My body resorted to the only cooling left. It radiated heat and sweated gallons, but the perspiration covered my skin and soaked into my underwear. It soaked into my T-shirt and jeans. It matted my hair and ran down my back. It pooled in places I didn’t know I had.
At least it reminded me to stay hydrated. Unfortunately, the ice in my jug had long since melted. The water was tepid and tasteless, but I drank it anyway. Still, I felt a dull ache in my temples, which throbbed every time I bent to grab a piece of debris.
I tried not to think about Trip and how easy he had it. The backhoe wasn’t air conditioned, but the cab had a fan that blew air on his face. Convection cooling, check. He used hydraulic muscles instead of real ones, so his body didn’t generate excess heat. And he sat in a nice padded chair, which made it easy to daydream. He even had a little radio for distraction, in case the heat and humidity finally got to him.
I had a brief respite from the heat when Christy and Brooke brought sandwiches for lunch. Unfortunately, I was so hot that I didn’t feel like eating. Instead, I watched the fresh ice melt in my water. The girls chatted for a while and then returned to the Retreat, with its pool and air conditioning. Trip returned to the backhoe, with its fan and comfy seat. I returned to the pile of debris, with its dust and wood splinters.
A trickle of sweat ran down my back, and I watched as Trip turned up the volume on his radio so he could hear the scores and highlights over the engine. Things went to hell pretty quickly after that.
First, he nearly took off my head with a cabinet that rolled out the back of the dump truck. I ducked in time, but he didn’t even see it happen. He was already turning back for his next piece. I added it to the “shit happens” column, reminded myself not to stand behind the truck when he was loading it, and went to work on the other side of the pile.
Ten minutes later he grabbed a section of wall that was partially buried. The backhoe’s hydraulics whined as he pulled it free. A car-sized slab of roof broke loose. I saw it coming and danced over the shingles in three steps. I leapt off and landed right where I’d started, as if nothing had happened. The piece of roof skidded to a stop twenty feet down the hill. Once again, Trip didn’t even notice.
I moved to the relative shelter beside the cab of the dump truck. I wasn’t behind it or in the arc where Trip was working, and he could see me if he looked. I started picking up debris that had missed the truck. Then he whooped. One of his teams must have won.
He was still listening to the highlights as he raised the boom and swung it toward the truck. The jaws of the shear held several long floorboards. He released them on the move, and they hit the edge of the truck with a clatter.
I counted protruding nails and grains in the wood as the boards tottered above me. The top three fell into the truck. The last two slid toward me, almost in slow motion. Adrenaline flooded my system, and I dived out of the way.
The boards thudded to the ground and fell across my thighs. Miraculously, the nails all missed me. I barely felt the impact. Instead, I leapt to my feet, threw my hard hat to the ground, and stripped off my gloves. I marched toward the backhoe, intent on murder.
Trip’s eyes grew large. “Whoa, dude! I’m sorry! I—!”
I yanked the door open, grabbed the front of his shirt, and hauled him out of the cab. I may have banged his head on the door frame. The overheated part of my brain wanted to beat him senseless, but the rational part was still in control, if only just.
“Hey, dude,” he protested, “chill out.”
“Chill? Chill!” I wasn’t capable of multi-syllable words, so I shucked my bright orange vest and threw it at him. Then I jabbed a finger at my hard hat and gloves. “Go. Now.”
“All right, all right. Are you okay?”
I ignored him. Then I climbed into the cab and slid my butt into the seat. I may have hit Trip with the door when he followed and didn’t jump back in time. The window banged closed. I had a momentary vision of hitting him in the face with it, but he wasn’t close enough. I swung it open slowly instead. Then I made a point to turn off the radio. I even adjusted the fan to blow air in my face. It was warm, but at least it was moving. Convection cooling, check.
“Hey, dude?” Trip called over the idling engine. “What’re you doing?”
“What’s it look like? I can’t be worse than you.”
“I said I was sorry.”
I clenched my jaw and barely controlled my temper.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said hastily. “I’ll load the truck for a while. Do you—?”
“Go. Away. Now.”
He went.
I wiped sweat and grime from my brow. I was still breathing hard, and my heart hammered to keep up, but the adrenaline had started to wear off. I wiped my palms on my jeans. I didn’t want them to slip on the controls. I studied them for a moment. I’d seen Trip use them often enough to understand the basics.
One lever moved the boom. Another extended and retracted it. The same lever curled and uncurled the shear. A little lever next to it gripped and released the jaws. The other controls did things like raise and lower the stabilizer arms, which I could ignore for the moment.
I spent the next fifteen minutes experimenting until I got the hang of it. Trip watched from a safe distance. He decided I wasn’t going to damage the machine in a fit of pique, so he grabbed a long pry bar and jumped into the bed of the truck.
He began breaking down the load and compacting it. I grabbed larger chunks of the demolished cabin and used the shear to crunch them into smaller ones. It took a lot more skill than I realized, and my temper began to cool.
Trip eventually flagged me down. I lowered the boom and released the controls. He approached the cab cautiously.
“Listen, man, I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a totally dumb move. I could’ve killed you.”
“And?”
“Let me make it up to you?”
“How?”
“I… don’t know.”
I thought for a moment and then nodded at my water jug.
“Yeah, good idea,” he said. “I’ll run back and fill ’em with ice. You keep practicing. You’re getting the hang of it.”
“It’s harder than it looks,” I admitted.
“I probably should’ve taught you before now. It’s a good time to learn, though. And… um… I’ve been doing the easy work while you did all the hard stuff.”
“Someone had to.”
“Yeah, well, we should’ve taken turns.”
“No,” I said with deliberate patience, “we should’ve been using the backhoe and the Bobcat. I can demolish while you load the truck.”
“Oh. Yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“No. You’ve been sitting on your throne, with your fan and your radio. And your mind’s been on baseball. Before that, getting laid.”
He winced as the barb struck home.
“Exactly,” I said. “So, let’s focus on the job from now on.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Sorry. I screwed up. Big time. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t. ’Cause I’m gonna to run the backhoe. And I’m keeping the radio.”
He knew better than to argue.
“You can check the scores tonight,” I said. “It’ll even help you get laid.”
“Huh? What? How?”
“Ask Brooke.”
“Oh, yeah. She likes baseball too. I hadn’t thought of that. Good call.”
“Uh-huh. See you when you get back. I’m going to practice. Then I won’t kill anyone by accident. Or on purpose.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said. “I swear, dude. You know I’d never do anything like that.”
“Yeah, but I might.”
He laughed uncertainly.
“I wasn’t joking.”
“Um… I’m gonna go now,” he said.
“Good idea.”
He climbed into the pickup truck and sped off in a cloud of dust. I spent the next twenty minutes learning how to load the dump truck. It wasn’t difficult, but I needed a lighter touch on the controls. At least Trip wasn’t around to watch.