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Work Until Lunch
By
Benjamin Glass, Jan 04, 2009
Garfield picked me up just after eight. He honked from the drive and on
my way out I stopped, turned, and ran back in the house to grab my
sunglasses. His old Chrysler rattled and shook—I couldn’t tell if it
rattled because of the shaking or shook because of the rattle. I opened
the door and got in.
Bout time motherfucker.
Sorry. Forgot my sunglasses. It’s gonna be a bright one.
Shit. Hot?
Yep.
Damn.
He pulled away from my house. He held his left arm out the window and
had a cigarette clipped in his fingers. They were all stained from dirt.
The wrinkles and crevices all dark. His face bristled with a five
o’clock shadow.
Got drunk as fuck last night, he said. Lost count after seven. Guess
that put me in the nine to twelve range. I nod. We’ve had this
discussion before. He likes quantity, I like quality. He called me a
stingy bastard after I told him I won’t drink anything from a can. And
if it’s a bottle, twist-off caps come under heavy suspicion.
Friday. Pay day. Tammy tapes our checks to the door after three and we
take them when we’re done for the day. Joe and Jeremy usually rush off to
the bank to cash them for the weekend. Most weekends Jeremy spends fifty
bucks on a “gutter slut,” a hundred on alcohol, and the rest on rent. I
know because on Mondays, he tells us about it.
Garfield’s got two kids, married. He’s twenty-three. Before he told me
his age, I’d of guessed he was forty. He’s shorter than me, just as
skinny, and the hair on the back of his neck is always overgrown. His
nose beaks off his face, with a noticeable bump just before the tip. He
hardly ever takes off his ball cap.
Garfield pulled into the gravel drive at Ed’s. We loaded up the
trailer—two wheelbarrows, the two 48s, three trimmers, an edger, the
blower, shovels, rakes, pitchforks, and the water cooler. Joe brought
the truck around and we hitched the trailer up. Then we waited for Ed.
Always silent when we wait for Ed. Preparing for the day, not knowing if
it’s going to be an eight, ten, or twelve hour. Hating the sun for
shining. Hating the grass. Hoping on the horizon for storm clouds.
Nothing exists in the silence except the coming work. We know it’s
mostly unavoidable. Ed walked out from the screen porch and said in a
laconic whisper that it was time to get going, there’s work to be done.
At lunch Garfield, Jeremy, and I sat on the porch of a client’s house.
I’d made myself a ham and salami sandwich with Swiss cheese. Jeremy
didn’t have anything. Garfield had a bologna sandwich and some peanut
butter crackers. It was quiet for a while. The mid-day breeze swept east
and cooled the sweat on my face. My hands were filthy from dirt. Jeremy
lit a Marlboro.
You ever seen my teeth? Garfield asked me. I didn’t know what to make of
that. So I said no. He smiled, like he wanted me to look closely, then
slipped his hand into his mouth and popped out his front teeth, a row of
seven or eight of them connected to wire and a mold that fit in the roof
of his mouth.
Motherfuckers got busted in a car wreck. Three years ago.
What happened? I said. I would have never known he had fake teeth. But
after he told me, his front teeth seemed angled too far off his gums.
I was driving drunk. Me and Jesse was at a party one night and she got
mad and walked off. I waited on her to come back. Shit, I probably had
three beers while I waited. After an hour I went looking for her. Got in
the car and went driving all over town. I thought she might be sittin on
a park bench or something somewhere. I was cuttin through a parking lot
and blanked out. Hit a street light. Motherfucker fell onto the car
and the roof caved and knocked my teeth out. Broke my nose too.
I shook my head and took a bite of my sandwich.
Yeah I went to the dentist and they took a mold and everything. Told me
it’d be six months before I got replacements. That’s a hell of a long time without teeth.
What you do?
He slipped off his ball cap and scratched the back of his head.
Sat on my ass and drank beer. Had a kid.
Benjamin Glass goes to Union University and majors in English. He is from Ohio.
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