by Rob Mahan
Copyright © 2006
After weeks of waiting for the contractor to come back and finish the roof, I finally decided if it was going to get done at all, I would have to do it myself. It was a warm December afternoon in Atlanta. The sun was already low in the sky and the distant rumble of thunder promised evening storms. The partially completed roof may not have stood up to a real downpour and the heavy squares of shingles had already been waiting too long in the garage.
Being home alone and up on the roof always worried me so I made sure that the first tool I had was my cell phone. I thought, If I fall, I can call 911 on the way down. I set the ladder up on the back of the house and collected the rest of the tools I would need. I’d never roofed a house before but there’s a first time for everything, right? Pop had always taught himself new things by diving in and just working his way through them. So could I.
My first trip up the shaky three story ladder with tools in one hand and a sore knee wasn’t exactly easy, but there was no turning back. I was still upset at myself for letting the contractor off the hook. This job was getting finished tonight, come hell or high water, I thought. Right on cue, another rumble of thunder seemed to say, “Maybe both.”
After several more trips up and down the ladder, I was finally ready to nail down the first few shingles. The work started out pleasantly enough. The air was still warm although the sun was already low in the western sky. The back roof overlooked our creek and the woods beyond. I was making some progress and feeling pretty good about it. I can do this, I thought, as I reached for the next shingle. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a section of the roof the contractor had actually managed to finish. They must have been drunk. I could have trimmed those shingles straighter with a hatchet … or a chainsaw!
I wasn’t as young as I once was, but then who is? I couldn’t carry a whole bundle of shingles up the ladder so I had to make lots of trips, and each trip was getting to be more of a struggle. Both knees and my lower back were starting to complain. The sun was almost gone and the woods across the creek in the back yard were already dark. The air had gone from warm to cool to downright cold. I thought I had avoided the storms but another deep rumble of thunder told me otherwise. Damn, I was only half way done and now I had to set up a light to work by. Great. Another trip down and back up the ladder. I thought, Maybe I should make 911 a speed dial.
With a 500 watt halogen worklight in one hand, I used the cold fingers of my other hand to hang on as I pushed myself up, one rung at a time, dragging a plugged in extension cord behind me. Half way up, I wrapped my free arm around the ladder and closed my eyes for a moment. Breathing heavily, I muttered, “If that contractor had kept his word, I wouldn’t be on this ladder right now.” A flash of lightening snapped my eyes open and I pushed on up the ladder as the thunder reached my ears.
A halogen light gives off practically more heat than it does light, and on that night, it was a good thing. Working on the back roof, under a completely dark and cloud-filled sky in a small bubble of warmth and light, the rest of the world seemed very distant. I felt completely, almost eerily alone. Working mechanically, the deepening fatigue and repetition of nailing each identical shingle was almost hypnotic. In the back of my mind, I heard myself quietly repeating, I can do this. I can do this.
“Sure you can,” a quiet, familiar voice said.
I must be tired, I thought. I’m starting to hear things.
“What makes you think you’re hearing things, son?” that familiar voice said, this time with a hint of amusement. “I just stopped by to see how your roof was coming along.”
I very slowly looked up and there was Pop, sitting on the south gable, at the edge of the bubble of light. He was smiling and holding Cricket in his lap, that ever present pipe clamped between his teeth, just below his moustache. He had his old brown coat on against the cold and he was wearing his green suede driving cap. I instinctively glanced down to the back yard to see if his old burgundy Corvette was there. If it was, it was too dark to see it.
Closing my eyes, I heard a phone ring. I was back in my room at college, twenty-five years ago.
My mother’s voice quietly said, “Your father is gone.”
How can that be? I thought. He’s been doing so much better lately. “What happened?” I whispered into the phone.
“Your father had another heart attack four days ago,” the voice on the phone said. “He’s been in the hospital ever since, and he was getting better. They even moved him to a regular room yesterday. He had another heart attack this morning, a massive one. There was nothing anyone could do.”
Someone could have done something, I thought bitterly. Someone could have called and told me he was in the hospital four days ago. I could have gotten there. I could have had a chance to say good-bye … to say I love you.
Slowly I opened my eyes, not knowing what I would see. Pop was still sitting at the edge of the light, still holding Cricket and still smiling around his pipe.
“Did you take a little nap there, son?” he said with a chuckle.
“It’s been a long time, Pop … I’ve missed you,” I said slowly. “Hi, Cricket. You’ve been gone a long time, too.”
“She’s a good dog,” he said, giving her a gentle scratch under the chin. Cricket smiled at me and then looked up into his face with that Schnauzer look of love, intelligence and undying devotion.
“I’m sorry I had to go when I did,” he said quietly. “You were young, but I knew you would be OK. And it’s not like I haven’t been around at all, right?”
“That’s true. You’ve always been with me in many ways, mostly good ways,” I said, and then softly added “Some not so good ways, too, I guess.”
“Hey, don’t let me slow down your roofing,” he said. “You’re right about a storm coming and I don’t want you to be up here when it hits. You work and we’ll talk.”
I lined up another shingle and as I reached into my tool belt for nails, I said “When I build things, I often feel you beside me. Not really watching over me, just watching. I think ‘I’m proud of being able to build things with my hands and I hope Pop would be proud of me, too.’ It still amazes me how much I learned just by watching you.”
“I think I enjoyed building our house the most,” Pop said, “even if it did take almost twenty years to finish. The property it’s on has been in our family for over one hundred and fifty years now, you know.”
“Why did it take so long?” I asked. “Houses around here go up in just a few months. Big houses.”
“Your mother and I didn’t have the money to build it all at once. I didn’t want to go in debt, so I just worked on it when we could afford the materials,” Pop explained. “We did borrow two hundred dollars from your grandma to dig the foundation, though. Do you remember us living in the basement while I worked on the upstairs?”
“Yes, I kind of remember, but I was still pretty young,” I said. “I do remember our moving day, when we moved upstairs. It was just like moving into a new house. Was that in 1963? I guess I would have been about five then.”
“I think you’re right about the year,” Pop said. “Everything was nice and new then. It still seems like only yesterday …”
Pop looked down at Cricket and gave her a little hug. She looked up at him, licked his raspy cheek and then rested her head against his chest. No wonder Pop loved animals. They loved him, too.
“You’ve built some great pieces yourself over the years,” Pop said. “The hutch you built for your wife that Christmas is very nice, even though you finished it that next July! The new room below us is beautiful and you finished it in a lot less than twenty years. I am proud of you, son, for lots of things. I always have been. I hope you know that.”
“Thanks, Pop. I always have kind of known, but it’s nice to hear it from you.”
“Can I ask you about something?” I said.
“Sure, anything,” Pop replied. “I’m not exactly on a schedule any more.”
“What was that thing about your oldest brother cheating you out of $10,000 a long time ago? It sure came up whenever there was lots of yelling going on, but I never really understood what it was all about.” I said.
“Oh, that,” Pop said. “Well, I’m afraid there isn’t a nice ending to that story. You know my oldest brother inherited the slaughterhouse when my father died, right? That was just tradition in those days. I didn’t even know my father had died because I was overseas during the war. When I finally got home, everything had changed. My father was gone, my brother was running the slaughterhouse and everyone had already gotten on with their lives.”
“That must have been awful for you.” I said.
“Yeah, it was,” Pop replied. “But I needed a job after I was discharged from the Army and working at the slaughterhouse seemed like a good idea at the time. I delivered sides of beef to our local customers with a refrigerated truck. A lot of the sides weighed almost three hundred pounds and they were really cold, so it wasn’t easy work.”
“Three hundred pounds!” I repeated. “You’re not even six feet tall. You must have been a real tough guy back then!”
“We all worked pretty hard and for long hours in those days,” Pop said. “Right before I went into the Army, my father told me to never hit anyone when I was angry because I would probably kill them. He had never given me any advice before that day. It was one of the last things he ever said to me and I always remembered it. But I didn’t always follow it.”
“I never knew either of my real grandpa’s,” I said. “I wish I could have met them at least once. I guess they were both gone before I was even born. Oh, sorry, you were telling me about working at the slaughterhouse … and about the money.”
“That’s alright, there’s not really that much to tell,” Pop said. “I even learned to cut meat like a real butcher. My brother and I were slicing bacon late one night. He cut me clear across the back of my hand, by accident I guess, and it needed a lot of stitches. That’s how I met your mother, you know.”
“But what about the ten grand?” I prompted him, as I reached for another shingle.
“I’m getting to that,” he said, a bit reluctantly. “My brother decided he was going to add on to the main building and he needed cash to do it. He told me that if I lent him the money, he would pay me back with interest when the addition was done and the business was making more money. So I took $10,000 out of the bank, which was most of our savings, and gave it to him. Understand, he wasn’t just my oldest brother any more. He was my boss, too.”
“Your mother was nervous about having most of our savings tied up in the slaughterhouse because she said she didn’t trust my brother. That really made me angry and I told her not to worry about it. He was family and we would get our money back and then some, with the interest I had been promised.”
“I already know there wasn’t a happy ending. What actually happened?” I said.
Pop closed his eyes for a moment before he continued. “The addition was finished and after a while, I was delivering more meat than ever. Your mother kept asking me when we would get the money back but my brother never mentioned it. After several months, I couldn’t take it any longer and brought up the money during a conversation with my brother. He looked at me like he had been bitten by a snake. ‘What do you mean, loan? That was your investment in the family business. Don’t you ever throw this loan crap up to me again! Understand?’ I don’t think I even bothered to sit at the dinner table that night.”
“So all of the strife I heard about it growing up was because you never got your money back?” I asked.
“Actually, more because I never stood up to my brother and demanded that he honor his word,” Pop said quietly. “I wasn’t all that worried he would fire me. I knew I could get another job. I guess I was mostly worried my brother would make me look like a fool in front of the rest of my family, maybe even in front of the whole town.”
“I know how you must have felt,” I said, “because I have those same kinds of thoughts sometimes. I let this guy take a tractor I was trying to sell home to try it out before he bought it. The dirty bugger never brought it back and he never paid me for it, either. He knew where I lived and I was afraid that if I made trouble for him over the tractor, he would do something really bad. To hell with the tractor, it still eats at me that I didn’t stand up to him. All I did was send him a couple of letters.”
“That must have really hurt,” Pop said.
“Yeah, it did. Still does,” I replied. “For both of us.”
We were both silent for a while as I slowly continued to nail shingle after shingle. A low rumble of thunder reminded us of the coming storm but it seemed to be holding off at a distance for the moment. That was good. Even though my hands were barely usable in the meager heat from the worklight and my lower back ached, I wasn’t quite ready for this job to be finished. Not just yet.
Pop broke the silence first. “Watching you work reminds me of sitting in the bleachers and watching you play basketball. I think you spent more time on the floor, scrambling for the ball, than you did on your feet! I loved going to those games.”
“It was always great glancing up in the stands and seeing you sitting there,” I said quietly. “I don’t remember you ever missing a game. And until I got my license, I think you picked me up after every practice, too.”
“Your mother always made me be there exactly when your practices were over,” Pop said, “but you were always the last one out of the locker room. I usually had at least a half hour wait once I got to the parking lot!”
“I know,” I laughed. “I was always the last one out of the locker room. That wind down time always felt really good. I can still smell the cheap strawberry shampoo and Cramergesic® in the rusty old showers. We would complain about all the sprints we had to run or talk about the next game on the schedule. On those cold northern Ohio nights, it was great to get into a warm car for the ride home with you.”
“I didn’t mind the waiting,” Pop said. “It was quiet in the car, kind of peaceful, actually. And I always enjoyed hearing the ‘inside scoop’ about the team on the way home.”
“I don’t think I missed many of my son’s games, either,” I said. “I wanted to be at every one, just like you were at mine.”
“Actually, I don’t think we missed any of your son’s games,” he said with a smile.
We fell silent again for a few more shingles. I think we were both reminiscing about being fathers and sitting in the proverbial stands. About how sometimes just being there, not teaching, not preaching but just being there is enough.
“Do you remember how much fun we had riding dirt bikes on the trails through the woods across the creek?” I asked.
“Sure I do,” Pop replied. “Motorcycles were one of your brother’s passions so there were always a few in the garage for us to ride. What made you think of them now?”
“The picture of you lying in the creek with one of the bikes next to you just popped into my head,” I laughed. “It was late fall so I know that water had to have been cold!”
“I haven’t thought about that day for a long time,” Pop said. “The water was cold, alright. Do you remember how the bike and I got into the creek?”
“Which time?” I asked.
“What do you mean, ‘which time’?” Pop asked, looking a little bemused.
“Here’s how I remember the events of that day,” I began. “Since you were home, it was probably a Sunday. We decided to go for a ride on the trails that crisscrossed the farmlands and woods behind our property. It was cold so we put on heavy clothes, gloves, the whole nine yards. You got on the Suzuki 185 and I got on the Kawasaki 100. You know, the G5 with the dual range gear box that you ended up throwing in on the trade for your ‘Vette. We headed across the back yard towards the little footbridge you had built across the creek. It was only about a foot and a half wide, as I remember.”
“That day must have been at least thirty-five years ago,” Pop said. “You sure seem to remember a lot of details about it.”
“I don’t know if it was your encounters with the creek or just that it was something you did with me for fun,” I said, “but I think about that day fairly often. Anyway, you got about half way across the footbridge, being really careful and going really slow, too slow. The bike started leaning to the right. When you put your foot down to stop it from leaning, there was nothing below your foot but air and you and the bike went off the side of the bridge and into the creek! After I realized your head had missed hitting a big stump sticking out of the bank of the creek and that you were OK, we both had a good laugh as we were pushing the bike back up to the garage. After sucking cold creek water into the warm engine, neither of us knew if it would ever run again.”
“I guess I had forgotten that the trick to getting across the footbridge was to just hit the throttle and zip straight across,” Pop said.
“Yeah, that must have been it,” I said with a grin. “Anyway, once you got your clothes changed, we did get the bike started again and both of us got across the footbridge on the second try. I don’t really remember much about our ride that day, except that it was great fun. At some point during the day, we must have switched dirt bikes, though.”
“Why do you say that?” Pop asked, although the twinkle in his eye told me he probably already knew the answer.
“Because on the way back across the footbridge, you and the Kawasaki went into the creek!” I exclaimed. “I always figured you were probably thinking about your earlier splashdown and going too slow again. Whatever the reason, it was like watching an instant replay, only you were on the other dirt bike.”
“Seems like one of us was always falling into that creek,” Pop said, and we both laughed before falling silent again.
A jagged bolt of lightning tore across the sky, lighting up the roof like broad daylight. The light lasted just long enough to let me see that only a few more shingles would finish the job, but I still wasn’t ready for it to be finished. Not just yet. The intense light faded back to just the glow from the worklight as the rolling thunder shook the roof below us.
“Pop,” I said suddenly. “I’m afraid of dying.”
“Because of the lightning?” he asked, even though he knew better.
“No. No. Not right now. Just kind of in general, kind of all the time,” I replied.
“Oh, sorry,” Pop said. “What are you afraid of?”
I thought for only a second before I blurted, “I’m afraid I haven’t done the right things with my life. I’m afraid I haven’t made enough of a difference, that my time will have just been spent for nothing. And I’m afraid of missing my family and my friends, not being able to share in their lives any more. You were so strong and then you were gone before I could really talk to you …”
As I looked up at Pop, my eyes were threatening to test my roofing job for leaks before the storm did. Our gazes met as he thought about his reply.
“I can see how much this has been troubling you, son,” he said. “I’m very sorry I taught you about dying so early. The lesson I really want for you is about living the life you are given to the fullest, about making choices and trying to do the right thing. It’s not always easy, though, is it?”
“No, it’s almost never easy,” I replied. “Living life to the fullest always sounds risky. How do I know what the right thing is? There are so many choices, so many decisions to make and there’s only so much time in a day. Sometimes it’s easier just going along for the ride.”
“Going along for the ride is definitely easier,” Pop replied, “but when you let someone else drive, do you always get where you want to go?”
“No, not usually,” I replied.
“I probably got as much wrong in my life as I got right, but I can tell you what I know now,” Pop said. “These days, my hindsight is more like 20/10, you know.”
“Living your life to the fullest isn’t just about doing risky things. Choose what you want your life to be and then make it happen. Make the decisions that take you down your chosen path. Live your life. Don’t worry that you will make wrong choices and look foolish, or worse. You will make mistakes along the way and when you do, learn, grow and move on!”
Pop’s voice rose as he spoke with even more passion. “Stand up for yourself and for your family like a lion protecting his pride. Stand up for children. Help people in need who aren’t even asking for your help, and don’t look for their thanks.”
“Do these things and you won’t be worried about dying anymore,” Pop said, quietly now, almost too softly for me to hear. “Son, you’ve already touched many people’s lives more deeply than you realize, simply by how you have lived. Your legacy will live on in their hearts and minds, even when you are gone from this world.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I love you, Pop.” I nailed in the last shingle without looking up. Fighting bone weary fatigue, I slowly stood.
When I looked to the edge of the light, Pop was gone. Somewhere from the dark beyond, a little dog barked twice.
Drops of rain began to fall gently at my feet.
