Return to Oakpin(63)
The baguettes were Muenster and chicken salad with Chinese mustard. Mason tore off half and took a bite and said, “My god, we’re rescued.”
“I love it when we eat like lawyers,” Craig said. “These are from Edelman’s just to show we have some capable luncheries in Oakpine.”
Mason, still chewing, pointed at the open garage with his sandwich and said, “What do you think, old friend, of our band’s new rehearsal hall?”
“Okay,” Craig said. “Good, good. But what is our name? Did we have a name?”
Mason said quietly, “Life on Earth. We were mainly called ‘Those four guys from Oakpine,’ which is kind of truth in advertising, but I remember Jimmy wanting ‘Life on Earth.’” They were talking and chewing and gesturing with their paper cups of pop.
“Whatever fits on the flyer,” Craig said.
“How much paint have you got?”
“Plenty,” Craig said. “Do you want to paint this?” He indicated the garage.
“I do. Tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to spray it like the enemy and move in.”
Craig sat still, unnerved to be happy this way, his old friend in town, all this old new stuff ringing his ears. “Done,” Craig said. “I’ll finish in the morning and bring out the gear.”
They were silent for a while after eating, old friends, and the day ticked in them, leaves falling along the street and the sun rolling away, weaker every day. “Okay,” Craig said finally. “I’ll finish upstairs by six or so, and then we can make plans for tomorrow.” They’d talked like that the whole time, measuring the steps.
After lunch Mason found the little brass pressure nozzle for the hose and hooked it up. When he turned on the water, the old green rubber hose snared and bulged and then shot a sharp narrow stream twenty feet. Mason grabbed two loops of hose and marched into the open garage, shooting his avenging water into the upper corners of the little building and then back and forth along the walls, as scraps and splinters and dirt and spider webs flew free in the powerful wash. He was having fun. The place would blow-dry overnight and he could spray it tomorrow, but when he turned to the back wall, the jet of water caught the window and two panes blew out, and as he moved the spray to the sidewall to assess the damage, the pressure slapped two planks loose, and so he gave the entire room the careful once-over, loosening ten or twelve wallboards, smiling, thinking, I’m going to wash this house down.
Having found a project he hadn’t anticipated, Mason climbed into it with both feet. He bought a dozen fresh one-by-eights and laid them on sawhorses the next day before the doorless garage shell. He could see light between the planks in many places. He was able to cinch about half the loosened boards, running two screws into each end. Then he pried off the five or six that were worn and weathered beyond reclaiming and threw them in the dumpster. He measured each missing slot and cut his new lumber with Craig’s bright circular saw, tapping them into the wall with his hammer, each piece snug as a puzzle. The golden sawdust misted up into the afternoon sunlight, and he was happy to have a good day. At one point he was on his knees behind the building, laying in a bright new board along the base of the foundation, and he caught a motion in the corner of his eye: Jimmy Brand waving from his chair just outside the Brands’ garage.
“Be careful!” Jimmy called.
“I know you!” Mason shouted back. He stood and waved his drill motor. “The new clubhouse. The band is going to sound real good at this distance. When I get cleaned up, I’ll come down for a drink.” Again, standing in the weak pure light looking down through the gardens of the backyards and calling to his friend rushed Mason with a vertigo that he couldn’t understand, a gravity, a recognition. It wasn’t déjà vu. He waved and smiled. Waving a drill—it was a wonder.