“SALLY, I’m thinking about building a garage.” We were lying in bed together, eating Rocky Road ice cream from small bowls. “It would have a room upstairs for when I’m working night shifts.”
“Hmm.” She took a bite of ice cream.
“Sleeping at your mother’s house is great, but I’m afraid I’ll doze off on the way over there.”
“Driving when you’re sleepy is miserable.” Sally looked up from her novel.
“If I build it myself, we could pay as we go. Wouldn’t have to borrow any money.”
Sally took another bite of ice cream.
“Put it in the back of the side lot.”
“You plan to build it yourself?” She knew I’d done a fair amount of carpentry. I’d extensively remodeled the first house we’d bought, and had done work on every house we’d had since.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’ll be fun. And the kids would learn about house construction—see how to dig footings, pour concrete, frame walls, all that stuff.”
“Sure,” she said. “Go ahead.” Sally paused, and then went back to her book. Maybe she was counting on this being one of my passing enthusiasms.
The next day, I went to Lowe’s and thumbed through a catalogue of plans for garages. I stopped when I came to the picture of “The Studio.” Tucked under trees and surrounded by shrubs, it looked more like a cottage than a place to park a car. Two dormers looked out over the curving driveway that swept up to the front of the building. The interior view of the studio on the second floor caught my eye. The angled ceilings gave the room an attic-like feel of secrets and seclusion. At the far end, swag curtains were pulled back to reveal mullioned windows. Bookshelves lined one wall, and a barrister’s chair and ottoman rested on a Persian rug. I knew that I was staring at perfection.
I bought the catalogue and took it home. In the kitchen, I made a cup of coffee, and leafed through the other pages to make sure I couldn’t find a better garage. But I knew I wouldn’t: Just as a puppy chooses its owner, this garage had chosen me. It was large enough to engage my imagination, but small enough for me to build. And the upstairs would make perfect sleeping quarters.
Sally came in with the groceries.
I helped her put them away. “I found a book of plans.”
“Plans?” She paused with a quart of milk in her hand.
“For the garage,” I said.
“Oh.” She placed the milk in the refrigerator door. “See any you like?”
“There’s one I like a lot.” I was eager to show her my favorite, but wanted to wait till the groceries were put away. Like a kid talking his mom into letting him keep a dog, I had to wait for the right moment.
“Which one is it?” she asked, picking up the book.
“Right here,” I said. “The Studio.”
“Pretty,” she said.
I pointed to the dormers in the front. “Those would be tricky, but I bet I could do them.”
“When do you plan to start?” She handed the book back to me, and put a couple of cans of tuna into the pantry.
“I don’t know.” I stared at the picture. “I’d have to order the plans, get building permits, all that stuff.” I was halfway hoping Sally would object: I’d enjoyed talking about it, but I wasn’t sure I could do it.
The plans, rolled up in a cardboard tube, came in the mail. I slid them out onto the kitchen table. I’d been a construction laborer after quitting college, and had always envied the guy who got to hold the plans. I was finally that guy. I turned to the second page, which showed the dimensions of the building, the details of wiring and insulation. In the far right corner, close-ups of the footings and foundation were drawn, as well as the detail of the rafters nailed into the top plate of the wall. I placed coffee cups on each corner to keep them from curling up, and stared at the clean black lines that showed walls, elevations, and dimensions. When I was a firefighter, my part-time job was doing carpentry work, mostly trimming out show-room spaces at the furniture market. And I’d half-built a cabin out in the woods. But I’d never framed a real house.
Sally and I went to the side yard, and used a garden hose to mark off the garage, 24 feet by 24 feet.
“Big,” Sally said.
I nodded.
She looked at her watch. “Time to pick up the kids.” She patted my arm. “It’s exciting.”
I sat in a webbed lawn chair and stared at the snaky green outline of my garage, savoring the idea of building it myself. It would redeem the cabin in the woods I’d left unfinished, and it would provide refuge from the work I did in the ER. The garage would give my life a grand new endeavor—like Michelangelo’s chapel, or Noah’s Ark.
Later, Sally pulled into the driveway with the kids.
“Come see,” I called out to the children.
They ran over. Sally followed.
“That’s where the garage is going to be.” I pointed to the outline of the hose.
“What’s the hose for?” Sam asked. He was three at the time.
“It’s the outline of the garage.”
“It’s going to be nice,” John, the curious five-year-old, said. He stared at the hose.
“I’m going to build it myself,” I said.
“Cool.” John stuck out his bottom lip and nodded. “Think I’ll get a snack.”
Sarah followed her brothers.
“I’m impressed.” Sally laughed, hugging my shoulder. “Want some ice cream?”
The next day, when the kids got home from school and day care, I was grading the site with a Bob Cat, a miniature bulldozer I’d gotten from a rental place. The idea is that you shave off progressive layers of soil, until the ground is smooth and level. Turns out it was trickier than it looked when the guy at the rental place showed me the controls, but I could spin around right and left, and go forward and backward like a champ. After working all day, the ground was approaching level. The Bob Cat was a jarring, noisy thing to drive, but, man, it was fun.
John, Sam, and Sarah stood in the grass and stared at the raw dirt I’d scraped flat with the machine. Sally stood behind them.
I switched off the Bob Cat. “Anyone want a ride?”
John dropped his book bag and stepped forward.
Sally smiled uncertainly.
“Climb in.”
John clambered up and sat in my lap.
“We’re not going to go very fast,” I said, as I turned it on.
“Good,” John said.
I drove around the site, showing John how quick it could turn. John laughed, and tightened his grip on the bars of the driver’s cage.
The city never paved the short street that runs along the side yard, and it has no traffic. I pulled out into the dirt road.
John turned his head, and looked at me.
“Let’s see how fast it’ll go,” I said.
John nodded.
I sped it up, and the Bob Cat zipped along the dirt road.
John laughed loudly.
At the junction of the dirt and paved roads, I looked for traffic, and then eased out past the stop sign. It would probably go faster on pavement.
“You sure this is okay?” John asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s ride up to Dale’s house, see if he’s home.” Dale lived about three houses down. We scooted up to his house, but no one was there. I was disappointed, because he likes building things too, and I knew he’d be jealous. We turned around and came back.
Sam and Sarah both took turns. Sally didn’t want to. Go figure.
That night, sitting in bed, Sally put down her book. “I never would’ve guessed I’d marry a man who’d ride his kids around in a Bob Cat.”
“It was fun.”
“I know.” She laughed. “I’m glad I married a man who’d ride around in a Bob Cat. Just wouldn’t have predicted it.” That year, our Christmas picture was of the Austin family, sitting in the bucket of the Bob Cat.
When the gravel was delivered, John and Sam ran up the pile over and over, their feet slipping and sliding as the rocks cascaded down with each step. John helped spread the gravel, his little muscles bunching up as he raked the gravel smooth. When the concrete floor was poured, they used it for tricycle and bicycle races. As the second floor got started, I built a ladder from two-by-fours, with a hinged piece of plywood that would lock down over the rungs, to keep the kids from climbing it when I wasn’t there. While I was working, I’d let the kids keep me company, or drive nails into a scrap piece of two-by-four.
The garage became a part-time job and a full-time obsession.
Neighbors walking past would wave and sometimes stop to chat. I worked through the summer, autumn, spring, and on into the following summer. Building permits are only good for one year, so I had to go to City Hall to get an extension. I planned to do all of the work myself: drive every nail, run every wire. But as time ran out on the extension, I had to hire out the plumbing, wiring, Sheetrock, roofing, and vinyl siding. But the carpentry I did myself, and as I did it, I felt fully alive.
Working alone most of the time, I felt like Robinson Crusoe, forging a new future with my own hands. Of course, Robinson didn’t have power saws and pneumatic nail guns, but he didn’t have to work rotating shifts in an ER, either. I liked working in the summer, my skin tanning, a baseball cap to keep the sweat from dripping onto the inside surface of my glasses. I liked working in the winter, my breath visible, staying warm by working, and having a hot cup of coffee, listening to the radio, sometimes country western, sometimes the classical station.
It was my Taj Mahal, my Eiffel Tower, my epic poem to a good day’s sleep. I soundproofed the second floor, and put in a full bath, with a tub and shower enclosure. White tile floor in the bathroom. Cedar trim. I put in oak floors and a wood-burning stove.
During the second winter, I was fitting cedar pieces in over the shower enclosure. I used a propane heater, to keep my fingers from getting numb and clumsy. I heard a hissing noise coming from the connection to the tank. Damn. I was wanting to get on with the trimwork, instead of fiddling with the heater. I gave the nut a twist to tighten the connection. But I twisted the wrong direction. A huge ball of fire bellowed out, knocking me back. The yellow flames boiled out of the tank, lapping up against the wall. I grabbed a two-by-four and pushed the tank into the center of the room. I worked methodically, pushing slowly against the bottom of the tank, to keep it from toppling over. The fire roared. I was afraid the tank would heat up enough to make the liquid propane boil, which could make the damn thing blow up. BLEVE stands for boiling liquid evaporation vapor explosion. I’d learned that on the fire department.
I ran downstairs, grabbed the hose at the side of the house, turned on the water, and ran back up to the landing on the second floor. I squatted at the door, hiding behind the doorframe, hoping it would shield me from most of the blast if there was an explosion. As I sprayed water onto the tank to keep it cool, I called out Sally’s name.
She ran out into the front yard, clutching her robe closed at her chest.
“Call the Fire Department,” I yelled over my shoulder.
“What?”
“Dial 9-1-1,” I yelled again, turning back to keep the water on the propane tank.
A few minutes later, I heard the sirens of the fire trucks. I began to relax.
By aiming the water at the connection at the propane tank, I could turn the huge ball of fire into a small blue spit, sputtering in the stream of water. But as soon as I took the water away, it blossomed again, giving off a deep whomp! sound. I kept the water aimed at the connection, pulling it away from time to time to see if the fire was out. Each time I pulled the stream to the side, the yellow ball of fire sprung to life. The last time I pulled the stream away, nothing happened. There. It was out.
I walked to the house, to call the fire department to say they didn’t have to come after all.
“The fire chief will have to inspect the structure,” the dispatcher told me. “But if you’re sure it’s out, I can turn the trucks back.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Thanks.” I noticed little wisps of burnt hair floating away from my face. I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. My face was red, and I looked like a cartoon character who’d smoked a cigar with a load in it. My hair was melted into a frizzy fringe, my eyebrows and mustache singed back to half their size. The hair on my arms was gone.
“Are you okay?” Sally said, covering her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“Yeah.” I winked. “I’m fine. But I better go wait for the fire chief.” I went to the garage, and looked at the puddle of plastic and aluminum that had melted off of the control panel of the heater and burned into the oak floor. Water stood in shallow puddles across the floor. Damn. I went back downstairs.
When the fire chief arrived, I took him upstairs. He stared at the scorched propane tank.
“I put it out with the garden hose.”
He nodded, then reached down to touch the propane tank, to check if it was hot. He lifted it up with one hand. “Empty,” he said.
“Oh.” I hadn’t put the fire out—the tank had just run dry.
“Going to be nice up here.” The fire chief looked around the room. “Mother-in-law room?”
“No,” I said. “I work rotating shifts. Need a place to sleep when I’m on the night shift.”
“Ahh,” he said, his eyebrows up. “A little pout house.”
I grinned. “No point in suffering, just because I’m in the doghouse.”
“Get you a little fridge up here, put a wide-screen TV right there,” he pointed to the sloping space between the dormers. “You’ll have it made.” He walked back to his car, talking into his walkie-talkie as he went.
Sally and the kids came up. Sam stayed close to Sally. He looked from the ruined heater to me, then back to the heater.
John walked over, and squatted to look. “Did it burn the wood?”
“I don’t know.” I took out a chisel from my tool belt, and pried a lump of molten metal from floor. “Yup, looks like it scorched it pretty good.” I scraped down through the blackened wood until I got to an unburned part. “I can probably sand most of it out. And if a little still shows, it’ll just make a better story.”
John looked up at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I shook my head to make short, burnt wisps of hair fly off into the air. “Pretty funny, huh?”
Sarah laughed loudly. “You look like a cartoon man.”
We went back inside.
“I was helping Sarah brush her teeth when I heard you calling,” Sally said. “I thought you wanted me to come admire some tricky woodworking thing you’d done, and I wanted to get the kids ready for school. Then your voice got louder, and it sounded like you were scared.”
“I was.”
“You should’ve heard me talking to the 9-1-1 lady. She asked if anyone was in the structure, and I said my husband was trying to put out the fire with the hose, and the lady said, ‘Tell him to leave the structure immediately.’” Sally laughed, and pretended to hold the phone to her ear, then pull it away to stare at it, then put it back to her ear. “I told the lady, ‘Okay,’ but I was thinking, ‘Yeah, right. You tell him that, lady.’”
I chuckled.
“Then I told the kids to go to the windows because the fire trucks were coming.”
I started laughing.
“Well, I was afraid one of them would hear the sirens and run outside and get squished by a fire truck. So I told them to go to the windows.”
“Did they?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “They were disappointed when the fire trucks didn’t show up.”
Once I could sleep in the garage, I started hating night shifts less. But it was still hard to sleep during the day before the first night shift, because I was still on a daylight cycle. I’d usually run an errand or two, exercise, then at about eleven fifteen treat myself to an early lunch so I could get home for a nap in the afternoon. One time I invited Sally. Instead of going to a cheap restaurant, I took her to Parrizade, one of the best restaurants in the area. It reminded me of a New York restaurant. The tables were a little too close together and the place was noisy, but the food was really good.
Our first “pre-night lunch date” was in the spring. We sat outside under a canopy of ornamental pear trees, the blossoms white against the blue sky. The waitress brought a small bowl with a grated Reggio cheese and spices, then made a little ceremony of pouring in olive oil. “For the bread,” she said, smiling. Sally and I ate the soft bread with the thick crust, sipped wine, and read paperbacks, until our food came. Then we sat and talked, enjoying sitting outside and having a glass of wine with lunch. I felt time slow and became aware of my sun-warmed shirt on the skin of my shoulders. I imagined Sally’s breasts, snuggled tight in a sports bra, under her oxford cloth shirt. We lingered over decaf coffee. I needed to get home, to sleep for the long night ahead, but wanted to wring every bit of pleasure I could from our lunch. “We need to get you home,” Sally said, smiling. “Get you in bed.” Her eyes held mine.
“Check, please.”
Sally walked with me up the stairs to my sleeping quarters in the garage. At the door, I fiddled with the keys. Sally stood behind me. I felt a furtive, vibrating thrill that came with the knowledge that we both had clear intentions of making love.
My hand trembled, anticipating the feeling of one’s body surfing at the beach, when the wave takes you and you’ve surrendered control.
Inside, Sally pulled off her shirt and bra, and shimmied out of her jeans and panties. She nestled into the leather chair she’d gotten me for Father’s Day.
She pulled me to her. After twenty years, the surprises were rare: we knew all the shortcuts. But that day, the languid pace we’d enjoyed at lunch continued. Then, with the afternoon sun streaming through the curtains, we made love.
“I should let you get to sleep,” Sally whispered, as she untangled her legs from mine.
My arm had gone to sleep under her, and as she stepped out of bed, I straightened it. “That felt good,” I whispered.
“Really good.” She smiled, and kissed me on the lips. She dressed efficiently, walked over, and kissed me again. “Sleep well.”
I got up, placed the foam boards into the windows to block out the light, and turned on a sound machine that creates a constant background sound, like a waterfall. I opened War and Peace from a set of leather-bound books I’d ordered through the mail when I was in academics, trying to avoid burnout by giving myself a treat. I’d been reading it as my “night shift novel” for the last few months. After about fifteen or twenty minutes, I could feel my eyelids drooping. I put the book on the nightstand, turned out the light, and fell asleep.