Pete Cottington
Will drove the shiny white van down the dirty dusty road, Chris was in the passenger seat. Will had to finish up work on their last worksite and planned to instruct his new pupil in a few new tasks. He whistled “O’Come Let Us Adore Him” while twisting the steering wheel left and right as the van shook over the rocky dirt road. Chris gave this to the man, he was a great whistler.
They exited the van. Will walked next to Chris. The framed house was mostly completed from Chris’s perspective but there was was plenty of tools and debris outside and in to suggest that a few more refinements needed to be done.
“Kiss, I need you to clean up around here, after that I’ll show you a few tricks of the pros inside.”
* * *
Two hours later Chris finished sorting the debris around the home. Much to Chris’s frustration Will neglected to say what the exact tasks were after he finished. Chris picked up debris around the wooden structure. He threw unused chunks of wood, bent nails and such into piles of the four corners of the house like Will instructed. Inside, Will was talking to the owner of the current house that they drove to. Chris couldn’t help but overhear the conversation going on inside.
“Yeah, I remember my wild days brotha, for a while I was lost but now I’m found.”
“I guess we have to work it out of our systems.
“Y’know The Devil works through our addictions. I used to snort a bit of coke back then, a whole mountain of it. It felt great for a while, always chasing a high I could only get through Jesus.”
The man in the shadows seemed to respond in silence. They mumbled on and switched subjects as Chris walked around the framed house, looking for something else to do that would qualify as work. He finished the clean-up job that was assigned to him. He didn’t want to interrupt his boss’s deep conversation for all he knew he could be converting the man. Chris found himself daydreaming about Lucy, thinking of her hair, their connection, her looking over her right shoulder at him with her blue eyes, round face and lightly tan skin.
Another forty-five minutes went by and Will finally finished up talking with the client. The Client walked off the deck and drove away.
Chris walked up to Will “Um, I’m done.”
Will looked past Chris’s should then to Chris. He slowly reached towards the front of his zipper. For a brief moment he thought Will was going to put his hand down his pants. Thankfully, he reached for a nail in the front of his pouch, stepped past Chris and quickly hammered a nail into the wall behind him. He put the hammer back into its holster. He looked out of the window portal, totally silent, then the tan stocky man walked out of the front of the house. He slowly turned his head right and walked around the side of the house, hand resting over the hammer on his right hip. He shook his head as he inspected the back and rest of the house. Continuing to shake his head, his hammer dangled back and forth as he waved his arm towards the van. “Let’s go.”
Chris immediately got the vibe that his boss wasn’t happy. They both entered and sat in the white van. Will quickly glanced at Chris, took a deep breath then exhaled. He grabbed his gleaming metal thermos and took a sip and realized the coffee was cold and immediately rolled the window down spit out the cold tar.
Chris just continued to watch the clearly frustrated man, anticipating a scolding of sorts.
“Kiss, uh…what took you so long?”
“I was done a while ago, I didn’t know what else to do and your were…”
“Kiss, look…there’s five things I expect from you,” he raised his hand up and splayed out all five fingers. “One, I expect strength,” he lowered his index finger. “Two, I expect intelligence, speed which you sure didn’t show me much of today, punctuality and a willingness to get in there and juss do it,” the rest of the fingers lowered, one at a time. “Now, you say you were in the Army. It sure doesn’t look that way to me.”
“But you were talking to that guy,” Chris quickly replied in self defense but was immediately interrupted my Will’s hand.
“How long will you lie there, o sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. Proverbs six-nine to eleven.”
Will took a 3x5 flashcard off the dashboard and held it up in front of Chris, then placed it back on the clear plastic glass. With that, Will started the engine, backed up the van and they drove back to the worksite.
* * *
Pete finally walked out of the basement. He was extremely pale and sweaty. To Ted he seemed a lot thinner as well, like he had dropped twenty pounds. It was noticeable. Pete stood in place for a few moments. “You don’t look so good Petey.” Said Ted.
Pete continued with his thousand yard stare into oblivion. Will quickly glanced over at him. “Brotha, I told ya not to crush the box this time!” He said with a smile before he went back to hammering.
“…sorry…” The massive man was barely able to get the words out of his mouth before he collapsed onto the floor.
* * *
Ted, Will and Steve looked like blurry balloon figures to Pete as he awoke.
“You alright?” Will lightly slapped Pete’s. “Pete, you okay? You took a bit of a spill there.” He waved his right hand at the van. “Steve get me some water.”
“You got it Captain.” Steve shot off to get a bottled water from the white vehicle. Will quickly looked at the half filled bottle and sighed, “Why am I not surprised?” He immediately put the bottled water to Pete’s mouth.
“Sorry, it’s only fifty percent full but it’s Steve’s so what do you expect?”
Pete spit out some of the water.
Will shot Chris a stern glance. "Kiss, you're my new Gunga-Din for now on."
“No, you need that stuff.” Said Ted sternly.
“He’s dehydrated, it happened to me once in training. Let’s pull him over to some shade and loosen his clothes.”
Chris scanned Pete's face neck and chest for any cuts or wounds. He spotted some small blood droplets on his left shoulder. Streaks of blood ran down his neck running from two puncture holes. "...I think something bit him. Maybe, a rat or a bat or something. Did you call an ambulance?"
"Yeah, they should be here in about ten minutes." Said Will.
"Let's elevate his feet." Chris said to his three co-workers.
"Ted, grab a couple boards that we can put under his feet." Will said to Ted pointing towards the middle of the deck where a few boards were scattered.
"Yeah." Ted replied walked over to the corner of the deck and gave the small boards to his brother. Will put the cut boards under Pete's feet. Pete was on his back on top of Chris's t-shirt that he put underneath him.
* * *
The ambulance doors closed as Will and the crew watched the truck drive away then looked at each other briefly.
Will clapped his hands,"Back to work everybody." He almost jumped as he spun around back into action. Ted, Steve and Chris slowly followed suit.
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