The Tarnished Shooter

by Charles James

  Lana listened to my persuasive story about the gem I found in Colorado. She busted out laughing in disbelief. Well it was at least one way to get her laughing. I guess I couldn’t fool her. I felt sort of stupid after that. Yea, it was just a made up story. I never really found anything. At least that’s what I’ll let everyone believe. Over the years I developed my own unique way of telling stories I thought had most people half-believing my bullshit. But it didn’t work on her. Making up stories was a form of art to me. I liked to fabricate mysterious fantasies from nothing. The stories weren’t total fantasy they were way out ideas I had about how I wanted to live my life. I learned not long after meeting her I would have to come up with something more creative and more convincing if I wanted to fool her.

  I wanted to figure out a way to get Lana to be a bit more spontaneous, she seemed too structured for my comfort. Especially when it came to money—she was essentially a bean counter. I should have known better than to date an accountant. I hated accounting for money. My checkbooks never balanced and I was always overdrawn. I wanted a partner in crime not a saintly, motherly, sensible shoe wearing conservative type like most accountants seem to be. Even though she wasn’t the kind of woman I thought I wanted, something inside me told me she was the one I needed. At first we spent time in the park: sitting out in the sun, getting a tan, and talking, getting to know one another better. Lana had some time off, so I made up another story about having a great job in the big city. I had to tell her that the stuff I’d told her the night we met was all bullshit. I wasn’t sure yet about the relationship even though I had good vibes about her when I first met her. As time went by and we learned more about each other, she seemed to be able to deal with some of my emotional baggage.

  She was the one who clued me into the fact that I had some issues. She especially didn’t like my drinking, swearing, or sporadic smoking. I used so much nasty language. I claimed I was trained to talk the way I talked, because it had been programed in my mind from being in the Marines and there was no way she was going to change it. She didn’t buy my excuses and continued to badger me about my way of life. Oh my God she was a saint! I was beginning to see that she was surly one of those goody-goody do-gooders that I had despised. Those types always seemed to be so self-righteous and looked down their nose at people like me. At least that’s what I thought.

  I might have been quiet and unassuming when I was a boy around my loud overbearing father, but I certainly wasn’t shy with women. I wanted to find a woman who shared my future goals, but I also wanted to have a pile of fun along the way. I wasn’t interested in finding a nose to the grindstone workaholic for a life companion, which Lana was beginning to show signs of.

  I couldn’t believe it. If I wasn’t running into loons like Snake, drug addicts like Ashley, I was getting hooked up with saintly do-gooders like Lana. So many people walked in and out of my life with an agenda of their own and I never knew until it was too late. Maybe it was because she grew up on a cattle farm and she was used to working hard. She talked about the days when she tossed around bales of hay for the steers. She was strong for such a small framed women. At least she had qualities I admired that trumped her saintly nature. Lana worked-out regularly maintaining her shapely and petite physique. She was also willing to help me with my financial difficulties, which I needed. I knew from past experience that I needed a partner. She had the kind of raw courage and strength I wanted in a partner.

  I met the rest of her family a month after we’d met. Her father had had an accident on the farm when she was just a little girl. On one visit he raised a pant leg and showed me his prosthetic leg. Apparently he’d been working on one of his tractors when it slipped out of gear and rolled down a hill, crushing the leg. Even with his man-made leg he worked hard at planting cash crops and raising cattle for beef processing plants. When he talked to people, he mostly shared information about the weather and the progress of the crops he planted in the spring. To a farmer everything is about water and soil. He was also a Korean War Veteran who spent time in the shit on the front lines, but never talked much about the war unless someone else brought up the subject. If I had wanted to be a farmer or cash cropper, he was the guy I would get lessons from. Lana’s mother was a saintly woman who enjoyed the company of just about anyone. Most people gravitated around her because she was so kind and considerate.

  Lana’s family was what I would consider rich. She grew up with six sisters and a brother all wanting for nothing. She didn’t grow up in the kind of situation I did so at first it was hard to relate. The house they lived in was bigger than our lake house. It had the look and feel of one of those huge plantation homes of the south. Trees lined a gently curved road that led to a double sized front door. The inhabitants of that house were all attractive in their own ways—I found them all to be very pleasant and accepting of everyone they met. One of Lana’s sisters was named Sasha. She was dangerously irresistible and my favorite because she liked to party and had a fearless personality. I even liked her flirtatious name. She was able to operate in barroom crowds like she was a wild tiger in the jungle prowling around looking for some fresh meat. I had to be careful when I was around her because I always felt like a piece of steel being pulled by her unexplainable magnetic force. She was the type of woman who could have easily had me wrapped around her little finger. Some women had that effect on me. But most didn’t. Even though I was interested in Lana I always found aggressively sexual women like Sasha to be exciting and I couldn’t resist being around them.

  Before she met me, Lana had fallen in love with a man who was killed in a car accident, so she had some issues with that. I believe it affected her in many ways she didn’t even realize. But despite the emotional pain she carried for her lost love, Lana was the kind of woman every mother wanted her son to bring home.

  I was committed to the relationship, but I hadn’t sealed the deal for the rest of my life yet. I went with the forces of nature to see where it would lead. I didn’t like committing to anything, especially if it meant signing a contract for an unknown number of years. One of the lessons I learned after enlisting in the Marine Corps. How could anyone know they would love someone, or something for the rest of their life? Relationships usually ended up in a quest for control over money or power. Lovers like to keep score and dig up the dirt every time an obligation isn’t met or the balance sheet seems to tip to one side. It was too soon in the relationship for me to know if Lana was a scorekeeper or even a keeper.

  Chapter 28

  I turned thirty-years-old a month after I met Lana. I figured it was time to get busy and make some money doing construction work. Two months later I rented a small house with a garage and began to set up my own construction business. The house was in my old stomping grounds. I used to drive past that little house on the go-cart Jack and I built seventeen years prior. A business advertisement was designed and placed in the phone book; business cards were printed up. Now all I needed was some work to do.

  A couple months after I moved into the house Clem showed up at my door and asked me if I would hold a gun for him. The last time we’d seen each other was four years ago. Clem was riding shotgun in my pickup truck when suddenly he jumped out in the middle of Main St. as I waited for the light to change. Without saying a word, he ran across the street and jumped into someone’s car. Clem just disappeared. Later, I learned he’d gotten busted for dealing cocaine in another part of the state and landed in prison for three years. Now, here he was standing at my door, a two-time felon, with a forty-five-caliber automatic pistol in his hand that he wanted me to hold for him. I was all done with those games. I was finished sitting in jail and living like an asshole. I wanted to have a steady girlfriend, start a business, and settle down. So I told Clem no. He left pissed off and I never saw him again.

  Living in my own house gave me the self-respect that I had lost somewhere along the way. It was time to grow up, pay my own bills and try to carve out the life I had envisioned as a boy. On L
ana’s recommendation, the owner of the building she worked in hired me to fix some broken window units. It was a good-sized job so I was able to support myself for another few months. I bought more tools to be able to do other jobs and for a time I actually thought I could make it on my own in the world doing something I wanted and liked to do. Time would tell.

  As time passed, Parker and I became pretty good friends and he sent quite a few jobs my way. I even worked on a few projects as a draftsman in his office. He taught me how to draw plans with a unique style like none I had ever seen.

  I continued to read engineering and architecture books and enrolled in correspondence courses for civil engineering, bound and determined to get a degree. I was influenced by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. In my opinion, he was the master of architecture. I read every book available about the man and his projects. I took designing and building things seriously. To me it wasn’t going to be just a job. I was going to learn everything I could about how and why a building lasted or failed. I thought someday I would build something that would put my name in the history books of architecture or engineering. I knew somehow I had to drop my old attitudes about society or I would not succeed. In any business, success means dealing with many different kinds of people. I learned the more people like you, or the more they think they like you the more possibility there would be for opportunities. I tried to change my negative attitude into positive thinking. I knew I had to start tearing down the walls I’d put up over the years to protect myself. I had layers and layers of distrust and pessimistic attitudes towards people and the world in general.

  I always wanted to be the kind of guy everyone liked to be around—the kind of person people felt safe to be with. Like the guy who walked into a bar and everyone was glad to buy him a drink. It was a quality I had always admired and sought to have, but maybe my life experiences weren’t going to ever allow that to be a reality for me—as much as I wanted it.

  ****

  Parker was spending more time at the drawing board. He spent entire days and nights finishing up plans. Every day he was coming closer and closer to completing multiple projects. Over evening drinks, we schemed and devised ways to make money from design to construction. He had an idea for selling special state-of-the-art thermostats for heating and air conditioning units. We spent hours at the bar trying to figure out a marketing plan, only to run into all kinds of roadblocks. Parker missed appointments with potential customers because of his drinking habits.

  The meetings we held at the taverns we were fixing up turned into big parties for everyone involved, including me and my helpers. It was a fun lifestyle, but it really wasn’t getting me where I wanted to be.

  When Parker proposed more work, I hired another helper who had said he graduated from a journeymen’s carpenter program. The guy seemed a bit smug to me and acted like he knew more than me about building because he had a construction diploma. I was never turned on or impressed with people who carried big egos. I hired him anyway because I needed someone who could run a crew when I wasn’t around. If he thought he had to know more about swinging a hammer than I did, that was his problem. I had too many other things to think about.

  I studied contracts and contract law. I learned the lien laws, and then I learned how to present a case to the small claims courts. If I knew the law, there would be a better chance for me to come out on top. I’d had dealings with bar owners who tried to chisel money out of me for work I had finished. Usually they wanted the work done as cheaply as possible, but then complained when the job didn’t look like a high-end project. I could only do so much for the money they wanted to spend. Sometimes it turned into an all-out war trying to get the money I was owed.

  To be a general contractor meant wearing many hats and at times it was a tough and competitive business to succeed at. People were always trying to get something for nothing and if one didn't know the law, or were intimidated easily, it was an almost guarantee to get hammered with the short end of the deal—losing money—getting a bad reputation too. As a contractor, I knew I needed a steady stream of cash. Credit for a new business isn’t always easy to get. One under-bid job could wipe out a small operator. Sometimes it worked like a Ponzi scheme as I’d use money from the most recent job to finish up a job from a while back. If I started running out of money from one job, then I’d try to get another job with a supply of new money to keep going. It always seemed like a juggling act.

  I learned about cash flow from experience I’d gained over the years doing small, but complex jobs—sometimes getting stiffed over petty little misunderstandings. What I wanted and needed most was a contract to build some apartments or a whole tract of houses. A project of that magnitude would put thousands of dollars in my pocket and make me appear more successful. Success breeds more success.

  ****

  One afternoon when I walked into Parker’s office, I thought I was finally going to get the chance I’d been waiting for. Parker was putting the finishing touches on plans for some condominium units to be built on a channel connected to the lake. He asked me if I wanted to submit a bid for all the carpentry work. Often contracts were awarded to contractors based on past performance and product quality instead of just going to the low bidder. Parker had observed the work I had done on past projects and thought I would be the best choice out of a few others who’d also submitted bids. There were other investors involved with the project, who I’d have to meet and get approval of as well. One was a well-known realtor, the other investor I didn’t know, but my gut feeling of him was not good. Later I’d learn he was a smooth talker who liked to use people and then skip out of town owing money to everyone involved.

  When I found out I’d gotten the approval of all the major players and the job to build the condominiums was mine—I was so excited—it felt like a dream come true. I got all dressed up in a blue pin-striped suit and red tie. I bought a dozen red roses, and drove eighty miles to Lana’s apartment in the big city and asked her to marry me. I wanted the act of asking the woman I loved to marry me to be a moment she’d always remember.

  The investors who were financing the condominium project agreed to front me ten thousand dollars so I could meet my first few payrolls. I could also use the money for any other miscellaneous expenses needed for the job. The day before five truckloads of materials were to be delivered to the jobsite I still hadn't been paid the upfront money. I had met with the developers the night before at their favorite bar and informed them of my plan to boycott the project until I had the ten grand in my hands. I ordered my crew not to show up until I had the money. Unknown to me, the journeyman carpenter I hired a few months earlier had been conspiring with the owners behind my back to run the project himself.

  Once I learned that bit of information, it made sense to me why I hadn't been given the advance money. Another lesson I learned while doing business with these guys was that I would never hire anyone outside my circle of friends or family again. I would get every last detail of a contract in writing. To be stabbed in the back by the punk who I’d trusted to be my foreman and had paid top dollar to for more than three months pissed me off to unbelievable proportion.

  One of the owners, the guy I thought was a smooth talker, turned out to be a scam artist just as I had thought. Originally from Montana, he liked to run around town and spend money rubbing shoulders with real estate owners and bankers. He liked to play the big shot. I got bad vibes the first time I met him, but he was a buddy of Parker’s so I didn’t think Parker would let him screw me over.

  I had seen my share of the con-man types and could spot the telltale signs right away almost like I had a built- in radar. But everyone involved didn't seem to see the flaws in the guy's character that tipped me off. In the end the big shot went flat broke; owing money to every subcontractor who worked on the condos. After I learned about all the money games the investors were playing I was glad I didn’t get suckered into doing any work on that project. It was the same con-game Dusty played in the alu
minum siding business. I heard from Parker, the crook high tailed it out of town, returning to Montana to engage in more con-game schemes.

  I spent two years building additions and remodeling projects for Parker. Other jobs I got through referrals, but for some reason I usually ended up bidding too low on the work, or never making enough profit to produce the kind of lifestyle I had in mind.

  ****

  After getting bumped from the condo project I re-evaluated my position. Something wasn’t working right and I knew it. I decided to end my construction business and go to engineering school in an attempt to gain more building credentials and credibility. Once out of school I could always start another business.

  I had had enough of dealing with unethical scumbags. I applied for grants and loans to be a full time student. Thinking I didn’t have the patience to attend a four-year college, I opted for a two-year structural engineering technology program in Milwaukee. I was bound and determined to get some kind of a degree in structural engineering if it was the last thing I ever did. With a two year degree I knew I wouldn’t have the required amount of schooling to become a licensed professional engineer, but I could at least learn how to do engineering design. I could use what I learned to design and build my own buildings.

  It wouldn't be easy to go back to school even for just two years. I was in my early thirties and never cared for any kind of structured classroom learning environment. Not long after I was discharged from the Marines, I took some pre-engineering classes in surveying, drafting, and art at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Mostly I went to school then for the grant money. I felt out of place sitting in class with young people right out of high school.