Building A

It was late morning when Bill, the crew’s foreman, collapsed. He was a heavy man with a ruddy face and fingers as thick as blood sausages. He fell headfirst into a stack of metal piping. Blood trickled from his forehead.

Henry, hauling cement for the foundation that would become Building A, dropped his wheelbarrow and sped over with several others to check on Bill.

“Is he okay?” he asked.

Chuck, who ran the mixer, was kneeling over the stricken man.

“He’s breathing. Call 911.”

Willie, the union guy, who earlier had told the men about a new dental plan, eased a cell phone from his belt. He dialed and ordered the ambulance.

“It’s coming,” he said in a cigarette-scarred voice. “Don’t move him.”

“I know not to move him,” Chuck snapped back.

“It looks like you wanted to.”

“You’re wrong.”

They waited in silence until the ambulance came. Two paramedics spilled out with a stretcher on wheels.

“How long has he been unconscious?” the taller of the two inquired.

Willie checked his wristwatch.

“I’d say five minutes.”

“More like ten,” Chuck corrected him.

The paramedics examined Bill. After, they placed him on the stretcher, brought him back to the ambulance, and drove away. Never once did they turn on the siren.

“Those boys know what they’re doing,” Willie wheezed, fingering a cigarette from a pack in his shirt breast pocket and placing it between his lips.

“I’m sure they get a lot of practice,” Chuck added.

Willie lit the cigarette, took a long drag, and then blew smoke out his nose.

“Anyone know if Bill had a bad heart?” he asked.

Chuck kicked at a rock the size of a baseball.

“He told me once he had gout.”

“That wouldn’t kill him.”

“It hurts just the same.”

Willie nodded. He took another long drag, exhaled, and spoke through the smoke cloud covering his mouth.

“I guess I’ll go check on him and see about his family getting called.”

One by one the men returned to their work, finishing up Building A’s footprint. Henry was exhausted by the end of the day, but he felt good about his contribution. The cement he had hauled had been spread out in a neat, even gray, covering any imperfection in the dusty ground. Even the indent made by Bill’s fall.