The Lunch Rush
David and I left the construction site and went to a local eatery. We assumed the lunch counters and diners in the area would attract construction laborers for lunch. My plan was to seek out and find men who knew Larry. We got lucky in the first diner. We stumbled upon the wiry man who’d run from Brud’s office when we first arrived on the construction site.
The wiry man introduced himself to us in two ways. He gave us his real name, which was Everett, and his nickname, which was Wiry. He was the surveyor and foreman of an excavating crew for Newlin. Wiry wasn’t the head of just any crew. He was the head of the crew which Larry had worked with. Once David and I introduced ourselves, Wiry invited us to have lunch with him and his men. We had a nice meal at a round table in a corner booth.
After we ate, Wiry waved his hands to gather the men to hear his story. Everyone leaned closer to the slim, animated storyteller, including David and me. Unbeknownst to us, Wiry had witnessed all that happened between David and Brud. The event pleased him enormously. He decided to tell the rest of his crew about the incident.
“The Tick was-a jawing me about the rock, like it was my fault we hit rock.” Wiry explained in a reedy high voice which complimented his reedy thin body. “I got tired of listening to him run his mouth, so I sassed him. I says, ‘I didn’t put the G-D rocks there. No use griping at me about it.’ Well, he lost his temper like he always does. Yelled me right outta his shack and tossed my cap out after me. I go back to get my cap and what do I see?” Wiry let his question hang and eyed his audience to make sure he had their attention.
The other men around the table practically salivated over the rest of the story. A yellow-fingered man who’d alternately chain-smoked and coughed all through lunch begged for Wiry to go on. “You’re killin’ me, Wire.” He said in a hoarse voice, raspy from cigarette smoke.
“Take it easy Smokey.” Wiry said to soothe the man who chain lit another of his innumerable cigarettes. “I just needed a sip of coffee to wet my whistle.”
Wiry added an aside to David and me that Smokey ran an excavator for the crew. With that fact conveyed, Wiry made a big production of having a sip of coffee before he said another word. With his cup back in its saucer, he craned his head toward his audience again. “Big Guy here,” Wiry jerked a thumb at David, “booted The Tick’s door right off its hinges.”
“NO!” A mud-spattered man next to Smokey exclaimed.
Wiry added another aside to us. “Pig Pen here swings a shovel. He does the detail work that Smokey can’t.” Wiry held his right hand up like he was taking an oath and addressed the muddy man’s comment. “God as my witness Pig Pen. He just-a wound up and BAM! If The Tick would-a been standing behind it, he would-a been just-a mashed against his desk.”
“Damn shame he wasn’t.” A small-boned sullen man observed. He sat on the other side of Smokey from Pig Pen and seemed put off by the chain-smoker’s smoking. He’d commented on it during the meal. He said that anyone who smoked during lunch wasn’t fit company. Smokey had responded by chain lighting another cigarette.
“Right as always, Sunshine.” Wiry said to the sullen man. “Except, if he was-a mashed all to hell, the Big Guy wouldn’t have been able to-a do what he did next.”
Wiry paused just once more to tell us that Sunshine operated a bulldozer which pushed the spoil away from Smokey’s excavator so the draglines could scoop it into dump trucks. He didn’t pause for another breath before he told the crew what David did. “Big Guy just-a grabbed The Tick and breathed hellfire into his ugly face.”
“NO!” Pig Pen gasped again.
Wiry held his hand up again. “God as my witness, Pig. Snatched him outta his chair, dragged him over his desk, and-a held him up like he didn’t weigh no more than an empty suit. Just-a roared at him like that lion from the beginnin’ of them movies. Shook him too. Funniest thing I ever did see. I damn near soiled myself!”
“Smiley here,” Wiry said to mean me, “he made Big Guy put The Tick down. He made the Big Guy leave and tried to smooth things out with The Tick. The Tick wouldn’t smooth though. Said he was-a going to get Smiley and the Big Guy fired.”
“That’s The Tick all over.” Sunshine observed sullenly.
Wiry laughed a giggling little ‘tee-hee’ over the last piece of information he had held back from the story. “Joke’s on The Tick. Smiley and the Big Guy don’t work for nobody. Smiley told The Tick they were detectives, but that was all a gag. Smiley owns a restaurant, and the Big Guy is a farmer from out west!”
The men around the table enjoyed a hearty laugh at Brud, the tick man’s expense. I was particularly amused that enough people had thought Brud looked like a tick, they’d given him the nickname long before I made my observation. Sunshine, the small, sullen man, was the first to quiet from his laughter. He wanted to know something. “Wire,” he asked, “wasn’t The Plow from out west somewhere? You think him and the Big Guy know each other?”
Wiry ‘tee-heed’ again. “Everybody,” he said like he was making a grand introduction, “meet Dave. He’s The Plow’s proud papa. Him and Smiley are-a tryin to save The Plow. They came here to-a talk to us. They wanna know what we think of The Plow.”
The three men at the table, Smokey, Sunshine, and Pig Pen, swarmed around David with handshakes and back slaps and offers of good luck. When Larry was a member of their crew, he’d ‘swung a shovel’ like Pig Pen. All the men enjoyed working with him. Wiry nicknamed Larry ‘The Plow.’ He’d chosen the name because of Larry’s last name and because Larry could move more earth with a shovel than Smokey could with his excavator. At least, that’s what the men said. None of them thought what happened to Larry was fair. They all wished they could do something to help him, but none of them knew what.
David smiled broadly and hung on every kind word the men said about his son, Larry ‘The Plow.’ David’s chest puffed up with pride. He reveled in the exaggerated stories and funny anecdotes the men shared.
Unfortunately, before the men ran out of stories, they ran out of lunchtime. Wiry called time and told his crew to get back to work as not to incur the wrath of The Tick. The men gave David a final handshake and left. Wiry stayed behind to express himself in private.
“I like Larry.” Wiry said as he drank some more of his coffee. He ruminated and set the cup back in its saucer. “He’s the kind of man I wish one of my daughters would bring home. He works hard and he always has a good attitude. This winter, the weather was real tough. It’s been so cold and wet, it’s hard to work in the dirt. Larry never said a cross word about any of it. I guess that-a comes from being a farmer and always being at the mercy of old Mother Nature.
“I know he didn’t do what they said. No way Larry could-a murdered anyone. The other, about him being queer and all, that’s no business of mine. I’d-a take him back on my crew this instant. If The Tick didn’t like it, I’d quit for all of us and take the guys over to United, or Drummand, or Curren, or one of the other companies. There’s lots of dirt that needs-a diggin’ and there’s a lot of companies would pay top dollar to have a good crew like I got.”
David started to tear up over Wiry’s kind words. He took his borrowed handkerchief out of his pocket and scrubbed his face with it. He thanked Wiry and shook his hand again. Wiry reached into his pocket for the stub of a whittled down carpenter’s pencil and a little flip-cover pad. He wrote on a page and tore it off.
“That’s my address and telephone number.” Wiry said as he handed the piece of paper over. “Anything me and the others can do, you let me know.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “We’re there like that.”
“Thanks, Wiry.” I said as I pocketed the paper he offered. “We might take you up on your offer.”
Wiry nodded to both of us as I put the paper away. “I’ll also let Nate Holbrooke know that-a you’re on the case. He’ll be glad to hear it. Nate took it hard when The Plow was arrested. Since he got the job for him, and The Plow was livin’ at his house and all…he took it hard. He’ll get a nice boost when he hears The Plow has people on his side. Good luck.” Wiry said. He shook hands with us again and left.
David mopped his face with the hankie again. “That did my heart good.” He said. “I’m so proud of Larry. He made so many friends. They even gave him nicknames.”
I patted David’s shoulder in support. “He seems like a great kid. You did well. You’re a good dad.”
I stood from the table and yawned. “We didn’t really learn anything, but Wiry and his crew might be useful. As for us, I’m out of ideas. It’s only one o’clock and we’re not supposed to meet Stan until eight. We’ve got time and I could use a nap. What about you?”
“Some rest sounds good.” David agreed. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I kept waking up.”
“Come on.” I said. “Let’s settle up here. We’ll walk back and get the car, then I’ll drive you to your hotel.”
