again, or about the fight he’d gotten into outside of the poolroom? Warily, Lee said: What’s the problem, Mr. Murray?
— Our good pal Wally decided to forget what side of the bread is buttered. You hear?
— I’m not following you.
— Wally’s walked off the bloody job, Lee. You don’t just get paid to do odd jobs. You get paid to think.
Lee nodded. It was nothing to do with him, after all. He said: So you’re not going to the wedding.
— My faith can move mountains but there’s some things even out of my reach. This is your chance to make good on what you say you can do. I want the kitchen cabinets up before you leave today. Bud can do the piers. Understand?
— I understand. I’ll get them cabinets up. You’ll-
— At the end of the day I want the rest of the concrete mix and the mixer brought back. Jeff’ll be out here with a truck to pick it all up. You and Bud can help him.
— No trouble, Clifton.
— This is it, mister man. This is what I need from you. Get to it.
Bud had piloted the barge before, so Clifton gave him the keys. Bud perched himself behind the wheel. Then they were moving away from the pier while the sun rose behind murky clouds.
The island seemed particularly quiet with only Bud and Lee there. They got the generator going and started the cement mixer. They smoked with impunity. Bud disappeared under the building to work on the piers.
In the kitchen, the new counter was built but there were two cabinets that remained to go up. Lee found the cabinet plans and laid them open beside the table saw. It was cold but his palms were moist. He buckled on his tool belt and he took out his pencil and put it behind his ear.
Then he got going. He pulled sheets of pine and marked out lines and measurements. He measured twice. He labelled each piece. He set the fence on the table saw and then he threw the switch, listened to the blade spin up. He fed the first sheet through. The blade on the saw was new and the cuts it made were completely smooth. Lee cut out shelves and cut dadoes and rabbets for the joints.
Late morning, Lee went out to piss. It was still very cold. The house had been brought back to level by a collection of railroad ties and kickjacks while new concrete piers were poured. This was what Bud was doing. Underneath the house you couldn’t bend up higher than your waist and Lee didn’t envy Bud at all. He made sure Bud was okay for smokes and then he went back into the kitchen.
They had a quick lunch in the living room. Bud was surprised at Lee’s work. He said Wally or any of the other inside guys never moved that fast. Lee let the observation stand but he was secretly pleased.
After lunch he got going again. He put the carcasses together and put the shelves in. They fit smoothly. Wally had left a bottle of glue on the new counter. Lee took it and beaded glue where the shelves and panels fit together. He found a box of finishing nails and a punch. He tapped the finishing nails into the pine and then fingered putty into the holes.
The cabinets were to be hung on French cleats, which he ripped out from two-by-fours on the table saw. He fixed the first one up and checked it for square and levelled it. He stood back to look.
Joe Holmes was on Lee’s mind as he worked, Joe talking about things going together. Otherwise, Lee had little to think about. Not Helen, not his mother, not his sister, not money, not anything in his life that had brought him to this.
After Lee hung the second cabinet he realized it was past three already. The cedar in the yard was skittering against the kitchen window-glass. He put on his jacket and went outside onto the deck. The wind had picked up. He turned his back to it until he had a cigarette lit.
After three calls, Bud came out from under the building. He was crusted with raw earth and liquid concrete. Lee squatted and offered him a smoke through the boards.
— How’s the pier?
— Just about done. How’s the kitchen where it’s nice and warm?
— Second cabinet’s up.
— Not bad for a Saturday.
— Not bad for a Saturday.
Lee had to relight his cigarette. The wind was moving faster now, building up a great black reef of clouds. The evergreens were leaning. They were little more than an hour from dark. The light was pallid and the wind knifed through Lee’s clothes.
— I think we’re getting some mean weather.
Bud looked off to the northeast. He dug in his nostril with his thumb and said: You think so?
— That could be snow. We should pack up.
Bud licked his teeth.
— Okay. Let’s get going. That pier is nothing I can’t finish Monday.
— How many bags you got left? Bud glanced under the building.
— Maybe thirty of the bastards.
— Clifton wants the extra ones back at the shop tonight.
Bud kicked a stump and called Clifton a mean old bastard. Lee went into the kitchen and put away the tools and swept up. He ran his hands along the cabinets.
The weather was getting worse. Most material could stay on the island except the mixer and the remaining bags of Sakrete. There were twenty-eight bags and Lee and Bud piled them in the barge. They brought the mixer down and strapped it next to the console. They collected their pouches and lunch pails.
— A couple days ago I seen this chick in the grocery store, said Bud.
— You what?
— I seen this chick in the grocery store. A mother. She’s got these five little brats. All of them are running around, screaming, bumping into old ladies. Just tear-assing around. Finally the mother, she loses it, and she screams at them, screams, I knew it, I should have swallowed you all!
Lee looked at him for a long moment. Bud was able to contain it briefly and then he was laughing. Lee laughed with him.
— That’s the first one I ever heard you get right.
— That’s a good one, isn’t it?
Bud went to the console and turned on the motor. Lee untethered the barge and hopped in. There was no snow yet but the clouds had a smudged quality that troubled him. Bud navigated the barge in the direction of the hogback south of the islands. Their motion was ponderous with the weight of the concrete mix they were carrying. Bud pushed the throttle forward. Lee put his toque on and hunched inside his jacket. The late autumn treeline on the hogback was colourless but there were two glaring gaps where the foliage had been razed away from new lots. He could just make out the orange stakes of the property boundaries.
The barge angled around the hogback and into the open lake.
— Jesus Christ. Lookit it out here.
Outside the bay, the open water was breaking hard. It crashed at the steel hull. Lee turned his head to watch forward and his eyes filled with spray. They were five hundred yards off Echo Point to the east. From there it was another four hundred yards south to the public landing. There were lights scattered around the north shore but he could see nothing of town in the south.
Bud’s face was bright red and the concrete dust was running in veins off his head. They crossed a hundred yards out into the open water and the hogback became indistinguishable from the shore behind them. Bud grinned around his cigarette and gave Lee the finger. Just then, a plume of water broke over the starboard gunnels and doused Bud from head to crotch. It put the cigarette out. He stood there blinking, his middle finger still lifted. A second wave boomed against the side of the barge. Lee strained to see ahead of them.
The frigid wind was blowing harder, chopping the water. Whitecaps peaked around them. Lee looked back around and immediately he saw sheets of water coming in over the transom in the aft. Two or three inches of water were sloshing around his boots. A horrible feeling filled him. The barge slugged forward, water sluicing in on all sides. Lee dove onto the Sakrete bags. He took them up one at a time and threw them overboard, desperate to lighten the weight they were carrying, Clifton be goddamned. The bags were monstrously heavy. He stood with legs spread wide, trying to keep his balance, casting the Sakrete bags into the dark waves.
