Godspeed

by Nickolas Butler

  “How wide is that river?” he asked.

  “About forty, fifty feet.”

  “Shit,” he growled. “All right. Let me make a few calls.”

  “Thank you,” she exhaled.

  “But, Gretch,” he said, “understand—we’re even now, ain’t we?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “After this, we’re even. Only, Wally? How long, Wally?”

  “I’ll have to send a few guys out there,” he said. “They’ll look over the site, do a quick survey. Then we’ll fabricate your bridge as quick as we can. But, Gretch, it’s gonna be a miracle if this can get done before Thanksgiving. And that’s me pulling every string I can ’cause you know I’m in love with you.” Not to mention under your damn thumb, he thought.

  “I’ll give you ten days,” she countered, hunching forward on her desk.

  “Not possible,” he said.

  “November twentieth. I can’t give you a day more, Wally.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” he sighed.

  “Thank you, Wally,” she said sincerely.

  “You drive a hard bargain, woman,” he said, and she could almost hear his big, wide smile. “Good thing I’m so attracted to smart broads like you. Fact of the matter is, I actually feel my pecker getting—”

  “Keep me in the loop,” she said quickly, and then hung up. She exhaled deeply and stared across the expanse between her building and where the nest once was, against that residential tower perhaps two blocks away. She stood, donned a jacket, rode the elevator down to street level, and walked briskly to the tower in question.

  Inside the lobby, she asked a man in a pair of one-piece navy-blue overalls if he knew anything about a hawk’s nest on one of the upper floors of the building.

  “Oh that.” He laughed. “Yeah, we pulled that down this morning. Started to be a nuisance. Bird shit everywhere.”

  “You did what?” she asked.

  “Well, I didn’t do anything, lady,” the man explained. “It was the window-cleaning crew. They pulled it apart, put everything in a garbage bag. I mean, it wasn’t like there were any eggs in there, if that makes you feel better. We’re not monsters.”

  She left the building, pulling her jacket tightly shut, a strong wind swirling her hair.

  17

  The ladder became a makeshift bridge, the men doing what they could to solidify it, improve it. They brought two more extension ladders and set these beside the original. They laid sheets of cut plywood over the ladders and on either side of the riverbank erected two sets of poles with rope running from one side of the river to the other, like handrails. Of all the subcontractors, only Bill and José would brave the jury-rigged bridge; everyone else was beginning to peel away from the project, providing Cole with whatever lame excuses they could conjure up. And every day, the sun gave off less light; every day, the mountains seemed to loom larger; and the temperatures were beginning to fall.

  Their work became so much harder then. It was an education, a reminder of how things had once been built. Without their trucks, they had to carry everything. Up the river, across the river, and then down the river, then finally up to the house. The going was slow. They’d made a path to their ladder-bridge, using machetes to cut back the thick stands of willow and dogwood, but the way was still rocky and uneven. One morning, when the ground was slick with a thin layer of snow, Bart slipped and crumpled to the ground. A share of the flooring he’d been carrying fell on his back, and he lay there, groaning, his breath rising in the wet morning air.

  Teddy set down his end of the load and went to his friend. “You okay, buddy?”

  Teddy noticed that Bart seemed both more energized of late, and more fragile. He’d lost weight. Then again, they all had. It was a joke between the three of them. Measuring their waistlines. Teddy had even gotten a picture of Cole and Bart on his phone: holding their shirts up to show yellow tape measures circled above their pale bony hips. Bart claimed to have dropped from a thirty-eight-inch waist to a thirty-two. Cole from a thirty-six to a thirty. Teddy was embarrassed to admit that his jeans were so loose that he’d had his mom mail some of his old high school clothes to him.

  Bart pushed himself off the ground and stood there, the knees of his pants muddy, his hands bloodied.

  “Let’s keep going,” he said.

  “Bart?” Teddy said quietly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, buddy,” Bart said, bending down to restack the boards. “Fit as a fiddle.”

  “You look . . .”

  Bart held his end of the stack of boards near his waist and stared at Teddy, hard. “Yeah?” he growled.

  Bart’s face had grown gaunter since earlier in the summer, his skin less sun-browned, but it was his eyes that bothered Teddy. There was something numb about his eyes, something faraway that Teddy couldn’t quite place . . . a darkness, a vacancy . . . like one of those abandoned houses or trailers you see off the highway, half-camouflaged in overgrown brush, the front door kicked in and hanging off its hinges, all the windows broken by vandal stone-throwers and the ragged curtains blowing in the breeze. . . .

  “Nothing,” Teddy said. Then, affecting that air of never-mind indifference that always seemed to do the trick, “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  They’d been working this way for days. Spending four, five, six hours at a time transporting materials across the river like laborers from some bygone time. Cole had even contacted a company about renting a crane-truck, but with the road still largely in disrepair, there was no getting big machinery back up to the house.

  Teddy had always stood in awe of Bart, who was in so many ways his opposite: a self-confident brute of a man, unattached to anything and living day-to-day like a wild animal. But in those days of dwindling light, he was astonished at Bart’s sheer capacity for labor. It was true that Bart had begun living in their company trailer, but even still, he was up before dawn every day, working on trim or laying flooring, music pounding, and practically running around the site.

  Bart’s single-mindedness had at first invigorated Cole, and they seemed to be almost in competition, burning the midnight oil, yelling at each other, pushing each other, like two athletes halfway through a marathon. But as the days wore on, Cole was breaking down; Teddy could see it. Could see him sitting on a cooler, his head in his hands or even just staring off at the wrecked remains of the old bridge. In so many ways, Cole was their leader, even as Teddy and Bart resisted that outsize role. He was steady, whereas Bart was bullishly impulsive, and Teddy, too quick to please. Moreover, Cole was ambitious enough for all three of them: He was the one who had talked Britney into the bookkeeping role of the company; he was the one who attended Chamber of Commerce meetings, networking and schmoozing with business leaders Bart wouldn’t have the patience for and Teddy would be intimidated by. And yet it seemed that Cole’s reserves were fading, that what he needed was a long weekend away from the site—several days of rest and relaxation. Surely that would reenergize his batteries.

  Teddy sat down on the cooler beside Cole.

  “You should take a day off,” Teddy offered. “We can hold down the fort here.”

  Cole just shook his head no.

  “Come on, man. Go on. Get yourself on one of those dating websites. Go out to a bar. Heck, stay in bed for two days and catch up on your sleep.”

  “There’s no way,” Cole scoffed quietly. “There’s just no way.”

  They sat quietly for a moment, then both looked up at the house in time to see Bart pop down into the garage for several cartons of tiles that he balanced on a shoulder.

  “Where does he even get the energy?” Teddy laughed.

  Cole glanced down at his feet. “You really don’t know?”

  Teddy peered at Cole, feeling once more like a younger brother left out of a joke. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s on something, Te
ddy. I don’t know what. Some kind of upper, though, I imagine.”

  “You mean like, drugs?”

  Cole rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, Teddy, drugs.”

  “That’s horrible. We have to help him, Cole.”

  Cole stood from the cooler and stretched his back.

  “Cole? Don’t we? Don’t we have to help him?”

  “Teddy, I’m about out of magic, amigo. Like the sands of the hourglass, bud. . . . You want that paycheck, you better figure out a way to stay lively for the next what, fifty or so days? Because I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do is wake up on Christmas morning without that paycheck in my stocking. Know what I mean?”

  Teddy frowned.

  * * *

  —

  That night, Britney was waiting for him at the kitchen table, an array of home listings neatly arranged. When he shambled into the kitchen, sweaty and filthy from a sixteen-hour day, she seemed to hardly even notice, launching into a soliloquy that she had no doubt rehearsed all day long in preparation for his arrival.

  “I’ve got ten showings scheduled for Sunday,” she began. “The earliest is at eight in the morning.” She motioned to a two-page listing on the far left of the table. “It’s a bit out of town on a larger lot, and the price is beyond what we could afford now. . . . But when your bonus comes in December, the mortgage wouldn’t be a stretch. Can you imagine?” She smiled. “I mean—our own place? After so long? Teddy, I’m so excited!”

  He reached into the refrigerator, his hand diving instinctively toward a bottle of Coors. Without turning to face her, he twisted off the cap, pressed the cold brown glass to his lips, and pulled a long, contented swig. It felt delicious to stand there, in front of the refrigerator, cold air gasping out. Even as the days were shortening, even as the mornings and evenings were growing colder, Teddy was often sunburnt from crawling carefully along and across the river, a hundred pounds of materials strapped to his back, and even when he wasn’t, his body felt like an engine in overdrive. He took another deep swallow from the bottle and turned to face Britney.

  “That sounds great, baby,” he said, “but I’m not sure I can get outta work on Sunday. . . .”

  “Theodore,” she began, flummoxed, “first of all—church.”

  “I know, I know, I know,” he replied, “but it’s like you just said: When that bonus comes in, everything’s gonna change. But that’s only if I can get that bonus. Right? I mean, you understand that, don’t you, baby?”

  He’d sunk into a chair at their kitchen table and was absent-mindedly peering at the listings, one moment reaching for a stapled sheath of papers all adorned with carefully staged photos, and the next, setting it aside to run a hand over his forehead. The bottle now empty, Britney had gently plucked it out of his hand and installed herself in his lap. He flinched as she set her entire weight on his thighs. Not because she was heavy—she wasn’t—but because he hadn’t anticipated her touch, and more than that, he was just so, so sore.

  “Well, I know I’m not as skinny as you are,” she said with a laugh, “but I can’t be that big, can I?”

  He reached out and tucked some of her hair behind her ears.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, and then, from somewhere unexpected, somewhere near his guts, he felt a question arise, a question he could never vocalize, but a feeling, a sense of foreboding. What if this bonus isn’t worth it? he wanted very badly to ask. And, What if we can’t make the deadline?

  The words had escaped his mouth before he could retrieve them, before he could even consider their import.

  She tilted away from him, studied his face.

  “I mean, our builder’s fees are steep enough as is, right? What do our books look like? This has to be our best year, right? Isn’t that enough?”

  “Well, sure,” she began. “It’s been a real good year. Even before this big project. But if True Triangle wants to take that next step, you can’t just bleed all the profits into our own pockets. You have to invest. Get a proper office, for one thing. Actually hire an accountant and a secretary. Get a foreman you can trust. I can’t keep doing this forever. At some point, you’re going to need someone who can handle a serious payroll.”

  “That makes sense,” Teddy agreed.

  “That bonus,” she said, touching the tip of his nose, “that’s our nest egg. It’s just for us. Earned by you.”

  “Thing is, I’m really worried about Bart,” Teddy said quietly.

  “If there’s one fella you don’t have to worry about,” she said wryly, “it’s Bart.”

  “No,” Teddy continued, “you haven’t seen him. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I think he’s on somethin’. Least, that’s what Cole says. He’s like a demon. Working eighteen-hour, twenty-hour, twenty-two-hour days, I think. He’s even sleeping out there now, in our trailer. Did I tell you that? At least, I think he’s sleeping. He’s on somethin’, Brit. Some kind of drug, I can’t figure it out.”

  “Probably just some kind of speed, you know? Like what truckers take to stay awake? Or what those country singers used back in the seventies?”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Teddy conceded, though he suspected it was much worse than all that.

  “Come on,” she said, standing. “Let’s get you into the shower.”

  He stood creakily, as if his joints were badly rusted. By the time he stood from the chair, she was already upstairs. A few seconds later, he could hear the shower running. He shuffled toward the refrigerator, snagged another bottle of Coors, and plodded up the stairs to the bathroom.

  Inside the shower, the bottle felt so cold against his cramped fingers while he watched the day’s grit and filth wash off his hands and arms, funneling down the drain. Leaning his head against the tiled wall, he closed his eyes and might have fallen asleep for a moment or two, water pounding off his swollen shoulders.

  18

  Leaning against the bed of the truck, as the gas pumped rhythmically into its tank, Bart rolled up a sleeve and worried the skin on his arms, picking, pinching, and digging with his nails. His eyes flashed over the parking lot and up to the bowl of mountains above, where the snowline crept farther down every day, then back over the parking lot, as restless as a plastic bag in the wind. He ground his teeth and picked, picked, picked. The pump clicked off, and he peered at his arm, where a new sore oozed blood. He glanced around quickly and saw only an old rancher staring at him from another pump. Bart raised his hand to tip his cap in the man’s direction and realized only after the man had turned away without acknowledging him that his own fingers were sticky with blood. Then, noticing a smear of his blood on the gas pump, he spit on a paper towel and wiped it away.

  A text rattled Bart’s phone in his pocket as he slung back into the truck.

  LUNCH?

  Margo. He hadn’t seen Margo in many months and wasn’t sure he wanted her to see him this way. But just like that, a wave of hunger broke inside him and he realized that he hadn’t eaten in . . . had it really been two days? Just a tin of Pringles chips, several plastic bottles of Mountain Dew, and a can of peanuts. He could hear his stomach growling, even over the late-autumn wind rustling the garbage cans.

  They met at a little roadside Mexican restaurant, as unpretentious as could be around Jackson Hole. Margo was already ensconced in a booth, typing away at her phone, and before sitting down, he slowly took off his jacket to regard her. She glanced up at him with a quick, polite smile, only to aim her eyes back down at her phone.

  As he slid into the booth, she said, “Sorry, fella, seat’s taken. I’m waiting for someone.”

  He touched her wrist lightly. “Margo, it’s me. Bart.”

  She set down the phone, then covered her mouth for a moment before pretending to glance for a waitress, her eyes landing everywhere but on him.

  “I mean, I know I’ve lost some weight,” he admitted, “but .
. . Christ, Margo. I don’t look that bad, do I?”

  Finally, she exhaled and looked him fully in the face. “I really didn’t recognize you,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “Bart, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, Margo. We’ve just been, you know, workin’ around the clock. What can I say?”

  “You must’ve lost twenty, thirty pounds.”

  “Well,” he said, smiling gamely, “then let’s eat.”

  Every time she returned to his health, he dodged her questions and concerns; this was practically a game with them and had been when they’d dated as well. She’d ask about his drinking or cigarette habit, and he’d simply make a joke or point out that he never much questioned her choices. When the check came, she quickly handed the waitress a credit card and, placing both hands on the table, stared at him.

  “Heard you gave up your apartment, too,” she said. “Seriously, what gives?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t see the point anymore. Barely ever slept there. Never ate there. No visitors.”

  “So, where have you been living?”

  “Out at the site. We bought ourselves a brand-new RV trailer. It’s pretty nice, actually. Bigger than my apartment, maybe. Definitely newer and a helluva lot cleaner. Or at least it was a lot cleaner. A month ago.”

  “And what are you going to do when the cold comes?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It stays plenty warm. There’s a little heater in there connected to a propane tank. I mean, people live in those things, Margo. I ain’t bivouacked under a tree or nothin’.”