One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories(61)

“Here. You’re gonna have to put this on,” said Don, picking up a pair of hard hats from a steel table. “That’s the rule.”

Yellow hard hats. Standard issue. Just like in the books, in the posters, on the Fisher-Price men.

“Okay, now pull the strap … Click it into place. There you go. All set.”

It was a special moment, all the more so for how simple it was: handing his son a hard hat on his first visit to a real construction site. But Don couldn’t let on how much this moment meant to him, because that would mean letting go of that straight face, and he knew that straight face was a big part of the moment.


Don walked his son through the site, pointing out different things he had built and the different decisions that had led to them.

Don Junior took it all in without offering a word or expression.

Don showed him more and talked a little quicker, and Don Junior took that in, too, with the same focused look.

The straight-faced thing apparently came a little easier to his son than to him.

“Well, what do you think?” Don finally asked.

“Can I give you some construct-ive criticism?” said Don Junior, pronouncing the term carefully.

“Of course!” said Don, smiling and then erasing the smile once he felt his straight face crinkling. “Of course. What do you think?”

“I think the drop-ceiling isn’t necessary,” said Don Junior. “It kinda just looks like extra empty space.”

“That is a very smart observation, Donny! Now, there’s an important reason why we used the drop ceiling.”

“Oh, I know why you did it,” said Don Junior. “It’s because you figured you’d run your HVAC through the soffits.”

“Exactly right!” said Don.

“But take a look at the width of the elevator shaft,” said Don Junior. “That’s at least a foot wider than you need for handicap accessibility. You could have run your HVAC up along the sides of the shaft. See?”

“That’s good thinking again, Donny. The reason we made it wider is because some tenants have equipment they’re going to want to move up and down.”

“Then why do you also have a service elevator?”

“That’s a good question,” acknowledged Don.

“Add up that extra height on each floor, you could have added a ninth or even a tenth story. Too late to do anything about it now.”

Don Junior rapped his knuckles on a wall. “Now, what’s the function of this wall here?”

“That actually isn’t a load-bearing wall,” Don explained.

“Yeah, no kidding,” said Don Junior. “If you had made it load-bearing, then you could have knocked down this beam in the middle of the room. Or you could have put shear walls on either side of the room, kept the post, and knocked this thing down. In either scenario that’s an extra fifty square feet of potential space lost on each floor. Too late to do anything about that.”

Don Junior pointed to the main entrance. “Nonfritted single-pane glass for the main atrium.”

“Yes. Double pane would have been unnecessarily expensive for this climate,” said Don.

“Double-pane or fritted single-pane glass would have qualified you for LEED certification and that would have more than made up the difference with tax incentives. Too late to do anything about that now.”

Don looked down, and Don Junior followed his father’s eyes. “This,” Don Junior said, kicking his foot. “This concrete isn’t a 3500 mix, is it?”

“2500,” said Don.

“For an eight-story building?”

Don said nothing.

“Okay, I know I don’t have to tell you this, but you’re going to start seeing problems in the foundation after about ten, fifteen years. It’s beyond me why you wouldn’t have gone with 3500 mix for the same cost. This is going to end up being a very expensive mistake. It’s a foundation issue, though, so it’s too late to do anything about that.”

Don tried not to look at anything.

“Crew seems nice,” Don Junior offered. “Energized, good communication.”

“They’re the best,” said Don, once again turning to face his son. “Gilbert’s guys. I use them for everything.”

“Are they union?”

“Yes,” said Don.

“Look me in the eye,” said Don Junior. “Are they a union crew?”

“No.”

“Well, too late to do—”

“Let’s go home,” said Don.

As they began the walk to the car, Don turned abruptly toward his son.

“Hey. I thought that you said ‘constructive criticism.’ ”

“Yeah!” said Don Junior. “I was criticizing your construction.”

“That’s, no. That’s … I guess, that would be ‘construction criticism.’ ”

“What’s ‘construct-ive criticism’?” asked Don Junior.

“ ‘Constructive criticism’ is when you give criticism when the person still has time to make it better. It’s meant to be helpful, not hurtful.”

“Ohhhhhhhhh,” said Don Junior, sounding like a ten-year-old again. “We just learned about it in school. I must have gotten it mixed up.”