Page 44 - WTP Vol. VI #4

Jesus (continued from preceding page)
himself out of the truck and he’s standing in the lower railing. I turn towards the room and away middle of the driveway. He’s bleating up at me from the bathroom saying, “I’ll show you what I and I hear him through the glass. did.” But I’m not showing what I really did. Outside
Hundred dollar job. I’m eating but it don’t go far.
Hundred dollar job. He gets louder. And I’m itch-
ing for the adjustable wrench stuffed in my back He follows me into the nursery. I’m holding the pocket. mud knife, a semicircle six inches across. I flex it.
“I could do it,” I say as I move to the window. “You’re all the way down there. You couldn’t stop me— doesn’t matter how loud you get. I could do it.”
“See that?” I ask. “They don’t make them flexible no more. Not like this one. This one, I’ve been us- ing for seventeen years. It’s got the wood handle. And the metal—it’s thin so it flexes. See here—it’s what I did.” I show him the hole and I don’t look back to see him nodding politely, the ten-gallon bucket of mud between us. “I put it on thick and then I fanned it out. You see that? Don’t need much sanding. Not much at all. And it’s all on account of flex. When you fan it out, you flex the blade just right. And then you don’t need much sanding. Just sand around the edges. Paint it. And that tree branch that came through. It’s like it never came through at all.”
I tap, tap, tap the adjustable wrench against glass to the sound of footsteps down below. The home- owner is in the kitchen.
“It takes thirty seconds. I’ll close the door behind. He’ll think I’m pissing.”
Jesus spins a full circle. He can hear me tapping glass, and his screams grow louder as I return to my work.
With my mud knife, I finish the job, feathering out the sides to make for a seamless transition. I’m done, and if I don’t clean the blade of my mud knife, it’ll set up and I’ll never get it off. I have no choice. A mudman needs a clean knife. That’s what dad always told me. So I’ll use the sink in the bathroom. And while I’m there, I’ll shut the door.
That’s when I turn towards him. He’s smiling so big, I see shit between his teeth. Real, goddamn shit. Must’ve been eating shit to go with his cof- fee. He doesn’t look dissimilar from Jesus in the form of a goat. Same black eyes. Deep.
Jesus in the form of a goat knows it’s happening. He’d knock the door down, but he can’t manage stairs. I clean the knife. And then I open up the cabinet door beneath the sink. Jesus knows what I’m doing with the wrench and the plastic connec- tion between the water line and the sink. Hand- tighten only. But he can’t stop it. I’m a good man. A good man needs to eat.
“How much?” He asks. “They said one-hundred.”
I can see the bills in his hand. “Yeah. One-hundred.” He hands it over.
~
35
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When I’m finished in the bathroom, I flush the toilet for effect. My back pocket feels heavy. The wrench might’ve gained thirty or fifty pounds when I put it back and I’m surprised my belt can hold it up.
I wait for the call. It’ll happen between now and next week. It’s hard to predict. It’s better if it takes longer, and it’s best when they’re not home when it starts. Jesus hasn’t shut up since I did it. “What can I do?” I ask him as he sits beside the stove, flames dancing above the bed of embers, four solid logs to last the night.
“Mr. Mallory,” I say, calling downstairs. I hear him pop up and then he’s there with his hand on the
I hear bleating. I can’t believe he doesn’t hear it. Rich folks don’t hear nothing but their own voices.
“Bless you,” I say reaching down for the ten-gal- lon bucket of mud. I hold it out in front as I walk down stairs—a counterweight to the fifty-pound wrench in my back pocket.