The Kerr Construction Company (2 page)

“There’s no road,” I yelled, managing to not shout the four-letter words that came to mind. “I had it out of the way.” I knew he didn’t hear me.

My salami sandwich now had tire-tread marks on it, and what was left of the bread was black and caked with dirt. My Mounds bar was flat as a penny on a railroad track. I picked up the sandwich, threw away the bread, dusted off the salami the best I could, and ate it.

I seemed to be in charge.
It must be my college degree, but I only just got here. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I don’t want to be in charge.
It doesn’t take college to do construction,
I whined inside.
It takes knowing how. I don’t know how,
I whined further.

We quit at five, and this time I got to town in time for a cold beer and pizza. And a shower. Not really. I had to settle for a gas station restroom, which meant just another rinse. While there, I took the time to hand wash my dirty clothes in the sink.

****

“McIlhenny,” Doug said the next morning, before we loaded up the pickups to go to work. “Come here.” The huge guy with him yesterday turned out to be the field foreman and was with him again. “You just got here, and I guess you don’t want to stay.”

What is this all about?
My look echoed my thought.

“After I left you yesterday,” he sneered at me, “instead of doing what I told you to do, you just sat around. You don’t sit around when you’re working for the Kerr Construction Company.”

Everybody denies when accused. I didn’t want to be like everybody else, but this pissed me off. “I didn’t just sit around, Doug.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“Did the pipe get laid or not?”

“When you finish one job you start something else,” he spewed out.

“The pipe got laid and I didn’t just sit around.”

“Well, one of the foremen for Moriah Energy saw you just sitting down on a pipe most of the afternoon.”

“No, he didn’t,” I sneered back.

“Are you calling him a liar? I wouldn’t call him a liar if I were you.”

“I’m not calling anybody a liar,” I said, “but I didn’t sit on any pipe half the afternoon. I didn’t sit at all, and I’ll tell whoever to their face.”

“You’re one of two whites laying pipe, and you’re the tall one.”

“So the man said it was me?”

“Plus the other white guy has long, black hair. So, you tell me how a tall white guy with short blond hair was seen just screwing around and it’s not you.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.” I sounded arrogant, but didn’t care. “I barely even took a break, much less sat around half the afternoon.”

“I’m not going to lose this contract,” Doug scowled.

“If that’s what he said, I want to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t take lip,” Doug said as he spit tobacco on the ground for emphasis. He wasn’t convinced, but it made him think.

“Dalhart worked the whole afternoon,” Jose said, walking up to us. “I was blue topping nearby, and I saw the crew. I don’t know what the Moriah man thinks he saw, but Dalhart worked.”

“You make sure you do,” Doug said, unapologetically, before going to his pickup. The field foreman looked at me just before getting in with Doug and smirked, giving me the feeling I did well, that I met some kind of approval.

“Kick his ass, Dalhart,” Jose said, as we walked back to the pickups that would take us to work. “Someone needs to put him in his place.”

“He’s just doing his job,” I answered, surprised at myself for taking up for him.

“Kick his ass,” a Navajo laborer said as we reached the others. “You’re big. You’re a kick-ass Marine.”

Is that what you do when you’re big here? Kick the boss’ ass?

****

I was in a routine. Work, find a place to wash up, eat, read, maybe go to a movie, meditate in the dark in the back of Desperado, and go to bed. But I needed something more now. Phase one was over somehow.

“Hey, Dalhart,” the owner of my favorite restaurant said as he came to my table. “How’s your day?”

“Hot,” I said with a chuckle. “Already feel better now that I’m here. Hope your cook’s not on strike.”

He smiled, then put on a serious look. “You hear about what happened at the copper mine?” he asked.

I shook my head no.

“Navajo boy. The copper mine caved in where he worked, and he was killed. Just yesterday he sat in the very chair you’re sitting in now. He was the nicest guy. I’m still down about it.”

“I didn’t hear anything about the copper mine,” I said in sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear this.”

“He went to our church, too. Just the nicest guy.”

“I almost worked at that copper mine when I got here a couple of weeks ago,” I said. “They took me deep into the shaft to see if I’d panic, before they would hire me. I didn’t panic, but I didn’t like it.”

“It might have been you in that shaft when it collapsed today,” he mused. “Listen, I’ll leave the menu with you, unless you know what you want.”

“Leave it,” I said. “Don’t know what I want.”

“Carmen will be your waitress. It’s her first day back. She used to work here a couple of years ago. She’s back from North Carolina. Had a messy divorce.”

I had just begun reading when I heard, “Would you like a glass of water?” and looked up. She was Mexican, with dark-brown skin, and beautiful. Not just gorgeous, she had an aura. Who the hell would divorce her?

“Are you Carmen?” I asked.

“How did you know?”

“Your boss.” Right in front of her I felt myself melt as her smile penetrated my senses.

“That son of a gun,” she said with a wink. “Well, you know who I am now. I’ll be your waitress. Oh, yes. I already asked you, but you didn’t answer. Would you like a glass of water? And I can take your order, too, if you’re ready?”

“Yes to both. I’ll take your special for today.”

“The enchiladas?”

“Yeah.”

She returned with a pitcher of water and an empty glass for me. I watched the serious look on her face as she seemed to struggle reaching my table. Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she poured. I tried reading the book I’d brought, but couldn’t pay attention to it even after she left. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she walked to the kitchen and back, cleaned tables, and handed new customers a menu. I forced myself to refocus on the book. But I couldn’t remember anything the book said.

Suddenly I heard a crash and looked up at the next table. She’d knocked over the glass of water while she poured. She gave an apology to the lady and then glanced at me, smiling shyly. “I’m so clumsy today,” she said just above a whisper.

I still couldn’t concentrate on my book. Then another crash. It was from another table, and now there were two puddles on the floor. I grinned her way as if embarrassed for her. This time she apologized to me before she did the customer.

“I’ll be right back,” she said as she rushed by my table. “I can’t believe this.”

I heard myself humming the words to the Marty Robbins song “El Paso.” Felina, that was the girl in the song. Now I knew why the doomed cowboy in the song fell so strongly for the Mexican maiden named Felina.

“I’m better,” she laughed as she walked by my table to clean up the mess close by. She kept looking up at me as she stooped to sop up the water.

I put my book away. To even pretend reading was a distraction. I didn’t stare at her, but I wanted to be able to think about her freely.

“Here’s your enchiladas,” she said a short time later. “They’re not as good as mine. Don’t dare tell I said that.”

“Good to be back?” I asked her. “Your boss said you lived in North Carolina.”

“It’s awkward now,” she said wearing a pained expression. “I guess in his biological sketch—” She stopped mid-sentence, realized what she’d said, and blushed slightly. “I mean, biographical sketch. I guess in his biographical sketch of me he said why I’m back.”

She didn’t have an accent. All the Mexicans back home had accents.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Sorry to hear it.”

“I have to find my way again, so I’m living with my mom for awhile,” she said still wearing the pained expression.

“It happens. I’m not divorced, and I’m living in the back of a panel truck.”

“Why’s that?”

“I just came from Texas and needed a job. I didn’t have any money.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“That’s enough time to get a place.”

“It feels too much like staying. I was like that when I lived in Houston, too, and that was for two years.”

“You lived in the back of a panel truck in Houston for two years?”

“Oh no.” I grinned. “I had an apartment. But I never bought a bed. I slept on the floor the whole time. Afraid to commit. Then went back to college to get my degree.”

“You have a college degree and you live in the back of a panel truck in Gallup, New Mexico?”

“Yep. Home’s where I hang my hat.”

“Do you know your way around Gallup yet?” she chirped.

“I suppose.”

“I can show you around.”

I almost heard myself swallow.

“I’d like that.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing. “Nobody has, yet.”

“Sure, I’d love to.” Her bright smile returned. “How about tonight?”

“Yeah. Yes. Yeah.”

“Hey, why don’t we just go to a movie?” she asked, her smile even broader now. “There’s a movie on about Woody Guthrie, at the cinema. He’s like you except he didn’t have any college.”

I looked at her quizzically. “How am I like him?”

“He hopped freight trains, you live in a van…I don’t know.” She laughed.

I’d seen the movie the previous night, to tell the truth, but wanted to see it with her. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“You don’t have a date or anything?” she asked shyly.

“Me? No.”
I’d get rid of her for you anyway,
I thought to myself wickedly.

I didn’t meditate when I got home from the movie, thinking of her. I barely slept the whole night. At the movie and on the drive to her mom’s house I behaved myself and wondered why. I wanted to pounce, every second with her, and the only reason I didn’t wasn’t because I was a gentleman. It was because I felt so shy and so vulnerable. So cowardly. But how was I not going to pounce the next time? And there was going to be a next time. We both knew it. Neither one of us made plans for a next time, but I was going back to that same restaurant, and we were going back to the same movie, or whatever else happened.

All night long until time to get up, even in my sleep, that’s all I thought about. Seeing her in the restaurant after work and going somewhere afterwards. And probably pouncing. Except I was also a gentleman, so I wasn’t sure I’d really pounce. But I wasn’t going to be shy anymore, for sure. Amen.

****

“We got us a new guy,” the one that hired me said to Doug the next day as he walked beside a short, skinny guy. “He’ll be working with us as a laborer.”

Somehow I inherited this guy. I had to teach him things I didn’t know, and he was dumber than me about them.

“That pole is bent, McIlhenny,” Doug yelled as he drove by where we were building a fence. “I know I said I wanted them in line, but I didn’t mean bend them to get them lined up. Didn’t you use the level?”

“They’re straight, Doug. I used the level.”

“They’re not straight,” he sneered, “they’re bent. I’m glad you’re big and strong, but don’t bend the poles to get them in line with one another. I thought you went to college. I thought you grew up on a farm. Did you bend the poles on your farm?”

“Probably.” I laughed. I hated being stupid, but it was funny, too. I had been through such with my daddy.

Doug looked to see if I was being a smart ass. I put on my guilty face for him, which made me look even more like a smart ass. But I knew he wasn’t going to fire me. He liked me, I could tell. The huge guy that was field foreman stood next to him and scoped me out. His name was Ira Hays Moonseeker. One of the few Navajos with position. He lit up a cigar and grinned my way, then followed Doug back to the pickup.

I thought work would never end. I was anxious to see Carmen again. I didn’t have a watch, which irritated me because I was dying to know the time. I didn’t ask anyone with a watch either, afraid I’d end up telling them why I was so impatient to finish work today. I was tempted to ask the time every five minutes, but managed not too. Somehow. The sun was the only clue I had. It seemed like the Old Testament at Jericho the way it just hung up in the sky immobile for hours at a time.

The new worker came in handy for some things. At least for me. He lived with a couple of guys in an old house and said he’d let me use his shower when we came in from work. Now I could consistently freshen up at the end of the day with a nice warm shower instead of washing out of a sink.

****

I looked serious and aloof as I walked into the restaurant after work. Carmen saw me and stopped dead in her tracks just to stare as I walked to an open table. She then returned to her work after a wink my direction.

“Enchiladas,” I said when she came to my table to place my order.

“They aren’t the special today,” she said.

“Then I’ll have them at your place. You invited me last night, remember?”

She puckered her lips to keep from smiling. “Rather bold today, aren’t we?”

“To make up for lost time,” I answered. “I blew last night trying to be polite. I want to get to know you.”

“I enjoyed last night,” she said with a nod. “Especially all your comments about Woody Guthrie and all after the movie. You know so much about him.”