Look At Me

6 AM

I get up in complete darkness.

Saoirse hadn’t been sleeping well since being pregnant. Have we really been married eight years? I grab clothes and leave the room, silent as the dead.

Black coffee, crisp rye bread with butter is enough of a breakfast for me–something for mouthfeel while glancing at emails and checking the weather.

Quiet steps back to the bedroom, I put pressure on the door so the latch doesn’t click and steal a kiss. She’s sleeping, but, like every morning, she smiles and mumbles goodbye. The warmth of her cheek on my lips stays with me as I lock the front door.

I catch the 7:10 to downtown and mill along with the crowd. Screens light up every face that isn’t just walking dead. It is a churning sea of humanity until I get to the wrong side of the river.

Half of all violent crime in the city happens within a mile of my workplace, the yard has iron gates with barbed wire and cameras up. The family has owned these four city blocks for a hundred years.

8 AM

I check tickets from the day before and email, nothing urgent. Or, nothing urgent to me. My boss’s opinion is that nothing is ever urgent under any circumstances. How he is an effective person, I never understand.

“Pete, what’s going on?” I ask my coworker, an project engineer for a different team. He is one of the happiest people I know, even when he’s angry he’s smiling, which I’ve only seen once. After a friend passed, the normal stuff just got to him.

Pete turns and I see the earbud.

“Yeah, sorry you’re coming in and out. What did you say happened to the electrician? He can’t have a change order for that, it’s in his contract,” he paused and pulled something up, “It isn’t my problem if he didn’t read it. He signed it.”

I turn back to my desk and email people that still haven’t gotten back to me. I still don’t have an engineer’s stamp on the right documents to get permits. This is most of my job, asking other people to do theirs. But I might as well head up to my projects for progress photos.

My superintedent is always good to talk to. A small man, I think a pacific islander, who looks twenty years younger than he is. Tattoo sleeves up both arms and the most easy going guy I’ve met. He tells me it’s because of where he grew up and the crowds he ran in; I believe him. It’s hard to get worked up about money when you grew up getting shot at.

But when I get there he is gone. The family has him on five projects. More than a typical super because whenever he’s on a project, they go well. He doesn’t seem detail oriented but he doesn’t miss anything. And every subcontractor loves him.

He’s magic with people.

Somehow he always has time for me. Always asks about Saoirse, about baby, about everything and listens.

10 AM

I take some pictures of the apartments. We have one special subcontractor who always answers the phone but never does what he says. I’ve never had someone lie to me so often to my face, even my super’s magic doesn’t work on this sub.

Chaz is lumbering along towards the building. He’s one of those people who will manage to talk about nothing for ten minutes in a way that makes you feel like 20 minutes passed. And he tells the raunchiest jokes, even when you don’t encourage him. And he’s enormous, one of the largest people I’ve met and I know it’s a disability; his ankles are swollen and he’s mentioned being on permanent disability.

I don’t even know why I feel awkward but I do. Do tell him I’m sorry that he has whatever he has? Do I pretend I don’t notice?

I try not to avoid him but I also don’t seek him out. For the first time since I’ve known him he doesn’t greet me.

I’m thankful and feel bad about it. I’ll get coffee and head down to project two. Same owners, some of the worst people I’ve met.

Bellicose shysters. They abuse everyone that I have seen them interact with. We had a drywaller pull off the job because the owner was screaming at their workers. If I had my way I would never interact with them.

I spit on the ground while thinking of them.

The coffee shop is busy. I go there often but as I order the barista is distracted by the drive through and she punches in an order, I don’t know if it’s mine. She doesn’t even see me.

1:00 PM

“Jack!” They call out at the counter a few minutes later, I grab the coffee, it’s wrong. But I don’t go back.

I don’t see the man come up after me and argue with the barista about his drink.

I pop in earbuds They are wired because it’s so much cheaper and when you wash $200 away you think twice before doing it again. The wireless ones are pristine in their case in the box they came in. I don’t keep packaging boxes usually but I felt weird throwing this one away. It seemed too nice.

“I’m Nate DiMeo, this is the memory palace, Ghost Story,” for a few minutes I’m carried back into the early American experience and Nate has taken me into this small town.

If I could do anything half as well as Nate tells stories I would consider my life blessed.

I drift to my second project. It is bedlam.

Everyone frenetic. The framers are installing the panelized floors. An entire floor system in six pieces, done in one day. I’m amazed. There’s a crane, with an operator and spotter, three crews of framers spotting nailing, cleaning up. Guiding shouting banging, throwing trash. Work trucks line the streets in both directions.

No one sees me.

I watch for awhile and then head to the main office for a few hours. It’s still down. Peter doesn’t look up when I come in; he’s like that when something is eating at him.

4:00 PM

I go home.

Tomorrow will be different.

Saoirse’s on the couch, rocking. At first I think she’s laughing but then I realize she’s crying.

“Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t say anything and this is one of those things I’ve learned. All she needs is for me to sit with her. I was so selfish earlier in our marriage. I did whatever I wanted. Used our money without asking. I felt I deserved it since I earned more. I was so childish. I didn’t support her career well.

She could have left, maybe she should have.

But then she told me and it woke me up. The tears, a lot like now, the she couldn’t handle it anymore. She couldn’t handle me anymore. She was going to have to leave, she needed a husband not a roommate, and I was a bad one at that.

But then we turned around. It got through to me and I changed, slowly, by God’s grace.

“Jack” “Saoirse,” I said, quietly. “Oh why did you have to go?” “What are you talking about? Look at me.”

She continued to sob, not even turning up.

“Look at me!” I shouted standing up, “What’s wrong?”I asked softly.

When I reached out to touch her it came back to me. The electricity burning in my veins, fire and ice and my back I screamed and breathed in 30,000 degree air. The smell of burning rubber. Alarms. Shouting and running.

He was just reconnecting something, we were talking about his family. Just closing up shop for the day. He’d been an electrician longer than I’d been alive.

I was never going to meet Madeleine, we’d had the name picked out for years. I wasn’t going to hold onto Saoirse’s hand through labor.

I wasn’t going to be able to take care of my girls.

No one came until the EMTs covered us in orange blankets.

Then, complete blackness.