Limits

You don’t want Home Depot harassing your message machine.  “Your countertops are in,” they call up and say.  “How soon can you get them out of here?  They’re taking up space.”  They call again and again, ignoring our phone message which clearly says, “If we like you, we’ll call you back.”  We stopped listening to our messages and we won’t call back.  We have limits, too.

Lately whenever anyone mentions Home Depot, Charlie looks like a cartoon character.  His face turns red and you could easily imagine steam shooting out of his ears.  “They owe me,” he says.  “I’ve spent so much of my life and money there, they should give me those countertops for free.”

“They’re already paid for,” I remind him.  “Pick them up so I can check messages guilt-free.”   

Within hours of starting work, Charlie runs out of deck wood and has to make a trip to phone harassment headquarters.  The countertops will be free at last.  (Did you think it would take long?)  He walks right up to the Home Depot Special Services desk, hoping to relieve them of our space-wasting countertops and relieve us of phone harassment. 

There’s a guy behind the counter helping someone.  Then there’s a space at the counter for another customer, and a woman at a computer behind the desk.  She’s sitting on a stool, staring sideways.  It looks like if she won’t look so she won’t have to help anyone.

Charlie stands right in front of her.  She stares sideways.

He clears his throat loudly.  She slowly turns toward him like she didn’t know he was there the whole time.  “Oh, can I help you?”

“I’m here to pick up countertops.” 

“What’s the name?”

“Blevins.”

“Ble – e – e – achoo!”  She sneezes into the uncovered crook of her elbow.  It’s covered now, in sneeze.

“You need to wear a long sleeved shirt,” Charlie says.

She laughed and continued to work on her computer.  She didn’t seem to mind the sneeze debris on her arm.  Charlie tried not to look.

The customer standing next to Charlie shifts her stance impatiently.  She bumps Charlie in the shoulder and doesn’t say anything.  Charlie is dressed in his fixer finest homeless shorts while this woman is dressed in an outfit clearly costing more than our countertops.  Charlie moves away a little bit.

“It’s declined,” the clerk helping the well-to-do customer says.  “We can’t give you a credit card.  You can call this 800 number for the specific reason.”

The well-to-do woman glances over at Charlie, knowing he overheard.  She takes the clerk’s paperwork and storms off down the flooring aisle.

It took no time at all for Charlie to return home with the countertops.  Also returning home was Jenn, walking slowly down the side of the street.

“We need to talk,” Charlie says. 

Those four words aren’t the beginning of anything good.

“Jill’s beside herself stressed out worrying about you,” Charlie told her.  “We hoped you’d turn a corner, change your habits.  It’s apparent you still care about your old life and old boyfriend.  We can’t watch this up close, in our own house; it’s too painful.”

“I understand,” Jenn said.  “But I’m not doing drugs right now.”

“You can’t continue with your old life if you want a new one.  You can’t hang around your old drug buddies, even if you’re not doing that stuff right now.”

“I only went to one show, and . . .”

“I don’t ever want to be angry with you again.  You’re twenty five; I’m not going to tell you how to live your life.  We agreed to take you in for a couple of months.  It’s been one month.  You have one month more.”

“Okay.”

The vegan skateboarder and his country-music listening skateboarder friend walked on in.  “Got work?”

“Wait outside for a minute,” Charlie said.  They did.

Jenn had nothing more to say so Charlie went outside and told the skateboarders what work they could do.  The country skateboarder started right in.

The vegan skateboarder, the genetically related one, watched his friend shovel river rock into a wheelbarrow then spread it by the side of the house.  He watched for a half an hour.  What could be so interesting?

Charlie was working on the other side of the house.  He thought it sounded a bit too quiet, so he went over to check on them.  He saw the vegan staring and said, “I’m not paying you to watch him work.”

The vegan, who now needs money if he wants to drive anywhere, got right to work.   There was a healthy balance of crappy work music, shoveling and work noises, and sarcastic comments out of the mouths of 18 year-olds.  Charlie felt good about the noise level. 

“I have to pick up the General at the pool,” Charlie said.  “Be right back.”

“Do you have to bring her back here?” asked the country skateboarder.

“Make us sandwiches,” the vegan skateboarder said.  “We’re hungry.”

Charlie drove off, ignoring both of them.

He returned to find a pile of bark dust on fire in the driveway.  The country skateboarder has a can of WD-40 in his hand, spraying it on the fire.  “Look!” he says.  “I’m making a flamethrower!”

Jenn sat on the deck, laughing.  Since she often tells the boys to do something and to get into trouble, she’s naturally suspect.   She’s always around when things like this happen.

Charlie got out of the vegan’s car and took the WD-40 flamethrower away from the country skateboarder.  He turned to go into the garage.  That’s when the vegan flung an egg at Charlie’s back.  He didn’t throw it like a girl, either.  He hit him hard.

“What was that for?”

“That’s for toilet-papering my car.”

“That was Jenn’s idea.”

“And it was Jenn’s idea to hit you with the egg,” the skateboarder said.

She’s laughing harder now; her pregnant tummy bouncing up and down.

“Make us sandwiches.”

“You’re eighteen,” Charlie told him.  “Make your own sandwiches.”

As if there weren’t enough kids around, Bobb the hoof-eating skateboarder, rolls up the driveway.

“I didn’t have a car,” he says.  “I skated all the way as fast as I could.  Got work?”

The hoof-eater lives about six miles away so Charlie didn’t think he’d have much energy to shovel river rocks.  He gave him the putty job; filling in the nail holes on the deck posts.

“You’re my slave, get to work.” Charlie says.

Bobb, the hoof-eater, whose real name is John, starts puttying.  He gets into it, noticing missing nail holes and quickly puttying them like they’ll disappear if he doesn’t cover them up immediately.

“I got the easy job,” he tells the other skateboarders.  “I only have to use my thumb.  You have to use your whole body.”

The vegan picked up a piece of landscape edging.  He stopped work and stared at it for a few minutes.  He gets interested in the weirdest things.  When he was little, we used to tease him that he could excited watching grass grow.

“For the hundredth time,” Charlie said, “Get to work.”

“Make us sandwiches.”

“We ran out of landscaping stakes,” the country skateboarder said.

“Grrr!” Charlie said, his face getting red.  “For the third time today, I guess I’m going to Home Depot.”

He went into the kitchen to get his wallet.  Jenn’s on the phone, talking to someone in a quiet voice so Charlie doesn’t hear.  When she sees him, she walks out onto the deck for privacy.

Charlie follows her on purpose.  She turns and sees him, and walks back into the kitchen.  He follows her back, too.

She turns and looks at him again.

“Just kidding,” he says.  She laughs.  He gets his wallet and leaves her to her privacy.

Charlie walks toward the truck like he usually does then quickly runs over to the vegan’s car.  He starts it up and backs out the driveway.

“Hey,” the vegan yells.  “That’s my car.”

Charlie smiles and drives off.

The vegan flips him off.  Charlie laughs so hard you could hear him all the way out the cul-de-sac.

The skaters stopped moving river rock as soon as Charlie left.  Bobb, however, kept working at filling in nail holes.  “I only have to use my thumb,” he kept saying.

The vegan changed the music from Tim McGraw to Abba.  He and the country skateboarder abandoned river rock for an impromptu dance competition.  I happen to walk out in the middle of it, unaware.  There were no winners if you ask me.

I quickly went back inside.   I have limits, too.

A little help? [] 5:53:24 PM