Sunday morning I woke up with every reason to be in a great mood. I had a beautiful new girlfriend, the apartment to myself, a job with some security, and a whole day in front of me with nothing to do. But it was the nothing-to-do part that was bumming me out. It made me feel like the old Ray, the one who used to roam around all day depressed with no one to talk to. I tried to shake it off and get busy: there were plenty of projects I could work on in my apartment. So I painted one wall, refinished my coffee table, and was in the middle of building a bookshelf out of scrap wood when my phone rang. I expected my dad, but it was Carlos.
"Hey, man! 'Bout time you called me back!" I greeted him.
"Me? You fuckin' don't call me for a whole fuckin' year, then expect me to fuckin' call you right back? Fuck you."
Whoa
, I thought.
That was a lot of f-bombs. Carlos is pissed.
"Yeah, you're right. I've sort of had my head up my ass this past year."
"What's your fuckin' problem? Have you been pissed at me since I left after we got fired?" He was unloading on me, hard and heavy.
"Naw, man, that wasn't it at all. I probably would have left too, if I had a nice home to go back to." I sat down on my futon. "Remember how I let that guy Thomas move in? Well, he brought this other guy in and the two of them went crazy doing drugs and things got pretty bad around here with them stealing my shit, bringing hookers and junkies home, and all kinds of weird stuff goin' on in this tiny place."
"Shit, man, you didn't do drugs with 'em, did you?"
"Hell no!"
"You could've at least called and said what was goin' on, stupid motherfucker. You want me to come help you evict those motherfuckers or somethin'?"
"They're both gone now. One's in jail, one's in rehab."
"Sounds like a good place for 'em. How're you doin' now?"
"Better. Much better. How 'bout you?"
"Got me a new job and a new girl," Carlos laughed in that cocky way of his. Carlos could swagger with nothing more than the tone of his voice.
The rest of our dialogue slid into our old familiar pattern, just like we used to, except we had a lot of catching up to do. He laughed about how I got my new job and of course about how I met my new girlfriend.
"She came up and hugged you, just because you asked?"
"Yeah... well, I guess I helped her out one time when she dropped a bunch of stuff, but she definitely surprised me. She's still surprising me." I was thinking about how Alicia told me to bring condoms, but I didn't tell Carlos that part. I surprised myself because that was the kind of stuff I would normally tell him.
"Well I hope she ain't no 'false advertiser'," Carlos joked.
I laughed, "Nope, definitely not. She's super-hot, but really sweet too. Hey, Marcus is asking about you all the time."
"Ah, really? That's cool. I should come out for soccer and bring my new girl and meet yours too."
"That'd be cool, 'cept I'm gonna' be working the next few Saturdays. I'm gonna play with a few of the same guys on Tuesdays for a while instead."
"Yeah, well, maybe in a month or so." Carlos went on and updated me on what all our old friends were doing, which sounded like just more of the same old same old. We ended the conversation with Carlos telling me not to go "a whole fuckin' year" without calling him and I laughed and agreed.
When I hung up I saw a text from Alicia. It had a selfie with an accounting book covering the lower half of her face and it said, "Stop distracting me!"
I laughed and wrote back, "Whoever this is, knock it off. I have a girlfriend now."
She sent another selfie, this time one of her butt, with her jeans pulled down. She was wearing a pink thong. Damn. Surprised again. The caption said, "Recognize me now?"
I wrote back, "I could pick that sweet ass out of any lineup. Why don't you come over and study on my lap?"
"Hahaha. You have to wait until tomorrow," she texted.
"I know. Feel free to keep those pics coming. I miss you." I texted back.
Then she texted me a row of hearts and said she missed me too.
* * * * *
The next morning I was a few minutes early getting to the address Don had given me. He said he wanted to take Lenny and me out to breakfast. "Don't worry, you're on the clock. Just want to go over some stuff." He was in a great mood, but anxious too. Don explained that we needed to finish up a bunch of work this week and start our new job next week. We would be working on a warehouse that was being converted into residential lofts.
"Do you know what this means, Ray?" Lenny asked, elbowing me in the ribs.
I thought about it for a second and answered, "Prosperity?"
For some reason both guys thought this was hilarious and they repeated it a few times, laughing until Lenny answered, "Yeah, prosperity, Ray. It also means we have steady work for the rest of the year, and come winter, we'll be working indoors at the same place everyday instead of freezin' our balls off!"
"And," Don added, "It means we gotta up our game. Lenny, I want you to spend the next week teaching Ray as much as you can about every trade, which ones we're gonna sub out, and what we're gonna do ourselves. Ray might have to supervise some guys and coordinate shit, and hey, Ray, there's gonna be some days where you're holdin' a clipboard instead of a drill."
Our food came and we dug in, but Don kept talking, "And don't forget, both of ya's, you need to set an example for any new guys: no coming in late, no bein' on the phone."
I had to bite my lip at that. Few things irritate me more than being told to do something I am already doing, or not to do something I'm already not doing, but I knew Don was just looking ahead. "I even ordered some t-shirts with collars. They say DT Construction right here," he was rubbing the left side of his chest and he was grinning with pride.
