“HE COULD PAINT houses.”
“Clyde?”
“He could use the money.”
“For sure.”
“We could set him up.”
“He’d need a ladder. Does Clyde go up ladders?”
“Not sure. I’ve seen him on a stepstool.”
“Like in the kitchen?”
“That’s it.”
“How’d he look?”
“Fine. Steady. Mind you it’s not that high.”
“What else?”
“He’d need a hat with a brim.”
“The brim, it keeps the paint off.”
“That’s right. Lots of times you look up.”
“He’d need one of them flat chisels too, for peeling off the old paint.”
“A scraper.”
“That’s it, start of every job. Scrape the old paint off.”
“That’s the hard part.”
“Too hard, you ask me.”
“The rollers for the walls, that’s easy.”
“Clyde could do rollers.”
“Trouble is, you can’t use the rollers on clapboard. It’s a bad fit.”
“That’s the truth. For that you need a brush, the old kind.”
“The kind with a hand-grip.”
“So we sets him up with a ladder, a hat with a brim, a brush or two, and a chisel.”
“He needs an outfit too.”
“Like baggy pants?”
“Baggy pants, baggy shirt, hat with a brim.”
“Keep the T-shirt clean.”
“Clyde wears them shirts for days and days.”
“Save the Great Auk.”
“I’m sick of that one.”
“Me too. Worse shirt ever. I could care less about the Great Auk. It’s a bird, isn’t it?”
“It was. It’s not anymore.”
“You know that Clyde, there’s a boy needs too much help. High maintenance, that’s what he is.”
“Them stories he writes? They’re useless for money.”
“I heard that. Never tried it myself.”
“Don’t, is my advice. You’d perish.”
“Writers drink.”
“Not Clyde.”
“True enough. Rare you see Clyde with a drink.”
“So the plan is, we set him up as a housepainter, we teach him how to do it.”
“Sounds good. Good to help Clyde out.”
“How much would he make?”
“Can’t pay him by the hour, he’s way too slow.”
“You’d go under.”
“For sure.”
“Let’s think about the best place to start.”
“Shea Heights.”
“Hamilton Avenue, I’d say.”
“Why there?”
“Worn-out houses there, lots of them on the hill.”
“Fine.”
“This is how it works. You and I, we do the quote. Hamilton Avenue, any old house, there’s one, we stop the truck, turn the wheels into the curb.”
“Turn the wheels?”
“It’s steep. That way, no runaway vehicles. It’s happened.”
“To you?”
“Once, and that’s enough. Anyway, then we look up at the house like the experts we are.”
“Supposed experts.”
“No, real experts, that’s how you pull it off. You stand back, you take a look. There, the back side of that house, on the east, that’s the sunrise side, it’s all peeled up. On the front side west, there’s five layers of paint, one on top of the next. There’s pink, then red, then blue, then white and then there’s the oldest one of all. Yellow. Dig at it with the knife.”
“Pocket-knife. I got one.”
“That’s fine, that’s all you need. Then the windowsills. They’re all messed up with the dry rot. You run your hand along there, splinters.”
“That’s no good.”
“Then inside we go. Hi there Mrs. So-and-So, let’s say Mrs. Ferris, open up the windows please, the old sash windows. Try again. They’re stuck solid, fifty years. That don’t make it easy. What about the fancy, fine work? Back outside again. There’s the electric meter, you got to paint all around it, and the round window up there with the harbour view, you need a steady hand for that all right. The mailbox right by the front door, picture of a whale on it? It’d take an hour with a tiny brush to smooth around that. You need a wipecloth for the little drops. They’re not cheap. Top it off, old Mrs. Ferris, she’s got the front cement footstep painted kind of a dark red.”
“For that, clean that off, you need chemicals.”
“Damn right. The kicker though is the overhanging roof. Try to paint that. Three feet it hangs out. Up on the ladder, high up there, you got to lean back, way back.”
“Add lots of money for that. Danger pay.”
“Then we eyeball the square footage of the whole house, measure here and there with the tape, add it all up on a piece of lined paper.”
“Clyde can’t make a quote. His mind don’t work that way.”
“For sure. That’s why we do it.”
“So you and I, we set him up, we make the quotes, we drives Clyde to the job, we leaves him there till 5 p.m.”
“How much for us?”
“Eighty percent for the backers, I say.”
“Say the quote’s two thousand dollars.”
“That’s way too cheap.”
“That’s how you get the job, that’s how it works. Lowball. That’ll be two thousand dollars, Mrs. Ferris, is what you say.”
“You write it out?”
“Oh no, that’s fatal. Verbal quote, a handshake, that’s all.”
“Discount for seniors, they all do that.”
“Darn right. Widow discount too. Ten percent for each.”
“She’s a widow?”
“Most of them are.”
“Then you sets Clyde to work.”
“He scrapes off the front of the house.”
“The up-high part?”
“That’s why the ladder. Start up high I say.”
“Then we come back, Clyde’s still up there with the chisel, and we says, Mrs. Ferris, my dear, the dry rot on this one window frame is going to eat up the whole quote I gave you last week. We needs a re-figuring.”
“Twelve thousand dollars.”
“That’s it. At least. Otherwise, I’m afraid, Mrs. Ferris, we’re off to Mount Pearl with the crew.”
“The crew?”
“Well, Clyde. Clyde’s the crew. Not much of a crew, but he is the crew.”
“There’s no dry rot in Mount Pearl, Mrs. Ferris, all the houses there is brand new. All you needs in Mount Pearl, Mrs Ferris, is a roller and a tray. They don’t have none of this old clapboard, they got vinyl. This old house costs a lot of money just for the up-keep.”
“She might say, that’s the trouble, living here in the old part of town.”
“Then you says, Sorry to hear about the death of Mr. Ferris, Mrs. Ferris.”
“It’s been ten years, she says.”
“Ten years, that’s a long time.”
“It’s a long time but still she cries.”
“Clyde’d be some mad, if he heard us talk like this.”
“That’s true.”
“He’s got a heart of gold.”
“That’s for sure.”
“He knew she was a widow, he’d work for free.”
“Clyde would do that. That’s like Clyde.”
“So we keep it secret. We say, Clyde, don’t you go talk to this old lady. She lost her mind years back, she tells lies.”
“She tells lies?”
“Not only does she tell lies, but she poisons food with rat poison.”
“Rat poison?”
“Not only does she poison food with rat poison, she got fleas inside.”
“Inside what?”
“Inside the house. She got ten cats.”
“Why would you go tell Clyde that?”
“You know Clyde, say she invites him in, cup of tea. He’d go in, he’d listen, he’d get nothing done. It’s for Clyde’s own good, we keep him in the dark.”
“You’re right. Why the fleas?”
“Fleas is for sure when you got ten cats.”
“Mathematics.”
“That’s right.”
“First day then, we leave Clyde, we get back, what’s he done?”
“He got the ground-floor windowsills scraped down. Perfect smooth. Nothing else.”
“All day, two windowsills.”
“That’s why Clyde works by the job, not by the hour.”
“That’s it.”
“First week on the job it’s nothing but scraping down. Clyde and the paint chisel.”
“Ladder training too.”
“You ever seen a bucket of paint come down?”
“What do you mean, come down?”
“I mean a bucket of paint from the top of the ladder. It’s sitting there and then Clyde makes the wrong move and there’s a bucket of trim, purple trim, turning over and over in the air.”
“I seen that once but it wasn’t Clyde.”
“The paint, the trim, you got to watch out.”
“I can see that. Strong wind, the purple trim flies out of the can like it’s caught in one of them pinwheels.”
“Then it hits the ground.”
“Boom.”
“Mrs. Ferris then, you hope she’s got one of them diseases of the eyes.”
“Cataracts.”
“That’ll do. She wears them google glasses.”
“That’s it, that’s what you hope.”
“So out she steps from the door and she says, what was that bang I heard?”
“Oh that bang, dear? That’s nothing, the truck door got took by the wind, is all.”
“Meantime the paint’s up to your knees and all over the side of the house.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Ferris, sorry.”
“Who says that? Me?”
“No, that’s what we hear Clyde shouting, from up high. I can hear him now.”
“And she’d say, sorry for what, young man?”
“That’s when we’d say, real fast, we’d talk soft so Clyde couldn’t hear, we’d say, the boy up on the ladder, Mrs. Ferris, he said he’s sorry to see the condition of the roof.”
“The roof? What’s wrong with the roof?”
“It’s got holes in it, for the water to get in, Mrs. Ferris. Storm damage from the ice and snow. Common thing here. Shame what it does. It needs fixing.”
“My my, she might say, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
“That’s right, that’s what she’d say.”
“Hard to take bad news, you’re that old.”
“They get used to it.”
“For another four thousand dollars, Mrs. Ferris, that’s a roof we fix up watertight. Mr. Ferris, he’s alive, he’d roll in his grave, he could see that leaky roof over your head. You being a widow. There there, don’t snuffle. Clyde, you got one of them drip rags? Throw it down.”
“Then in we go with the old lady, we ask for a glass of water.”
“Thirsty? Us?”
“No no, up we go to the second floor, by the window where Clyde’s at. We throw the water from the cup, up against the ceiling. Mrs. Ferris, Mrs. Ferris, look at this, we cry out. It’s leaking wet.”
“Four thousand dollars? Five thousand? she says, is there no end?”
“Cheap for the price, Ma’am, look, already the rain from last night is come creeping through the roof. Look at the floor now, there’s a wet spot.”
“She tries to look up but she gets dizzy.”
“That’s right. Those old necks, they can’t look up.”
“Arthritis, it pinches off the blood.”
“That’s sixteen thousand dollars now, she says, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
“A lot of them old people, seniors, that’s all they got. A few thousand.”
“Now you sound like Clyde.”
“How old’s the roof, Mrs. Ferris? How many years you had that roof? She says, I thinks it’s just three years old, the roof.”
“Three years! Oh no! Clyde out there, the boy on the ladder? He says twenty years from the look of it, the roof. It’s covered with green moss and there’s holes in it.”
“Clyde won’t hear, he won’t find out?”
“Not Clyde. His head’s in the clouds.”
“Hey wait a minute. We set Clyde up with the ladder, the hat and the outfit.”
“Well?”
“Clyde can’t do the roof.”
“Clyde won’t do the roof. Clyde paints. We do the roof.”
“We never done a roof.”
“Clyde’s down there now at the bottom, he does the mailbox with the tiny brush. He’d like that. The exact same time, we goes up the ladder, just the two of us, we bang on the roof with hammers for a bit, then down we come.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Mrs. Ferris, we says, there’s your roof now. No leaks, guaranteed.” “The way you said that, that’s not even a lie. There’s your roof, you said. That’s all.”
“That’s the truth all right.”
“Eighty percent for us? Of the money?”
“That’s right. At least.”
“Then we go back in. Hey, smell that bad odour, Mrs. Ferris, that oil smell?”
“Oh my no, she says, not the furnace.”
“Might just be a faulty burner, we seen that lots. The fuel oil puddles up.”
“Oh my, she says.”
“Trouble with the fuel oil when it puddles, Ma’am, it leads to fumes. Toxic fumes. Die in your sleep fumes. Maybe that’s what happened to Mr. Ferris, when he woke up all dead? There there, my dear, the snuffles.”
“Lucky thing, we know oil furnaces.”
“Let’s go down, we says to her, Mrs. Ferrris, we’ll have a look. Oh my. Look at the puddling there. Smell them fumes.”
“That you, Clyde? Stay out till you got the wall done and finished, we’re fine down here.”
“Powerful fumes, Mrs. Ferris, you could have a fire.”
“You could die in your sleep, Mrs. Ferris, I promise you that, you got no sense of smell left over. Your nose is gone, the nerve endings in your nose.”
“One spark, the whole downtown goes up, like 1892 all over again for the second time. Whoosh.”
“We can fix that burner easy, got a spare in the truck. Thousand dollars is all.”
“Oh my oh my, I do not know, she says.”
“By the by, that’s a real nice old chest of drawers you got here, Mrs Ferris. Shame you tuck it away down here, in the basement. Too damp, it should be up in the dry air.”
“We could take that old chest up, get it checked out for value.”
“Too heavy for the two of us. She’s no help, she’s useless for that.”
“Go get Clyde. The three of us, we can squeeze this up the staircase.”
“It did come down, didn’t it? Has to go back up.”
“That’s right. Go get Clyde.”
“I’ll get him all right. Don’t say nothing about the roof, the furnace or the floors.”
“The floors?”
“The hardwood floors in the hall and the front room. You didn’t see?”
“No.”
“They’re wore off right down to the wood.”
“The shine’s gone off?”
“Right off, down to the bare wood.”
“That’s bad. They won’t last like that. Mrs. Ferris, you seen the state of your floors up there?”
“Oh wait. Here’s Clyde to help. Hi there Clyde, give us a shoulder down here, we got to get this up the stairs.”
“It’s your old grandmother’s chest of drawers, from down Boxey Harbour, that’s what you say, Mrs. Ferris, two hundred years old? Should be worth some money for that. Eighty dollars, maybe more.”
“Push harder Clyde. Trouble with you, kid, you got no muscles. Don’t say a word to the old lady now, you know her nerves is bad.”
“A thousand dollars, Mrs. Ferris? Who told you that? Oh no, I don’t think so, look at the age of the wood. Clyde, what you done? You snap that foot off, down goes the value on this piece of old furniture. Homemade it looks like. Then, we’re upstairs, we say, thanks Clyde. Lift it up in the back of the truck. Then we say, Clyde, go back to work.”
“That’ll be eighty dollars now for the chest of drawers, Mrs. Ferris. Deposit. Sure, cash’ll do. Oh you keeps a bit of handy money there by the stove? That’s a smart thing, the banks, they’re not open every day. Not Sunday. The eighty dollars you give to us is for the care of the chest of drawers. We give you back the same identical eighty dollars later, don’t you fret. We know this man, down Water Street. He sells these things for a living. Oh that’s a nice little writing desk you got there too. No no, don’t cry, we’ll leave the desk, Mrs. Ferris, you need that, to write things out. Cheques and letters. It’s from the other side of the family, from old Mr. Ferris? Well, that looks like gold leaf on the leather, that’s a fine desk. Not too often you see a desk like that, here on Hamilton Avenue these days. Maybe put it in the truck too, after all, save the money on the gas and we get it checked out too. Take that old photo off there, please Mrs. Ferris. That the kids? They look nice. All gone to the mainland, what a shame. Lonely times these.”
“It’s up on the truck now too, the desk. That was easy. You stay inside, Mrs. Ferris, we’ll be back. Hey Clyde, you OK?”
“He’s actually working pretty hard today.”
“He says he likes Mrs. Ferris.”
“He says he reminds her of someone.”
“It sure isn’t his sister, Meta Maud.”
“No way. Why, she’s some pretty, Meta Maud. Clyde lost out there on the looks. Seen Loveta recently, by the way?”
“I have and I count my lucky stars I have.”
“Hey, you ever notice something? Like we talk a lot but we don’t seem to think?”
“That’s us, that’s normal.”
“I think I know why. Got a smoke?”
“There you go. Why?”
“Because Clyde is making all this up now.”
“Our Clyde?”
“Our Clyde. Clyde Grandy.”
“What do you mean, making it up?”
“I mean he wrote it all down, made it up in his head.”
“That’s not true. It was our idea.”
“Set him up as a painter, that was our idea?”
“I think so, that was us. Sure it was.”
“I think somewhere along the line, it became Clyde’s.”
“Maybe he heard what we said.”
“To the old lady in there.”
“We know he got big ears.”
“He can hear a pin drop in Carbonear, that’s what Meta Maud says.”
“Oh no. If Clyde heard what we said to the old lady, he’d be mad.”
“The roof, the floors, the furnace.”
“Real mad. He’d think of some way to get us back.”
“I didn’t even mention the electric.”
“He’d write things down I bet.”
“He’d make things up.”
“He does that.”
“That’s all he does, Clyde Grandy. Useless for everything else.”
“But that’s him up there now, on the ladder.”
“He heard us, I know he heard us.”
“Look at him up there. He’s looking our way. Peering down.”
“Twenty per cent of twelve thousand dollars, that’s all for him.
For us, five thousand each.”
“He don’t think that way.”
“No.”
“He is not financially motivated.”
“Maybe go back into the kitchen, get some of that money from the lady’s juice can? Before Clyde wises up?”
“He knows already. He’s writing down what we say.”
“Right now?”
“That’s right. I’m pretty sure.”
“He’s putting these words in our mouths.”
“That’s right.”
“We are the puppets of Clyde. Not the other way around.”
“That’s what I think now.”
“Writers, they make things up.”
“That’s right, for the social good is what he said to me once.”
“I don’t think we’re the social good.”
“Well, we are for Clyde. Otherwise he wouldn’t have a job.”
“It was our idea to set him up.”
“He had no money at all, no ideas to boot.”
“We felt sorry for Clyde, now look.”
“He’s gone turned us into one of his stories.”
“That’s what I think. I’m not in charge anymore of the words that are coming out of my mouth.”
“Me neither, I know what you mean.”
“I think it all started with the desk.”
“The one we put in the truck?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s when Clyde took over?”
“I think so. Try saying something on your own.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“I told you, we are the puppets of Clyde Grandy.”
“What if someone finds out?”
“No way. Not from Clyde. He’s got no talent, that’s what I heard.”
“He types a lot.”
“That’s true.”
“He could be getting better.”
“That’s true.”
“Better not take a chance is what I say.”
“What’ve we done that’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I don’t think. Made her cry a bit.”
“That’s all we did. Made her cry.”
“There’s the eighty dollars cash. Deposit we said.”
“That was for us, right?”
“It was but we’re still here. Leaning on the truck.”
“Not too late for us.”
“The long arm of the law.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fraud.”
“That’s what we did?”
“Almost.”
“Let’s give the money back to the old lady.”
“Let’s do that. Knock on the door.”
“What about the stuff in the truck?”
“Take it off, give it back.”
“What about the roof?”
“Forget the roof.”
“The furnace, she’ll think about the furnace.”
“I don’t think so. Her memory’s gone.”
“Die in the night, she’ll think. That’s what we said. Fumes.”
“Should be in a home.”
“That’s right.”
“I feel better now.”
“So do I. Knock on the door. Watch out for the wet paint.”
“Clyde’s finished up.”
“He’s coming down the ladder.”
“I think I’m myself again.”
“Too bad we have to give back all the money.”
“That’s right. Well, eighty per cent of it.”
“Tidy sum for us all right, you add it all up. We have to give it back? We earned it, sort of.”
“Shut up, here comes Clyde. Hey Clyde, give us a hand with this desk, boy, it’s going back.”
“Floors are bad in there, aren’t they Clyde. Wore out right down to the wood. Maybe the old lady, she’s so nice, we buff ’em up free of charge?”
“Why not I say, eh Clyde?”
“She’s a widow after all, these ten years.”
“Don’t say that, says Clyde, I think she’ll cry again.”
“My lips is sealed.”
“Thanks for the help, Clyde.”
After that, the time he saved the old lady, Clyde Grandy began to write more and more. It seemed now that words came naturally to him. All those plays he’d seen at the L.S.P.U.? They made a lot more sense to him now. Mind you, there was no money in it, in writing, none at all, so the housepainting, that was good too. The bosses he had were the best in St. John’s, it turned out. They’d drop him off in the mornings, usually there on Hamilton Avenue, with the sun coming up, and they’d leave him there alone all day. If it rained, they’d swing by and pick him up. It couldn’t be better for the mind, all the quiet time, the fresh air, the hat with the brim. “Hi there, Mrs. Ferris,” he waved at her every day. He felt different, like he could breathe, like he’d been popped open like a new can of paint.