The following day got even weirder. A few of the regulars were not on the bus, and almost half his crew had stayed home. The weirdness came to a head when some homeless guy walked onto the job site.
Keith was up in the second story of the apartment complex they were building. He had been putting in a window frame when he suddenly heard a bunch of yelling. Yelling at a construction site was a pretty common occurrence. But this didn’t sound like some apprentice getting his ass chewed out. This sounded like a real fight. Keith put down his tools and rushed over to the other side of the building, so he could see what was going on.
He looked through the space between two four-by-eight beams. Nate was in a shoving match with another guy. The other guy was wearing ragged clothes. Keith assumed that he was homeless and probably high as a kite.
Otherwise he would not have picked a fight with Nate.
Nate was the civil superintendent, overseeing the dirt removal, grading, and concrete foundations. Keith didn’t interact with him a lot, except to build some forms for one of the concrete pours. The thing that Keith did know about Nate was that you did not want to mess with him. At six foot four and two hundred and fifty pounds, he was an imposing figure.
And freakishly strong. Keith remembered seeing the guy toss forty-pound cement-mix bags around like they were sugar packets.
The other guy didn’t stand a chance.
Keith watched Nate shoved the guy away repeatedly, but the homeless guy just kept coming. Then a couple of really crazy things happened.
Nate yelped and pushed the guy more violently, sending him crashing to the ground almost ten feet away. Keith looked closely and saw that Nate was inspecting his hand; blood was dripping from it. The guy must have bitten Nate’s hand.
Keith watched the homeless guy get up and move towards Nate again. Except the guy must have dislocated his shoulder, as it hung at a strange angle. For some reason, the guy seemed oblivious to his injury. He reached out his good arm toward Nate, while his other arm hung uselessly at his side.
Nate delivered a string of curses at the approaching man. Keith could hear equal parts of rage and fear in his voice.
Shit. Nate’s going to kill that guy!
Keith decided to get down there and see if he could help. He turned and ran towards the stairs to the main floor.
He heard some more yelling as he ran. By the time he got outside, he saw that he wasn’t the only one who had sprung into action. The homeless guy was under a dog pile of construction workers. One of the workers came running up with some rope, and within a minute they had the guy’s hands tied behind his back. He kept struggling, so they tied his feet together for good measure. Keith hung back and watched. He couldn’t believe how this guy kept on struggling. His shoulder was dislocated or maybe even busted, yet the guy kept pulling at his bonds.
Keith went over to see how Nate was doing. Bob, the safety guy, had already grabbed a first-aid kit and was treating his hand.
“Ah, fuck, that hurts!” Nate exclaimed when the guy smeared something on the gash in his hand.
“Suck it up, boss.” Bob was unfazed and squeezed some more of the dark paste on the wound. “This will keep it from getting infected. Who knows what kind of shit that dude had in his mouth!”
To his credit, Nate remained stoic after that.
“Hey Nate, what happened?” another construction worker beat Keith to the question.
“That fucker attacked me, is what happened,” Nate replied angrily. He looked up at his crew and softened his expression slightly. “He walks into our site like he’s looking for something. So I yell at him to get the fuck out. Next thing I know, he’s kind of staggering towards me.” Nate’s eyes widened in something that might be fear. “His eyes were all fucked up when he looked at me. I tell him again to fuck off, but he practically lunges at me. He tried to hit me, so I shoved him away. But he didn’t get the message and comes at me again! So, I punched him in the nose. Busted it good, too. Fuckin’ blood everywhere... Wait, I got some of that shithead’s blood on me — you got any wet wipes in there?”
Bob handed him a packet of wet wipes, and Nate proceeded to furiously clean his face and arms. When he was done, he continued his story. Most of the crew had gathered around Nate by then.
“Anyway, where was I?”
“Busted his nose.”
“Oh, yeah. I figured that would be it. But the guy gets up like it’s nothing. Now he’s got fucked-up eyes and a fucked-up nose. He comes at me, and I shove him. When he comes back again, I grab him — ouch! Fuck!” Nate had mimicked the action, forgetting about his injured hand.
“Yeah, I saw that. Then the guy fucking bit your hand,” Fred, another crew member added.
Nate shot the guy an annoyed look. “You tellin’ this story?” Fred blanched.
“Anyway. So I grab the guy, and before I can pound him, he bites down.” Nate holds up his injured hand for everybody’s inspection. There is a deep gash just below the bottom knuckle.
“I shoved him, hard. The fucker went flying.”
“You sure did. I think that fucker actually got some hangtime!” one of the workers said.
The group shared a small chuckle. Keith joined in the laughter. It was a good way to relieve the tension.
Just then a police cruiser drove into the parking lot.
“Ah, it’s the Popo.” Fernando, who was on Keith’s carpentry crew, said.
Keith couldn’t tell if that was said with derision or relief.
“Fuck, that was quick. I only called a couple of minutes ago,” Bob stated.
The cruiser made a beeline for the construction site, and two officers got out. They exuded authority and
