Chapter 12

There was quite a bit of consternation in my family over the fact that Dorothy had rebuffed my offer of marriage. At first, I wasn't that bothered by her refusal, but, after discussing some of the possible ramifications with my mother, I began being bothered by it. If the baby was born, and Dorothy didn't list me as the one who was the father, I wouldn't have any say in how the child was raised. She'd be the one making all the decisions affecting my child's future.

I knew that Dorothy's turn down of my proposal was mostly because of me claiming to not have more feeling for her. A lot less feeling than what she believed I should have. In most respects, I would have to agree with her. If I'd had these deeper feelings for her, I'd probably have put them on open display.

Dorothy had commented to me, several times, that I usually seemed aloof and undemonstrative towards her, except when the two of us were alone in my bedroom. I did get her to admit that I often cuddled with her on the sofa, when we were watching television together. Often, when we cuddled on the sofa, my parents and my sister were in the living room with us. My mother seemed to encourage us on those occasions.

After a week of us going around and around in circles, without accomplishing anything, I gave up trying to change her mind. I wasn't going to lie to her, or express feelings I really didn't have, in order to try to convince her that I wanted to marry her for more than just to give our baby my name. I know my mother talked to her about it as well, but Dorothy wouldn't budge from her earlier refusal to marry me.

The longer the whole sorry mess got dragged out, without any solution in sight, the unhappier with me both my parents became. My father kept saying I was behaving selfishly, and that I should go ahead and do what I already knew would be the best thing for my unborn baby. My mother told me that Dorothy deserved much better treatment from me than what she'd been given.

To complicate things even further, Dorothy was still coming over to see me on the same schedule she had before she'd announced her pregnancy. We were still going at it like mink's, with the sole difference being that I no longer used condoms. We both liked how not using rubbers felt. If anything, our sex life was even better while all this was going on.

My mother was very frustrated, knowing that I was still getting lots of free milk. It was a constant irritant to her that Dorothy hadn't accepted her advice to cut me off, so that I'd begin to realize what I was missing out on and finally admit that I did love Dorothy. My mother never had the slightest doubt that I did love Dorothy, although she was at a loss when I asked her why I wouldn't admit to it, if, in fact, I did, since that would get me what I now obviously wanted?

While all this was going on, things were changing at my work. Mr. Milton, the site foreman, was having difficulty getting paid what he said he was owed. There was a disagreement with the head of the company we worked for, over what he had been promised to him, back when he agreed to supervise the build out of the subdivision we were working on.

The first two phases had already been completed, without any problems in that regard, but the third, and final phase, triggered a series of performance incentives that the company now said it was no longer willing to honor. They were telling our foreman that they'd just replace him, then hire someone else to finish up the project. They had threatened to do this, unless he immediately agreed to waive the lion's share of the incentives he'd otherwise be earning.

None of this directly affected any of the men working on the crews for the build out. We wouldn't be receiving any of this bonus money anyway, just like we hadn't received any for the first two phases already completed.

The home building market was exceptionally strong right then, and most foremen hired on to do the actual building, controlled their own crews. All the men working on our project had been personally hired by Mr. Milton. Most of us couldn't have named the building company, if their name hadn't appeared in the top left hand corner of our weekly pay checks. Mr. Milton was the only member of the company that we had any contact with.

A week after we'd started working on the third phase build out, Mr. Milton called all five of the crews off the job, and filled us in on his side of what was happening between himself and the company. He ordered all of us off the site, telling us he'd contact us again once he got the problem settled. Once the company saw the build out had stopped, he said they'd be willing to give him what they had promised, and, after that, it would be okay for us to come back to work.

"Are you going to pay us out of your own pocket if we do it like this, Greg? I don't know about anyone else, but I need all the money I'm making, just to live on. That's why I show up here everyday for work. Somebody has to pay me, otherwise I can't afford to sit around the house doing nothing."

Jack Velmer was an older guy, somewhere in his forties, and he had worked for Mr. Milton for ten years at least. They'd been together on many other projects, both for themselves, and for other builders too. He was the only one who dared to ask the question that a lot of us were wondering about, but had been afraid to ask ourselves.

"What can I tell you, Jack? I'm the one who has the most to either lose or gain here, so I can understand how them trying to screw me doesn't mean that much to any of the rest of you. You men need to consider that you wouldn't be out on sites like this working all the time, if it wasn't for people like me running around and hustling up new jobs for all of us to do. I've got to hold their feet to the fire, and make them honor the contract they signed and agreed to. If not, the next trick they try might be to cut your hourly rates, or else try to fiddle with your insurance and other benefits. I'm doing this as much for you guys as for myself."

"I'll take that as a no then, that you aren't going to pay us out of your own pocket? I can't see how you being upset over a bonus you aren't getting should make it okay for the rest of us to lose out on some good paying work?"

"If you're that hard up for money, Jack, you could have come to me, privately, for a loan to tide you over. You acting like this isn't what I'd have expected, not after all this time we've been together."

"Do you think I really give a good Fuck about what it was you expected, Greg? I can't put food on the table at home, not without getting paid, and my kids sure as hell can't eat your expectations. If you can't do anything to help us out while you go get this settled, then I'd just as soon go over to see the company people, to find out what they might be able to do to help me out. In all the years I've worked with you, I've never even gotten a sniff at any bonus money you ended up getting. Far as I know, no one else ever has either."

No one had ever talked to Mr. Milton like that, and none of us were surprised when he tied a can to Jack, right then and there. What was a surprise, was the ten or twelve men who left the site with Jack. Most of them were the older men, the ones who had the most construction experience. Of the fifteen or so of us who were left there, most were young guys, all of us were under twenty five years old. Most of us had only a year or so of construction experience under our belts.

I had worked with Jack Velmer for the past few months, and he had taught me quite a bit about framing, and about roughing out windows and doorways. It seemed to me that he'd taken an interest in seeing that I was actually learning something to help with my future. I made a quick decision, then ran over to catch up with him and all the other workers who were leaving with him.

"Kid, you might be making a big mistake siding with me on this. Greg might be a hard ass, but he does have a good nose for finding new work. Reason all of us put up with him as long as we have, is that he kept us working steadier than we could have done on our own. Are you really sure about where you want to be on this one?"

All I could do was smile and nod my head that I was. I wasn't sure, but I'd already made a move that committed me. I was pretty sure that Mr. Milton would remember me leaving with these guys, and so I felt like that bridge was already burned behind me. When Jack asked me for my phone number, I took my carpenter's pencil and wrote it down on one of the tool salesman's business cards I carried in my tool bag.

"I'll call you when I know anything definite. There is a lot of construction going on around here right now, so, if I can't work anything out with these guys, I can probably find something else pretty quickly. I'll be happy to put in a good word for you, wherever I do end up."

One of the things I'd learned is that builders seldom put up too much of their own money when putting a project together. Usually, they'd buy the land, then pay to get the engineering work done. Once they had that, they'd get a parcel map approved for the land where they wanted to build homes. With that done, and some approved blueprints for different models and elevations of each model, they'd go to a bank and get a loan to pay for the actual building costs.

A good rule of thumb was that the builder not have more invested in a new project than a thousand dollars for every approved finished lot he wanted to build homes on. This included all costs, even the land itself. I'd been surprised to find out it took so little in the way of out of pocket expenses to get things started. Of course, the builder needed a general contractor's license, insurance, and had to satisfy some other requirements, as well as meeting all state minimum standards.

The contractor's license wasn't hard to come by, if you already had the years of experience you needed in order to take the test for it. I'd only need two more years of experience before I would be eligible to take the exam and try to get my own general contractor's license.

Jack called me at home that night and told me to be back on the job the next morning. He had put together three full crews, and we were going to finish the build out for the company. He told me how much I'd be getting an hour, and it represented quite a generous increase from what I'd been making up to that time. It was already Summer by then, and Jack was saying we'd work as long as we could each day, hoping to do the work of five crews with the men we already had with us.

I was back on site at six thirty the next morning, and we worked from seven until after eight thirty that night. I was dragging ass by the time I drove back home that night, and worried that six days a week of this was going to put me in an early grave. It took me a month to get my body accustomed to the pace of work, and all the long hours I was putting in. Of the seventeen men working the three crews, two were new hires, young guys who ran around bringing us anything we needed, but didn't already have handy. Jack worked right along with us, something Mr. Milton had never done. Except for the two new helpers, I was the only member of the crew under thirty five years old. All the men knew what they needed to do, and they went ahead and did it. Like I said, the pace of the work went up by twenty five percent at least.

"If we get this baby built out by October fifth, we'll each make an extra two thousand dollars. That's the deal I made. If we can do it, while running such a lean number of crews, we'll have so much work for the next little while that we won't have time to spend all the money we'll be making. We can only do it though, if everyone holds up his end. I took a chance with you, kid, because I saw you weren't afraid to extend yourself. Do your best to keep up with the rest of us, because I'm counting on that much from you."

After Jack told me that, I knew I wasn't going to be the one to let him down, not even if I had to sneak back on the work site after everyone else went home, and make up any work I'd fallen behind on. We finished everything by September thirtieth, although we had to wait for two more days before the final inspections were all signed off on the last six houses. We all got our bonuses, and Jack told me that we were going to be starting a new job on the following Monday, working for these same builders. He told me I could expect an extra dollar an hour once the new job got started.