The Money River

Originally Posted Friday, August 1, 2014

I had to take the day off from work yesterday--had to steal a vacation day--so that I could be home for all the repairmen.  I had to meet the printer repairman at the studio at eight-thirty, then leave him and come home to meet the fellows who were installing my new, very expensive shutters at nine.  The tenant's a.c. broke again, so I had to meet those repairmen at the apartment at ten.  I was running around with fistfuls of money.  But now everything is done.  Look at that.  Right there is a big leak in the money pipeline.  Well, not for the shutter company.  I guess it was not a leak at all, just a straight transfer.  But the printer is printing, repaired at $150/hr.  The shutters are in, and the a.c. is cooling like a champ.  I won't bother to tell you what's next, but you will hear about it later, I'm certain. 

When you have to pay a lot of money for things (and lose a day's vacation as well), it is best to try to get as much for your money as you can.  I try to find some pleasure in the workers. 

The Epson repairman was a queer little bird, fifty years old perhaps, around five foot five and a good two hundred pounds.  What got me was his mustache.  If you want to look like a creeper. . . .  He was friendly enough for sure, but when he walked into the studio and saw the pictures. . . well, he liked them, but not for artistic reasons, I think.  I could see his corpulence stiffen when I opened the door and let him in.  His head swiveled quickly to take it all in.  Perhaps he was looking for ball gags and leather masks.  He seemed the type.  We talked about the printer and her ran some tests and said he would be at least an hour, so I told him to call me if he needed anything as I lived only a few minutes away.  I was loathe to leave him with that look on his face and knew as soon as I left he would be pawing through the piles of prints laying about.  I imagined him slipping one quickly into his van or perhaps masturbating on the couch for which I would get billed about $50.  But I had to go. 

Back at the house, the shutter crew arrived, a boy of about twenty with--get this--a mustache and an older black fellow.  I couldn't tell who was in charge for awhile as the boy did most of the talking early.  I was iffy about letting them install the shutters, but what can one do?  Shutter installation isn't something I could do, or do properly.  You would think that everything is standard, but things aren't and windows are often not squared and the shutters are a bit off and everything has to be adjusted as when you hang a door.  I heard drills and chisels and scary, scary things.  I thought of all the damage a boy with a mustache and his black assistant could do. 

While they were taking down the old shutters in the bedroom, the tenant arrived.  We sat and talked in the dining room while the fellows tore things apart.  She, being a kind of Norwegian hillbilly, is a hoarder and when she saw the old shutters on the floor, she wanted some. 

"Maybe they will fit the windows in the bedroom," she said. 

"No they won't.  They are not the right size." 

But she was undaunted and went in to grab a couple to take to the apartment to see.  In a bit she was back talking to the installers.  The black fellow came out. 

"She wants us to save some of these for her, and they are not the ones you originally said, so what do you want us to do?" 

I walked into the bedroom.  "What are you doing?" 

"They don't fit, but I want these for an art project." 

"???? An art project?????  Bullshit.  What art project?" 

She just looked at me. 

"No, you are just going to put these in the garage and let them sit with all the other shit you have down there.  Uh-uh." 

The installers were grinning nervously. 

"O.K.  You're right." 

In the end she kept four shutters.  You know.  Everything has value to hillbillies.  I'll take a picture of the "art project" when it is done and post it here.  Hold your collective breaths. 

The fellows who work on my heating and air conditioning are great.  They work unhurriedly, whistling and humming.  They are primordial crackers who I can't believe are friendly to me, but they are and they are honest and never charge as much as you think they are going to charge.  When they pull up in their faded old van with "Dixie Boys" stenciled over a confederate flag, I'm sure the neighbors think they are just friends of mine over for a visit.  When they got out of the van, I noticed one of them was limping. 

"What happened?"

"I don't know," he said with stoicism tinged with concern.  "I thought I might of twisted it.  It just started hurting." 

"Is it swollen and painful to touch?"

He looked at me quizzically.  "Yea." 

"You've got gout," I told him.  "I guarantee its the gout.  You live too well," I said ironically.  "It's called the Disease of Kings." 

He'd had a big lobster dinner the night before it happened he said, lobster, shrimp, etc.  Lots of beer.  Of course, I told him.  Seafood. 

"It is an accumulation of uric acid," I said.  I might as well have told him it was a bunch of evil demons in his ankle.  It would have made more sense.  "They've got pills for it.  Clears it up pretty quickly.  You will only be able to drink white wine, though."  He looked at me as if I told him he'd have to wear a dress.  He limped off then to do his work. 

Just then I got a call from the printer repairman.  It had been two hours.  He'd had time to go through everything and jack off.  I left everyone to their work and drove to the studio.  He had fixed the printer with a sticky thing he'd gotten from Home Depot for a couple bucks.  He'd put it on the contact board to make it lay flatter against the ink cartridges.  Then he ran a print test.  Most of the heads were clogged.  If this were the case, I might as well throw the printer away as each head costs $1,100. 

"We need to run a cleaning cycle and see if that will clear them." 

I was skeptical as I'd read that was a waste of ink.  I told him so. 

"Well, its up to you, but it isn't going to print well the way it is now.  If that doesn't clear them, then you need new heads." 

"O.K." I said, "run it."

As the printer ran through the cycle, he started talking about the pictures. 

"What do these girls do this for?" he asked me.  Oh, shit. I didn't know what to say.  "I mean, do they do this for their boyfriends or what?" 

I looked at him for a minute.  "Art," I said.  "There is no explaining it."  I started asking him questions about the printer to get him off the topic.  And then the cleaning cycle was done.  He printed another test print.  Miracle of miracles, it had cleaned all the heads.  Fuck yea! 

Back home, the boys had finished up with the a.c.  It was simple.  The thermostat was bad.  Fuck, man, these crackers are truly honest. 

"You going to the doctor?" I asked the one with the bad foot. 

His eyes popped.  "Hell, yes.  You say they got a pill for this?" 

I did say that.  I'm sure I am right. 

I went inside where the shutters installers were cleaning up. 

"What do you think?"

"They look good," I said, wondering if they looked as good as the money I'd spent on them.  But they did.  They looked great. 

"You made the right choice," the black man said.  "You're one of the rich guys.  You live in this neighborhood.  You made the right choice.  You all get the same ones.  Some people live in neighborhoods where they get different ones.  They want them painted different colors and they all get different widths, but this neighborhood. . . ."  He looked at me and shook his head.  "Your one of the rich ones." 

I was glad to be one of the rich ones.  I had a printer, a working a.c., and new shutters.  Fuck yea.  I'd take that.  For a minute, anyway, I felt rich.