Foundation
The story was that he and Willard were drunk when
they poured the foundation. It was a hot day, unusual
for May, and the sky was cloud-veiled, the sun
nothing but a glowing round cloaked in grey. The men
mixed the cement by hand in a wheelbarrow, kept
taking slugs from the whiskey bottle. Vi and the
girls started out planting flowers, then prepared a
lunch of liverwurst sandwiches, sugary potato salad,
and coleslaw. Finally all there was left to do was to
sit on the metal lawn chairs and watch.
Everything went down so easily. The cement had a nice
resistance, just yielding enough, like Vi on a good
night. It was a perfect mix, Willard agreed, as he
passed the whiskey bottle back. Running a trowel over
it was soothing, could almost put you to sleep. Dusk
was enveloping the neighborhood as they wrapped up.
One of the girls had fallen asleep on a blanket on
the dirt, and the other one glowered as she kicked up
clouds of dust in the rutted driveway. Al struggled
with the wheelbarrow until he decided the hell with
it, it was just a rusty piece of shit anyway.
Vi finally had to drive everyone back to Delaware,
the men singing a song she didn’t recognize, the
girls bleary-eyed and hungry. When they returned the
next weekend, excited to start building the cottage,
Al ran his hands across the foundation and groaned.
It didn’t take a level or a plumb line to figure out
that they had to start all over again.
Image: The house at Hollywood Beach,
August 1957.