As in the power that is incumbent in the design of all things. In the case of humans, power refers to the powers to resist, insist and resist. Resist the lower levels of energy in pursuit of meaning. Insist on being responsible for your thoughts and actions that support the community. Persist in elevating to higher realms that love to be in service to perceptions about growth.
However we are self-inflicted with auto-GMO. The design has been messed with. In the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual domains.
It’s been a fierce few thousand years of downward pointing modification that we have not been able to resist. Modification of men and of women. Of education. Of religion. Modification away from the natural design towards the power of profit. Profit has perverted the power away from purpose.
Maybe the market momentum for electrical vehicles these days is unconsciously mirroring a need for realignment towards something less abrasive to the surroundings; be those people or the planet.
Consider the formula:
Man to the power of two = Man squared. If you think about it, that means man to the power of himself. Whatever he considers himself to be is what will give him power. If he has confidence in himself, in his skills and qualities, they are empowered by his degree of confidence in his ability to get stuff done. Whether that stuff supports mutual growth or the attainment of power.
More man power formulas:
Man to the power of self ignorance; man to the power of the life stage he is passing through; man to the power of soul trajectory. All of these energies a man can process in a span of a few seconds – boom boom boom. Which can cause him to not know what he wants because there are conflicting energies petitioning his awareness. And those around him can think he is lost or doesn’t have ambition.
Man to the power of … anything – implies there is a great versatility in the design of a man to be amplified. And that is what every teenage boy is waiting for. Anything that leads him to build his identity. A teenage identity can be the foundation which leads to meaning for a man as he passes from adult into elder.
A man needs clarity to choose his own alignment? Clarity can take time: perhaps in a conversation, through years of therapy or on one’s deathbed.
What are your alignment options? Align yourself to success, to a sense of community, to your inherited religion – or possibly a mix of all of the above.
What is required to make your alignment relevant and (yet) religious? Actually making it relevant points to a religious life; making it religious makes it relevant – to what is above and below – past and future.
We all use the same tool to measure love. The instinct is like the heart of the soul – pumping the marrow of the moment into your capacities. The instinct assumes that you want to be in the best possible health so your faculties will be in service to your soul trajectory. Confluence of corporeal and soul health is exactly what the planet looks for in a human.
The challenge is when we are lost – meaning not in touch with our instinct – not in communication with the human instinct. When someone is lost, it can be difficult to find the ramp to exit from the highway to nowhere.
Like GPS on your phone is for you to get to the farm outside the city where they have those really expensive u-cut your own Christmas tree, the instinct is the GPS of the soul.
Your instinct resonates with the truth of you in the moment.
The greater we can, on a daily basis, jump out of the claws of being lost and into the embrace of love and its corollaries of awareness, sharing, service, understanding and agility, the more we can experience being responsible for our daily relevance and religious alignment. Thus in the equation/formula of man to the power of ___________ we can insert the alignment we want for us based on our generation of personal beliefs (big and small).
New cells are like a newborn baby – fresh from the source; innocent and clean. They have a purpose. (Since most days of our life there are new cells generating this offers a thread we can follow to connect us to our purpose.)
These cells have an intelligence with which they are eager to permeate our being. Issuing from within your marrow your cells have a mechanical infrastructure to get the job done with grace. Grace is a trinity of strength, beauty and meaning. Cells appear inside you that foster your awareness of meaning. Your meaning seems to us to be written in hieroglyphics because it is written into our DNA. These unique string stories refer to your universal nature that you reveal in your fealty to your instinct in daily life.
Adjacent to your emotional agility is your cells engraving agility. This is an agility to transcribe and translate the DNA via RNA into actionable instructions. This is cellular level synthesis of electrical energy into magnetic information. The residue of this cellular synthesis is hosted by the blood.
What do you want to host in your blood as your cellular orientation?
You are the conscious leader of unconscious cellular syntheses, which can function as your troops. Are you on the same page? Can they grasp what you want now, as an adult? Or is your childhood programming stronger than what you want?
These are micro dynamics that are true to their function and produce accurate results at the level of Elevated energy. The macro dynamic is everyday life. You are the macro manager of the purpose of your cellular micro life.
Our job is to find a way elevated information can be integrated into daily life.
It’s easy when it flows and it is difficult when our intentions are out of sync with our cells’ purpose.
The following is a good place to start when thinking about runes:
As well as being a literal alphabet used during the Viking ages, runes were (and still are by some) believed to hold power, symbolise inherent qualities and values and be associated with magic, as well as having meanings in more modern divination and oracle reading practices too. https://happypiranha.com
How to create runes to insert in your life for the purpose of conducting your energy through your strengths.
Decide on one of the areas in your life that you will focus on. For example: professional, marriage, personal religion.
State what you want for that aspect in your life.
“I want …… in my ……..”
“I want mutual support in my marriage.”
Work it into a declaration sentence.
“In order to instil mutual support in my marriage I will seek the good in my wife and offer honest expressions of my goodness.”
What symbol can you create that holds the essences of your sentence? It is your declaration sentence for what you want so you choose what works for you.
In that sentence is a power word(s) you will select. This power word has leverage to get you from the level of daily energy to elevated energy. The power word is what accesses your Emotional Agility in the moment. Your Emotional Agility is what allows the flow of life energy to be expressed in the daily and elevated aspects of your life.
This can work well with meditation to further engrave the reality of becoming what you want by activating your strengths.
The Rune Meditation:
Pair the word and the symbol: draw the symbol and below it write the power word.
Close your eyes and picture that symbol – say the power word out loud.
As you breathe in, imagine your breath being permeated with the power word.
Have it print on your blood for the minute that it takes to circulate through your body culminating with an exhale.
Open your eyes: you radiate your power word.
As you grow forward draw your symbol and say your power word out loud as you wish.
Emotional Agility is the capacity to synthesise elevated emotion with daily life.
Elevated emotion is the power within the growth of natural development.
What is your inheritance?
Is it: money, traditions, culture, a place in the family tree, unconscious beliefs, family trauma, a house, a business, lack of love/ self love, belonging, forgiveness.
Compare the following life themes in previous generations to identify what you have received and what you have impacted: family, neighbourhood, how much money there was and the work to get it, the awareness of the condition of the planet, religion, health, education, travel, communication, marriage, old age, language, goals.
Beliefs
How do all those themes influence your beliefs? Are your beliefs the same as the previous generation(s)? Have you updated the beliefs that you inherited? How much do they impact you? Do you have information previous generations didn’t have that you have used to update your beliefs? Are your beliefs better than other peoples?
Ask yourself:
What do you want to give continuance to?
What do you not want to inherit?
Use your Sistem.
Persist – towards the light, towards elevated emotion, building Emotional Agility.
Resist – below and around you; friends, enemies, opportunities, habits; low level leeches
Insist – inside you. Insist to uphold what you stand for. What do you stand for?
Clarify your Big and Small Beliefs
Big B Beliefs are those about what it is unto itself, in theory, for everyone.
Small b beliefs are how that Belief reveals itself in your life, in practice, in your daily life.
The challenge is to make small b relevant to Big B and Big B relevant to small b beliefs. The flow of belief in action highlights your Emotional Agility.
Example
A Man
Big B Belief – A man is willing to participate in the growth and well being of his community.
Small b belief – I, as a man, love seeing my family safe and curious about life.
Even though the agreement was for her to start after she gave birth Maritza started learning coding right away and for the next four months she worked at the restaurant till she was seven large months pregnant. It was a period of hyper focus because she wasn’t going to have the time or energy for the months following the birth and she didn’t want anyone else to jump in and take the opportunity away from her. The first step is to study CSS HTML, and Javascript.
With the confidence of her new job her life plan was while she has child number one she will be a Front End Developer. Then after her second and last child she will become a Back End Developer. The odds in Vegas of Diego being ‘the sperminator’ for that second child have been dropping steadily.
Maritza’s due date was October 16 so Diana arrived Sept 30 just in case the baby wanted life to start a few weeks early.
She wanted her mom to be with her when she had children. But she knew by the time she was 14 years old she would never leave her hometown – the mini universe of petty importances – if she got married and had a child there. It was painful but with the reports of increasing ‘femicidios’ she knew it was the right thing to do.
To begin with it worked out really well. Diego was on his best behaviour; still a bit nervous and ashamed he got his girlfriend knocked up. Diana loved seeing her daughter after three years and she spread that love on Diego’s toast too. For a while. Diana liked Diego but he just couldn’t get with the program. He would do anything you asked. But you had to ask him to stop watching videos and put down the phone. He worked full time but other than that there was a weak response to the fact of the cost of raising a family. He didn’t party – he didn’t do anything.
Diego’s mom died when he was around four years old so he ended up living with cousins till he was a teenager. His dad became unhinged; unable to transition from grief to widower/dad/homemaker/happy person who didn’t drink everyday and just plop white bread and peanut butter on the kitchen table for his two boys to make their sandwiches to take to school. His dad’s sister Blanca took over the role of responsible adult.
His dad visited a few times but his absence fertilised weeds of disdain to germinate in their garden of young man formation. Of course the boys felt rejected and wound up with contorted relationships with love for a long time. Perhaps that was one of the things that Maritza and Diego had in common. His limited lexicon of love was familiar to Maritza. Not quite comforting but at least she knew what she was dealing with having seen her dad come back from Oregon without the words or the balls to improve the situation with her mom.
Maritza explained her theory to her mom that since Diego was brought up by his Aunt and embarrassed about his dad and afraid they might kick him out if he and his younger brother became too much of a burden he didn’t impose. That is why he had programmed himself out of ambition. And probably the same for drinking. He didn’t drink. He went to church every two weeks to pray for aunt Blanca who was sick and had been for a while. Diego sent her money on her birthday and at Christmas – 250 bucks – which surprised Maritza. At first she didn’t say anything but now with needing things for the baby and el mendigo coche things had changed. She can see that conversation about Aunt blanca coming soon. Her mom was totally in agreement.
It was cramped in their one bedroom apartment. Mom created her tidy corner for living. They pulled the couch out from the wall and put a foam mattress down. She would nap with the baby when Maritza had gone out to shop. In the space between conscious and unconscious is that beautiful feeling of experiencing your mind compressing. It might have been a dream in sleep or had her mind imagined she was back in Mexico as a young mother with infant Maritza. But instantly she realized that was silly because she lived in fear in Mexico of her loncheria being targeted by the narcos and she was breathing in the smells of her granddaughter.
Maritza told her mom she wasn’t married to Diego in any civil or emotional sense. She wanted chdilren and she didn’t want stupid parent problems impacting the development of her children. Diego was perfect for the job. He was not anything remarkable: a little pudgy, not funny or depressing, not ugly or rich, not violent or warm, or not ambitious.
Diana talked with him one Saturday morning when the two of them were walking with the baby in the carriage that everyone at the restaurant had chipped in for and given her as a gift. In fact they had offered to give Diego a job. He would have been making less money but it would have been stable and they would still have benefits. He would have to improve his English and to him that meant reading and lots of things going too fast for him and not understanding. Any book caused a white rain in his head that didn’t let him think. His English wasn’t that bad but he made no effort to learn. It made Diego feel too domesticated. He needed to be the man to go out and make his money to support his family in a job he found doing work he learned. He didn’t need help.
Diana sensed he felt guilt from how his childhood went. She told him he was not responsible for his parents. How could he be?
“Hijo, as parents we make mistakes. The ones you are going to make are enough. You can’t also carry the sins from the previous generation. You are so good to send money to your Aunt Blanca. She will understand if you have to focus on your family now. She has her own children to help her. You have helped them so much.”
Diego sent money to Aunt Blanca so that he could feel a mother’s love. He was too scared to go out into the world by himself. His past was bullying his present.
“Hijo, you are a good man. Your family loves you and needs you. Here. Now,” said Diana.
Diana living with them allowed Maritza to study more and sleep more and obviously she was a great cook so Diego’s lunches were famous on the job site. Diana made him dishes that he could share with the guys at lunch time so they liked having him on the team – so they didn’t fire him for being a lazy dumbass.
She made tacos dorados, flautas, chiles en vinagre and she always gave him an extra bottle of agua de Jamaica sweetened with piloncillo. She taught Diego how to make hand made tortillas so when she was gone he had a specific task in the kitchen.
She opened Fonda Diana two years before she got pregnant with Maritza. It was such a hoe-in-the-wall restaurant with economical food for locals. The revenue often just covered costs and everyone knew they had nothing really. Just the house. Her father-in-law had divided his property up in equal parts for each of his six children. Diana and Rodolfo had their plot closest to the road where they built their two bedroom/one bathroom house as newlyweds 20 years ago. Diana wanted a little more distance between her and her in-laws but she didn’t have her own free property up her sleeve. Being closest to the road gave the illusion of an easy escape in case of emergency.
Now this was her turn being away like her husband. Diana was traumatized by her husband’s experience in the US. Even though Maritza had her work permit Diana still had fear la migra was gonna knock on the door.
She needs to be in the same place as her biggest worry. In her marriage there was no worry nor love. At least not love that flowed between the two of them. There was his support of wanting the mother of his children to be healthy. But there were no emotional hydraulics that kept them connected, rejuvenated or feeling appreciated.
Their love was like a coiled and faded green garden hose that sits in the grass beside the house – the grass growing all around it. The water in the hose gets heated every day and cooled every night but never quenches anything. There was endearment from him to her because he knew she knew he had cheated on her in Oregon. Or as Maritza at four years old would say – oregano.
With her mom around Maritza started speaking more in English to Diego so her mom wouldn’t understand. Diana understood they were a family and needed to have their privacy. As a young family they had so many unknowns, of baby sleeping and parents not/diaper rashes/not trusting the doctor/medicine and diapers/noisy neighbours, arriving at once, like it was a surprise party no one told you that you were hosting. Diana would ‘go to the store’ just to give them some space. But winter had placed a white canvas on the ground after the beautiful palette of autumn fiery reds, glowing oranges and comforting yellows. The cold was hard and penetrating and was more than necessary. All the cold you needed was to make snow, why get colder, thought Diana, when she looked at her phone and it said minus 17 degrees Celsius.
Diana sat in the coffee shop with her sugary medium hot chocolate. She took her coat off and hung it on the back of the chair like the Canadians with their large double doubles. She thought if she acted like them her marrow might radiate some warmth through her body. She bought the hot chocolate because there was the word hot right in the name. Diana cupped the hot chocolate with her pale hands. It’s like she was wearing special lead gloves that didn’t let any radiation through. She didn’t want to complain and cause her daughter any stress and pass that to the baby.
She needed a hug. She found a gif of a boy wearing a toque,snow on his head and frozen snot coming out of his nostril. She sent it to her sister back home. Her sister sent her a gif of a smiling devil with a bottle of booze. Diana had planned to stay six months but cut it short saying that her son back in Mexico needed taking care of because he was getting sick and wasn’t eating well because dad was a moron in the kitchen. And elsewhere. They had Sandra’s first Christmas together and she left in mid January. She was too cold to stay.
Her tears were going in all directions. They were falling up in the joy of being a grandmother of a beautiful shining life. They were falling down in sadness at the stupidness of husbands and son-in-laws and sons not knowing how to love.
They were falling sideways at being 54 years old, grandma, mother-in-law, and feeling needed for what she did and not loved for the woman she was.
She knew what kind of woman she was. Not from a sense of self-confidence based on life success. She knew because Maritza told her.
“Mama, I’m not going to miss you,” said Maritza, which shocked Diana.
“Because I will have you morning, noon and night. Because I need to be strong for Sandra and caring at the same time. All I have to do is exactly the same as you did for me. Everyday. Resilient and dignified and creative and…”
“Ya basta,” Diana stopped Maritza and reached for Sandra to cradle her one last time before she went home. Only Diego drove her to the airport because Diana couldn’t handle the car trip with the joy of being with Sandra and the sadness of having to leave.
Maritza didn’t want to have two children from different fathers so Operation Rogelio was live: get drunk while eatng dinner, have sex and hopefully get pregnant. Maritza figures by the time Rogelio (she has decided it will be a boy and his name is Rogelio) is five years old she can take out the blue recycling bin with Diego in it. Have him get picked up and out of her life and he can get repurposed by another woman.
“Oye gordo, can you jump in your sexy car and run down to the liquor store and get us a bottle of wine for dinner.
“What colour?” asked Diego, liking the idea that he drove a sexy car.
“Red menso. Have you ever seen me drink white wine in my life?”
“I dunno maybe when …”
“Make it one of those one litre bottles. Here’s 20 bucks.”
As the door closed she could hear him jingling his keys with the satisfaction of a man with purpose. Click/clack the door to their second floor apartment closed. She stood there feeling like she was watching the final credits of a bad movie you sat through hoping to be moved by it at some point – and the best part of the movie was the popcorn.
Maritza said to the closed door,
“You are a toad.”
–
From the short story series Tool by Kevin McNamara
Originally posted on UNAS HORAS DE LUZ -Júlia García-: ? ¿Qué ocurre cuando en una vivienda o trabajo hay conflictos, discusiones o enfermedades? y ¿Qué pasa cuando cohabitamos con almas perdidas? De una manera u otra todos somos sensibles a la energía de las casas, locales, lugar de trabajo, centros comerciales… Cuando hay…
“In alle dingen van de natuur is iets van het wonderbaarlijke.”****“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” See me too on : 500px ~ Flickr
The two month delay because of the strike meant the real estate developers were way behind schedule to get 120 townhouses framed on their big Rowntree 3 project. In order to avoid stiff fines for not having the homes ready for their buyers to move in on time they had to get the project done in a ridiculously short window of time. As a result they were paying top dollar and brought in any and all guys who could swing a hammer. Diego could swing a hammer. He could also stand around with his hammer in his hand and talk while you work. You would think he was single and had no one to talk with at home and so he used work as his therapy. Paco wasn’t single either, he just looked that way. His family was back in Guatemala where he hasn’t been in the three years he has been in Canada.
“Donde chingados esta mi coche?” said Diego, freakin out. “NO me dices esto,” he says, with his eyes scrunched shut and pulling on his short black hair. His new-to-him cobalt blue (no sunroof) 2016 Chevy Cruze is gone. He stood still for a few seconds playing a very brief mental movie in his mind called Fear.
Fear of his girlfriend/mother of his daughter cell-yelling when he wasn’t home by 5:30. If he was driving he couldn’t text but when he declines her call that drives her crazy. Then he would text her to say he would be another 30 minutes and she would think to herself why is he texting if he is driving. Or maybe he isn’t driving, he is with una vieja and I’m gonna pull his hair out and feed it to her and pull his hair out and feed it to her.
Then, according to the script, when he gets home he can expect:
‘I told you not to get a car. You know you can rent a car for like 80 bucks a day so to take my mother to Niagara falls you don’t need a car. So you can’t say it was for me or for my mom or for the baby. It was for you because you don’t want to wake up early and take the bus.
‘Or stand in the fuckin cold at the bus stop,’ Diego, the pudgy whiner, imagines himself saying.
Paco looks at the screen on his cell and sees it’s a call from Diego – he already regrets recommending this guy to Gus.
“One second Gus,” Diego turns away and sings as much as he talks his greeting. “Que pasa hermano?”
“Alguien robó mi pinche coche. Vieron algo?”
“No me dices esto bro,” said Paco without caring.
“Preguntale brother,” insists Diego.
“When are you gonna learn English cabron?” said Paco.
“Askem bro, por fa,” said Diego thinking his Spanglish would help his cause.
As Paco drops his hand with his phone to his hip he puts it on speaker.
“Hey Gus, Diego’s car is gone. Do you know anything?” Asked Paco.
Gus motioned with a quick flick of his chin towards the side street beside the job site.
“No idea. Remember. I told you earlier. Tellem – Don’t park there – they will towem. And fuck me. Looks like they did just that,” said Gus, restraining a stupid-people-do-stupid-things-laugh.
“Is that what you yell this morning?” asked Paco.
“Ya. I saw you nod and smile,” said Gus. “So I thought whatshisface would move his car.”
“Porque no me dijiste pendejo?” Diego heard everything over the speaker.
“Sorry bro.”
“Where take it, you know?” Diego yelled into his phone so Gus would hear. His love of his car overcame his fear of speaking English.
“You gotta phone the city. They impounded it. Shouldn’t be too far.”
“Impounded? What the fuck,” cried Diego.
“Diego buddy Tabarnak, they towed it. That’s all I know.” said Gus looking at Paco with wide eyes that asked ‘who the fuck is this guy?’.
“How much pay?” persisted Diego.
“Dunno. Couple hundred bucks maybe.” said Gus accepting his steaming hot coffee, “Thanks Dimitri.”
“Couple hundred?”
Gus was a few years older than Paco but both of them were in their 30’s. Over the past few years they had been on a few projects together. Gus liked Paco but didn’t make friends on the job because when push came to shout Gus couldn’t have any favourites. But there was that one time when the concrete guys saw his name on his hard hat and started talking shit like, ‘Paco, where’s the taco?’ and all of them laughing. Gus in a very calm voice actually said to their foreman.
“If you and your fuckin clowns don’t shut it and say sorry to my guy then there might be an engineering report that says the drainage is not to grade and this whole slab needs to be repoured at your expense. And I don’t think your butt ugly money grubbin boss is gonna like that. Are we clear?!” Said red faced Gus staring the foreman straight in the eyes.
“We are,” said the pissed off foreman.
“I want to see you in the site office now.” Gus yelled at Paco,
At this point Paco had been with the company only a few months so he wasn’t sure where he stood with management. Once in the trailer Gus keeps talking,
“Did you hear what they were sayin? Calice” Gus swore in French. His French is still really good but he only uses it for choice swear words.
“Is no big deal,” said Paco.
“I am not going to school those fuckin morons on Latin cusine am I?”
“No,” agrees Paco, having no idea where this was going.
“Guatelmans don’t eat peaches tacos,” said Gus pacing around the trailer with the awareness of his poor pronunciation but in the moment he felt he had earned some cultural credibility by trying to swear in Spanish.
“You are so right Gus,” said Paco wondering if this out-of-character burst of Latino solidarity maybe came from a previous life when Gus was a Mayan curandero.
So now when Gus gave the ‘kill it’ signal with his hand at his throat Paco took it off speaker.
“Diego, come back and I will help you later,” said Paco and hung up.
“Hey Paco, what did you think I said?” asked Gus.
“When?”
“This morning.”
Paco laughed at himself and shook his head.
“I thought you say, tell Diego he’s a fuckin toad.”
“I said – tell’em if he doesn’t move they’ll fuckin towem”.
Maritza was gonna kill him. It was Diego’s first day on the job and he was losing more money than he was making. He relieves his self inflicted stress by comforting himself they will start receiving the child tax credit very soon. Diego says once the baby arrives she will want a car. But she says they have a bus stop right out front and the No Frills supermarket is 3 blocks away. She keeps repeating that you don’t need a car in the city. It’s a waste of money according to her dad.
Maritza remembered her dad being there in person for her eighth birthday. While he worked in the US for 6 years they would Facetime but it felt weird. It was sad when he would sing Las Mananitas on her birthday. As he sang her mom would bring the gift that he sent money for from Oregon where he was driving a tractor in a vineyard. He was close to Canada but never went there. He figured the Americans would grab him at the border before he crossed. He should have tried, he says to his wife now that he has been sent back. If they wouldn’t have let him travel to Canada then they just would have sent him back and it is the same result.
He got deported when he got in a car accident in town with a lawyer who had been drinking. The car accident meant he came back home which made her happy but that is where Maritza got the idea cars were a bad idea. Plus the maintenance. But when you get one, if you can’t afford a good one – don’t buy one.
Her dad taught her English even though he and Diana, his wife, knew that meant she would be more apt to leave when she got older. Also he wanted to prove that being away so long has brought some benefit to the family. He had sent more money than he could have made if he stayed in Mexico but he hadn’t been there for the childhood of their daughter and son. Or for their marriage. At least he came back. He was faithful to his family – to his wife not so much. Reynaldo, his son, was bad at school but good at soccer. He was a good striker being tall for his age. He didn’t show potential so he had no future as a pro player. It was fun for now but difficult for later. Maritza was the bright light of the family.
Before she gave birth Maritza worked as a Cook A in a restaurant for 2 years while Diego would spend about 6 months in each job. She worked till she was 7 months pregnant and then couldn’t handle being on her feet all day. The restaurant liked her from the get-go and had offered her a full time job after a few months. That way she could apply for a work permit. Diego also got a work permit being her common-law spouse.
She was really scared when she got pregnant. But now they had to rely on Diego’s income for the whole family. Maritza knew that was a recipe for a stress fueled, argument filled disaster. She needed something she could do while the baby was sleeping.
Also she didn’t know, maybe they would cancel her work permit and it wouldn’t give her enough time to apply for permanent residency. Rhonda, the manager of her restaurant location was so supportive but it was not her decision – it was the owner’s: Mr. Jackes. But she would speak to him. He had various restaurants and other businesses on the go. Maritza knew Mr. Jackes was a lawyer and had met him briefly once when he came to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
A few weeks later Maritza was tying up her apron and looking at her belly when Rhonda called her into the tiny, cramped office. Rhonda motioned to the only chair in front of the desk.
“Have a seat Maritza. How are you doing?”
Feeling fine,” she said, seated on the edge of the plastic chair rubbing her belly. “We just had other doctor’s appointment, all good,’ she said, putting two little thumbs up in front of a weak smile. “But obviously I’m nervous.”
“Yes, of course. Obviously no heavy lifting. Get Clifton or someone to help you,” said Rhonda.
“Yes, thank you very much.”
“Listen Maritza, I talked to Mr. Jackes last week. I explained to him your situation and I told him you were an excellent person and an excellent team member, fast learner and that it would be a good idea to find a way to keep you on board. And of course for your work status right?” Rhonda looked into Maritza’s dark anxious eyes. “So he called me this morning and he had a very interesting idea.”
Maritza nodded as if she was riding a bike on a bumpy road and wrung her hands.
“His idea is for you to transition out of the kitchen into an IT role. Updating websites with promotional materials for his restaurants and stuff like that. What do you think?”
“Wow, sounds amazing. Thank you so much. Because…”
“Because in a few months you can’t be in the kitchen all day on your feet.”
“Yes, of course,” Maritzasat back and laughed, then she breathed a huge sigh, then she cried as the stress left her body and joy germinated – all in succession over the course of ten seconds. She looked at Rhonda and smiled and suddenly she hiccuped. They both laughed.
It was Diego’s first day on the job and he was excited. Not so much that he found a job. That was good too. It was the first day he had driven his car to work. Sunday night he texted Paco offering to pick him up even though it was 20 minutes out of his way. Paco said he was good taking the bus. Diego parked close enough so he could keep an eye on his car but not too close so it didn’t get splashed with mud. At 7:30 in the site office he showed them his certifications, took his orientation and then tied up his work boots while Paco waited for him outside the trailer. Through the open door he could see Paco outside talking with Gus the site supervisor.
“Qué dijo, el jefe?” asked pudgy Diego.
“Que eres un sapo,” said skinny Paco.
‘Raro tu jefe.”
“Mira, como ellos me pagan entonces ‘no complaints bro’.”
At 10 am the coffee truck driver honked his augmented air horn so they dropped their tool belts and Diego took off to check on his car. It’s like taking your headphones off when D leaves. The guy talks nonsense nonstop, mostly about his car and rarely about work.
The house they are working on today backs onto an established neighbourhood with mature trees. Standing with his tool belt dangling in his hands he breathes in and holds his breath to maximize the impact of the autumn morning fragrances of wet leaves and mineral mud. Since they cut down the majority of the trees there are only two little pockets of trees on the site. He is on the second floor and looks right into the back yards flaming red maple leaves and the tragic yellow from the aspen.
You could say its not worth it walking all the way to the gate, lining up for coffee and then walking all the way back. There is no time to even drink your coffee. The point is to get coffee and everything that goes with it. Giving your shoulders a break, stretching your legs and shootin the shit with Dimitri the coffee guy. He should teach marketing classes or something because he makes the whole experience uplifting. He wears an apron over his heavy sweater today but it’s funny to see when he wears it under his winter jacket. He has a personaized brown baseball cap that says DC Coffee whe nthe ‘DC’ actually means dimitri’s coffee. Somehow he remembers how you like your coffee out of the probably thousands of guys he sees each week and he knows when to up sell you a sticky danish with an extra coating of heartburn. He talks hockey with the Canadian guys but Paco doesn’t really care about hockey.
Paco walked alone for ‘a block’ along the muddy/gravelly road towards the gate. The smell of the mud transports Paco to when he was six and seven years old. Swimming with his brother and cousins in the Motagua river thet squeezed the silty mud between their toes, brought it to their hand and threw it at each other. He misses the emotional logic of being with his family, part of his land and living his culture. If he can’t get them to come here in the next two years then that’s it – he will go back to El Porton and start a business. Some kind of tourism because he sees there is so much money here that people have no idea what to do with it. Just look at D and his stupid car he doesn’t even have money.
Gus fell in step with Paco as they turned the corner and got in the short line for coffee. Gus was great until he wasn’t. He was cool 80% of the time and red faced maniacal when he felt he could lose his job because of some dumbass sub-contractor.
Gus’s first ex-wife divorced him exactly because of that explosivity. His second ex-wife would have said the same thing but she up and left him right before their second anniversary. She didn’t need or want anything from him. Ex-2 wasn’t going to let herself get impregnated by this guy like Ex-1 did. Then she would be divorced from the guy but still get infuriated dealing with him about things like who is going to pick up the children from daycare.
Ex-1 and Ex-2 knew each other because of the weekend visits with Gus Jr. so it was funny but the second person Ex-2 called after walking away from Gus was actually Ex-1. They got together for coffee to commiserate and so Ex-2 could dish the truth about Gus. Before he tried to micromanage the weekend visits now that he was single with no maternal figure in his home for Gus Jr.
Gus’s construction management skills had not helped him express his desire to make his wife-of-the-moment happy. The honeymoon with Ex-2 was over before the wedding reception finished. Six months later Gus drove solo the six hours up north to attend his grandfather’’s funeral. Gus was named after his grandfather Angus. His grandfather was a hardass from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec who worked the copper mines and didn’t seem to say much to his wife in French or English. Maybe that had something to do with Rene, Gus’s dad wanting to work on the railroad – to get out of town and get a fresh start.
Manon, Gus’s sister, had already driven home because she lived close by. Gus was staying the night and driving back in the morning. He sat in his funeral suit on the living room couch where he watched Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday’s he opened up.
“Hey dad… How do I even say this?” Gus moved his bum to sit on the edge of the blue velvet couch. “How did you cross that threshold from wanting her to be happy, to making her happy?
Rene held Gus’s eyes as long as he could with a look of love that needed to be listened to.
“Son, I don’t know if the X-factor to our marriage was that I needed your mother more than I loved her or the other way around. Or maybe we were just a good match as a man and woman.”
“But there was, is an ingredient, that in the moment,” Gus searched for the right word. “Secretes understanding into your brain so you understand. Or at least do the right thing.”
“Things have gotten that bad?” asked Rene.
“Ya.” Gus fidgeted.
“So this marriage is based on love… not like the last one,” the locomotive engineer drove his train straight ahead.
“That hurts but I can’t really …” then Gus interrupts himself, “I am lost. On the job site I tell guys what to do based on the blueprints and they do it. If they don’t, they get a tongue lashing. They know it, I know it – no need to argue. No grey area. Only blue.”
“Well, that’s useful,” said Rene, hearing his wife’s voice in his head, ‘Help Angus honey, talk to him – he’s doing it again.’
“I just focused on work when it was time to work and on family when it was the priority. Maybe it skipped a generation but you turned out more explosive – like grandpa.”
“This is the kind of stuff I need to hear, I need to know this.”
“Maybe my work gave me the kind of satisfaction that allowed me to be the man I needed to be. I know you like getting stuff done, but does your construction management, in the city, bring you satisfaction?”
“It’s a little late to be asking that. I mean I bought into the whole industry, the training, the contacts I’ve made.”
“You can pivot. Picture it – you’ve got the puck in the slot but you don’t have a clear shot so you send a quick pass off to your winger down low, pivot on your back heel to get around the defenceman and he passes the puck right back to you and boom it’s in the net – top cheddar.”
Gus was reliving the rush of his hockey days from his dad’s analogy and losing the whole point.
“Have you ever tried skating in figure skates?” Gus figured that his dad knew that the answer was no. Gus had been a good hockey player growing up in New Liskeard and his parents would drive literally hours in northern Ontario from town to town through crazy snow squalls at all hours. Because his dad was away for work a fair amount his mom did the bulk of the driving. Sometimes other parents would give Gus a lift so his mom could stay home with his sister instead of dragging her along on school nights because she wasn’t staying home alone.
Rene continued,
“Figure skates have a coupe of sharp points in their pick you can use to do graceful twirling jumps. Manon wasn’t a poster child for graceful figure skating but she did quite well. My point is you can use the pick to fly up, or if you catch the pick on the ice you fall flat on your face. Or you can kick someone in the shins if you really get angry at them.” Rene paused again, waited for the light to go and then he spelled it out.
“It depends what you want. What kind of man you want to offer those in your life”
Gus nodded his head as he was impressed at the clarity and poetry of his railway engineer dad.
Rene felt guilty that he didn’t know his son and that his son had no inkling of how emotional scrabble worked.
“I don’t know if you ever met Mark, he drove train too. Way back in the early days we would go where they sent us and sometimes have a layover at the same time. Well, he said the funniest thing to me, and this was some 30 years ago now. He liked games n actually brought a mini scrabble board with him. If you didn’t keep yourself busy on those layovers it just became a booze fest and that was not a good mix with having to drive a train the next morning. So we were playing Scrabble which he would always win n so he is gatherin all the letters, those littlewood tiles, n he says, ‘but I think you are better at emotional Scrabble’. Obviously I asked him what the hell is that. So he says,
‘Emotional Scrabble is when you want to communicate something of value in the moment so you access the resources available to you. In emotionally Scrabbling, you share your resources and it helps others as well as generating fresh ones for you. If you don’t use your emotional energy creatively and sincerely,’ He paused as he sorted through the tiles, turned a few over as he searched for the letters he wanted, and then put them on the two wooden tile benches and showed me, ‘then you get random letters like: n,o,l,o,s,t,w and u,b,i,t,t,e,r. ‘I have seen it happen’ he says.
So when it came to dealing with Gus, Paco just kept his head down, his mouth shut and did his work. His dark green hard hat has his name on the back was his security system so no newbie can show up hungover and steal it.
Gus fakes remembering Paco’s name but actually just reads it on his hard hat.
“Hey Paco, how was the weekend?”
“Love this weather bro, not too hot, not too cold,” said Paco.
“It’s the bugs man, hardly any. That’s why I moved to the city.
“Where you from?”
“New Liskeard.”
“New What?”
“New 6-hours-north-of-here. Hey, how’s the new guy workin out?” asked Gus.
“He knows his way around a job site.”
“Cuz if he is any good you can bring four more guys like him tomorrow.” Then Gus lowered his voice a bit as if he was privedeging Paco with the inside scoop, “We gotta fuckin knock this one out fast and dirty if you know what I mean.”
Paco and Diego met last year at the Plaza Latina when they both went to get their haircut Saturday morning.
“Que tal.”
Diego stepped into the barbershop with his untied work boots and unzipped orange winter jacket with its hi-viz reflective stripes. Even though he wasn’t working he wore his work clothes. Diego did it as a signal to his girlfriend Maritza, that he was serious about getting a good job. It didn’t fool her.
The basement barber shop was a tiny 10’ x 20’ space with two red barbershop chairs. The two plastic chairs for the people waiting were squished together in the corner so it was easy to see what the person next to you was looking at on their phone. Paco was watching videos of high speed trains in China going 400 km/h. Diego was watching the construction bloopers of building materials falling off of a forklift. How do people catch that stuff on video?
“Nada más se están filmando los forkleaf con la esperanza que algo se cae o que?” Asked Paco peeking at what Diego was watching.
“Si guey. No trabajan – se quedan con el pinche celular en la mano todo el día para hacerse un famoso Youtuber.” The Carpenters’ and Allied Workers Local 16 strike had just ended. Neither of them had been allowed to work as a framer for almost two months. Paco wasn’t never going to risk it and take on any non-union jobs. So in the meantime his buddy squeezed him onto a crew working commercial demolition. He liked the change of scenery and it gave his wrists a rest from swinging a hammer. But he needed more money and wanted less dust so he was happy when he got the call to go back to work. Diego picked up work here and there, mostly painting. Paco was back at work the day after the strike was called off but Diego was still looking. Which was strange considering the need for framers. Paco should have taken it as a sign.
_____
from the Short Story Series Tool by Kevin McNamara
“Cheers bro,” said Manuel as the second round arrived. “We haven’t hadn’t had beers in months.”
Oddie had become the fixer just like Andre said. Sandoval was so insulted they went ahead and created the position right under his nose. And angry because he didn’t notice it was all going on. But when he yelled at them he told them they should have told him because he would have said yes.
Everyone knew Sandoval would have said no to the idea. Because it wasn’t his idea. And because that is exactly the kind of position he wanted Ricky to have. That way he could tell his dad if someone was stealing materials or dealing drugs on his jobs sites or the union was coming around.
Being the fixer was very cool. He bought a pick up truck once he heard what he heard what his salary was going to be. The site supervisors loved him if they understood this guy was the best solution to their day to day issues. Or they hated him because they saw him as stepping on their toes.
“How you gonna get home? Cuz you’re not drivin anywhere bro,” said Manuel.
“I know, I know,” said Oddie with a swig of beer and a look over the patio wooden fence into the summer dusk. He stifled a sigh.
“Are you sighing bro?”
“No.”
“Jes you are. I heard you. And I saw you go like this.” imitating heaving his chest and for effect glossing over his eyes as if he was a mime. “Are you sad for Trina?” Manuel teased Oddie.
“Grow up.”
When Oddie drank he pined for Trina; when Manuel drank his English got better. Oddie was haunted by his ex: Trina. It irritated him – the clarity she and the app (fuck their plans for the app) had given his life before.
Behind the gaze over the patio fence, in his mind Oddie was replaying the call from Sandoval at 7:30 this morning.
Sandoval knew that Oddie was the guy who mentored Ricky for the five months he worked on site. Was that a good thing, Oddie was trying to figure out. And now Sandoval had him on speed dial. When he saw the initials JS on the screen of his phone in front of him – he took a deep breath, answered and put it on speaker.
“This is Oddie,” he said on his way to the Ardale site.
“Oddie, good morning. This is Juan Sandoval.”
“Good morning Mr. Sandoval.”
“You can call me Juan, remember.’
“Ok Juan.”
“How is my Jack-of-all-trades today?” Sandoval asked all chipper.
Oddie was stunned for a moment as that was the phrase Trina used in their last argument.
“Ready and raring to go,” said Oddie.
“Good to hear. Where you headed today?
“Ardale.”
“Ok. Who is the site super up there: Oswald?” asked Sandoval even though they both knew it to be true.
Oswald was one of the supers who welcomed Oddie’s help as the fixer position and gave the office great feedback about Oddie. It had become the Oddie and Ozzie show at Ardale.
“Yes,” said Oddie, sounding formal. His instinct was poking him in the stomach with a thin twig.
“Ok. Change of plans. I will notify Oswald at Ardale. I have a specific task that needs your focus.” Sandoval was skilled and shameless at turning his needs into your responsibility.
Specific task was code for doing Sandovals’ dirty work. It had come up once before and Oddie had phoned Andre right away.
“If you don’t want to do it – don’t,” Andre said. “The thing is, and there is nothing I can do about this, he will fire your ass if you don’t.” Andre was a good boss but he wasn’t afraid to share with Oddie the heat he felt from head office. This time Oddie didn’t bother calling Andre because the fewer people that knew about this shit the fewer people could rat on him.
“Earth to Oddie.”
“What?”
“The waitress is asking you to marry her,” said Manuel.
Oddie looked at the waitress and smiled.
“Not in this lifetime honey. But if you like I can gecha another pint.”
“Sounds good,” said Oddie, finishing his pint and handing the waitress the empty glass.
“Bro you look like shit. Do you have a terminal disease we don’t know about?” asked Ozzie.
“No bro, I’m just not eating well. I’m a burger slut,” said Oddie, patting his belly that had definitely rounded out with an extra 15 pounds in less than a year.
“Are you gonna cat my Stevens?” asked Ozzie.
“What the fuck does that even mean?” asked Oddie.
“Cat Stevens went all Muslim when midlife came and tickled his soul,” said Ozzie.
“Mid life! Bro I’m 27.”
“Just sayin you aren’t the you of before and I was wondering if it was work or, are you spending time with your uncle and studying your Arabic or what the hell is rattling around in that brain of yours.”
Instead of saying anything about the task this morning Oddie says,
“Cat Stevens – that’s a pretty obscure reference.”
“I have an eclectic taste in music.”
“And women.”
“Hey I like women.”
“And they like you,” said Oddie, motioning his pint towards the group of women who just sat down at another table on the patio and had found Ozzie on their radar. Ozzie responded to the love by raising his pint towards their table, “Cheers ladies.”
“See what I mean,” said Oddie.
“What?”
Ozzie was divorced and had a six year old son who was on summer vacation with his mother so Ozzie was not losing a moment to enjoy life. He liked hanging out with Oddie because it made him look younger. Or at least feel younger. Even though 35 is not old – it is if you don’t want to be in the market for divorcees who could see him coming from a mile away. But that can also work in his favour.
“The question still stands or at least the principle does,” said Ozzie referring to his Cat Stevens question.
“What was your question?” asked Oddie, not remembering and seeing if Ozzie remembered as his attention had been hijacked by hormones.
“Can you even stand? You handsome drunk bastard,” said Ozzie, redirecting.
“You know what I can’t stand,” said Oddie to the world.
“Here you go guys,” said the waitress putting down pints for Oddie and Ozzie.
“Thank you ma’am,” said Ozzie. Oddie takes 3 long gulps of his beer and says,
“I can’t stand people who don’t do their own dirty work.”
Manuel could tell there was a story to be heard behind that statement and he was glad Ozzie was there to make light of whatever it was. He was also glad Oddie was buying because he didn’t want to have that argument again when he got home.
“Man you wouldn’t believe what goes on behind the scenes. This morning Sandoval calls me all buddy/buddy, first name basis bullshit… “
”Dude, we all have to deal with the bullshit,” said Ozzie. “You deal with it in a pick up truck, Manny deals with morons al day and I deal with it when the fuckin PM prances around my job site. And I’ve been dealing with it much longer than you.”
“Whaddya mean, I’m not gonna be anybody’s fuckin lackey.”
“What’s a fuckin lackey,” asked Manuel.
“Someone’s bitch,” said Ozzie.
“And then there is the law.”
“Exactly bro. So in the end you work for a company and the company is responsible.”
“Not exactly bro,” said Oddie.
With that Ozzie could tell Oddie was talking about something beyond the run of the mill regulatory hijinks they were asked to condone but he didn’t want to kill the vibe.
“Shut up and don’t think so much bro,” said Ozzie.
“Ya bro, it’s Friday, relax. That pendejo doesn’t own your weekend.”
“Listen to Manny. Stop feeling sorry for yourself – you should come out tonight.”
“Let’s order some wings,” says Oddie.
It just happened, in the last few minutes and Manuel usually listens to it.
“I gotta go,” said Manuel. He drained the remaining half of his pint.
There’s that threshold between relaxing after work and partying. It starts with a few beers after work with the guys on the patio. Then it eases from dusk into night, flirting with the women at the other table, eating fried pub food and ordering shots, tequila in honour of Manuel, they yell.Manuel wasn’t Mexican the last time they ordered tequila which Manuel didn’t drink because he doesn’t like it, and he isn’t Mexican today. His wife is.
Manuel texted Azucena from the bus saying he would be home in 45 minutes, did she need anything from the supermarket.
He didn’t bother grabbing a plastic basket so he is piling everything up in his arms: cilantro, the small bag of yellow onions, sour cream and he found the good tortillas. Azucena reminded him he already had two tins of chipotle at home so he didn’t need to get any. He actually has three at home; two stacked in the kitchen cupboard that she knows about and one hidden in the bottom kitchen drawer. The beer has released his inner rebel so after passing the salsa section in the Mexican food aisle he stops, walks backwards saying out loud to himself in English,
“You never know,” as he puts a small tin of chipotle on his small pile of groceries.
Without breaking his stride he leans over and grabs the expensive roasted chicken before taking his palace in the express line. Since it is now 7:30 pm the roast chickens aren’t the best. They can be a little dry unless they did a second batch mid afternoon. He can’t complain to the chicken. But he just might ask him if he is the best.
Manuel is intrinsically logical. And then there are those other days, like today, he lets beer run his decision making. Manuel hardly cooks so there is no way he can tell Azucena he hates the smell of boiled chicken.
Hugging the hot plastic chicken container to his chest he wavers a little as he reads the gossip on the cover of the magazines. He is glad he didn’t have another beer because he has a nice buzz on now.
Azucena hates the whole beer and wings thing. She doesn’t mind the beer so much as Manuel doesn’t drink all that often but can’t stand that he would eat eight stupid little chicken wings for $19 when at home he has homemade tinga de pollo. Already fending off his wife even before he gets home, he justifies bringing home his new best friend, he says out loud, “No estamos en tu pueblo flaca.”
The mayor doesn’t live in the mayor’s mansion. I think because it’s too close to the river which is loud and full of waste. Statistically, it always contains a corpse or two, which are not waste. They are people and deserve better. They deserve a clear sky. They deserve a big house and someone to bring them a meal at the ring of a bell. Their loved ones are banging on pots and pans trying to call them home. They will not wake up. They are floating and dreaming of their breakfast.
Rainwater is becoming river water all day longand I like this new way I have of living. No one is in charge of trash pickup or vehicle stops.There are fewer rules to follow every day. I think the mayor lives uptown but they don’t call it the mayor’s uptown house.
Don’t think about the bodies. Now that the pavement’s as clean…
“What did Andre say?” asked Manuel. Looking sideways at Oddie as he walked he twisted his ankle on an offcut of 2 by 4 and almost fell. “Fuck,” he said break dancing into his balance on the wet plywood floor.
“Careful bro,” said Oddie as reached out his hands to catch him. They were out of whack having sat through the two hour rain delay in the trailer. “I hate this when our day gets shot to shit.”
“So what’d he say?”
“Andre? Not much, just shootin the shit.”
“Bullshit, you guys talk all friendly til Gerry came back.”
“Ya, he was asking me how the project was going.”
“Did he ask about Octavo?”
“Why?”
“Did e?”
“He asked about the team, nobody specific.”
“Whadya say?”
“That our work speaks for itself. Well built – on time – no drama.”
“Whade say?”
“I can’t remember,” said Oddie, getting irritated and dropping his hands to his side with the palms out. “I think he nodded his head. Said nothing.”
“Whad you say?”
“Bro, it was actually a private conversation. Is there something you want me to say to Andre?”
“No.”
“Where is Octavo?”
“In the shitter.”
“He just went.”
“You sound like Gerry.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“Relax bro.”
“I think there are some shiity nails that need hammering on that far wall.”
Andre had zeroed in on Oddie when he dropped by the job site earlier this morning as the rain ended.
Andre explained Gerry had been with the company around nine years and was a known quantity. Meaning he was known not to take initiative or develop a strong crew. Everyone just came to work and did what they were told yesterday.
“Kind of like a government employee,” said Andre. “But this is actually a business.”
“Ya I have seen him in action,” said Oddie by way of agreement, not wanting to sound negative. Andre had stopped to ask Oddie questions on his site visits before. But those had been in the flow of work. This was a targeted convo. ‘I’m glad, thought Oddie, ‘he didn’t buy me a coffee.’
“Listen Oddie, you’ve been with us for what a year?”
“Ya, a little longer.”
“What do you think of us, as a company?”
Now it felt like a job interview right here on the spot. Which was fine because it was so much better than having to take a day off work, wrap a tie around your neck and find a place where you can print off a copy of your resume.
“Lots of work and the pay is always on time.”
“Cool,” Andre nodded, leaving space in the conversation purposely as if he came home from the supermarket carrying empty shopping bags. It’s amazing people will say really revealing things to fill that awkward space.
Oddie didn’t take the bait. Andre liked that.
“I am looking for a fixer,” said Andre, looking Oddie right in the eyes and let that sink in a few seconds.
“A guy we can rely on. We have several projects at various stages of development,” Andre continued, now sounding like a politician. “Sandoval lost his shit the other day because we had to push back the delivery date on one project and the company is gonna be fined. So I had a meeting with the other PMs and we agreed we needed a fixer. Someone we can dispatch where and when needed. I brought forward your name.”
“The Fixer. Sounds like a contract killer who comes out of retirement for one last job kind of movie,” Oddie regretted his attempt at humour as he said it. Andre winced.
“Joking.”
“You, I have seen, slash heard, provide solutions. You can think on your feet. And you know how to work with all kinds of people,” Andre said, tossing Gerry under the shadow of the bus with direct inference to his small mindedness but also Oddie’s ability to work with people who didn’t speak a lot of English.
“So, it’s a new position in the company. Nobody has done it before. It will mean a pay raise but I don’t know exactly what the salary is yet.” What Andre didn’t mention was that the job had not even been proposed to Sandoval, much less approved. Once he saw the efficiencies it brought to each project he would yell at the PMs less. Hopefully.
“So it’s salary and not hourly,” Oddie inquired about the money.
Andre tilted his head forward to look over his safety glasses at Oddie.
“Brother,” said Andre with slow words following each other like there were in rush hour traffic bumper to bumper. “I don’t know, who it was, that put limits, on how you think: parents, teachers? But, I suggest, you exchange those limits for goals. You’ve got a damn good opportunity here.”
“Very cool, very cool,” said a nervous Oddie matching Andre’s vocabulary while wanting to sound appreciative. “What’s the next step?”
“Well, take some time to think about it and talk with your family. Are you married?”
“I live with my girlfriend.”
“Ok. well you guys talk it over. Here’s my card. Text me and I will call you back.”
“Perfect. I appreciate this. When do you need to know?”
“ASAP. You are my choice but there are other candidates.”
“Ok. and what is the actual job description would you say?”
“You’re the Fixer – so you fix what someone else broke. You’ll get from job site to job site as needed. You could stay somewhere for a few hours or weeks, if you see what I mean. Putting out fires, filling in if some assshole just walks off the job. You bring a good vibe so the whiners don’t infect the others.”
Oddie wasn’t sure of the meaning of the word caveat; maybe, at street level, it was like bait and switch.
“And you know, PR – for the company. The eyes and ears of head office. Since you are salaried you are paid for driving between job sites and you expense gas and a certain amount of car maintenance. We will cover all that down the road.”
“Ok.”
On the bus ride home Oddie was doing somersaults – ‘Trina is gonna flip. She doesn’t want to invest in a car right now. Sure when we have kids but she wants to focus on developing the app and finding funding – It’s more money and lots more contacts – she has to see that. She can focus on the app while you bring in tons of industry knowledge.’
“You’re gonna be a jack of all trades and master of none,” said Trina, closing her laptop as she stood like she didn’t want her screen to witness her arguing.
“So there is no conversation?” asked Oddie.
“Dude. I thought you understood the trajectory of this project,” said Trina, sounding like Andre. “And our lives.”
“Exactly, that’s the point. Our lives can use the money and the contacts of my new position,” said Oddie.
“The position! the point is, where is your focus?”
The focus of the moment was the fury that fired from their eyeballs at each other.
“Your focus is out there,” yelled Trina, her frustration thrusting her arm up at 10 o’clock. “We need it in here,” Trina now pointed to the closed laptop. The air was hot with argument but still within a domain of recyclable love.
“The app needs someone who is all in and I can’t go all in if I am working construction. And we both know we can’t afford to not have an income. Unless you have a rich uncle I don’t know about.”
“Speaking of uncles, does this have anything to do with your uncle Mo.”
“What the fuck. Why do you ..?”
“Well?” said Trina.
“Listen. This is not a problem. This is a good thing. We need to decide about growing. So can we please not, not dramatize the whole thing with other issues? That would be an unfair disaster,” said Oddie wondering what a fair disaster might be, as his brain looked for an outlet to the pressure.
“You’re right. It is definitely not a problem. You want that job – you take it,” said Trina with fatality on her lips and both hands on her hips.
“Why in God’s name are you shining some bad light on me because the company wants to give me a promotion?”
“Listen young man,” said Trina, causing Oddie to stand up straighter than a scarecrow. “I think you’re better off not subcontracting God to do your dirty work.”
“Trina babe.”
In the pit of her stomach Trina felt one of her inner lives jump overboard without a life jacket.
“You’re making yourself out to be a mistake maker,”
Regardless of the love that travelled between them on their many threads of endearment – something was broken. The first thing the job offer as the Fixer had done was to break their relationship.
Their fights had been stupid misunderstandings from where they would ease back into loving and being loved. This fight started out implicating Oddie for not focusing on their app project but somehow got hijacked to be about them. If the silence earlier today between Oddie and Andre was engineered to be awkward then this silence was free radical, spontaneous. And veering towards disastrous.
For the first year Trina will insist, in the boudoir of her life vision, it is unfair. But after the initial disillusion and hurt she will repurpose all that energy to be a catalyst for greater self reliance and success. Oddie will settle into convincing himself it was a fair disaster. Only a matter of time before their ideas usurped their need for each other’s kind of love – till their differences took them in different directions that couldn’t co-exist in the same relationship.
_____
From the Short Story Series: Tool by Kevin Mcnamara
The rain was neither here nor there. The thing was, which was becoming irritating, Gerry. How is he going to react?
“D’you check how long the rain is supposed to last?” asked Oddie
“All fuckin morning,” said Gerry.
“Gerry, we’ll be in there,” said Oddie over his shoulder as he ran to the trailer. “Let us know if you go on a coffee run,” said Oddie from the top step.
“I’m gonna leave the door open cuz otherwise it gets too steamy,” said Oddie.
“Bro, that guy sucks the energy right outta the room,” said Manuel.
“What room?”
“Jou know what I mean, moron.”
“How do you say moron in Spanish?”
“Imbecil,” said Manuel motioning to Octavo to take a seat in the trailer, “Sientate guey.”
“Imbecil. I was expecting something with more, you know, meat, less English. More insulting.”
“Sorry pendejo.”
“That’s more like it,” said Oddie smiling.
They took off their wet hard hats and shook off their jackets putting them over the back of the plastic chair.
“Si nos pagan por estas horas verdad?” asked Octavo.
“He’s asking if they pay us to sit on our asses?”
“For an hour. Any longer than that and Gerry will panic and send us home.”
“Que tiene en contra del Herry?” asked Octavo.
“He’s asking what you have against Gerry.”
“Nothing really. It’s just ya know. Nothing wrong with therapy but the construction site isn’t the place. He panics, usually for no reason and we always deliver results regardless of what he fears or thinks.”
They broke out their lunches even though it was only 9:30 am and ate to the sound of crinkling aluminum foil and slurping coffee.
Oddie’s phone pinged on the dirty, white folding table so he picked it up and disappeared into the screen.
To Manuel rain meant mud which smelled of the minerals of home which transported him fast and far. He leaned forward in his chair as he picked at the dry skin around his fingernails.
Octavo leaned back in his plastic chair, joined his hands on his belly and closed his eyes, soaking up the peace he got from being on a good team and the satisfaction of working with his hands.
Octavo was sliding into snooze mode and Manuel was staring out the open door when he heard Oddie talking to himself.
“Yashmal kula shay,” said Oddie.
“What’s that bro,” said Manuel.
“Nothing bro.”
“I’m no exper but was that English?”
“No.”
“So?”
“Arabic, bro.”
“Are you doin an hechizo on me?
“What?”
“Hechizo, you know, like magic n all that.”
“No, no no. I’m learning Arabic.
“Cool. Are you going to Arahbia?”
“No, bro.”
“Is Arahbia coming here?”
“No, Arabia! Is not coming here. Stop being stupid.”
“But is so easy for me.”
“I’m… Listen,” said Oddie and he paused as he breathed in deeply.
“Listening …”
“My uncle got me into studying the Quran.”
“What’s that like?”
“Cool. But …. I am lost. It’s so .. big and ..”
“What jou say? A minute ago in Arabic”
“Oh. Yashmal kula shay. It means ‘encompasses all things’.”
“What does encompass means?”
“Like include.”
“Does that bring jou closer to God?
“Allah?”
“Less call him,” said Manuel, spreading his hands apart above his shoulders like it was a banner, “‘The big guy, in the sky.”
“Well I want something more than this shit,” Oddie kicked some mud off his boots.
“I’m with you bro.”
Octavo yawned and stood up, stretched as he put on his jacket and went out to the port a potty. The rain had let up a bit.
“So, tell me abou the Quran.”
“I don’t know. Its ancient, is huge it’s mystical and its confusing.”
“Sounds like Gerry,” said Manuel laughing.
“Ya! Minus the mystical,” said Oddie smiling.
“No really.”
“I listen to a couple of these guys talk about their experience and they reference the Quran. It helps to guide them in some kind of higher purpose they say. I don’t know if those are my kind of words. But, anyway, I can feel something.”
“Un impulso…?”
“Impulse. Ya, I guess. It’s an urge but it’s not mine.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know – who else could it be?”
“Is annoying no bro?”
“It’s annoying but, annoying like when you’re in high school there is a cute girl but she is really stuck up, but you still are attracted to her, you want her. Why do that?”
“What is stuck up?”
“Arrogant.”
“Your God is arrogant?”
“No bro, not at all. It’s the feeling I have that annoys me. Like I need to do something that takes me beyond. But what?”
“Beyond, that sounds far out.”
“Ya . Beyond the daily grind.”
“Was daily grime?”
“Trabajo bro,” said Oddie. “That’s why Gerry is so annoying. Not him. But the feel of the cloud that is always over his head. That there is nothing more to life than a shitty job bro.”
“Bro you need a anger management session at the pub.”
“That’s the thing. It’s not anger at anyone. It’s, it’s frustration that I, there isn’t a person I can talk to, you know, someone to…”
“The church has priests.”
“The church also has lawsuits because those priests can’t keep their hands off little boys.”
“True.”
Octavo stomped back into the trailer, shook the rain off his jacket and took his seat. His entrance broke the flow of the conversation so they just sat there in the musty yet gritty trailer air. After scrolling for a bit Manuel spoke,
“I read the bible.”
“You read the bible now or you used to,” Oddie sought clarification.
“When I was jung.”
“What did you get out of it?”
“Well it was the bes way to talk with girls because the mamas approved of bible class.”
“Smart.”
“Honestly, is like I remember nothing. But I have this residuo of believe.”
“Resi what?”
“Residuo.”
“Like residue?”
“I guess.”
“Residue of belief. I like that. And how does that impact you? My point is do you have, do you feel an impulse, impulso?”
“For …?”
“For answering the call. It’s like I can hear my cell phone ringing,” said Oddie, putting his hands in and out of all of his pants and jacket pockets. “But I don’t know which pocket it’s in,” said Oddie, hunching his shoulders.
Octavo understood very little but the conversation caught him. He listened to them with his eyes closed as if it was the World Cup finals on the radio. Manuel pulled on the various hairs in what passed as a beard and sat up straight. He hadn’t thought about this stuff in a long time so it was really clearing away cobwebs in his mind.
“Bro, is like the daily grime is analog and belief is dihital,” said Manuel.
Oddie sat there a while with his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist digesting Manuel’s pronunciation and then the concept.
“No. Is like Defi.” continued Manuel with his next analogy.
“You mean like crypto?”
“Ya bro.”
“What does Defi mean again?”
“Decentralize finance. And that iss what I think you are talkin about. Taking control of your shit, your destiny. That way bro, jou discover what has value for jou, here,” said Manuel as he sent his right hand into the air imitating lift off. “ And for jour beyon.”
Autumn rain fell on the trailer roof as the soundtrack to this episode of connection. Their phones forgotten, they could hear their own breath as they picked at dirt on their boots for a while, sipped coffee.
Oddie walked to the trailer door and looked at the lumber skeleton of the house they were framing. He associated with the wood and the precision and instinct it called him to use. He hadn’t realized that before. That was why he liked his job. Not so much his job but the work: the feeling of building something – and working on a team – and needing vision to complete a project.
Octavo looked at Manuel. From behind Manuel looking at Oddie framed in the doorway. Manuel could tell Oddie was engaged by something.
The rain had let up. The air was clean as Andre the project manager pulled his SUV up to the curb. Gerry jumped out of his pick up where he had been this whole time and said,
“Quit playin with yourselves and get to work,” as he walked to greet Andre. Nobody in the trailer moved. Gerry shook hands with Andre.
“Now,” Gerry yelled at the trailer.
“Alan,” said Oddie standing in the doorway as his mind landed back in his reality.
“Who is Alan?” asked Manuel.
“Alan? I dunno.”
“But jou just said his name.”
“Oh, Alan. Wow. I said that outloud? Alan means now in Arabic.”
____
Alan – From the Short Story Series: Tool by Kevin McNamara
The Wild Coach 