Scary Barry issued me a green hard hat (Safety Is Our First Job), and told me, “You don’t have to wear that damn thing.  Just gets in the way!”

     Next he gave me directions to the eighteenth floor, where I was to meet, as Scary Barry described to me, “A prick.  Insufferable fucking, sucking prick” named Dan Carlson, who “runs around all day scribbling on the prints with his kid’s crayons.”  He was also known to bring lunch to Big Daddy “suit” Legurch, and paid for it himself.

     “He’s in tight,” Scary Barry said, “the prick.”

     Sunflower seeds in hand, I made for the door.  “Later,” I said to Scary Barry.  “Later.”

     I picked my way carefully through the construction debris scattered everywhere.  The elevator was easy to spot.  It was one of those temporary monsters they strapped onto the side of the building, the kind you didn’t like riding after lunch.  When you get twenty stories in the air, and you’re in a metal cage that’s swinging in the wind and moaning like your kid sister, and when you personally know the kind of person who rigged the whole thing up, it tends to make you a more reflective kind of guy.  I’d feel a whole lot better in those babies if I had a parachute on my back, and that is a fact, jack.

     So there I was in the blasted cage, looking down with a big wide frown.  The operator of this particular buggy looked like a middle-eastern terrorist on bad LSD, who did not speak, instead gesturing sharply with his hands and bugging out his eyes.  When I told him, “Eighteenth floor, good buddy,” I thought his eyeballs would pop clean out of his head, right there in Dallas, Texas, USA.

     Finally, the contraption jolted to a stop.  The door of it flew up and the operator leered at me crazily.  I kept my hand on my hammer when I edged around him, off the elevator and into the building.  The cage door crashing shut missed me by inches. 

     That crazy little hopped-up freak didn’t know it yet, but us Conroe boys are know for our memories.

     Making them, that is.

    The eighteenth floor was empty and open. No glass in, of course (it wasn’t summer yet), so the wind blew through the building. A man could spit a sunflower seed shell a long way up here. Yes, sir.

     It was easy to find Dan “The Prick” Carlson.  All I had to do was follow my ears. 

     Country and western music blared from the core of the building, from one of two large rooms, which were the “facilities” (Ladies and Gentlemen).

     Dan Carlson had set up shop in the shitter!

     The song on the radio:  …at every honky-tonk in town

                                        People say you were hangin’ around

                                        You’ve got a pretty good average

                                        At battin’ your eyes

                                        You scored seven times last night

                                        Never put up a fight

                                        You were hittin’ homeruns like a veteran

                                        You were pitchin’ woo

                                        Baby you threw it all away

     I poked my head and my body into the (as it turned out) “Ladies” restroom (of course).  There was Dan, cigarette and crayon in one hand, coffee and crayon in the other.  I wondered quickly if crayon particles ever fell into his coffee.  A lovely soup and salad, hey?

     “Hello,” I said to him.  “Good morning.”

     “What’s so good about it?”  This from Dan.  What a prick.

     “Well…” I rubbed my chin slowly.  “My truck’s runnin’ good.”

     “Truck!”  Indignation from Dan.  “I almost got ran off the road three times this morning by big trucks who think they own the road!  I don’t want to hear about any truck!”

     “Great, okay, you got it.  My name’s Travis.  You’re Dan Carlson.  What do you want me to do?”

     “See those prints?”  He pointed at the set of architectural drawings laid out on a large stack of sheetrock. 

     I squinted at them.

     “Those are yours now.  I just talked to Mr. Legurch on my walkie-talkie,” he displayed it proudly, “and he told me how much money you make.  You better be worth it, or I’ll shitcan your ass!”

     Did Dan want to fight?

     “Main priority,” Dan said, “is the low-voltage power and the high-voltage lighting on floors eleven through twenty-four.  Set the boxes, run the pipe, pull the wire.  My guys are working in the electrical rooms on all the floors, so try not to get in their way.  Question?”

     “Do I get my own set of crayons?”

     “Funny.  Start on eleven and work your way up.  Everything you need is kept here on eighteen.  We’re hiring four more guys to work with you, so start getting it laid out, and I’ll send them down.  Okay?”

     “Later.”  I grabbed the prints and I was gone.

                                                                              

     The eleventh floor was windowless.  I set my tools and the prints on a conveniently located pile of sheetrock, and walked to the edge of the building, to survey what there was to survey.  I lit a cigarette to aid my thoughts.

     The Classic Electrician Pose.

2026 R.M. Reliable Electric