“To recap, you’ve met with seven contractors and you already have your financing secured. This is a big-ticket job and it’s the kind of project that will keep crews working all summer. Am I right so far?”
“You are.” Ann Marie’s always been a recapper. Back in college, we’d lie in our bunk beds at night and she’d be all, “So after he kissed you at the formal, you went outside and barfed blackberry schnapps into the fountain? And then you lost your shoe when? On the bus or before you fell down the stairs?”126
I can hear Ann Marie push smoke out of her nose, something she does only when she’s ruminating. “Mmm-hmm, so what you’re telling me is that in a depressed economy and in a market where new housing starts are down by an average of seventy-three percent since their peak in January 2006, all the decent contractors in your area are too busy to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from you.”
Now I’m confused. “I guess so?”
“Mia, I’d like you to do me a favor. Call every available contractor in your area, interview them immediately, right this minute, and if you find someone decent, sign a contract on the spot. Can you do that for me?”
“But the guide says—”
“Do you trust me?”
I don’t even have to mull this over. “With my life. But Mac will—”
“Thank me. Mac will thank me. Call them all. Now. We’ll cut our call short so you can get started. Off you go.”
Wow. That was even bossier than usual.
I bet she’s been smoking light cigarettes again.
“How many other jobs does your company have going right now?” Mac asks the gentleman sitting across from us at the kitchen table.
The man scratches his head while he thinks, a task made far more challenging due to his blond dreadlocks. He shifts his eyes upward and starts counting off on his grubby fingers. “Um. . I guess that would be. . none at the moment. Hey, you got any more coffee?” He shakes his cup at me. “Sugar, too. I like them little cubes.” I cross to the counter to retrieve the sugar bowl and he ignores the small silver tongs, choosing instead to plunge in bare-handed. I do my best to conceal my shudder.
Mac is undeterred. “When you’re on a job, what kind of hours do you put in on a typical day?”
The man yawns and stretches in such a way that he exposes the bulk of his hirsute belly. “I like to get in when I get in and work until I don’t want to work anymore.”
“Can you clarify? Are you more likely to start early or stay late?” Mac questions.
“I’m more likely to start late and finish early. I like to be done for the day around, ahem, four twenty.” Then he waggles his bushy, unkempt eyebrows at us, causing some random bit of crud to fall off his face. I try hard not to retch.
I tacitly ignore the implication of drug usage and then I hit him with a couple of my own questions. “Who’ll be on-site managing the project every day?”
“I try to be on-site every day. But some days. . eh, you know how it is. If I’m not here, I send in Nugget. If Nugget can’t make it, I send in Cheeba. If Cheeba can’t make it, then it musta been some party the night before.” Then he laughs so hard his dreads shake.
Mac and I aren’t quite as amused. “Okay, then. How many people work for you?”
“Lemme see,” he says, having just discovered that his coffee spoon works well for all those hard-to-reach itches. “I got Stash and Loadie on full-time, Cheeba and Nugget when they’re not following Phish, and Lucy and Shaggy when needed. So that’s”—he pauses to add on his fingers again—“nine. I got nine.”
“No,” I reply, “that’s seven. Including yourself, that’s seven.”
“Whoa.”
Whoa, indeed.
In terms of hiring people with whom I might like to dine, this man ranks somewhere on my list between Mussolini and Hitler. And it’s not because of anything as superficial as his silly coiffure. Actually, during my freshman year of college I had a crush on a guy who was all into grunge and had the white-guy dreadlocks. But then he spent the summer working at a fishery in Alaska and he had to shave them off because of the bugs. He seemed way less cute after that.
Anyway, my issue is that this guy has not only blown every question we’ve asked him, but then he used the bathroom without flushing or washing or closing the door, and on top of a plethora of other blatant personal hygiene problems, he was an hour and seventeen minutes late for our meeting. Say what you will about Mussolini, but at least the trains ran on time.
“Okay, yes,” I say, pushing off from the table, “I think that about does it. We look forward to receiving your bid, Chronic.” Mac and I make a beeline to the door while Chronic ambles along behind us. When he tries to shake my hand, I cough and tuck mine into my armpits, saying, “Ooh, sorry. Cold and flu season, you know how it is.”
“Yeah, man, that’s cool,” he agrees.
And then he hugs me instead.
Mac finds this hilarious until Chronic hugs him, too.
“Do you belong to any trade associations?”
“Come again?”
“Trade associations, you know, like NARI or NAHB?”
“Knob? What’s that?”
“National Association of Home Builders.”
“Never heard of ’em. Must be new.”
“They’ve been around since 1942 and have a hundred and seventy-five thousand members. Their members are responsible for building eighty percent of all new homes. They work closely with Congress to promote a probuilder agenda. Does any of this sound familiar?”
“Not ringing any bells.”
“Do you use subs?”
“Do I sub what?”
“Subs. Subcontractors. What’s your policy on subcontractors?”
“I don’t know what those are.”
“What kind of liability insurance do you carry?”
“For what?”
“Are you bonded?”
“Listen, lady, what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is none of your business.”
“Do you have any references?”
“My mom thinks I’d do a great job. Does that count?”
“Is this your first job ever?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“And finally, I like to be paid in cash. Cash up front. See, cash makes it easier to, y’know, grease the skids and the like.”
“Are there many skids to be greased?” I ask, trying desperately to sound enthusiastic. When I told my dad how much trouble we were having finding a contractor, he made some calls and got ahold of his cousin Big Joey, who referred us to his “associate” Lucky. In the past half hour, I’ve heard all about how Lucky and Co. keep their pinkie-ring-clad fingers in many businesses. . waste management, vending machines, concession trucks, cell phones, and, of course, building construction.
“Lotta skids, kid, whole lotta skids. So my associates and me, we find cash makes everything nice and easy. Cash makes workers less, y’know, likely to have an accident on the job.”
“Yes, of course,” I agree.
There’s no way I’m going to hire this cut-rate John Gotti, but if I’m not polite, it will get back to my dad’s cousin, and then my father and then I’ll never hear the end of it at Thanksgiving. “It’s good to hear you have standards,” I add.
“Plus, we got a service that if the neighbors get too, y’know, inquisitive about the permits, we can take care of that.”
“That’s just covered in awesome sauce,” I say.
Although honestly, after the latest petition,127 I’m a tiny bit tempted to learn more, but I fight that urge. I glance at my watch to see how much more time I’ve got to kill with this guy before I can make it seem like I’ve given him my full consideration.