Chapter 9

By May, a year and a half after he started with Al, Nicholas finally had enough money saved to start the next step in his journey. He thanked Al for his help and moved a hundred thirty miles from Chicago to Urbana-Champaign to enroll at the University of Illinois. He knew what he was going to study: philosophy with a minor in psychology and history. The concepts of the arete, kaisen and flow still captured his imagination.

The first day he got there, after he had gotten a room in a Motel 6, he stopped at a Starbucks, got a tall drip black coffee and sat down to review his list of steps.

He needed an apartment and a part-time job. He lucked out in the apartment. He had arrived at the end of the spring semester. The first place he called had a studio apartment for rent downtown above a beauty salon. The former renter had just graduated. It was the same size as his place in Chicago, and the rent was cheaper. The downside was that it was not close to school, but now he had a pickup that he had bought from Al’s brother, so he was golden.

The job was more of a problem. A university town meant that there was a lot of competition for all the normal part-time job and they were all low pay.

The idea came to him two days later as he was jogging around the University Arboretum. He remembered one of the subs on their last job, an electrician named Eddie bitching to Al about the homeowners who called asking for small jobs like changing a light switch or a GFI that had tripped.

“Lady wanted me to give her a bid installing a new bathroom light fixture,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “I told her my minimum is five hundred bucks just to show up. She acted like I was robbing her. I wasn’t. It was plain business sense.”

Al nodded. “Rich folks can’t even be bothered to change a light switch. They’ll think nothing about spending eight grand on a couch.”

The memory brought a lightbulb moment. Why not start a handyman business? All the little honey-dos that happen around a house. Leaky faucets, bad switches, sticking door, as long as he was careful not to do jobs that were beyond his skills or required a permit, he was golden. He already had the tools. He’d do small enough jobs that pros didn’t want them, but maybe numerous enough to add up to decent money.

He called Al to get an idea of what he should charge. According to him, $50 an hour with a one-hour minimum seemed to be the sweet spot. Not so high that homeowners would balk, but high enough to make it worth his time.

The next step was finding clients. He checked the university’s online bulletin board. A girl named Shelly who was a marketing major ran it. She had bright red hair and an enthusiasm for helping people connect. Most of her listings were for roommates, nannies, and cleaning services. When he called, she was immediately interested.

“A handyman? Oh my God, Nicholas, that’s perfect. I get calls all the time from people needing odd jobs done.”

He explained his background, his work with Al, his auto repair skills from Ray’s, his commitment to showing up when he said he would.

“And you’re bonded and insured, right?” she asked.

He wasn’t, but he knew he needed to be. “Working on that this week,” he said.

She gave him the name of an insurance agent who specialized in small businesses, and he made an appointment for the next day. It cost more than he expected—almost a thousand dollars for the basic liability policy and bonding—but he understood it was necessary. None of the wealthy folks on the east side was going to let him into their homes without it.

With insurance in place, Shelly added him to her job board. The first week, he got three calls. The first was from a woman named Mrs. Harrington who needed someone to hang curtain rods in her guest bedroom.

“The last handyman charged me $200, and they fell down the next day,” she explained over the phone. “Can you do better than that?”

He assured her he could, and set up a time for the following afternoon, after his last class. Mrs. Harrington lived in a sprawling Tudor-style home in Oakwood Heights, the kind of neighborhood Nicholas had only ever seen in movies. Her house was set back from the street, protected by wrought-iron gates and mature trees. Her guest bedroom turned out to be bigger than his entire apartment.

He examined the failed curtain rod installation and immediately saw the problem—the previous guy had used drywall anchors that were too small for the heavy drapes. He explained this to Mrs. Harrington, showed her the proper anchors he’d brought, and got to work.

Forty-five minutes later, the curtain rods were securely installed. He cleaned up every speck of dust, wiped down the rods, and even helped her hang the curtains to make sure everything worked properly.

“That’ll be $50,” he said, presenting her with a neatly written invoice.

She looked surprised. “That’s all? The last fellow charged me $200.”

“One hour minimum, ma’am. It only took forty-five minutes, but I round up to the hour.”

She wrote him a check for $75. “The extra is a tip,” she said.”And I’ll certainly be calling you again.”

Before he left, she asked if he could fix a leaky faucet in the guest bathroom. He scheduled it for the following week, and just like that, Nicholas had a repeat client.

The other two jobs that week went similarly well. One was installing shelving in a home office, the other was fixing a stuck garage door. Simple tasks that took less than two hours each, but netted him $150 total. Not bad for a few hours’ work.

By the second week, the calls started coming faster. It seemed Mrs. Harrington had told her friends about the reliable young man who charged reasonable rates and actually showed up when he said he would.

Shelly’s job board was generating interest, too.

Nicholas signed up for a Google Voice number to keep his business calls separate and created a simple scheduling system in a notebook. His calendar quickly began to fill with appointments—primarily in the mornings before classes or in the early evenings and weekends.