Herman The woman with him wishes she
wasn't. He came here out of the heat,
dirt ridden, sweaty; splashes of tar and crumbs of
felt dot his arms, color his hair. She looks past him, at the fine dressed men in their blue polos and
casual jeans, their khakis and t-shirts-- she's thinking
just plain clean. She wonders why he doesn't
get some office job with his own plastic in and
out box, maybe even an 800 line she can call him on during
lunch. His coworkers would enunciate
their words, drink Bloody Marys on
weekends, have polite dinners and talk politics. They wouldn't have nicknames like Cotton, Foz, Bull and
certaintly wouldn't bullshit all day in this July
haze. Tired of hearing how he hoses down the roof every hour and
can drink a gallon of water and never
take a leak, she listens to him say he makes it
through the day by focusing on the next
shovelful of shingles, the next board to replace,
the next tack to hammer. When he finally climbs down
those scalding ladder rungs at quiting time he just wants a soft chair, a
cold beer, and a window AC. When she finally leaves him,
he imagines himself at home nursing a sweaty
beer, then, later, stepping out of his
skin. Dropping the thick pores and
facial hair, the calluses and the tattoos,
all balled up in the corner, he moves into the shower a
ghost. A streamlined silence sways under water. Originally published in the Cold Mountain Review |
