Second Language

Construction, like cowboyin’ and fishin’, is the employment refuge of all sorts of scoundrels, and I’ve worked with lots of them. I’ve pounded nails alongside Rhodes scholars, English-lit grads, scientists, musicians, fashion models, and philosophers. I’ve also chased the roach coach with bums, bikers, junkies, ex-cons, underemployed editors, and other assorted riffraff. Job-site discussions can range from sex and sports to Socrates and socialism.

One fellow I remember particularly well is a laborer who framed a couple of houses with me a quarter-century ago. Mick was a hard worker, Irish as Paddy’s bog, strong as a moose and nearly as smart. He was pretty quiet, never had much to say, but some of the linguistic pearls he cast before us have stuck with me all these many years.

One day he was cutting blocks for me, and I noticed they were getting longer as C we went along. I went down and explained that he had to mark each one with the first block instead of with the previous block because of sawcuts, pencil lines, and such. “I see,” he said. “Too many veritables.” “That’s right, Mick,” I replied, “too many veritables.”

Another day, I was digging through a box looking for a piece of hardware to reinforce something we’d built. “I see,” he said when he figured out what I was doing. “You’re doing some improveization.”

An architect slumming with us one day had cleaned off a spot for his trousers and joined us for coffee break. He had a sheet with an elevation that he was creasing this way and that, explaining to us about the beautiful proportions of his building. “I get it,” Mick finally said. “Foldin’ rectangles.”

But my favorite of all came one day when we were framing a dormer. “You gotta come down and look at that, boss. Somethin’ ain’t right.” After I came down and explained that the problem wasn’t the dormer but the funky roofline in the background, Mick said, “Now I see. It’s a optical delusion.” Well, that’s what it was, “a optical delusion,” and I haven’t been able to call one by any other name since.

Laborers come and laborers go, and after awhile, you remember only the best and the worst. I often think of Mick after all these years, wonder where he is and what he’s doing, if he’s got himself a nice little doublewide or a cozy trailer with a big-screen TV and maybe a new pickup truck out front next to the old washing machines. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if the jokes might’ve been on us. I wonder if old Mick wasn’t just having himself some quiet, private fun at the expense of us overeducated chumps.