Chapter 20

Peace in my head at long last, the people I love know about my 'Gifts" and I've decided I don't want to know who I really am, I'm content to be just Jimmy or 'Super Jimmy' as Jen now calls me.

The deal with Martin's Grocery went through, Mr Martin was happy and Ron got us a fair deal. Roy Seath was happy to take over the manager's position. We told him of our plans to demolish the old warehouse and build a self serve market; he had quite a few good ideas to add to the pot.

I asked a few of our tradies that did business with us who would be the best man to talk to, they all agreed that Giuseppe D'Acenzio was the man to talk to, Mr Concrete they called him.

Ron and I tracked him down doing a concrete house slab. After the usual how do you do's I explained what we were looking for. His first question was do we have architect drawings, I told him no, what we wanted was someone with a broad enough knowledge of the building industry to look at the site and to consider our needs then go away and think about it, then come back with a 'mud map'; if we thought the ideas were what we liked then he could take it to a design architect. In short we were looking for him to manage the whole project from go to whoa. I must admit I did a probe on him before I gave him an open sheet, he stacked up pretty good, he was a hard businessman but fair and honest as the day is long,

Giuseppe spent a few hours with his offsider measuring up the site, he took close notice of the old building structure and then disappeared for a few days. He turned up one lunch time and laid a neat freehand concept drawing on the table, Jess called Ron to come and have a look, them two were just about stuck together these days.

We looked at the drawing and Giuseppe or Peio as he preferred to be called, pointed out the basic design and how it would blend in with our existing store profile. When I queried the actual construction material he got this cheeky glint in his eye. "You people come with me and I will show you a building we did, I think you will like it."

Peio led the way in his van and we followed in Ron's car. The building was in fact a large house with an unusual finish to the walls. On closer inspection it was apparent that the structure was a textured concrete. "We make the panels at our workshop and cart them to the job site, we can erect the shell of a building in less than a day, the pattern on this building was corrugated iron which we dented with a hammer to get the little bulges you see all over it."

I had to admit; it was simple yet highly attractive and as Peio pointed out a lot more cost effective that brickwork.