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A Man's Gotta Do

Patricia Harrington

We left Kansas and didn't look back—the Missus, the kid and me. Wouldn't have been able to, if we wanted. When we left, one of those damn dust storms that had stripped the life out of the land was blowing hard. We were headed for California, the land of opportunity. What with all our belongings squeezed into the old Ford, we were lucky to make it there. Along the way, the wife and kid slept in the back seat and me in the front. We headed straight for Hollywood. We weren't looking to hook up with the motion pictures, nothing like that. But we figured there'd be work there for a handy man like me. I could fix most anything. Learned how early and learned how poor.  As the saying goes, necessity's the mother of invention. Thinking back, I'd add, poverty’s the father of crime.

We found ourselves a place at a rundown motor court outside of what folks in the area called Flick City. Place was next to an orange grove that was right pretty. The wife liked that. Said it was a good sign and that out luck was changing. The motor court’s owner was a Mr. Petrilleo. Kind of a strange, little fellow, always jingling the coins in his pants’ pocket. Never knew if he was showing off that he had money to spare, or he was just the nervous type. He let us have a one-room unit in exchange for me fixing up the motor court. Told him I could do it all, from plumbing to roofing. I figured to stretch out the work until I found a paying job. One day, he talked about upgrading the place, maybe adding a swimming pool, so’s he could charge more. I told him I could do that, too. There weren’t any swimming pools from where we came, but that didn’t matter. Like I said, necessity is the mother of invention.

Mr. Petrilleo had his hands full managing the place, and from the looks of it, his Missus. It was clear as the sky overhead that she ran the mister, and not the other way around. Mrs. Petrilleo must’ve been forty and was kinda pretty. She had red, puckery lips and blonde hair like that actress Carol Lombard. If you asked me, Mrs. Petrilleo had a “come-on” look that invited nothing but trouble. A feller might have taken her up on what she was offering, except for that red, puckery mouth. Out of it came language that must have shriveled Petrilleo in his shorts. It was downright shameful the way she put that man down.

The family and me settled in, with the Missus fixing our place right homey and smelling nice. She picked oleander blossoms from the tree in back and put them in a milk jug on the table where we ate. I fixed broken toilets and patched roofs and kept an eye on things. Mr. Petrilleo let me do the work pretty much as I saw fit. The man didn’t know a hammer from a pipe wrench, which was fine with me—the work kept a roof over my family’s head. He also slipped me a few bucks on the side, when Mrs. Petrilleo wasn’t looking. Sometimes, she worked in the office, registering the folks who wandered off Highway 99 and wanted a room for the night. More often than not, though, she spent her time following Mr. Petrilleo, harping at the man for not having a fancier place and bringing in more money. I don’t think that I ever felt sorrier for a man than I did for Mr. Petrilleo.

One morning, he told me that he wanted to build a swimming pool. Said it was going to be a make-or-break proposition for him and the motor court business. He went to the bank for a loan, and a couple days later, a weasely-looking man came out. He walked stiff-legged around the place, and Mr. Petrilleo followed him around like an anxious puppy. Mrs. Petrilleo strolled around with the banker, acting like she was royalty. She leaned real close to him when he stopped to peer at the spot where the pool would be. I think the banker liked her holding on to his arm. Good thing, she didn’t talk much but just rubbed the banker the right way. She must of because Mr. Petrilleo got his loan, and I started digging out the pool area.

When we were ready to put in the foundation frames, Mr. Petrilleo asked, “How deep will you pour the cement?”

“About six inches or so for the bottom, bit more for the sides. You don’t have freezing problems in the winter that would cause the concrete to crack.”

Mr. Petrilleo stood with his hand in his pocket, jingling coins for a while. “How soon you going to be ready for the cement mixer?”

“About two more days.”

“I don’t want to pay a contractor to bring it. Can’t you rent a mixer from the place where you got the dozer?”

“Well, I suppose. I could ask around. But it takes more than one man to handle the pouring and setting up.”

I started to say something else, but Mr. Petrilleo waved me off. It was easy to see that he was chewing on something important. The way he bit his lip and screwed his eyebrows together, it looked like a mighty serious matter. “I want this pool to be sturdy,” he said. “Are you sure the walls of it will be thick enough? Maybe you should frame the foundation walls so they’re wider?”

“Well,” I said, and scratched my head. “It’d cost more, you know. But it’s your money . . . just how thick do you them?”

Mr. Petrilleo stared into the distance, and shrugged. “Well, a foot thick would make the walls good and sound.”

When I checked around, I found out we could make the pool’s walls that thick with no problem. Mr. Petrilleo might have gone ahead, but when the bid for the extra concrete came in, it was half-again as much money as the bank had loaned.

Mr. Petrilleo sure looked disappointed when I gave him the quotes. He kinda slumped, and said, “Do it your way.”

It took me a week to get that pool dug out, and then I started putting in panels of rebar and steel mesh on the pool’s floor to hold the cement mix. Then I built the footings and frames for the pool’s walls. They were going to be eight feet high at the deep end and three foot at the shallow end.

Mr. Petrilleo spent a lot of time watching me work, and Mrs. Petrilleo spent a lot of time telling her husband he was a stupid fool. One time, she really laid into him. “A flea has more brains for business than you do. Why I married you, I’ll never know.”

I couldn’t help but overhear, and couldn’t help but wonder. Why did she marry the poor man? Maybe when she was ripe, he was the only pickings—or the only picker around.

The night before we were ready to pour the concrete, Mr. Petrilleo asked me half-a-dozen times, “When is the mixer truck coming in the morning.”

“First thing, eight o’clock. We should be done pouring by noon.”

Mr. Petrilleo just nodded and looked gloomy. Then he hurried away.

Before it got dark, I went out and checked my forms, making sure the rebar-and-wire mesh panels were laid out okay. I’d done neat work, if I did say so myself. Everything was level and lined up straight.

The next morning, early, I fixed myself coffee and then snuck outside without waking the wife and kid. There was a nice, warm breeze blowing from the west, and the sky was a robin’s egg blue color. It sure got easier to forget those freezing winters and burning summers back home. No way did the Missus and me want to return to Kansas. We felt like true Califor-ni-ans now.

I went to the pool to make sure everything was ready and to admire my handiwork. For a man who’d never seen a pool up close before, I’d done pretty good. I was strolling around the edge, when I saw something that didn’t look right and scrambled down the bank. At the deep end in the corner, I could see that several of the rebar-mesh panels were cattywampus. They weren’t laid true and straight. The dirt underneath the panels wasn’t smooth liked I’d left it, either. I’d used a two-by-four screed to level the earth, but this patch of dirt looked like it’d been stomped on. I could see a man’s footprint in it.

“Anything wrong?”

I looked up and saw Mr. Petrilleo peering over the edge. It seemed to me that his tan had paled by a shade or two since yesterday.

I nudged one of the panels with the toe of my workboot. “Seems like someone’s been here since I left last night. Kinda rearranged things.”

“Well, there’s no harm done, is there?” Mr. Petrilleo had squatted down, his elbows resting on his thighs and his fingers tapping nervously on them. “The concrete can still be poured, can’t it?”

I took a moment to answer. My daddy had taught me that when you don’t know which way the wind’s blowing, or a man’s thinking, take your time.

“Well . . ..” I bent down and lifted one of the crooked panels.

“Don’t do that. I’m sure it’s not necessary. Why don’t you climb out of there? I have a proposition for you. That’s why I came down early. To catch you fresh and talk about it.”

I laid the panel down, straightened it, and then climbed out, ready to listen. If I was lucky, maybe I could do some negotiating. I might’ve been raised on a farm, but I wasn’t raised a fool.

Mr. Petrilleo smiled at me as if he’d just found a long lost buddy. “You do fine work, yes sir, very fine work.” He shot me a sidelong glance. “And you’re an honorable man. I can tell that,” he said. “I’ve been thinking for some time that I need a partner, someone handy like you to fix the place and leave me with the time to handle the business side of things.” He smiled again, showing a few more teeth. “How would you like to be a half-owner in the Sunny Paradise Motor Court?”

Like I said, I’m no fool. Mr. Petrilleo and I walked over to his office, and he pulled out some paper and wrote down our partnership arrangement. I negotiated a bit on some of it, just so’s the man wouldn’t think the bargain was too easy. We didn’t talk about anything but the business deal. Least said about other matters, the better, I figured.

“We need a witness to make this all legal,” I said. “How about your Missus coming in?”

“Oh, no, no. There’s no need—no need for that. I’ll take the agreement to the bank and get it notarized.”

“Don’t I have to sign in front of them, too?”

“Well, of course, you’re right,” he said, flustered.

“Tell you what. Why don’t I just call the cement folks and tell them we have some bank business to take care of and to hold off on the delivery until we get back. Okay by you?”

“Oh, absolutely, absolutely. That’s a splendid plan,” Mr. Petrilleo said.

***

By the time we’d finished pouring the pool that day, it was almost dark. I was bone tired but happy and patted the notarized and signed copy of the partnership in my pocket. The Missus would be pleased as punch when I told her the good news. We were staying, and I’d be adding onto our unit—that was one of the extras I talked Mr. Petrilleo into.

The Missus pecked me on the cheek when I walked in. “Dinner’s in the oven, I’ll get it on the table,” she said, and then added, eyes all wide and excited. “Guess what?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Mrs. Petrilleo left her husband yesterday. Did you know that?”

“Nope,” I said, and picked up the young one and put her on my lap.

“Mr. Petrilleo told me all about it this afternoon, when I asked him how much longer you’d be at the pool. He was real broken up about her. Said she’d run off yesterday with a traveling salesman. She just upped and left a note saying she didn’t want to be tied down.” The Missus whipped some potatoes in a pan real hard and then ladled them and some fine looking pork chops on a plate and set them on the table. She sniffed disapproving-like, and said, “I could tell by looking at that woman that she wouldn’t come to any good.”

 “You’re probably right,” I said, and set the kid down. “There’s no accounting for some people.”

Copyright(c) 2005 by Patricia Harrington

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