be a disaster area after I’m gone. You better get somebody good in.”
“So no word? I stopped by his place.”
“I told you he’d be pissed.”
“He’ll probably turn up.” I looked in the mini-fridge and found a single peach yogurt. “This yours?”
“You can have it. So how come you’re mad at me?”
“Who said?”
“I call bullshit.”
“I’m not too happy with Johnny.”
“You just wished it would’ve been you,” she said.
I peeled back the foil and found a plastic spoon in my drawer. “I’m good with who I’m with.”
“Well, if you want to know, it wasn’t exactly epic.”
“I don’t need details.” I ate a spoonful of the yogurt, then pushed it away. “Here, you want the rest of this? I better get back.”
“So is everybody thinking bad about me?” she said.
“I would doubt anybody knows. Jesse might. He wouldn’t judge you.”
“Shit,” she said. “I am so out of here.”
Jesse and Myron were sitting on lawn chairs in the Holtzmans’ front room when I got back, still finishing their lunches. “How’s our young lady?” Jesse said.
“She’s holding up,” I said. “How you doing?”
“I don’t think they should’ve put her out like that,” he said. “She was just upset like anybody else. We did have a little to drink. I would’ve followed y’all out, but I had to make sure and say a word for Billy.”
“I wish I’d got to hear you.”
“It wasn’t much. I just said he was my friend, and he was a good man and he loved all of them, which I don’t know he always did, but I am pretty sure he wanted to. He was more of a Christian than he let on.”
“You had me pretty near to crying,” Myron said.
“Now is Johnny all right?” Jesse said. “I expected he’d be out here.”
“He might still roll in this afternoon,” I said. “If we can get the rest of the drywall up in the next couple days, I’ll call the guy in Conway to come up and do the taping and we’ll be able to get the plumber in and start on the woodwork.”
“Be good to have Johnny.” He looked over at the tattooed kid, who was chucking a Red Bull can into the dumpster. “Those two, I don’t know.”
“We might have to think about them. Hell, we used to be kids.”
“Now you’re trying to hurt me,” Jesse said.
A cold rain started about one o’clock and Myron put a tarp over the floorboards and came in to help with the drywall. I got out my phone and called the guy who’d answered the ad; he sounded like I’d woken him up. I told him to come around to the office tomorrow morning, eight o’clock sharp. He said he’d try. So probably cross him off. The rain had turned to snow by the time the bodybuilder got back with the stuff from North Adams; he said cars were slipping off the road at the top of Route 2, so after he and his buddy got the truck unloaded I sent them home. Finally, about four o’clock, I got a text back from Johnny reading Fuck U.
—
Kristin was due back from Boston sometime today, and I remembered her saying something about maybe getting together. I hadn’t had time to stop by and feed the stove during the day, so the house was cold when I got in, even though I block off most of it in the winter—all I use is the living room, kitchen and one upstairs bedroom. The one time my father ever came up after my wife left, he said I should sell the place so some family could have it.
The snow hadn’t amounted to much, but the thermometer in the window said it was down to fifteen. I opened the draft and the damper, poked up the embers, put in some good birch logs and watched the bark flame up, then turned on the public station from Amherst and got their daily dose of Iraq and Syria and Israel and Gaza. All names as far I’m concerned, though you didn’t want to tell Kristin this; she said you couldn’t just ignore what was happening in the world. Every time they had another school shooting somewhere, she was all set to—and that’s the point, right? Set to do what? Of course look at where she worked. One thing about Bozrah, we’ll never have a school shooting.
If it had been up to me, I would’ve broken out the Jack Daniel’s while the house was warming up, cooked myself some pasta, then turned in early and read myself to sleep; I’d been working my way through The Duke Ellington Reader, which Kristin ordered for me off Amazon. No particular occasion, just that she’d heard me mention Duke Ellington. Actually, I was afraid it might have been our one-month anniversary until I looked back at my calendar. But I knew I should check in with her before pulling the phone.