Godspeed

by Nickolas Butler

  “What about the snow? Bart, this isn’t a joke. You could get stuck up there. People die.”

  He waved a hand dismissively.

  “Are you okay, Bart? You’d tell me if there was something going on, wouldn’t you?”

  He shook his head in the negative. “Honestly, Margo, I probably wouldn’t.”

  The waitress returned to the table with Margo’s credit card and a pitcher of cold water. The former couple was quiet while the waitress refilled their water glasses and then collected their dirty plates and utensils.

  “Here’s a thought,” she said, flipping her hair and glancing out the window. “What happens if you don’t make the deadline?”

  “We will.”

  “Yeah, but what if you don’t? Or what if you do, and she refuses to pay you? Did you ever think of that? What if she never expected you to finish? What if she wants the house done by February first, and all this was just some kind of charade? A carrot on a stick. What then?”

  He had in fact considered many of these questions, but the one that troubled him the most, the one question of Margo’s that he hadn’t considered, was the notion that the deadline was something of a red herring, a bright and promising enticement meant only to lure three rubes onto an unfinished worksite, to entice them to work themselves to death when no other crews would, in what promised to be the worst weather possible. He ran his right hand up and under his left sleeve and began picking the scab that had formed on his forearm.

  “We’ve got a contract,” he said, though that fact gave him little assurance.

  “Oh, I’m sure you read every word, too.” Margo laughed. “Did you have a lawyer look it over? Do you even know what you signed? For all you know, you might’ve just signed a contract that ensures her a grievance if the house isn’t finished by Christmas. Or—who knows?— maybe it indemnifies her if you’re injured on the site. Did you think of that?”

  The wound on his arm was bleeding freely now, and he began to dig at a new spot.

  “She’s not that kind of person,” he murmured.

  “Oh,” Margo said, leaning back against the cushions of the booth. “Oh, well, that’s good. Because I heard a rumor you’re working on a house where a guy got killed. The whole crew quit, and then True Triangle moves in, like a bunch of scabs.”

  Bart winced at that last word.

  “You guys might find other projects after this one, other big houses, even, but you might also have a hard time finding workers. From what I hear, that place is bad luck. Maybe not ‘haunted,’ but, you know, something closer to cursed.”

  “That’s a bunch of bullshit,” Bart hissed, sliding out of the booth to stand. He shook his jacket over his shoulders. “I don’t have to sit here and take this. Look, I just thought we’d have a nice lunch and, whatever, catch up. I sure as hell don’t need to be lectured. Christ, Margo.”

  “Sit down,” she said quietly. “Please.”

  He stood there, his knees jittering, his eyes sweeping around the restaurant. Without a word, he sat back down.

  “What are you using?” she asked.

  He looked her hard in the eyes. “Meth,” he admitted. “A little coke, here and there.”

  “Jesus,” she sighed.

  “It’s the only way we’ll make it,” he reasoned. “The only way.”

  “Please, please, please do me a favor?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Quit that shit, Bart. Okay? For me?”

  He was aware at that moment of mutilating himself, could feel the slick warmth of his own blood under his fingertips and knew he’d have to hide his hand from her, knew she’d be appalled to see his arms, his fingernails, let alone his teeth, the enamel of which had already begun to degenerate significantly over these past few frenzied weeks. He looked at the table, allowed himself to look at her hands, strong, sun-tanned, and well-veined.

  He nodded his head, though what was he really agreeing to? Nothing. All he knew was that he had no clue how they’d make it otherwise, without the help, how they’d ever drag themselves over that finish line on time. Still, he understood in that moment that her concern was for him, not for their goal, and certainly not for Gretchen’s house.

  As if on cue Margo stood and said, “Don’t be fooled, Bart. She’s just another rich asshole with too much money to burn.”

  And then she was gone.

  * * *

  —

  Back at the house, Bill and José were wrapping up their work, José cleaning off their tools, while Bill sat near the hearth, scribbling out what appeared to be a to-do list.

  “You fellas almost done?” Bart asked.

  “Not long,” Bill said without looking up. “Maybe we’ll wrap up just after Thanksgiving.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Yeah, well, last thing I want is to be up here when the snow really starts to fly. Hard for me to believe Gretchen is going to be able to keep that road plowed and open.”

  “I know it. Everyone says we’ll be snowed in.”

  “How about you boys?” Bill asked. “You gonna make it?”

  Bart was silent for a moment, not exactly digging the mason’s superior tone.

  “We’ll make it,” Bart said, glancing at his boots. “We’ll make it.”

  “Well, it ain’t any of my business,” Bill said, “but to me, it seems like you could be hiring on a few more subs. Soon as we get that bridge back, anyway. You boys are taking too much on your shoulders.”

  “Ah . . . Bill, you know as well as I do what we’re up against. Nobody wants to work on this job. They don’t know me and my partners, and most of ’em don’t trust us. They don’t much like the homeowner either, and they think the house is cursed. And who knows? Maybe they’re right.”

  Bill shifted his weight slightly. “Gretchen’s the finest woman I ever met,” he offered. “Never worked for a homeowner who was fairer or had better judgment or taste. Helluva woman, you ask me.”

  Bart was surprised by Bill’s candor.

  “You sweet on her, too, Bill?” Bart asked. “You two got a history together or somethin’?”

  Bill stared at him with no hostility, but no warmth either. “Good day to you,” he said to Bart, tipping his baseball cap and collecting his tools to go.

  19

  Bart was laying tile in the master bathroom. He’d bought three Sonos speakers that connected to his phone, and in this way, he kept music throbbing through the empty house at almost every hour of the day or night. Sure, he was partial to his old boombox, but there was something about sprinkling speakers throughout a house, and moving room to room, just as the music flowed. Anyway, when Teddy and Cole were gone, it made the structure feel less cold, alone.

  Oh, but the meth, that was what really helped for jobs like this—for the tiling, placing each one, getting zoned out on the geometric patterns that kept multiplying, like a grid. Instead of picking at scabs, he was placing them, on and on and on—little work, putzy work, work that he otherwise wouldn’t enjoy, but there in the early morning, an hour or so before dawn, he could listen to the entirety of a band’s work, an entire oeuvre, could begin with Nirvana’s Bleach and before midnight, complete Unplugged in New York, then shift into something altogether different, like the Beatles, or, when his partners weren’t around, as they were not just then, jazz—especially Miles Davis, which Margo had introduced him to. Goddamnit, he thought, that woman was a keeper. Maybe it’s not too late to win her back. . . .

  Today it was in fact Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way, a dreamy sound-world that filled the house, a sonic wave he could lazily ride any which way he wanted. During the day, when other subs were around, he tried to keep the meth under wraps. He wasn’t sure what Cole and Teddy knew or didn’t know, and so it was easier to hit the pipe late at night or just before dawn, and damn, did he love that feeling—of str
utting around the site, the house, just all jacked-up, fueled on crank, flying around and showing Cole what he was able to accomplish in the wee hours. His goal was to complete this bathroom before the end of the day. Think: the money he’d saved them, and the time. The tiling guys in the area were notoriously finicky, as temperamental as the winter weather, prone to not showing up for work or showing up only to ask for a cash advance on their wages. . . . Cole had gotten in touch with a tiler who’d originally signed on with the first general contractor, but he wasn’t about to carry tile and grout across a river, and certainly not for what he’d originally bid out the work. When he told Cole that his fee would have to quadruple, Cole had essentially told the fellow to kiss his ass, and that was that.

  Even protected by heavy-duty professional-grade kneepads, Bart’s knees were screaming. He placed several tile sheets before standing and stretching his back. The rush had long since subsided, and he’d been powering through on the shoulder of that high, only then feeling the downslope. He walked out of the house, into the last hour before dawn, the starlight still bright enough to leave the mountains shining like crystalline castles.

  He dragged himself into the trailer, considered flopping down on the narrow bed, but thought better of it. The pipe and meth were hidden in a hollowed-out hardcover copy of Stephen King’s Needful Things. Bart suspected Cole was on to him by now but didn’t care to know the particulars. But if Teddy ever caught on to the extent of things . . . Luckily, Teddy wasn’t much of a reader. In fact, Bart had once heard him launch into a diatribe about how King was part of a larger cabal of liberal intellects attempting to rot American culture from the inside out with his “devil books.” There wasn’t a chance in hell Teddy would touch that novel or the evil things inside it.

  Bart took the pipe and meth out to the springs and lowered himself to the rock, the steam warming him in the early-morning chill. He touched the flame of his lighter to the bowl and inhaled.

  Ooooooohhhhhh . . . and there he was again . . . the veins in this neck, surging, each of them, and the veins in his tired arms, no longer the least bit tired. His knees, which had been so close to betraying him, now felt like iron wheels, like he was the LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD, powering right up to the peaks of those mountains ^^^ . . . He shook his head. Ooooooohhhhhh . . . Pressed his hands against his eyelids, felt that his eyeballs were about to ***POP*** out of his skull. His tongue felt hot, as if he’d licked battery acid.

  He walked down to the river, feeling for the first time since he’d begun using again . . . afraid. Yes, he was afraid. Afraid he was trapped. There was no time to quit the stuff, and the crash he’d be facing now, he knew, would be epic and torturous. He’d have to sink deep into a horrific hole, a deep mineshaft of pain, and then the withdrawal, months of desperately seeking that high again. . . . It had been years since he’d used anything this religiously, rode a high this hard . . . But: Ooooooohhhhhh . . . His body felt so hot he began shedding clothes: his shirt, his pants, a sock, until he found himself sitting in the cool of the river, weeping, splashing those scarred arms of his.

  And that was when he saw it, far off at first, lights flashing a sickly yellow and white, and then that beeping drone, and he was filled with terror. A huge noise was filling the valley now, ringing in his ears, monstrous in its rising volume as that accompanying light blotted out all the stars.

  He scrambled up the bank of the creek and ran naked from it, a single sodden sock still on one foot, and, once inside the trailer, hastily locked the door, searching that small space for something to block the doorway; he wrenched the miniature refrigerator from its spot and lodged it in front of the door, then began stacking whatever he could on top of the refrigerator: a case of beer, books, blueprints, clothes.

  Ooooooohhhhhh Christ!!!!!! The light and sound were growing steadily closer, and his fevered mind was of two theories: one, aliens. He was alone, and this was it. They’d beam him up into their ship, and he’d suffer all manner of indignity before they released him hours later, no one the wiser, the only proof a little chip implanted just below the surface of his scalp, so that they could track him through the universe. Or, two: The federales were after him. Of course they were. Someone on the crew must have ratted him out, wanted the project to fail. Maybe it was Bill; yes, it fucking had to be Bill. Who else could it have been? Or Gretchen herself? What a way to put the kibosh on those hefty bonuses. They were close to the finish line now, and with the house sealed up, she could just wait out the winter and rehire a crew of subs with the goal of moving into the house on July 4. No, no, no . . . He was right the first time; it had to be the federales, the feds, ATF, FBI, or some yahoo local sheriff. They’d heard about drugs up at the new house site, heard about a crew of guys likely on meth, and . . . WAIT!!! Where was the pipe and the meth?

  “The pipe! The pipe! The pipe! The pipe and the crystal, the pipe and the crystal!” he roared, scrambling toward the ad-hoc barricade he’d assembled in front of the trailer’s door and now ripping it apart, tossing the case of beer, tearing at the blueprints, and all but throwing the mini fridge, then blasting out the door and into the cold, naked still, save for that single wet sock, and without a light, too, and on his hands and knees, feeling blindly around the rim of the springs, the rock there, the gravel below, until he stood and just about as he was ready to run downhill toward the river, he felt something crack below his heel, and then a sharp pain. The pipe! The pipe, the pipe, the pipe. He knelt down and collected the little glass pieces as best he could, cupped them in his hands, and, finding the baggie of meth, too, retreated back to the trailer, where he built the barricade anew, hiding what remained of the pipe and meth in Needful Things, then diving onto the bed and covering himself in blankets, there to cower as much out of fear as from the cold. And all the while the distant lights and noises crept closer and closer, like an encroaching army. He heard men’s voices and the crunch of tires on gravel, and eventually, the lights were so close they strobed over the windows of the trailer. He waited for the inevitable: knocking fists on the trailer’s door, the cry of We’ve got a warrant! or even the metallic chick-chick of guns locked and loaded.

  It was incredibly difficult to measure time. Bart was terrified to look out the windows, for fear of giving himself away. Eventually, more and more light did seem to creep through the shutters, and then there was intermittent birdsong. He thought he could hear truck doors slamming and the laughter of men, no doubt peering at the trailer through binoculars or the scopes of their sniper rifles.

  More time passed until, at last, he heard the approach of footfalls.

  “Hey, Bart!” The voice was familiar; it sounded like Cole, but how could Bart know for sure? “Bart, you in there?” How could he know for sure whether they were just holding his friend, a pistol pressed between his shoulder blades or against the back of his skull?

  “Bart, look, buddy, I’m coming in. You better be decent.”

  Bart shrank beneath the blankets. He might’ve ground his teeth together, but lately they hadn’t been feeling quite right; mushy, somehow.

  The trailer began to shake, and the door handle groaned but would not give.

  “Open up, Bart! You okay in there, buddy? Hey, hang on now! We’ll get you! Hold tight now.”

  Bart sensed an apprehension outside the trailer, heard the sound of two men talking, two distinct voices, and then a key in the lock of the door, and suddenly, morning light spilling in, as someone began pulling all of Bart’s makeshift barricade away from the doorway. Bart screamed.

  “Hey, buddy,” came a quiet voice. “Come on—calm down. It’s just us.”

  It was Cole and Teddy, standing in the doorway, looking extremely concerned, if not terrified. Cole was crouched on his knees, holding out his hands, the way you might coax a dog back toward the leash, while Teddy just stood there, both hands resting on top of his head, staring around the wrecked trailer and blowing out a defeated sort of sigh.


  “Bart,” Cole said. “Bart, it’s just us. You must’ve had a bad dream or something, buddy. All right? A nightmare. Hell, man, your clothes are all over the place outside.”

  “Blood, too,” Teddy whispered, pointing down at the floor of the Airstream, and then to the bedsheets wrapped around Bart.

  “You’re awake now, buddy,” Cole said. “It’s okay. We’re here. And we got good news, too.”

  “Look at all the blood,” Teddy said.

  Cole smiled extravagantly at Bart, inching forward until he could rest a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Wha—what news?” Bart asked.

  “We got ourselves a new bridge,” Cole said, smiling.

  “A new bridge?” Bart almost laughed.

  “Yeah, some big-deal boys out of Salt Lake City. The whole bridge is right out there,” Cole said, standing. “Down there right now! You gotta see it, buddy. They’ve got it out on a giant flatbed truck. Three days, and they’ll be done, and then we’ll be back in business. A crane-truck, floodlights—the whole shebang. You believe it?”

  Bart rubbed at his face, his eyes.

  “What happened to your arms?” Teddy asked, pointing to the scabs and open sores adorning Bart’s arms from his wrists all the way to his shoulders. “Dear god, Bart.”

  “He’s just a little beat-up, aren’t you, buddy?” Cole said, gathering some clothes and helping Bart into a T-shirt. “Come on, let’s—”

  “No,” Teddy said firmly, then, “No! Now, damn it, Cole, just stop.”

  “What?” Cole asked. “There’s work to do, Teddy.” He drew back all the curtains, and light blasted into the trailer. “Look, it’s a beautiful day out there, am I right?” Cole went on. “We can’t . . . Teddy-Bear, we just can’t . . . We gotta keep moving forward! The clock is ticking, and we can’t just—”