Bad Jobs and Poor Decisions

by J. R. Helton

  David picked up his bucket. “I think I’m just gonna drink this stuff.”

  I picked up my bucket and roller. “All right, let’s hit it.”

  All four of us walked to the far end of the concrete building and set down our buckets. We then went back and spaced out the other full buckets of sealer, with their lids loosely on, at intervals along the concrete where we thought we might run out of material. Collin kept mumbling about the fight while he carried his bucket.

  We walked back to the far wall, fanned out, a man every fifteen feet or so, and began to roll. The big room immediately began to fill up with lacquer fumes rising from the floor. I could feel the fumes going down into my lungs and moving up to my brain. My eyes began to tear, and my nose started to run. I looked over at David and he shook his head. “Man, this is really bad. . . .”

  “Sanchez reminded me of Billy Lee McGraw. Truly one of the toughest I ever faced.”

  “What the fuck is he talking about?” David said.

  “I’m beadin’, man,” Ray said. “This stuff is killing me.”

  “Billy Lee was a body-blow man—”

  “This guy is killing me,” David said.

  I got nauseous. I could feel the lacquer fumes on my skin. My arms and my face were hot. I asked Ray: “You feel this heat?”

  He wiped his forehead. “I’m tellin’ you, I’m beadin’, an’ it ain’t the peanut butter.” He looked at me seriously. “We gotta move fast, man,” and glanced over at Collin.

  We were rolling and walking backward in one quick line, but Collin was lagging behind. We were already twenty feet ahead of him.

  “Hey, Collin,” I said.

  He had his head down and was still talking. “ ’Course they didn’t think I could do it—”

  “Hey, Collin!” I yelled.

  He turned around, squinting through his glasses.

  “You need to speed it up, man! We gotta move in an even line and get this shit on quick!”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hurry up!” Ray yelled.

  “Right, okay,” Collin said. “I’m comin’.”

  He sped up a little but was still lagging. I was the fastest painter there, so I switched places with David and started catching Collin’s slack.

  “I was just a boy then, really,” Collin said. “Just a boy, but that was what you did.”

  “Hey, Collin!” I yelled. “Are you from Ireland or England?”

  “God save the Queen!” Ray yelled.

  “I’m not a fucking Brit,” Collin said. “Irish. Always will be.”

  “Hey,” I said, “did you know anybody in the IRA?”

  “What’s the IRA?” David asked.

  “It’s like the IRS,” Ray said.

  “God fuckin’ bless ’em,” Collin said. “Every one. Not like the movies, though, you know. Not like the papers say. We were all in the IRA in my town.”

  “Man, this shit is really starting to fuck me up,” Ray said. “My arms are getting tired.”

  “Mine too,” David said. He started to slow down a little.

  “They said maybe, you know, little things. They’d say—well, my uncle did—‘Collin, go bury these bags over there,’ an’ you know, it would have rifles in it, maybe. Or maybe a grenade or two. My brother an’ me, I was just a boy, we put a grenade in their fuckin’ jeep. ‘Just put that there, Collin, an’ run,’ an’ it blew those two bastards into a hunnerd fuckin’ pieces. One of them was a British sergeant.”

  “What’s he saying?” Ray said.

  “He blew somebody up,” David said.

  Ray nodded. “Cool.”

  We kept on rolling, steadily, staring at the concrete floor, turning it dark with the sealer. Collin began to slow down again.

  “You’d do anything to get a Brit, you know. Sometimes we just threw rocks to drive ’em out, an’ they shot at us. They shot my cousin in the neck for throwin’ a rock. Just boys, really, havin’ some fun, baitin’ ’em, all of us . . . ,” Collin let out a long, loud fart and kept talking. “There was a green field with . . .”

  David and Ray started laughing. The terrible smell coming from Collin cut through the lacquer.

  “Jesus!” David said.

  “Man,” Ray said, “this guy has some sort of internal problem.”

  We kept rolling, and I began to feel dizzy. My ears were ringing, and my arms and back were getting tired. I could hear Collin talking in a tunnel next to me.

  “His Royal Highness, His Majesty. We had some fights on that ship that make these young Mexicans look bad, an’ I beat every one of ’em. Everybody on the ship.”

  “Were you in the navy or something?” I said.

  He looked up. “Huh?”

  “Navy!” I yelled.

  “Six fuckin’ years,” he said forcefully. One of his plates slipped a little and almost fell out of his mouth.

  “I told you he was a rummy,” David said.

  Collin pushed his teeth back in and looked down at the ground. “They dropped me in Palestine. I was boxin’ at home, you know, doin’ well for meself, then for His Majesty. Those fuckin’ wogs, though . . . that one wog . . . what was . . . he was there for a little while, but the Jews killed him. Bad people, really. . . .”

  “It must be nice to have special friends in your head to talk to,” David said.

  “Hung ’em all up. Damnedest thing I ever saw. We was with the Security Forces, in charge of the withdrawal, think that was forty-seven or forty-eight, sad really, just buggered ’em, all of ’em, an’ ran away. . . . I was protectin’ several little . . . just that one village first . . . in the spring maybe . . . they called ’em Arab incursions, but they was just the local boys, Palestinians, livin’ there, when the Jews took over the hill next to ’em. An’ they only killed one Jew. Just one fuckin’ Jew, an’ we went in with ’em that night an’ we took all their guns, most of us left, but some of them stayed, an’ the Jews were . . . I’m tellin’ ya, I never seen nothin’ like it the next mornin’, you looked out across that little hill an’ there weren’t one tree, one pole, one buildin’, that didn’t have a fuckin’ wog hangin’ from it. Men, women, little boys, little girls, they hung every last person in that village. It made me sick, it did. For one fuckin’ Jew.”

  “What’s with those Jews?” David said.

  “First they kill Jesus . . . ,” I said.

  “They’re still pissed at the Nazis,” Ray said.

  “What’s with those Nazis?” David said.

  I noticed my roller pole move in my hands. It blurred and came back into focus.

  “Hey, we need to take a break from these fumes,” I said.

  “I never really fought a Jew,” Collin said. “I wanted to. I saw some fight, an’ they were tough. Not like a wog. Never saw a wog fighter, not a boxer among ’em. . . .”

  Ray put his roller in his bucket. “I’m stopping right here, man.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s take a break. Collin!”

  “When the sun came up, they were shootin’ those that were still movin’. . . .”

  David put his roller in his bucket. “Just let him keep going. Maybe he’ll finish it.”

  “Not today,” I said. “Collin!”

  “Huh?” He turned to look at me.

  I made the motion of breaking a stick with both hands. “Break!”

  Collin nodded his head rapidly. “There you go, let’s break it then.” He dropped his pole on the ground and immediately walked past us, limping along quickly. He hurried out of the building, across the loading docks, and practically ran to his van.

  “I guess it’s teatime,” David said.

  We stepped outside onto the loading docks, and all of us breathed deeply for a minute.

  “That is dangerous in there,” David said.

  I pulled a thick joint out of my shirt pocket. “It is. We better smoke this joint quick.”

  “Did I tell you I like this guy?” Ray said.

  We lit up and stood there
smoking.

  “I can’t smell that chicken factory anymore,” I said.

  “I can’t smell shit anymore,” Ray said. He pulled out a vial and had a bump. “You want some more?”

  I said no.

  “I’ll take some,” David said, and Ray gave him a bump.

  We stood there, passing the joint. David lit a cigarette. I looked up at the sky and it was blue.

  “I went to one of those porno video places last week,” David said.

  “Here we go,” Ray said.

  “I wanted to rent a gang-bang flick for me an’ the old lady to watch. I got this Hawaiian one starring Kim Iyawannalaya—”

  “Right,” I said.

  “So we start watchin’ it an’ I’m finally getting a hard-on, an’ this movie just starts gettin’ disgustin’. You know, I like to see one woman with maybe two, three guys—four’s a bit much—but this bitch is gettin’ fucked by like a hundred guys. They had her up on two sticks or somethin’, like a pig over a fire, so they could all get around and fill every orifice. After the first few guys, it was like an assembly line.”

  “You know, that’s somebody’s daughter,” Ray said.

  David puffed on his cigarette. “Actually she was more like somebody’s mother. Either way, it was disgustin’. Sally got all pissed off an’ wouldn’t fuck me.”

  I took a hit on the joint and held my breath. “I watched that movie The Fly last night.”

  I passed Ray the joint, and he stared at me. “I thought you said you didn’t do anything.”

  I let out the smoke slowly. “That’s not doing anything.”

  “I’ve seen that movie about fifty times,” David said. “My kids love it.”

  “Yeah, I’d never seen it.”

  Ray passed the joint to David. “What, you don’t have cable or something?”

  “No, I got it. I just never watched it.”

  “What did you think of it?” Ray asked. He and David looked at me.

  “I don’t know, I thought it was kind of stupid.”

  “I think it would be cool to be a fly,” David said and handed me the joint.

  “Yeah, so you could land on a pile of shit,” I said.

  Ray started laughing and said to me, “Seriously, I think it would be pretty heavy to turn into a fly.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever. We better get back in there.”

  Collin started wandering back over from his van. He was carrying a paper bag and swaying.

  “I think I could handle it,” David said.

  “You’ve already got the dick for it,” Ray said.

  Collin stopped in front of us. “What are you boys talking about?”

  “We’re talking about fly dicks,” Ray said.

  Collin looked confused. “Floor wax?”

  David started laughing. “Yeah, floor wax. What brand do you like?”

  “I can’t hear you,” Collin said. He was holding the crumpled bag. He unscrewed the lid of the bottle inside and took a long pull.

  “Doing it in broad daylight now?” Ray said.

  “Huh?” Collin said.

  “Having a drink, are we?!” Ray shouted.

  “You want a drink?” Collin asked.

  “Jesus,” David said. “I feel like I’m in that ‘Who’s on First’ routine.”

  “Who’s on what?” Collin asked.

  “See?” David said, laughing.

  “I tell ya, boys, you shoulda seen that fight. Ol’ Billy Lee McGraw could hit like no man I ever met. . . .” Collin took another pull. “But I could take any punch he gave.”

  “Did you ever take any to the head?” David asked him.

  Ray and I started laughing.

  “Why are you laughing? Listen, I can take a punch from any man. I’ve got an iron stomach,” he said, and hit himself in the gut. “See, feel that.”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “An iron stomach.”

  “Full of rum,” David said.

  “Hey, Collin,” Ray said, “did you just hear a bell somewhere?”

  “Huh?”

  “I think the round’s over,” Ray said. “The fight’s over.”

  “Yeah, and you lost,” David said.

  Ray and I started laughing again. The old man grew angry and started taking off his long-sleeve shirt. He had a dirty white tank top on, stretched over his flabby gut.

  “Uh-oh,” David said. “Maybe somebody has had too much to drink—”

  “What the hell are you boys laughin’ at, huh? Is it that dope you’re smokin’? Well, let me tell you, I been takin’ punches all my life, an’ I can take one in the gut from any man. Even Billy Lee McGraw.” The old man stepped back and crouched down a little, tightening his gut. “Who wants to try?” he said loudly.

  “Somebody has definitely had too much to drink,” David said, and lit another cigarette.

  “Hey, Collin,” I said, “I think we better get back to work, man.”

  “Goddammit!” Collin yelled. “You don’t believe me, do you? Who wants to take a shot at me? I bet none of you punks can hit me in the stomach and make me blink. No man could.”

  “Isn’t the goal to hit them in the stomach?” David asked.

  Collin turned to him and stuck out his gut. “Huh? You wanna take a shot?”

  “Uh, no, my hand hurts. I was arm wrestling my little girl last night—”

  “And she won,” I said.

  David rubbed his right wrist. “It really does hurt. I think I’m getting wrist cancer.”

  “Years of masturbation,” Ray said.

  “How ’bout you?” Collin said to Ray and stuck out his gut.

  “Goddamn, man, you’re still on that?”

  “Take your best shot!”

  “Shit, could you say that a little louder?” David said. “My uncle in Cleveland couldn’t hear you.”

  “I tell you what,” Ray said. “How about I just kick you in the nuts? I bet Billy Boy McGraw never did that.”

  “Billy Lee,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go finish the floor.”

  “Yeah, let’s get it over with,” David said and put out his cigarette. “These things are gonna kill me.”

  We started to walk back in, and the old man reached out and stopped Ray from walking.

  “Hold it right there,” Collin said.

  Ray pretended to be pissed. “Hey, motherfucker—”

  David started laughing. “Kick his ass.”

  Collin looked past Ray and pointed at me. “You! Wait, wait. You, come on, right in the gut, give me your best shot. I can take it—”

  “You need to get to work, Collin,” I said. “We can play grab-ass later.”

  Collin reached up and tapped my chest with his short fat fingers. I felt my legs begin to shake. “You, let’s go, big guy. You even look like Billy Lee McGraw. I want you to hit me in the stomach.”

  I started to walk off. “Ahh, fuck this—”

  David stopped me. “Hey, look, maybe somebody should hit him in the stomach.”

  “You do it.”

  “My wrist . . .”

  Ray looked at me. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “My hand still hurts from yesterday.”

  “So?”

  “So hit him,” Ray said. “Maybe he’ll shut the fuck up.”

  Collin crouched down, ready for the blow. “Hard as you can now, boy. Then we’ll go to paintin’.”

  I looked at the old man and his stupid cap. “You really want me to hit you in the stomach?”

  “Come on, you smart-ass bastards! I’ll show every one of you!”

  “Maybe I’ll hit him after all,” David said.

  “Come on! Do it!”

  “Okay, man. . . .” I pulled back and hit him in the stomach pretty hard. He doubled over and threw up all over my arm and got some on my pants.

  “Holy shit,” I said and looked down at all the vomit on my pants.

  David s
tarted laughing. “He didn’t tell you he was gonna throw up on you.”

  Ray was laughing. “That’s his secret weapon.”

  “I guess that’s how he beat Billy Bob,” David said.

  “Billy Lee,” Ray said.

  “Look at this shit,” I said.

  I walked over to Ray’s truck, grabbed a white rag out of the back, and started wiping off. Collin had fallen down on his knees and was still puking on the concrete, moaning and heaving.

  “That’s a great trick,” David said. “Hey, are you all right, man?”

  Collin fell over on the ground and looked like he was in pain.

  “Jesus, this is terrible,” Ray said. “What a mess. I think you killed him.”

  “Hey, he asked me to hit him,” I said.

  “He did,” Ray said. “We’re your witnesses.”

  Ray and David watched him rolling around, holding his gut. I walked over and looked down.

  “It didn’t look like you hit him that hard,” David said.

  “I didn’t.” I bent down and looked at Collin. His teeth had fallen out completely this time and were sitting on the pavement.

  “Are those his teeth?” Ray said.

  “Don’t step on ’em,” David said.

  “Hey, Collin, are you gonna be all right?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “He’ll be all right,” David said.

  “Listen, we better get on that floor,” Ray said. “We’re missing a guy now—”

  I stood up and looked at him. “No shit, Ray. . . .”

  Ray started to laugh. “Hey, you’re not gonna hit me now, are you? I’ll call my friends. . . .”

  I looked at David. “I’ll get my five-year-old up here to kick your ass,” he said.

  “Look,” I said, “if you guys aren’t gonna help me—”

  “All right,” David said, “let’s paint it. This sealer shit stinks, though. It’s gonna give us cancer.”

  “What about the rummy?” Ray said.

  We looked at the old man groaning on the concrete.

  “Fuck him,” David said.

  “You know Houdini died like that,” Ray said. “Somebody hit him in the stomach—”

  “So now I’m a murderer—”

  “Fuck him,” Ray said.

  We went back into the building then and started to paint. The fumes had gotten so strong, I had to tie several paint rags around my mouth and nose to keep going. Ray and David did the same, and we kept rolling, kept moving, as fast as we could. Everybody completely shut up, and we got into it and finished. We threw all the steel buckets into the back of Ray’s truck. We didn’t clean any of the rollers out. We tossed them into a Dumpster with the rags. The old man, Collin, was gone, but his van was still there.