When I leave, I wear the grim face — the face of a man who wants to get this done, who’ll brook no nonsense, not from conductors, commuters, or silly leaves that have fallen too early and lie drowning in gutter pools. It seems as though August is waging a war against the oncoming season. Since it can’t be hot, it rains. Not the great near-tropical cloudbursts. This is constant, cold, and unspectacular. I leave earlier this morning and take the A-train — the brown people’s train — to Canal Street and walk north from there, but I wait around the corner from the entrance until someone from the crew shows up. I want a cigarette for the waiting. They are good for marking time. They are good when you are enraged; you can drag hard on them and throw them into the street — quickly light another.
Chris approaches from the west. He’s wearing headphones, nodding to some private beat. He nears me, as though he doesn’t see, then a few strides away, without breaking step he looks up.
“S’up, dude?”
He walks past me. I turn and follow. He unlocks the door, calls for the elevator. It clangs open. We get in. Chris is handsome, but he’s lost his boyishness, as though since I saw him last he witnessed something that has aged him internally, some premonition — twenty years down the road and still banging nails. He’d fancied himself a poet, now it looks as though he won’t ever write again — perhaps even forgot that he once had.
We get upstairs. He utters his obligatory curse to the darkness, heads for the circuit breaker. After he turns the lights on he goes to his sill and produces his breakfast.
The others straggle in, as distant with me as they were yesterday. I wait for the others to eat and drink and change before I start gathering my things. I roll the scaffold to where I left off. KC drifts by.
Chris reenters the room and issues a proclamation.
“Feeney and Johnny are gonna be here later so keep your shit together ’cause I don’t want to hear none of their shit. All right?”
The crew collectively moans. Chris goes to his spot.
KC glides up to me quietly like he has a secret.
“Hey, mon, na more dat fuckin’ stuff.”
“Excuse me?”
“The smell, man — the smell. There ain’t enough air in here for that.” He points at the metal. “Use the sandpaper like I showed you, the sandpaper and the oil. It’s faster anyway.”
“Actually, KC, I think stripping is quicker.”
“Yeah, but it give me a headache. Dat shit rot yer brains, too. Don’t you need your brains?”
“Apparently not.”
“You still funny, mon. Yer still funny.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, mon. Dat’s why I was glad ta hear you comin’ back. Not for you—’cause when you gotta leave ya gotta leave and you probably didn’t want ta come back. But it’s good for me.”
“How’s that?”
“Look at these motherfuckers here, mon. They don’t know nothing.”
I get up on the Baker with sandpaper and oil, in part for KC, in part for me. I don’t know what my next task will be — it could be worse, more tedious — the outside of the windows perhaps. This job isn’t about productivity, it’s about being here, gesturing at competence and effort. There really isn’t any incentive to be good.
The pace of work seems to pick up just before break. Somehow the crew has sensed it. Nancyboy comes in with a big ex-marine-looking lug in tow. I suppose this is Feeney. They stop in the middle of the room and don’t pay me any mind. I pretend to work and watch them from the scaffold. He’s ruddy faced and sports a nose that looks like part of it might have gotten lopped off awhile back. His eyes are pleasant, though, and even though he only seems to grunt short answers back at Johnny, they twinkle each time.
Nancyboy waves at the entire space as though he’s grandly concluding something. He’s ready to go, but Feeney lingers around the Baker. He steps forward, picks at the clean metal, rubs his fingers, and seems satisfied. I suppose I should stop and wait for his approval, some sort of wink or nod, but anyone who’s partnered with Johnny probably doesn’t know what he’s doing. I can tell that my continuing to sand annoys him, but he slaps Johnny on the arm and points to the back.
“Lemme see the kitchen.”
They walk off. I sneak a look at KC. He’s been watching it all. He shoots me a quick grin and starts shaking his head to signify that he thinks I’m crazy.
The saw cuts out and frames Feeney’s voice in the near darkness.
“Who’s the big nig on the Baker?”
It’s not anything he wanted anyone to hear, but now it’s out there, for all of us, undeniable what he’s asked and undeniable who he asks after. Johnny gestures to Chris, spinning his index fingers in the air. Chris bellows out, “That’s break!”
No one responds immediately. They drift around their stations as though in a time warp. Feeney begins to move away from everyone else, but then he thinks better of it and steps forward with energy. He twists his boots in the sawdust and gypsum and watches the little cloud form, rise, and dissipate. He lifts his head suddenly and brightly, smiling broadly as though he’s just thought of something wonderfully funny. He shakes it, mumbles something to himself. Chris crosses in front of him on his way to the bathroom. The two other carpenters do, too, though without his directness. KC and Bing Bing wait by the doorway, alternating glares between Feeney, Johnny, and myself.
I climb down and walk toward the bathroom. KC and Bing Bing start on a course to intercept me before I get there like they’re about to do a hit. Bing Bing takes me by the elbow. He doesn’t say anything, but he squeezes it, imploring me to stop. I do and turn to him. He doesn’t meet my face. He looks past me, over to where Feeney was standing. He sucks his teeth and shakes his head once violently.
“G’wan!”
He lets go my elbow and uses that hand to gesture to where he’s looking. KC, grave faced, walks to us slowly. He looks down shaking his head but comes up smiling. Then it disappears. He goes rigid in his stance.
“You all right wit dat, mon?”
“With what?”
“Boy, don g’wan play dumb wit me. You g’wan let that go?”
“What would you have me do?”
“Mon, if I was a big boy like you, I wouldn’t fear no man. No man couldn’t say nothing to me.”
Both of their faces are dark and hot. KC leans into me.
“What you g’wan do — huh?”
I don’t say anything. I turn from one to the other, but neither one cracks his expression. Feeney walks past us. KC and Bing Bing suck their teeth in unison. He stops and turns to KC, refusing to make eye contact with me.
“Problem, officer?”
“I ain’t the one with a problem, man.”
“You don’t have a problem.”
“Not me.” He slowly takes his toothpick out of his mouth and examines it. Feeney turns to Bing Bing and points at him from the hip. The bathroom-to-lunch exodus halts at the door. Chris watches Feeney from behind, nodding, either in some kind of agreement or to the beat in his headphones. Feeney turns to go, which draws another teeth suck, which makes him turn, shrug his shoulders, and open his arms to us. He finally looks at me, shrugs his shoulders again, and waits. KC and Bing Bing both lean away from me. His eyes follow them.