A hot breeze blew in the passenger window of my brother's car as we sped down 16th Street. The AC was on the fritz, just in time for the hottest weekend of the year. The open window didn't provide much relief from the heat, but it was better than nothing. Rivulets of hair flowed all around my head, sometimes covering my eyes or mouth. A perfect weekend to spend someplace cool, but instead I was forced into manual labor in the heat.
Behind the wheel was my brother Ken, equally conscripted into the weekend's chore. The car slowed to a stop at a red light, and my hair slowed and stopped right along with it, resting around my shoulders. We were on the way home from the paint shop, where we'd just bought a gallon of brilliant white exterior enamel. This gallon of paint would symbolize my lack of freedom, for as long as paint remained, I would not be free.
The light turned green, and we were off again. My parents were in Memphis for the weekend, and fortunately they left Ken and me to fend for ourselves. They'd threatened to bring us along with them on this getaway. My brother and I disagree on almost everything, but we were united in our pleas to not go. I can't even believe they thought about bringing their 18-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son with them, but the last thing we needed was to waste a weekend wandering around in the heat and humidity with our parents.
They let us stay behind on one condition: we had to paint the flagpole. Most people just fly their flags from a little bracket on the side of the house, but not us. We have a gigantic flagpole, right in the middle of the front yard, probably 20 feet tall, with nylon cords and everything. Just like the county courthouse. My dad was in the military, and the flagpole is his way to "give something back." Whatever. I think if he really wanted to give something back, maybe he should actually volunteer somewhere, or at least contribute to some cause, but what do I know?
I don't know when the flagpole was painted last, but I will admit that it was looking shabby. The white paint was peeling in several spots, and bits of rust were starting to take over.
"How long do you think it'll take?" Ken asked, breaking the silence.
"I hope no more than a couple hours," I said, although I really had no idea, never having painted a flagpole before. After all, it couldn't take that long. It wasn't like we were painting the whole house or something.
"Then maybe I'll be able to hang out with the guys this afternoon," he said, referring to the gang of misfits he often spent time with.
"Yeah, probly."
We got along well enough for siblings of about the same age. We pretty much kept to ourselves, but when we had to work together on a project, like for school or something, we got done what we needed to. I wasn't exactly looking forward to spending the morning with Ken, but it wasn't the end of the world either.
Ken pulled into the driveway and shut the car off. "Let's do it," he said as he got out.
While I carried the paint can from the car to the flagpole, he went in the garage to get a ladder.
"I'll be right back," I yelled to him. "I'm going to put on something I don't care if I get paint on."
"Aw, come on, Amy! Don't you have any confidence that you won't spill any paint?"
"I have plenty of confidence in myself. It's you I'm worried about."
I wandered upstairs to my bedroom and put on an old white tee shirt over my sports bra, along with dark blue shorts. I'd had the shorts for years; they were frayed around the hems from so many washings. By the time I got back outside, Ken was already in high gear. He was standing on the top step of the ladder, on his tiptoes, sanding the top foot of the flagpole. He hadn't bothered to change, but then, he was wearing pretty crappy clothes to begin with: a green tee and white basketball shorts. He did have a lot crappier clothes than these, though, so I was surprised that he'd started work already.
I grabbed a sheet of sandpaper and started working on the bottom part of the pole. Some of the old paint peeled off in long strips, but other parts were stuck securely. It didn't take too long to sand, but it was messy. After a few minutes, I had a fine layer of rust dust all over my shirt, most of which probably came from standing under Ken. The pole was in direct sun, and the dust was mixing with my sweat to create a gross, smelly paste all over me. I was already glad to have changed clothes.
Fortunately, the sanding was finished after a half hour or so, and I was pleased with our progress.
While Ken tried his best to clean himself off, I said, "How about I get some newspapers to spread around the bottom of the pole?"
"There you go again, planning for disaster. How about planning for success instead?"
I was already on my way to the recycle bin to get some old papers. Planning for success certainly doesn't mean ignoring the possibility of a problem. There's a reason fighter pilots wear parachutes. There's a reason cars have airbags.
When I got back with the papers, Ken already had the paint can open and was stirring feverishly with a wooden stirring stick. Globs of paint were splashing over the side of the can, landing in the grass.
"Take it easy there, big boy," I teased. "We don't need to paint the whole lawn."
"These few blades of grass needed some touch up paint. Don't worry about it."
Right around here is where the problem started. I was arranging newspapers around the bottom of the flagpole, and Ken went up the ladder and left the can of paint balanced on the top step. Then he came back down the ladder and said, "Where's the brushes?"
"I don't know! How am I supposed to know where the brushes are? Did you look in the garage?"
"Dammit, we should have just bought new brushes when we got the paint. The guy even asked me if we needed any."
Ken went back to the garage to look around, while I continued laying papers in a generous radius around the pole. It was completely surrounded by grass, so it wouldn't matter too much if some paint spilled, but who wants paint all over your front yard for weeks? Pretty soon I heard him yell, "Aha!"
He jogged back to the pole, handing me a clean but well-used brush and keeping one for himself. I didn't see exactly what happened next, but apparently Ken decided that the ladder wasn't in quite the right place, and he grabbed it and pushed it a little closer to the pole. The trouble is that he must have forgot about the paint can, which in a split second tipped over, sloshed its entire contents on his head, and then fell to the ground, narrowly missing him.
"Aag!" he said. Paint was running down his entire body, enough that he looked like a white statue, except he was moving around and cursing. After every cuss word, he spat out what paint had run into his mouth while it was open. The taste of the paint evoked more cussing, and the cycle continued. I have to admit that my first reaction was to laugh hysterically. The sight of him was right out of the Three Stooges; he couldn't have planned it any better. Paint splattered on me too, but nothing compared to the complete soaking he got.
He rubbed his eyes with his hands, but this was a big mistake, because his hands were covered with paint too, and this certainly didn't improve his vision.
"Fuck, I need to go inside and take a shower," he said.
"Not in a million years are you going inside right now, " I said.
He ignored me and started toward the house anyway. "I'll be back in a while."
I ran in front of him and put my hand on his white enamel chest. "You're not going in the house, you idiot. You'll get paint all over everything, and mom will kill you."
This stopped him. He was leaving thick white footprints on the grass, almost like he was molting his outer skin. There was a huge pool of white paint around the base of the ladder, extending way beyond where I'd laid out the newspapers. "Fine. Then how am I supposed to get the paint off me?"
"Wait right here," I said. "I'll go get a bucket and some soapy water."
I took a few steps toward the garage before I realized that I was dripping paint too, mostly from my right hand where it'd been planted on Ken's chest. But the rest of me was spotted with paint too, my shoes and my legs and arms and even my hair, and I didn't want to make a mess of the driveway or the garage if I didn't have to.
I pondered my options. "What are you doing?" Ken said. "Hurry up!"
"Just a sec." After considering a few possibilities, I peeled off my white tee-shirt, hoping my sports bra wasn't too revealing for the front yard. I turned my shirt inside out and dabbed it all over the rest of my body--arms, shorts, legs, head--hoping to get the worst of the paint off. I took off my shoes and socks too, leaving them in a pile on the grass with my shirt.
Convinced that I was clean enough, I started back toward the garage, where I found a bucket and filled it with water from a hose on the side of the house. I had no idea where to find any soap outside, so I didn't bother with it. I figured plain water would be good enough.
I carried the bucket back to Ken, who was still standing in the same place, in an ever-growing pool of paint, squinting and trying to swipe off paint with his fingers. I had to stifle a chuckle. I didn't have a rag or sponge or anything to clean him off with, so I just put my hands in the bucket and made them into a little pool, brought up some water, and tossed it on his chest. His eyes were still closed, but he heard me, and he bent down and felt for the bucket with his hands, reached them in, and started washing himself off, little by little. After he'd used it only once or twice, the water in the bucket was just as white as the paint on the ground.
After a minute or two of watching him, I said, "This isn't helping much."
"Well, do you have any better ideas?" He ladled some water on the top of his head and shook like a dog. Diluted paint splattered in every direction, which caused me to let out a yelp.
"Try to control yourself, Kenny. Maybe you need to be hosed off."
"God dammit." His eyes were still squinted shut. "Yeah, get the hose."
"C'mon, I'll walk you to the back yard. But first take off your shoes and socks." He bent over to untie his shoes. The laces were almost indistinguishable because there was so much paint all over the shoes, but he got them untied and off soon enough. We started walking around to the back of the house, me holding one of his hands and guiding him past trees and shrubs.
