36

 

       RANDY HOSTETTLER

 

    He just sits there.  At first I thought he was watching me, but now I don't think so.  Something like that can give you the willys, an old man like that just sitting there, under that old chestnut, staring.  It's like you're not here.  I tried talking to him, just waving at him and nodding and then saying Howdy, but he don't even look like he seen me.  It's been like that for over an hour now, me laying bricks and him staring at me with that look like I was doing something terrible to him but not really looking at me at all.

    Why does Walt send me on all these screwy jobs?  If it ain't walling up the windows down to the adult bookstore, it's building a six foot wall around some old broad's cockapoo so's it can piss in peace, safe from somebody watching.  Now he's got me putting in a fireplace with a zombie for an audience.  If I didn't need the money

    I turn my back on him for a while, lining up a new course and scraping the mortar clean from the last few bricks.  Laying brick ain't such a bad way to make a living if you think about something else while you do it; I can't see these guys who live and die for brick.  Try and talk to 'em and they start right in on the last job and how somebody cut all the ends wrong and they had to

    His cough is enough to scare the bejesus out of you.  He just sort of leans forward like he's going to fall out of the chair and opens his mouth and this sound like a strangling dog comes out.  He squeezes his eyes shut real tight, and his chest swells out with another blast.  You ain't never heard nothing like it at a horror movie.  My elbows twitch in, and I have to close my eyes.  Jesus Christ, I think he's gonna die right here and now, with me here looking on.  That's all I need!

    I wait for a minute to see if he's gonna stop it, but he sets up for another one, and I figure I'd best see if there's something I can do.  I drop the trowel and run over to the chair.  I pull him back into the chair and hold him there as it shakes him and lurches through him like a tornado setting down.  It's as if the cough is stronger than him, trying to get out of him while it can.  For some reason, while I'm bending over him, I get this picture of this thing, this cough, scared it'll be stuck inside his old body, scared he'll die and leave it trapped up in there.  I don't know where the idea came from, but it's scary as hell.  I don't like thinking like that.  It's enough to make me feel about half sick.

    You okay?  I ask him when he's quieted down a bit, but he just sits there like before, his eyes maybe just a little more bugged out.  You okay?  I put it to him again, and this time he turns a little--just his head--and looks at me.

    Yeah, uh huh.

    You sure?  That's a wicked cough you've got there.  I thought

    Uhhuh.

    I can see it in his eyes that he don't have the faintest who I am.  They are like slate.  I'm Randy Hostettler.  I'm putting up your brick over there.  See?  There's still nothing.  I work for Walt Simms.  He sent me over here          Here, this here's the work order.  You Mister Brennaman?  Arthur Brennaman?  He just makes a face and looks past me.  Well, it says here I'm to put in a fireplace over there and then all them outer walls.  That right?  It was all marked out for me, so I just started right in and            Well then, if you're okay there, I'll get back to work.  I start to walk away but he makes a sound that stops me.  Thinking he's gonna start coughing again, I turn.  He's waving his one arm at me like a stick.  The fingers all turn in on themselves like a loose and clumsy fist, but I make out that he's pointing at something.  It's his teeth, the bottom set; they're sitting there in the grass four five feet from him.  His eyes are on them, not me.  That's one hell of a cough, old man.

    Without saying anything, I hunker down and pick them up.  They're wet.  I put them in his hand and help him fold the fingers over them.  It's like trying to bend rusty metal; I can feel the possibility of breaking, the rasping and creaking.  There you go.  Maybe I should help him put them back in, but I don't think I can do that.  Somebody'll help him with them.  He still doesn't look at me; instead his gaze is more obviously averted from me.  I almost pat him on the back; I'd be embarrassed too.

    A car turns in off the street and stops behind the pickup.  It's a couple year old wagon.  The tailgate is down and some lumber and gypsum board sticks out beyond the tailgate.  A woman gets out the passenger door and rushes rushes past me without so much as a nod.  The driver, a tallish fella with pale green paint on his trousers, just stands there by the car, waiting for me.

    Mister Brennaman?

    He nods.

    Randy Hostettler.  Walt Simms sent me over here to

    He nods again and extends his hand.  Randy.  Sorry I wasn't here when you got here.  I didn't think I'd be that long.  You know how that is, think you'll just be in and out.  He snaps his fingers.  And then the wife says she wants to ride along and           Well, anyway.  You married, Randy?

    No.  Engaged.

    He looks off into the fruit trees at the back of the lot.  He squints against the morning sun.  Yeah, well          Then he seems to realize he's wandering and glances back at me and then the old man.  He give you any trouble?  He can be a real pill sometimes.  Hardly get started something and he's asking

    No.  He didn't say a word.  Had a coughing fit though.  Coughed out his          ah          dentures.  I didn't know if

    He'll be okay.  My wife'll take care of him.  I can hear the smile in his voice.  Well now, I see you got started.  Did I have everything marked off for you okay?

    Yeah fine, I tell him, but my eyes are still on the old man.  Yeah fine.  You sure he's okay?  I mean

    Uh huh, he's had that cough for years.  She'll take care of him.  We were up here before seven this morning, and he wanted to be outside, so we carried him out here.  I didn't think we'd be gone that long, but with kitchen cabinets to pick and this and that, I'm lucky we got out of there at all.  Don't worry about him.

    I nod.  Well, I best get back to work.  Anything special I should know?

    No.  I'll be over to see how you're doing after I get this stuff unloaded.

    Okay.  The sun is on my shoulders as I go back to my bricks.