“No time for that now,” he said, not with the sky about to open and no roof on the remodel, making everything on the first level susceptible to water damage. As we opened the tarps William bought that morning, he explained that when drywall gets saturated, it loses its structural integrity, making it unsalvageable, and even if salvageable, wet walls become susceptible to infectious mold. The knob and tube wiring between the walls was at risk of shorting out, and otherwise becoming damaged, and the decades-old hardwood floors could buckle and warp and would be expensive to replace.
William moved as if in battle mode. I felt like a dull knife, barely cutting through my morning fog as I tried to keep up. Twice I went around the side of the house to throw up, first my toast and more Tylenol I took. Then dry heaves. I wanted to go home and sleep it off, but I didn’t have that luxury. “Lock and load,” William kept saying. “Got a job to do.” We were in a fight, the enemy didn’t care if I was hungover, and I didn’t have the luxury of picking and choosing my battles.
“You do what has to be done, or we all suffer the consequences,” William said.
William looked at the darkening sky like it was an old acquaintance, though not a friend, come back to pay him a visit. I imagined it was. William had described the weather in Vietnam as “hot, with rain, becoming hotter with still more rain, turning to sizzling with showers, and a shitload of mosquitos.”
William and I fastened bungee cords to hold down the tarps. It was a lot of work getting the tarps over the new roof ridge. We finished, barely, just as the first showers fell.
The rain sounded like hail as it splattered against the blue tarps, and I noticed William looking up at the noise like it was something far more lethal. “I’m going up to check the tarp for leaks,” William said, leaving me in the garage.
All the rushing around and climbing up and down ladders had caused the blood to pound at my temples like the rain pounding on the tarps. The prior day Todd had had me cutting lengths of rebar for a brick barbecue we were building at another jobsite. I think it was busywork, but it was something to do and I hadn’t yet finished.
Cutting metal rebar is done by switching out the wood-cutting blade on a Skilsaw for a black carbon fiber blade that cuts metal. I’d watched William and Todd change out the blade a number of times, and I’d watched them prop the rebar over the toe of their boot to get one end off the ground when they cut.
Still moving like a dullard, I changed out the blade, plugged in the Skilsaw, put on protective goggles, measured a piece of rebar, and put it over my boot. The blade whined and screeched and threw sparks when it hit the rebar. I hesitated, thinking I should put on leather gloves, then dismissed the thought.
I was bent over, the metal blade spinning, sparks flying, when William came into the garage and shouted over the whine of the blade.
“Stop!”
I turned and looked up at him through the goggles. He put a hand to his throat and made a violent slashing motion, then reached out as if to grab me, but pulled back before he touched me. With the gray light behind him and the fingers of his hand spread wide, he looked like the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol. I released the trigger, and when the noise of the saw faded, William stepped forward, his arm still outstretched.
“Drop the rebar,” he said, his voice calm but adamant. It sounded like he was telling me not to move, as if I had just stepped on one of the land mines he had described in Vietnam. I let the rebar drop. It pinged twice against the concrete, the sound tempered by the puddle of water in which I stood.
The dull blade of my mind sharpened. The cloudy haze fogging my common sense lifted, and my frontal cortex made the connection. I had gripped a metal bar in one bare hand. In the other hand I held a saw plugged into a compromised electrical outlet, while standing in a puddle of water. I flashed to my childhood, to being in a crawl space over the kitchen with my dad while he repaired a stove fan. My father had looked at me and said, “If I start to shake. Don’t touch me.”
I’d never been so scared.
I stepped back. William let out a held breath. He looked pale, his pupils enlarged dark circles in a sea of white. William had been scared for me. Now he was angry.
“Do you have a death wish?” He asked the question with such intensity, such brutal honesty, such piercing practicality, that I felt compelled to answer, though I knew his question to be rhetorical.
“No,” I said.
He shook his head, like a father disappointed with a child. “You’re standing in a puddle of water with an electric power tool and holding a piece of metal.” He punctuated every other word with a profanity. “You’re supposed to be smart.” He pointed to his temple, a quick, decisive gesture. “Think.”