The World Played Chess (11)

“To see if I’ll quit?”

“To see if you’re up to the work.” William leaned his head back and blew more smoke into the air, then flicked his cigarette ashes into an empty Coors can he used as an ashtray.

“What’s with him?” I asked. “He looks at me like I’m missing the joke.”

William laughed. “You are the joke, Vincenzo, but it ain’t personal. I was the joke once and then it was Mike. Like I said, he’s just testing you.”

“Did he test you?”

William shook his head. “No need. In Vietnam you’re asked to do shit work all the time, and you do it.”

“Did he serve in Vietnam, too?”

William nodded.

“Is that how you know him?”

“No. We served at different times and in different places.”

“How long were you there?”

William paused to flick his ashes. “Thirteen months and a wake-up.”

“Army?”

“Marines. Todd was army. Both of us straight out of high school. About your age.”

I didn’t know much about the Vietnam War. I knew it ended sometime in 1973 with peace talks, and I recalled a 1975 news film of a helicopter taking off from the rooftop of a building and leaving behind desperate South Vietnamese trying to flee the Viet Cong before they overran Saigon. I knew about the boat people as well; our parish had taken in a couple of families. I knew Vietnam was the first war the United States had lost, though we didn’t really lose the war, the country just lost interest. I mean, what did we want with a country in Southeast Asia anyway? It wasn’t like World War II, where the Germans had invaded countries. We’d gone in to stop the spread of communism by the Soviet Union and China, which I guess was a big deal. Just not to me. I figured if the Vietnamese wanted to live in a backward society and be told what to do and how to do it, let them. It didn’t impact me.

I knew William was from someplace back east. “How did you end up out here in California?”

“Long story. Another time.” William stubbed his cigarette and deposited the butt into the can, then rose seemingly without effort. “You got a sledgehammer to swing.”

All afternoon I toiled in the sun, making slow but steady progress. Eventually my nausea improved, though my headache felt like someone kept tightening a vise at my temples. Mike and William built the foundation cages out of the rebar—which I learned was the gray steel bars. The rebar would support the foundation for a room at the back of the house. William said we were also adding a second story. I kept breaking up concrete and filling the trench until Todd came back with a truck bed of lumber, buckets of nails, additional rebar, and other supplies. I took a break to help Mike unload the truck and put the materials in the garage.

Todd walked past my work and gave it a simple nod. He inspected William and Mike’s foundation, making a few changes, then he and William pulled out building plans and spread them on the hood of his truck, studying them while talking things over.

I kept swinging the sledgehammer, making a game out of my work to keep it interesting, but it didn’t feel like I was making progress quickly enough to finish by the end of the day. I developed blisters on my hands and went into the garage to look for something to protect the skin beneath the gloves. I found a role of duct tape and wrapped strips across my palms. When I stepped from the garage, Todd looked at me, though he didn’t say a word. He returned his attention to the plans, and I slipped on my gloves and went back to work.

Todd left the jobsite at four—William said to finish a tile job in Burlingame. William and Mike took off their tool belts at five, cracked cans of beer, and smoked in the garage.

“Vinny,” William called out. “Come have a beer.”

I had more concrete to break up, but I could finally see a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Besides, I could not pass up a cold beer. “Hair of the dog,” as my friends liked to say, and a chance to maybe bond and be accepted as part of the crew. I again upended a five-gallon bucket and sat. William squatted, his forearms resting on his knees. He handed me a can of Coors from a small cooler.

“How can you sit like that?” I cracked open the beer and took a slug.

“Hours of practice,” William said. “And fear of sitting on something that might explode or bite you in the ass.” He blew smoke into the air and laughed his nervous chuckle. “How do you like the job so far?” He sounded facetious, but I didn’t want him to think the work was getting to me.

“It’s okay.” I looked at my pile. “Why are we reusing the concrete? Why not just dump it?”

“The rock gives the concrete we’re pouring something to bind to. Makes it stronger. That and the more we backfill, the less concrete we need.” William flicked his ashes into the makeshift ashtray. Though young, he had a smoker’s voice, deep and gravelly, to go with the wrinkles and the spots of gray in his hair and mustache. “Todd underbid the job and is trying to save money. You didn’t hear that from me.”

“He knows he underbid it already?” Mike asked.

William chuckled. “Shit. He bid it in three days and he was the lowest bid by thirty thousand. Yeah, he knows.”

“Why did he bid it so fast?” Mike asked.

“He needed the work.” William blew out smoke. “He’s finishing another job and didn’t have anything else lined up. He’s out bidding more tile jobs—kitchens and bathrooms—to try to make up some of the anticipated loss.”