Chapter 42

June 2, 1978

The weather was nice, but a little cold. It had in been in high 40s and low 50s all night. The wind was blowing, but not too hard. Sunset was around 7:00. Tim and Benny could grab eight hours of work on Tim’s house easily, even making allowance for the fact that they had to clean the office buildings. They could do the same Thursday. Friday afternoon would be spent putting out envelopes for curb painting and Saturday would be spent painting curbs. They would get a full day of work on rebuilding Tim’s house, Sunday. That would probably get the entire exterior off.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the four of them could get the plywood layer down without much effort if the weather held. That would at least close up the house so that any bad weather wouldn’t cause any damage. It was hard to predict when there would be a couple days, back to back, without rain. Water was the worst enemy of exposed wood.

Tim’s house was a simple two story, with both bedrooms upstairs, along with a bath. The master bedroom was about 25% larger than the other bedroom. The downstairs had a living room, a half bath tucked under the rear of the stairway, and a dining area that was attached to the kitchen.

The house was in the condition in which he had acquired it, except the roof did have some new shingles. There had been nothing structurally wrong with the roof. The roofers also did the porch roof. While they were at it, they threw in rebuilding the supports for the patio floor, free. Tim had suggested that they might get two more houses when the girls started working on theirs. There was a rumor that the niece of one of the girls was going to buy a house, and Two Guys Working was likely to get the contract to repair it. There was a ‘hint hint nudge nudge’ from the roofer about getting future contracts, which was answered with: “Who else could we get, who we can trust?” They liked that answer.

What all of this meant was that Tim was ready to start tearing down the exterior of his building and get it refinished. Leaving his parent’s house that morning, Tim climbed in his truck and raced to his house. He mentally corrected ‘house’ to ‘future home.’ He arrived there and looked it over with pride. He was nineteen years old, a high school graduate for a whole week, and a home owner already. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t get much better than that!

He stood in front of the house looking at the exterior, trying to judge just how much work they were facing. One of the unusual things about the houses here, were that the roofs ran perpendicular to the street rather than parallel. It almost looked like a shotgun house, except that it wasn’t. The exterior of the house had long overlapping planks that ran lengthwise. He was going to have to start at the top and work his way down the wall. It was a four person job requiring two to remove the planks and lower them down to the two below, who would then haul it off to the dumpster. They already had experience with it, having done the same to Benny’s house.

Tim went up to the front of the house, put on his work gloves, and grabbed one of the long boards that made up the exterior. It was loose and he started pulling on it. It came off fairly easily, but the board broke in the middle. He picked up the piece he had pulled off and walked over to the dumpster to toss it. Based on that, he didn’t think it would be too difficult to remove the entire wall.

He started erecting the ladders against the wall, one on each end. He looked over at Benny’s house wondering when he was going to come out. A car pulled up behind his. He turned to look at the green Datsun 210. Sandra got out, and looked over at the house. She remembered seeing these houses for the first time and how horrified she was at their condition. Now looking at how Benny’s house turned out, her opinion had changed significantly. This wasn’t a disaster, but a phoenix in disguise. It would rise from the ashes of neglect and become a place of value. She knew that it would be a lot of work, but that was okay. Her house was across the street and would be next.

“Where’s Benny?”

“I don’t know. I was waiting for him to come out.”

“Don’t you think you should check on him?”

“I will if he doesn’t come out soon. He’s probably thinking about something.”

“Probably.”

“How are things with you and Cathy?”

“Good.”

“Good? I thought they’d be great. You two are out of school. You can visit her all day any day.”

“Okay, they’re great.”

“That’s good,” Tim said.

His relationship with Sandra wasn’t as developed as he would have liked. They were friends, not lovers. He was getting the occasional handjob when things got too heated and she felt guilty about leading him on. The fact was, they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. He, like Benny, was occasionally visiting Susan for more thorough relief. Now that school was over, he expected them to stop pretending.

Sandra seemed to read his mind. “I’m sorry, Tim. I’m just not wired that way. I’ve tried. I like guys, but Cathy is really all I need. At least, for now.”

“I understand.”

“You should probably start looking for a real girlfriend. We’re out of that whole high school scene. We can use the anonymity of the adult world to get around too much suspicion.”

“I know,” Tim said.

Sandra turned and looked at the house. “I bet you can’t wait to get moved in.”

Tim said, “My house is lower priority than yours. You’ve got to have yours done by the end of August since college starts. Me, I can take until January to finish up and move in.”

“We should be signing the paper work on my house any day now.”

“Good. We should have the exterior redone on my place by then. We’ll get busy on yours and get it fixed up before school starts. I can work on mine when everyone else is off doing what they need to do for college.”

Tim was planning on getting as much of the house fixed as was necessary to get the certificate of occupancy. He figured that he’d live in it while finishing the place over the winter. He was also going to try to find a house to flip over the winter. He figured those two activities would keep him busy when the weather was cold.

Tim was looking around for a helper. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to do all of the repair work alone. With Benny, Cathy, and Sandra in school, he was going to be on his own. Although it might have seemed like he was going to be abandoned by the others starting in September, the fact was that this was the plan all along. Benny would go to school while Tim flipped houses. Benny would help when he could, but the business was Tim’s.

Cathy pulled up in front of Benny’s house in her blue Datsun. She got and headed over to the front door before she noticed Tim and Sandra waiting in front of his house. She stopped and looked at them expectantly.

“Aren’t you two coming over for breakfast?”

Tim swore. “I forgot! I was so focused on getting to work on my house that I forgot all about that.”

“No one told me about breakfast,” Sandra said sounding a little irate.

“Sorry. I guess it slipped my mind in the midst of all of that excitement,” Cathy said with a wink.

“What excitement?” Tim asked.

“Never mind.”

“Oh.”

The three trooped into Benny’s house, entering without knocking. It was kind of accepted that that was going to be the status quo. They were going to keep an open door policy among the group. Benny came down from the stairs as soon as he heard the door open. He was smiling and dressed for work.

“We’ve got coffee and ... wait for it ... coffee cake.”

Tim asked, “The kind in the aluminum tray?”

“You bet.”

Raising a fist in the air, Tim said, “YES! I love that stuff.”

They sat around table with paper towels on which they placed squares of coffee cake. Benny poured coffee all around. Coffee was a recent addition to their diet, starting only after Benny moved out on his own. Tim took a bite out of the cake and then a sip of the coffee.

“Good, isn’t it?”

“Uh hum,” Tim mumbled positively around his food.

Benny sat down and grabbed a square of coffee cake. He looked over at Sandra and asked, “Any word on your paperwork for the house?”

“No. I even called my uncle about it. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“After breakfast you should probably call Leo Fischer, and find out what’s holding things up. I’d hate for you to have to move in before the interior is finished.”

“You and me both. I’m all for living rough, but I’d like carpet on the floor.”

Benny slowly ate his coffee cake while thinking about the problem with the house. He didn’t think it had anything to do with Mr. Martin, but you never knew. It was strange that a process that took him and Tim about a month, had now dragged for three months for Sandra. He wondered if it was because she was a woman. He was beginning to think that it was about time to bring in a lawyer.

Tim nudged Benny and said, “Finish up. I want to get to work.”

“I was getting lost in my thoughts.”

“I noticed. We can’t do anything more for Sandra until we know more. Right now, all we’ve got are guesses.”

All except for a small end piece, the coffee cake was consumed. Benny unplugged the coffee pot. It was still too hot to wash, so he set it aside. Cathy and Sandra straightened up the mess on the table, tossing the paper towels and wiping the table clear of crumbs.

Tim, Benny, and Cathy went out while Sandra remained behind to call the city office handling the sale of the properties. It wasn’t quite time for them to open, and she knew better than to call early. Even if people were there, they’d ignore the telephone.

The three of them got to work removing the exterior of the house. After a little discussion, they figured out a quick and dirty way to do it. Cathy kept back from where they were working. Tim and Benny would removed a plank using a crow bar to loosen it, they’d wrestle it off, and then it toss backwards. Once it settled on the ground, Cathy ran over, grabbed it, and dragged it over to the dumpster. They had to keep getting on and off the ladders to move them around to match up with the boards. The front was wide enough that there were two and sometime three boards on a row.

They had gotten four rows done when Sandra came out of the house with a worried expression on her face. She looked very upset, almost like she had received some bad news. Tim and Benny climbed off the ladder to see what was bothering her.

“I talked to Mr. Fischer. He said that he had to talk to me, to Cathy, and my uncle. He told me to stay here and not to leave. He would be here in thirty minutes.”

“I wonder what’s up.”

“What does he want with me?” Cathy asked.

“I have no idea.”

“What does he want with your uncle?”

“I figure he wants my uncle here to explain why I’m not getting a house,” Sandra said near tears.

Tim said, “I don’t understand. They’ve sold two houses. The only house they have paperwork submitted on is yours. They’ve got a ton of houses to sell and nothing is happening. They should celebrating that you want a house.”

“I know.”

“Did you call your uncle?”

“He had already left the office. I assume it was to come here. The people at his office couldn’t say why he left or where he was going.”

“That’s weird.”

They stood around waiting for Mr. Fischer to show up. Tim kept looking up at the four feet of cleared wall and wondering if they were going to get any work done today. The apex of the wall was 26 feet high. With them removing only 4 feet, they still had 22 feet of wall to clear out on this side of the house and there still three more sides to go.