The Kerr Construction Company

by Farmer, Larry

  “I grew up on a farm. Later I worked computers in Houston, and it was the worst experience of my life. It was the fastest growing city in America, a thousand new families moving in every week. They all came for one reason. Money.”

  “So what the hell’s wrong with that?” Ira defied. “That’s why the unskilled come here and why the skilled go to Houston. You a back-to-nature freak? You like living in your van?”

  “America’s lost its soul,” I complained.

  “I knew it,” he gruffed, blowing cigar smoke my direction. “What else they teach you in college?”

  “My daddy was a war hero,” I explained. “I got uncles that are preachers. I don’t go to church much, but I got a lot on me. I joined the Marines to go to Vietnam. I need a cause, I guess. Now America’s just one big party. So many in Houston were on drugs. New cars.”

  “A Texan needing an Alamo to defend.” He laughed as he again blew smoke my direction.

  “I don’t like America anymore. Nothing for me here.”

  “And so you’re digging ditches in Gallup, New Mexico?” Ira smiled wickedly. “That makes sense. And you meditate to find your head? Smart people got too much time. Nothing else to do.”

  He pulled up to a big water pump. We looked to be in the exact center of nowhere. Nothing except miles of dirt.

  “We’re going to strip mine here pretty soon,” he said as he pulled a shovel out of the back of the pickup. “I need you to dig a trough from this pump to those boxes over there.” He pointed behind me at a stack of tomato boxes about fifty yards away. “You can meditate while you’re doing it, doesn’t bother me. Just dig straight. I’ll be placing blasting caps in dynamite, so you might not want to get too close.”

  I was almost surprised he wasn’t smoking on his cigar as he did so.

  “This job sucks,” I mumbled after a while, as I dug.

  He looked up. “What did you say?”

  “I hate this,” I said sarcastically, straightening up and leaning on my shovel. “It’s putting my chi at an imbalance. My harmony at a dysfunction.”

  “McIlhenny, shut up. People get fired for that. Whatever it is you said.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled as I returned to my digging, “but this still sucks.”

  Ira went back to squeezing blasting caps with his pliers, then placed the sticks of dynamite in a box. He moseyed to the pickup, got a rope, made a loop, and began to twirl it. While I dug I suddenly felt the rope wrap around me, felt it jerk and tighten until it pulled me to the ground. Like some cowboy with a calf, Ira bent over me and tied up my hands and feet. He then got out a gasoline can from the pickup and, without blinking an eye, doused the bottom of my jeans and lit them with his cigarette lighter.

  I felt the fire’s warmth and pretended it hurt so he would get his stunt over with. It seemed to satisfy him, and he bent down, rolling me in the dirt until it was out.

  “Now get back to work, McIlhenny,” he grunted as he untied me. “Leave me to my danged blasting caps. Any other questions, queerbait?”

  I kept a serious look on my face the rest of the afternoon, but found it hard to do so. This was fun. Maybe I brought all this on myself to break up the day.

  “Quitting time, McIlhenny,” I heard Ira shout.

  “Another five minutes,” I shouted back.

  “I’ll load up,” he answered. “Oh yeah, another thing.”

  “What’s that?” I asked when he didn’t follow through.

  “Didn’t you say you used to play football?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re a fast runner, right?”

  What does that mean? “Yeah,” I answered again.

  “You better be. This is a stick of dynamite here in my hand.”

  He lit it and threw it my direction. I didn’t look back until I heard the explosion. There was a hole ten yards from where I used to be.

  “Come on,” he shouted again, not bothering to laugh. “Let’s go home. Go get your shovel if it’s still there.”

  Later I thought of Ira’s shenanigans, sitting in the restaurant, savoring the rich garlic aroma. He would have made a good Marine, I decided. I never made it to Vietnam, but I get to tell my grandkids about when I worked for the Kerr Construction Company.

  I heard Carmen’s voice come from beside me. “You got a look about you, hombre,” she said as she walked over to me and planted a small kiss on my lips. “Is that a smirk? What wickedness are you contriving? Better not leave me out of it.”

  “Nearly got blown up by dynamite today,” I said as my smirk turned into laughter.

  “Good Lord, man. How did that happen?”

  “Aw, not really,” I said. “It’s a long story anyway.”

  “Don’t eat here tonight, Sweets,” she said with a wink. “Mother has supper ready for us. She’s going to bring up Monument Valley. She knows what the hell we did there. And I ain’t talking the scenery or our intimate little conversations. I’m talking she put two and two together and she knows we’re not virgins.”

  “She would’ve suspected what was going to happen even before we left.”

  “Yes,” Carmen said with a grin, “but we’ve been so honorable that she felt she had to give us benefit of the doubt. But she was blunt when I got in last night. You coward, you knew it was coming, the way you dropped me off and hightailed it. So, I thought the best defense is a good offense and let her know how glorious it was. I added about classical music and our talks, for effect. I knew it wouldn’t work, but it kept her busy for awhile.”

  “You admitted to her we made love?”

  “You’re telling me that an ex-Marine and a divorcee in their twenties don’t know what they want when the stars align? She knew it was going to happen. She just wants us to respect each other and not make it the centerfold of our relationship. Wait, centerfold, that’s a pun, isn’t it?” She laughed and gave another wink. “The centerpiece of our relationship. She adores you. You come over and exude virtue around her and she’ll let it slide. She’ll settle for just letting you know that she knows.”

  Carmen leaned over and planted a long, juicy kiss on me. I grabbed her as she readied to break away, pulled her back to me, and gave her one in return.

  “Behave yourself,” she said, feigning shyness. “The customers are looking. I hope so, anyway. Have a beer on me, mi amour,” she said with a smile that sparkled. “Read your book and wait on me.”

  As she turned to walk away, she stopped, turned back, and embraced me. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m one hundred percent your woman. I feel like brand new.”

  ****

  The crew was later than usual in leaving for the reservation the next day, as we gathered impatiently around the pickup. Finally the straggler we waited on appeared.

  “Doug fired me,” the Navajo worker said with contempt. “I gave my two weeks’ notice, and he fired me on the spot. He said I wouldn’t work hard now. Can you believe that son-of-a-bitch? I need the money. I’m going to Flagstaff.”

  “I could have told you,” Jose said sympathetically. “I wish I knew you were quitting, and I would have warned you. That’s his style.”

  “You wouldn’t have told me nothing, Jose. You’re his boy. His lackey.”

  “I would have warned you,” Jose replied sharply. “It’s nothing to me to warn you. Can I help it if he likes me so much? Have I ever not helped anyone just because the boss man likes me?”

  “Sorry, Jose. I’m just angry.”

  “I would be too,” Jose sympathized. “I don’t like Doug for this, and for other things, too. But he’s good to me. I’m sorry, amigo.”

  This put a damper on our ride to the work site. But mostly I thought of Carmen and wore a thousand-mile stare as we rode.

  “Hey, gringo,” Jose said jokingly as he waved his hand in front of my face. “Come back to earth, man. Hey, we have a baptismal for my son at church on Sunday. I want you to come. Can you bring your camera?”

  “Sure, Jose. I’d love
to. It’s only a Polaroid. My camera, I mean.”

  “Polaroid’s great. Do you have any Sunday clothes? It’s okay if you don’t.”

  “I don’t. I do have a shirt with a collar. A blue-jean shirt, though.”

  “I wanted you to be part of it,” Jose said, “but you would need Sunday clothes. Just come. I would be honored.”

  I stared at Jose for a moment to see if he was finished about the baptism. He studied me. He could tell something was up.

  “I met a girl, Jose,” I blurted out finally.

  “I knew it. To see your head in a cloud like this, I knew something happened.”

  “But she’s Mexican.”

  “So’s my wife, gringo.”

  I laughed. “I know. But I’ve got a problem.”

  “She’s already pregnant?”

  “I can’t quit thinking about her.”

  Jose laughed and spoke Spanish to the others. “My thunderstruck amigo here,” he said turning back to me. “Don’t worry about it. You may be white, but you’re a man. Men are disgusting. We’ll go after anything.”

  “That’s not it. She knocked my socks off. What am I going to do? If my mother found out, she would kill me. If my sister found out, she’d slit my throat. And the judge back home would consider it justifiable homicide.”

  More laughter throughout the pickup. “Oh, these gringos are son-of-a-bitches,” Jose howled. “See, my mother is so much more open minded. She welcomed my wife even though she’s Mexican. She even gave her blessing.”

  “I never liked a Mexican girl before,” I said, hoping I sounded like a philosopher. “Anyone that wasn’t white. And she’s not even light-skinned like you. She’s dark. I mean, let’s go all the way. She was married to a white, though. At least that. I don’t know how that matters, actually. I’m just clutching for straws.”

  I paid no mind to the laughter.

  “My sister married a Yankee Catholic,” I continued in my self-pity, “and my father almost disowned her. He apologized later, but…”

  “What, you want to marry her or something, man?” Jose gasped. “I have to meet this girl.”

  “I don’t want to marry her. But I can’t get her off my mind. I wish we could go off to Alaska or something.”

  “Don’t take this personal, Dalhart,” Jose teased. “But you’re such a pendejo.”

  ****

  Carmen watched me walk into the restaurant wearing a serious demeanor. I managed a smile, but it came out forced.

  “Something happen at work?” she asked walking with me as I sought a table. “Dynamite? A fist fight? Did you just get fired?”

  “Naw,” I said before kissing her on the cheek.

  “On the cheek? A kiss on the cheek? Hello, how are you, how’s life? I get a kiss on the cheek? Dalhart, what’s up with you today?”

  “I finally told Jose about you,” I explained.

  “And?”

  “You’re more of me now.”

  “I repeat. And?”

  “What are we going to do, Carmen?”

  “About what?”

  “About us.”

  “Let me think about that,” she bit out. “Fall in love?”

  I scoped her out. She stared darts into me.

  Maybe it was because she was Hispanic, but she reminded me of a female Ricky Ricardo with her comical mannerisms.

  “Let’s see…” The heat of her anger was scorching. “I say in answer to your obnoxious question, the one about what are we going to do now that all your friends finally know about us after we’ve seen each other for a month, is, well, let’s fall in love. And he just stands there. Listen, cabron, you better do some reassuring here real quick, or I’ll kick you out of my mother’s house before you ever get to move in.”

  “Carmen, I’m sorry. I’m not sure about what, but all I think about now is you and me. How happy we are. Now I’ve finally told everyone, and it makes it deeper somehow. This is getting serious.”

  “Dalhart—” The phrase is “if looks could kill.” That’s the kind of look Carmen shot at me now. “Ah. I don’t know,” she scoffed. “I was so happy until you walked in that door. Can we just start again before I knock you silly? How’s your day, Sweetheart? And speaking of which, why haven’t you told me yet that you love me? I’ve been dying to tell you, but you’re the one passing through. I don’t want to tie you down. But now it’s starting to look like you don’t want to be tied down.” The right side of her upper lip curled in defiance. “I love you, Dalhart. There. Does that tie you down? To hell with you, then. I love you. We’ve been together for a month. We made love in Monument Valley. And we haven’t since, for the record, but somehow it’s gut-check time now. Say it to me or get the hell out of my restaurant.” She turned to look at her boss, the owner. “Right?”

  Her boss broke into laughter. “I can’t help you out here, Dalhart, old buddy. You better fix this up.”

  “I love you, Carmen. Don’t you get it? I love you. And I love loving you. That’s what I hate about all this.”

  ****

  Moriah Energy was throwing a picnic for employees on Saturday. Kerr Construction was to set everything up, and we were invited because of it. More overtime pay.

  “McIlhenny,” someone called out. It was a gritty-looking guy I recognized. He drove heavy equipment. “Help me nail these two-by-fours for the stage we’re building tomorrow.”

  He handed me a sledge hammer and placed a nail as large as a small spike on the end of one of the boards. I timidly tapped at the nail, hoping I wouldn’t miss and break his hand. I’d never hit a nail with a sledge hammer before and thought I should warn him.

  “Hit the damn thing, McIlhenny,” he barked.

  I struck at the nail a little harder.

  “Damn it,” he growled. “Hit the damn nail like you got some huevos.”

  He then grabbed the sledge hammer. “You hold this,” he ordered, handing me the nail. “This is how you do it.”

  He reared back with the hammer well over his head, then swung with all his force. He drove perfect strikes the next three swings, driving the nail in.

  “Here,” he said handing the hammer back. “Now use a little gumption.”

  It was his funeral, I decided. I saw concern on his face as he watched the sledge hammer soar past the back of my head and then zero down on the nail he was holding. A perfect strike. I looked at him in celebration, happy for his still-intact hand. It was like the nail had a magnet on it. Three more swings and the nail went through the board and into the next one.

  It was past ten at night as we piled into the back of the pickup to go home. Someone moaned that Doug’s pickup approached, but I didn’t care. I was disappointed I couldn’t see Carmen at this hour.

  “I need people at headquarters tomorrow morning before we come up here,” Doug yelped. “There’s things to set up. Try to be there by eight. For those that can’t make that, we’re leaving for the celebration at ten-thirty or you get left.”

  He looked and saw me staring off into space.

  “Did you hear me over there, McIlhenny?”

  Jose nudged me. “Daddy’s talking,” he joked.

  “McIlhenny, I need you at headquarters by eight tomorrow. Got that?”

  “I’ll be there,” I answered.

  He got out of his pickup, glaring at me the whole time as he walked toward us.

  “We never did finish our little go-round from the other day, did we?” he said. I grimaced and looked the other way. “Get ready, McIlhenny. We’re going to see what you’re made of. It’s overdue.”

  I sat stoically, still hoping he would go away. He didn’t. He walked behind me, reached up, and grabbed me in a stranglehold, knocking off my hard hat. The fact that I wasn’t in the mood got me all the angrier. The harder he put his arm in a lock around my neck, the more furious I became. Was I his little boy?

  I jerked myself free from the headlock. The fact that I was so tall made it hard for him to hold on to my shirt collar. He gr
abbed at me and managed to bend me back down, but I grabbed him by the beard and then kicked upward toward his head. His hard hat flew off and the steel tip of my boot pounded into his temple, knocking him down.

  “If you want a piece of me, step down,” he growled.

  I should have been mad, but I wasn’t. He was off me, and that was enough.

  “I don’t want to fight you, Doug.”

  The calmness of my voice caught him off guard, and I saw the awkwardness on his face.

  “I don’t want to fight either,” he said, seemingly ashamed, picking up his hard hat. “You’re a good man,” he said, getting into his pickup and driving off.

  “Kick his ass,” the rest of the crew said. Even Jose egged me on.

  “He won’t be any more trouble,” I answered, and returned broodingly to my longings for Carmen.

  It was nearly midnight when we got back to the headquarters of Kerr Construction Company. I got in my van and headed to the company area’s exit. I turned the wheel right to go to my coworker’s house for a shower, but before I stepped on the foot feed, I stared straight ahead. I had to see her. Even to renew our feelings. I turned the steering wheel toward the left and drove down the street.

  I pounded on the door of her mother’s house hard enough for someone to hear me, but not so hard as to irritate anyone. I hoped.

  “Dalhart?” I heard Carmen say through the locked door. “Is it you?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I have to get up early because we have extra work to do, but I need to see you. I need a kiss.”

  The door jerked open and she flew into my arms like in a Hollywood movie. Her body felt warm and light as a feather. In the shadows of nighttime I detected the black slip she wore, held on by its shoulder straps. There was no contrast with the black fabric on dark brown skin; the allure was strong with suggestiveness.

  “I have to go,” I said as we held onto each other. “God, I don’t want to go.”

  “Then stay, Dalhart. Mother will understand. She’s got to understand. I can’t take this. Come inside. Lay next to me.”