The World Played Chess (20)

William’s eyes widened. “Oh shit. From the frying pan into the fire.” He laughed and took off the long-sleeve cotton shirt he wore over a stained T-shirt and handed it to me. “Wear this,” he said.

“It’s already hot up there.”

“Forget the heat. That insulation itches like a bitch. Don’t touch it. Don’t let it touch your skin.” William pulled out a crumpled blue bandana and a pair of plastic goggles from one of the white buckets. “Tie this around your nose and mouth and wear the goggles. Trust me. Or you’ll scratch your skin off.”

William went back to work preparing the foundation for inspection and, hopefully, the cement pour. I went up the ladder with the handkerchief and the goggles and pulled down insulation for about fifteen minutes. It was already warm and humid inside the attic; my goggles kept fogging and I could hardly breathe through the bandana. The temperature felt hotter by the minute, and now that William had gotten me thinking about itching, I was itchy.

After pulling down several batts of insulation, I better understood Todd’s instruction about cutting the nailing slats. The framing looked like what I imagined a whale’s skeleton would look like from the inside. The two-by-six beams formed the backbone. In between the framing were the one-by-four nailing slats, the rib bones. The tar paper, shingles, and insulation—what I imagined to be the blubber and skin—were nailed to the slats. I stopped and thought for a minute. There had to be a better way to do this job.

I took an end of my crowbar and banged on a place where I had removed insulation. Dust fell, further choking the air, but eventually I poked a hole in the tar paper and shingles. The hole allowed bright light and a puff of fresh air. I enlarged the hole enough to insert my head, pulled down the bandana, and took a deep breath of cool morning air. I knew how Todd wanted the work done, but I contemplated a way that would save time, save lumber, and most importantly, provide me breathable air.

I stuck the blade of the Sawzall through the hole I had punched near one of the ridge beams and hit the trigger. The saw jumped from my hands like a rifle and I dropped it, putting a small gash through the top of my Converse. A quick check confirmed I had not cut off my toe. I swore, took a breath, and tried again, this time with a firm grip on the machine. The blade ripped through the tar paper and shingles as well as the rib bones. I cut a four-foot-long gash, then stepped to the adjacent two-by-six and repeated the process. When I had finished, I busted through the shingles at the top of the two gashes. I then used the crowbar to lift the square I had cut until momentum, gravity, and its weight caused the cut section to tumble end over end down the roof. It crashed in the front yard with a bang.

William cursed a blue streak, and he and Mike, who had arrived earlier, came running from the garage looking like they expected to find me sprawled on the front lawn.

William swore a string of expletives. In between he said, “I thought you fell off the roof.” He looked at the roof section on the front lawn. “I guess that’s one way to do it. Just don’t kill yourself.”

Killing myself was the furthest thing from my mind. I was only thinking about breathing. With William’s tacit blessing, I cut out bigger and bigger sections of the roof and pitched them over the side. Some I could angle so they would slide from the roof directly into the blue dumpster, which alleviated the chore of having to clean up the yard. Most importantly, I could breathe.

By the time Todd got back, just a few hours after he’d left, I had ripped off nearly the entire roof, but for the larger skeleton. I figured I could pry it apart and he could reuse the wood for the new roof. Made sense anyway. Todd stepped from the cab of his truck and considered the minimal debris in the yard. Then gazed up at me. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed or pleased.

“We can reuse these boards for the new roof.” I slapped at a two-by-six board making up the framework of the roof.

Todd pursed his lips and nodded. Then went into the garage.

The next thing I knew, he had climbed the ladder with a sledgehammer and a crowbar.

“Good idea saving the lumber,” he said. He showed me how to separate the boards nailed together using the crowbar. Once the board was down, he handed me something called a “cat’s paw” and a hammer to pull up the nail heads. “You raise the nail head. Then use this.” He handed me a “Superbar” to pry out the nails.

I cleaned up the yard first so the company could haul away the dumpster at the end of the day, saving a second day’s rental, then worked with Todd to salvage the wood. Mike came out at five to get me, but I knew Todd needed a hand disassembling the roof beams, so I told Mike I was going to stay. Todd and I got the beams down. Then he, too, took off while I stayed to de-nail them and stack the boards according to size. William also worked late, to get the foundation trenches finalized for inspection. At six o’clock he called me down to the garage. With Mike not there I felt a bit awkward, but William handed me a beer and I sat on the bucket. He again crouched, smoked, and drank.

“Doesn’t that hurt your knees?” I asked.

“The opposite,” William said, swallowing his beer and shaking his head.

“I don’t think I can bend that far.”

“I didn’t have much choice. You didn’t want to sit on anything in the bush. You’d have ants and termites crawling up your ass and in your pants. I knew a guy who sat with his ass hanging over a log and got bit by a coral snake camouflaged on the other side.”