When I arrive home from Pam’s office I find the pit in front of my house still covered with canvas and a handwritten note taped to my front door. There’s also a city maintenance flatback vehicle on the far side of the pit, its tailgate down, two men sitting with legs dangling from its open rear end. They’re staring at me as I walk to the door.
One of the men doing the staring, the foreman of this endlessly irritating project, is sipping from a pint-sized bottle in a brown paper bag. He raises it in a mock toast. The other man, who I recognize as a member of the foreman’s crew, wears an idiot grin like he’s remembering the punchline of the world’s funniest dirty joke. It’s well past their quiting time. They’ve dropped by for a little private fun.
I pull the note off the door and read it. It’s from my next door neighbor and says the street repair crew had to rush off on an emergency but would certainly return to complete the job on Monday. For some reason she goes on to write that she’s expecting company this evening. Thanks for sharing, MarySue.
When I finish perusing this note I’m no longer alone. The foreman has joined me, visibly swaying in a manner that my bouncer experience tells me is an attempt to seem more drunk than he really is.
“Came by to help you work some steam off,” says the foreman, affecting an
alcoholic lisp as obviously exaggerated as the swaying. The brown bag with the bottle that was in his right hand is now in his left.
“I figure a tough guy like you, the way you were mouthing off this morning, might like to mouth off some more. On account of us not finishing the job. My friend back there thought so, too.”
The foreman half turns as if he’s going to say something to his mate in the back of the maintenance flatbed, then quickly, very quickly, turns back, his right fist clenched and aimed at my chin. Which unfortunately for the foreman has been moved even more quickly from the path of his punch. The misaimed fist makes solid contact with the brick facing next to my door.
“Son of a bitch,” screetches the foreman, drawing his hand back and looking down at knuckles gone suddenly red and pulpy. It’s his second mistake in about as many seconds. The short but perfectly directed uppercut I now land snaps his head back and loosens his dentures. His eyes go glassy. He staggers in a way that would cause a fight ref to stop the contest and declare a TKO. The brown bag of bottled courage falls from his hand and bleeds out on the sidewalk.
Before he can either fall on his back or recover, I have him spun around and grabbed the top of his collar with one hand and the back of his belt with the other, preparing to administer that bouncer classic, the bum’s rush. I half shove, half carry my dazed opponent at double time from my front door to the lowered tail gate of the maintenance vehicle. A combination of momentum and brute strength deposits him over its back bumper and onto the flatbed.
The guy who was perched there has jumped aside. I advance on him now,
getting up close and personal
“Do we have a problem, you and me?”
“No problem.”
“You’re sure.”
The crew guy looks at his boss in the flatbed, looks back at me. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure.”
“Listen up good. This fucking hole gets filled first thing Monday morning. I don’t see you guys before then. I never see you afterwards. Next time I have to come out for a discussion, I come out with a twelve gauge. Are we clear?”
“Clear.”
“Now fuck off.”
The foreman is groaning loudly and calling for his brown bag as the maintenace vehicle roars away. I walk back toward my house.
Why is this sort of thing necessary? I asks himself. Why can’t people discuss problems in a sane and rational manner and come to sane and logical conclusions? The newly intellectualized part of me is disgusted because I once again resorting to violence to salvage a situation. The rest of me thinks, boy, did that ever feel good.
