It was in the springtime then. Charlie, Neal and I went on a long weekend trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior. We told our parents we were leaving after school on Friday but skipped that day and left for the woods in the morning. Neal and I played some new CDs and smoked grass as we drove north. Charlie slept in the back seat.
We stopped in a small town off I-35 halfway to Duluth to get some pancakes. It was a diner where the counter is on your right when you walk in the door with the coffee pots and all that behind it and two rows of booths run back on the other side of the room.
We sat at the counter.
I was stoned. Too stoned to deal with anything, let alone dealing with the claustrophobic little diner where we stood out like cardinals in a snowy field. Cardinals with glazed eyes the color of their feathers.
We got coffee and then ordered our pancakes and then the old guy next to Neal started up. Him and his wife. Talking to us about the carpenter union.
Heck of a good thing for guys your age to do.
Tell ‘em about the training, she said.
And he told us about the training.
Tell ‘em how good some of those outfits paid ya.
And he told us how good some of those outfits he’d worked for paid him.
He was retired now. Could just sit around here all morning.
Tell ‘em about the pension.
My throat was tightening up so I sipped on my coffee non-stop, believing the hot liquid would keep my airway open.
Charlie was the most detached of all of us. He was the furthest away from the old fella and he knew that maybe me and Neal might do good being carpenters but it wasn’t the course he was set on. He was going to the U next year, that was his course no matter what.
He smoked a cigarette, nodded and once in a while looked over at the old folks and said, Huh. Or Hmm.
Well that sounds like a real good deal, it sure does, I said.
The waitress finally came from the kitchen with three plates of pancakes laid across her hands and arms. I swilled the last of my second cup of coffee to get a fresh cup.
When she was setting down the plates she said, Bob telling you fellows about the carpenters union?
Yes he is.
Bob, did you tell ‘em about the paid time off?
Can I get some more coffee?
Once we fell to our eating the old guy went full tilt toward his final point that the carpenter’s union might indeed be some branch of the apostles last work.
Tell ‘em how Jesus was a carpenter.
RSS