“You’re the reason I woke up to Tim McGraw this morning,” Jenn says to the skateboarding kid working in the yard, listening to very loud country music. “Who are you?”

This kid used to be the vegan skateboarder's best friend a while ago.  We took him on trips and he used to take Tae Kwon Do from us.  He was around all the time. 

One day he stopped coming around.  He moved out of his single mom's apartment nearby into a friend's house from his old neighborhood in North Portland.  Now he's back and he's listening to country music.

When Charlie and I did the Seattle half marathon a few years ago, we brought this kid.  He kept requesting songs like "Low Rider," "I'm Too Sexy," and "Car Wash," which we played until we were beyond being sick of them. 

I warned him I'd get him back.  I did by playing Hansen's "Mmmbop" whenever he requested anything.  It took a while, but he eventually stopped shouting, "Play 'I'm Too Sexy,' play 'I'm Too Sexy.'"

Tim McGraw is a welcome change, although I still have the Hansen cd in case I have to teach him a lesson.

During the weekend, he stopped by and sort of helped the skateboarders move river rock for an hour or so.  Now he's back and he's all serious.

"This is good work," he said, looking closely at everything.  He's so calm.  Only a year ago he was the poster boy for ADHD.

“Half good,” I said. “Half the living room looks good, half the kitchen looks good, half the deck looks great. It’s that second half that’s the hard part. Charlie and I aren’t good at finishing things.”

“Three halves add up to one and a half done jobs," he said.  "Do you need help?  I want to learn how to do this stuff.”

“You do? You really want to learn carpentry?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I spent the last eight summers working for my Dad in Washington, doing plumbing for rich people and their ten thousand square feet houses.”

“You can work for us. Come over next weekend.”

“How about tomorrow?  I’m not going for the fancy high school diploma. I’m getting the regular one so I don't have school every day.”

"All we have is grunt work."

"I like grunt work."

His Mom dropped him off at 7:10 am, armed with a little bag of Taco Bell for lunch. He started working even before she waved goodbye.

She didn’t hear anything unusual again for a few hours. Then she heard a scream, loud, like a girl. She ran downstairs and saw the country boy pointing at something on the ground.  

“I saw a spider!” he said.

“Wimp.”

“She was scared, too,” the country boy said later. “It was really big.”

“No telling what lives downstairs,” Charlie said. “We abandoned it years ago.”

Charlie got home before me. Instead of watching the History channel as he usually does when I’m not around, he was wandering around outside.

“Did the kid show up?”

“Did you see downstairs?”

“Not yet.”

“It looks like part of a house again.”

I peeked in one of the windows. Gone was years of dust and sawdust accumulation. In its place, I saw the slab foundation we had installed long ago. I remember it looking good once. It looks great now.

I’m sure most people they would have taken one look at the place and said, “Ugh.” Compared to this morning, this was looking almost livable.

The tools were stacked and sorted and set up on a workbench under the window. All the siding which once was tossed in haphazardly was all stacked neatly outside. The landscaping was all done in front except for a spot where he ran out of edging stakes. He did more in a day than both the skateboarders did all month.

“He never stopped working until his Mom picked him up,” Jenn said.

He called that night.  "Can I come over on my next day off?"

"Why do you want to work so hard?" Charlie asked.  "You're 18."

"I got into a problem," he says.  "I was driving a friend's piece of crap old Volvo in North Portland really late at night.  We were at a stoplight.  The guy next to me wanted to race, so we did.

"Neither one of us noticed the Cop behind me.  I don't have my license yet, so I got a really expensive ticket. The Cop couldn't believe I got that piece of crap car to go so fast.  He clocked me at 88 miles an hour.

"So, can I work?"

Sometimes tickets are a good thing. 

A little help? [] 11:13:15 PM