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The Roofer Randy Folder lay in bed watching a small red tree ant zig-zag along the ceiling. The week before he had a half a dozen roofs to inspect for storm damage and was caught by a train. Without noticing his eyes began following the cars go by left to right without moving his head. When the car disappeared from his right periphery, his eye flicked to his left and caught another right moving car, hypnotizing him— r-i-i-i-ght left, r-i-i-i-ght left, r-i-i-i-ght left, r-i-i-i-ght left, r-i-i-i-ght left, r-i-i-i-ght left. Moments passed and the train braked and caused a chain reaction crash along the cars. It snapped Randy awake, but his eye reflexes continued darting right to left. The scenery tilted and melted and Randy’s world spun from his pickup’s driver’s seat. After the train passed, Randy plodded across the tracks and pulled up alongside the old store. He uncongealed out of his truck and waded in. “Good morning, Randy,” the Indian owner said, looking up from the Atlanta morning paper. “The coffee is fresh, my friend.” “Mornin’ Mr. Chaudhuri.” Randy trudged with his head down searching for the floor over to the coffee machine, set his cup under it, pulled the handle and bent down closing one eye and squinting the other to follow the coffee filling the cup. He lurched back to the counter, hung on a chewing tobacco display, and burned his hand with coffee spillage. He scrounged for his wallet from his Carhartt vest and paid, clumped vigilantly outside to his truck, unhitched the tailgate, sat and breathed into the cup hoping the steam might loosen the vice grip between his temples and relieve his spastic eyes. The clamoring traffic noises—diesel trucks, motorcycles, impatient horns—were like shards of glass hammering into his eardrums compelling him almost to bolt screaming into the intersection. Wincing, he pulled two cigarettes out of the pack, snapped off the filters and stuffed each in both ears which dulled the jagged-edged pain. He plucked a headache powder out of his shirt pocket, poured the powder on his tongue, and washed it down with the coffee and lit one of the cigarettes he’d made unfiltered—almost like the Lucky Strikes he smoked trudging the rice paddies and the jungle trying to keep all his body parts while college kids at home that didn’t get drafted burned the American flag and smoked dope and protested on their campuses and in Washington, D.C. After a time, he hung onto the truck and plodded around it a few times, shaking out his legs, rocking his neck shoulder to shoulder, windmilling his arms, filling his lungs and blowing the air out through his nose. But his world was still that spinning ride at the carnival he’d taken his crewmen and their children and his grandkids on last month. Removing old shingles and paper and putting down new was work for young men. The money was in repairing roofs from hail damage. Randy performed the inspections and kept four crews of six dependable Mexicans busy five to six days a week, sunup to sundown. His first inspection of the day was in a new golf and tennis subdivision with large houses with steep pitched roofs. He stumbled backwards onto his keys and cell phone while unhooking the ladder from the truck’s rack. The ladder’s weight came down on his groin and left leg. His cigarettes, lighter, pen, pencil, and address book spilled from his shirt pocket. While on the ground trying to get his bearings, the cell phone rang. He couldn’t twist to reach it. After a moment, he rolled, got to his feet slowly, hunched over, queasy, hacked up phlegm and spit, unable to catch his breath, the blood vessels behind his eyes pinching, the nerves contorting with spasms. Things went dim, and he toppled over head first. His alarm clock sounded—but he realized it was only his cell phone again. It was his wife. She would be checking on his status. He’d have to come up with some excuse like a long telephone conversation with an insurance adjuster to soothe her. A man stood over him. “Excuse me, but are you the man that’s come to check my roof?” Randy hauled himself to sitting, hands so jittery he could barely get a look at his watch to estimate how long he’d been out. He cleared his throat, coughed. “Yes, yes, sir,” in barely a whisper. “You all right?” Randy hooked his handkerchief from his back jean pocket and blew his nose and then blotted it and his forehead. “You need some water mister?” the man asked. He coughed and strained to speak. “I’ve got some in, in, in my truck.” The man retrieved the jug and Randy took long gulps, but he was left unreplenished, the world still shapeless, spinning distortedly. “A few weeks ago I had a painting crew come in,” said the man, his arms akimbo, wearing khaki golf pants, a yellow shirt, and brown and white golf shoes. “They started painting the inside of my house. Hell, I had to throw them out because they showed up hung over and drunk. I hope you’re not planning on getting on that ladder if you’re not feeling up to it.” Randy stood from his knee, grunting, widening and scrunching his eyes, pouring some of the water on the back of his neck, shaking his head, trying to get a clear fix on the man’s face, standing splay-legged. “No, no. I—I’ve just had a stomach virus I’ve been battling. I’m a little dehydrated, is all. You know with your own business you can’t call in sick.” “I hear you there.” The man watched Randy take a few more sips. “I wouldn’t want you to sue me and all if you fell.” Phony laughter. Randy chewed on his lower lip, tension knotting his gut. “I don’t drink. Just having a little trouble getting my feet under me is all.” He looked around for his ladder in the glare. “I’ve been going up and down ladders for over thirty years. Y—you don’t need to worry.” The man extended his hand and introduced himself. “I’m in business for myself, too. Large machine engines from Korea.” The man fished in his pockets. Tremors and tilting and the man coming in and out of focus and Randy holding a grin and trying to nod appropriately, praying that this was not going to be one of those long one-sided conversations where he’d have to look like he was holding his attention to the guy while he told him everything there was to Korean heavy machinery and the art of the sale and how the storm came hailing baseballs, the winds slashing, and pointing at the neighbors who had already gotten their roofs replaced and how many years he had his homeowner’s insurance with this company and he’d not once made a claim and grumbling how long it had taken to get an adjuster out there and how unresponsive the company had been, that he expected that his roof was just as damaged as the other homes in the subdivision that had been replaced, and how glad he was that you were there and that he had called you because you had repaired so many roofs in the subdivision and his golfing buddy, Simon Fein, said you had repaired his roof, and Fein said your Mexican crew was in and out in one day and cleaned up the old shingles and paper and after they were gone you never knew they were there, just a new roof, and that’s efficiency, he admired that, how your crew worked as a team to get the job done, how good of workers the Mexicans were, and how he was with the president on how to deal with the problem of the illegals, yes, he was all for that, because the economy would come to a standstill if they made them all do it the legal way, isn’t that what you think? How would they sort that all out after they had let it go so long looking the other way? All they wanted to do was work. Just like the Irish. Just like the I-talians and the Polish and every other people that came to this country except the slaves. The homeowner checked his watch. One of those heavy gold ones with a blue face. “I’m the only one here for the time being. I’ve got a sales call, so I’ll be inside if you need me.” Randy hoisted the ladder onto his shoulder, maneuvered it clumsily, staked it firmly to the ground, and extended it to its maximum. He hunkered splay-legged, took both vertical bars of the ladder in each hand and shook, hopeful that it would not slue. Then he lifted his right foot onto the first rung, picked up his left foot for the next, gripped the rungs with his hands, and minded his movements until he was forty feet up. Five minutes later, the homeowner came out and asked about his roof. Randy pivoted his head to the voice below responding with a gaze alert and unfocused. The homeowner was delighted that he’d get a new roof with just a deductible to his insurance company. He invited Randy in for a glass of iced tea when he came down. Then the man bounded inside the house. “Mister Randy.” Randy twisted. “Where are you?” “I’m at the bottom of the ladder, Boss.” “What are you doing here, Jesús?” “Miss Billy told me to come see about you.” “How’d you find me?” “You know, the OnStar on your truck. She says she tried to call you on your cell phone, you know, and you aren’t answering. She says, Boss, you should have been done with this house like an hour ago, you know?” “I’ve just finished. Hold the ladder.” “Okay.” Randy started making his way down. He stopped when the homeowner came out and asked if he wanted his tea sweetened. “Yes, sir, please. Thank you.” “Lemon?” “Sure.” “Well, come on in when you make it down.” The homeowner asked Jesús if he’d like tea. Jesús nodded. When asked to give a statement later, Jesús said it seemed that Randy had lost all sense of direction, because the next thing that happened was that “Mr. Randy had been talking to the man that owned the house about coming in for a glass of iced tea, you know, and then, you know, Mr. Randy let go of the ladder and stepped out like there was going to be something there to stand on, maybe the ground or something, you know, and ah you know, but he was twenty, twenty-five feet still above the ground, you know, and like he stepped out and dropped. He fell and didn’t even yell, you know. I never seen him act that way, you know. He crash into the steel roof awning. The sound was terrible, you know, like a clap of thunder. It all happened in slow motion, you know. A big boom his body made when it hit that steel roofing and crunching noise, you know. I heard bones breaking. I knew he was hurt real bad. I was afraid to move him even though his nose was in the mulch.” Randy slammed onto the metal front porch awning, tumbled, his shoe hanging on the gutter, pealing it away from the house, plunging another twelve feet into the blooming azaleas, crashing face down into the wet cypress mulch, unable to move, quickly losing consciousness. The homeowner said it sounded like a wrecking ball hitting the house. He rushed out and called 911. Randy’s wife, Billy, clacked into the recovery room wearing a cream satin blouse with large tropical blooms of vibrant blues, greens, and yellows, and matching green slacks, loafers, and purse. Randy lay there hooked up to IVs and oxygen and another machine keeping track of his heartbeat and other vital signs. “Oh, baby, what did you go and do to yourself? Randy rolled his eyes. “The doctors say you’re going to be just hunky dory.” Randy grunted. Billy combed his hair with her fingers. “But it looks like you’re going to have to have your hip replaced.” “Been sayin’ that for years,” Randy slurred. “No, this is the other one. You broke it when you fell.” “Don’t feel a thing.” “I guess not. They got you pumped full of morphine.” “Cigarette.” “You can’t have one in here. You’ve smoked your last one. Did you know that when you got in here your oxygen level was way, way down? They said that it’s a wonder you were alive.” “Well...” Billy looked at the beeping machines over Randy’s head. “Can’t move my arms.” Randy swallowed, his eyelids sinking. After a few beats. “Am I paralyzed?” “No, baby. Your shoulders—” “What?” “I said your shoulders got busted.” “Hmm.” “Now you’re going to have that rotator cuff surgery you had been putting off.” “Oh. When?” “Tomorrow morning.” “Just one?” “They said they want to do both?” “They?” “The nurses.” Randy’s raised voice came out raspy. “Th’ place run by nurses?” “The doctors have already seen you. You’ve been x-rayed, CAT scanned and MRIed. The only other thing I’ve heard is that cardiologist was talking about doing an angioplasty where they run that thing up your vein in your leg and check your heart for blockages.” He gritted his teeth, then slurred. “Like hell.” “Honey, four or five doctors have already examined you. I don’t think there’s an inch on you they haven’t examined. There’s been a neurologist, a neurosurgeon, a radiologist, an internist, a cardiologist for your heart and a lung doctor, and an orthopedist who set your leg, ankle, and wrists and put them in soft casts and who is going to do your shoulder surgery. His partner came and looked at your hips. One is broken. He’s going to do the surgery on that hip tomorrow, too. So it looks like everything is squared away.” She tapped him on his shoulder. “I know you’re hurting, sweetie. They’re going to get you all put together.” “What a bill it’s going to be.” “Well... that’s what insurance is for,” Billy said. “Should do everything whi’ I’m out.” “You might need surgery on the leg, ankle and wrists that were set today, and they’ll do that tomorrow, too. Other than that, they’ll discuss that with us later.” “Time?” “Half past nine at night.” “H’ long out?” “Over twelve hours.” “God...” Randy smacked, his eyes closed. Then he opened them, yet unfocused. “The business.” “What about it?” “My work.” “I’ve got that under control.” Randy tried to raise his head and grimaced. “Go ahead call Joe Walker. File bankruptcy.” Billy’s eyes were a deep blue. She had a narrow silver streak of hair that erupted from her left temple and flowed to the middle of her back with the rest of her deep brown hair. That was her character streak when her hair came back after the chemo, her badge of honor after battling and surviving breast cancer four years before. “Nobody’s going to file bankruptcy. I’ll be doing the inspections before that happens.” “Sh’. You ain’t climbing no ladders, gettin’ on houses.” Billy stepped back. Put a hand on her hip. “Well who then? You going to do them? What kind of contraption are we going to rig up to get you on them roofs? A hover craft? A helicopter? A crane? A shingle lift? That won’t work.” “No.” “You don’t even know what you’re saying.” “No.” “Quit being a jackass. You’re not thinking straight. You’re on narcotics for goodness sakes. You don’t even know what’s going on. What’s my name?” He waited a few beats, and looked at her through his droopy eyelids. “Belinda.” She slapped him lightly on the cheek. She smelled like gardenias. “You’re glad I stole you from her, now she weighs 400 pounds and has to have three chairs at the Golden Corral to hold all that heft after filling two plates at the trough.” It was an old joke between them. “Maybe that’s why she got fat. I broke her heart.” “Ha, ha, ha. Oh you’re really out of your head.” Billy scuffled out of the room as he mumbled, “Belinda, Belinda, Belinda.” Billy skidded to his bedside a moment later with Jesús. Jesús was twisting his ball cap with the business logo on the front. “Boss, I can do the inspections, no problem. You don’t have to worry.” Billy held her purse in the bend of her elbow. “Randy, we’ve had Jesús supervising all the crews.” She was saying this for Jesús’s benefit. She knew Randy agreed with her. “You’ve had him dealing with the adjusters.” “He’s done a good job.” “I know what they’re looking for, Boss,” Jesús said. “I can do the inspections. You don’t need to worry.” “I’d like a vacation before I’m sixty, Randolph Folder.” Billy said. “Let Jesús step up. Otherwise, we’re just going to continue to spin in place or start spinning backwards and get farther and farther behind, no matter how hard we work. So what do you want to do?” Randy cleared his throat. Jesús rocked on the soles of his boots and nodded. “Can you fly a helicopter?” Randy said. “What Boss?” “Nothing. Remember when we almost drove into the lake?” “Randy, honey, maybe Jesús doesn’t want to talk about this.” Jesús glanced at Billy, confused, and then snickered and rubbed his nose. “Oh, yes, yes, Boss. I thought I was going to die that day.” “Bed rusted out. Going down the four lane highway. “The truck hauling chickens. The cab of your truck went one way, the bed went the other, shingles going all over the road behind us.” Jesús scratched his hair. “Dead chickens everywhere. We were spinning and then I thought we were going to flip over.” “I just locked ’er down,” Randy said. “We went down that hill, you know, like totally out of control, toward the lake. I almost was thrown out of the truck, except for my head.” “The kudzu stopped us right... before we went over that cliff.” “And we went through that tunnel of vines,” Jesús said, twisting his cap, “you know, at the edge of the lake and got stuck in there like being buried alive.” “A tunnel?” Randy said. “Yeah. We were in there, you know, for a long time until a wrecker pulled us out. I remember because, you know, like, I hate to be closed in like that.” “But the lake... was right there.” “Yes, Boss. I thought I was going to drown.” “I thought there was... a cliff.” “I don’t remember a cliff, Boss. I just remember being stuck in a tunnel of kudzu and thinking I couldn’t catch my breath, I couldn’t move, my arm was outside. I was bleeding bad. You kept telling me everything was going to be all right. We sang and talked about stuff so I wouldn’t think about being buried alive. You told me stories about boxing and when you were in, in, I think Vietnam. Then I blacked out.” “There wasn’t a cliff, honey,” Billy said. “Y’all were stuck in all that kudzu for hours. I got a call and got there after it happened. Jesús is right. Chickens were everywhere. The smell was awful.” “Oh, OK,” Randy said. “Thanks, Jesús.” “Boss don’t worry. I’ll do the inspections just like you. Even better, you know. You’ll see. No problem. I want to tell you that everybody is out in the lobby, you know, Boss. Everybody is worried about you. My mother and some of the others are praying the rosary, even.” Jesús crossed himself with his left, his only arm. “Every little bit helps,” Randy said. “Well...” “Thank you, Jesús,” Billy said. “Tell everybody I’ll be out there in a sec.” “Yes, ma’am.” Billy set her purse down in a chair and refreshed Randy’s jug of water then bent the straw and Randy took long sips filling his mouth and swishing before swallowing. Randy dozed off for a time. When he awoke Billy was sitting beside him reading a romance novel. “You remember that old ’74 model Ford?” Randy said. “Lord, yes,” Billy said. “When the kids were in diapers and we were living in that trailer back behind my parents’ house on Griffin Road?” “Yeah.” “We barely had two dimes to rub together. You working sunup to sundown six days a week, roofing and framing houses.” “I worked like a machine.” “Honey, the doctors are going to fix you up and you’re going to be like one of them new Mustangs.” “Maybe.” “You drove that old truck and drove that thing. How many engines did you and my daddy put in that thing? Two, three? I remember the clutches would pop out so many times you kept two behind the seat and wherever it popped out, you’d crawl under it and pull out the old one and slip in the new. We were coming home from Wal-Mart and it happened.” “Yep.” “Y’all’d stack them eighty pound bundles of shingles until the bed almost rubbed against the back tires.” A few beats later. “I miss those days in some ways,” Billy said. “Here, take another sip. They were hard, looking back on it. We were so young. Twenty-four and had three kids already. My God. Our kids are older now than we were then and it doesn’t seem they’ll ever get married and give us any grandkids.” “They’re all smarter than us,” Randy mumbled. “Maybe so.” Billy set the jug on the stand next to the bed. “Lots of love in that little ole trailer. But they don’t seem as happy as we were at that age. We might have been poor but we sure were happy weren’t we, Randy?” “Put in a new back end from the junk yard,” Randy said. “Just scooted her in.” “Then it finally wore out.” Billy laughed. “All the stuff you’ve put Jesús through.” Billy put the straw to his mouth. “We can laugh about it now.” Randy sipped. Billy dabbed his mouth with a mid-striped hospital face cloth. “We couldn’t have done it any other way,” she said. “Just wore out. Like anything else.” “Well, you ain’t wore out.” “Thanks, honey.” After a few beats, “Ain’t no woman as hot as you.” Billy whooped. “I like Mr. Morphine.” Randy grinned. “It’s not the morphine.” Billy bent and kissed him. “You know where I want to go? I want to go to Greece and see the Mediterranean. The water is supposed to be so clear and the people swim nude there.” Randy snickered then slurred, “You’re going to make me fall out of this bed.” “Oh can’t you see me strut my sweet southern ass on one of them beaches. No tan lines.” “Woman, I think you’d blow their eyes out of their heads.” A nurse came in and checked Randy’s IV bags and connection into his arm, resupplied the bag of fluid and emptied his bag of urine. She was followed by a soft-spoken round LPN that found a vein easily, and took a few more vials of blood. “I don’t know how he lived.” He spoke from the drug fog not knowing whether he was talking aloud. “We were in there so long. He wanted to close his eyes. I knew if he did he’d never wake up. Just like those guys in the jungle. Shit blowing up everywhere, people screaming and yelling. Fucking hell. Waiting on the chopper...” Billy glided her fingertips along his forehead and hair. “You used your belt as a tourniquet round his arm. Who would of thought of that?” Randy grunted and flinched. Randy pressed the morphine button. After a few moments, Randy relaxed. “My fault the wreck.” “No, no, no. We’ve gone over and over this. It’s been decided by the police and everybody. It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t anything you could have done.” “Jesús should hate me.” “He’ll never hate you. You saved his life. You know that’s the way he sees it.” “He’ll do fine inspecting the houses.” “It’s amazing how he does things with that one arm.” “I don’t have anything to worry...” And he slept.
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