by Dan Robson
I shake my head. I’d witnessed Dad’s angry side before. He was usually patient and mild-mannered, but when he was mad you did not mess with him. He once stormed out of the house to yell at a friend of ours who was doing doughnuts in the cul-de-sac in his Firebird. All of us went silent and white. Another set-to happened at one of my hockey games. When I was the goalie on the bench, Dad would volunteer to run the score clock. One night he was mad at the referee about allowing the other team to play rough, which had ended in a fight. So later in the game, when the ref came over, Dad told him to fill out the scoresheet himself. “You do it,” he said. “You caused this mess.” He was booted out of the scoring box and another parent had to take his place. To twelve-year-old me, it was a real scandal.
You never wanted to see Dad’s angry side, the flaring nostrils. Josh laughs, picturing it. “He gave those guys the look he would always give me,” he says.
Josh’s parents had split up when he was young. They were both kids themselves when they had him. Christina was only nineteen at the time; she was just twenty-seven when they moved into my parents’ house. She adored her son. His father, Trevor, did too. But they were still trying to sort life out themselves.
“My dad was going through some of the roughest times when my mom met your parents. And your dad never judged my dad, the things he did and the issues he had,” Josh says. “Your dad helped my dad get a job. Your dad gave my dad his personal tools. And my dad still has them to this day.”
“Seriously?” I say. “He gave him his tools and said…”
“Pull yourself together,” Josh says. “It was nice.”
His father is doing well now. His life is on a steady track and he’s a constant in Josh’s life.
“He has a full-time job. He works hard. He’s been clean for twelve years. No drugs or cigarettes,” Josh tells me. “He drinks a little bit every now and then—has a beer every once in a while—but he’s fortysomething now and he has another kid. He’s responsible. He’s got his shit together.”
Josh loves his little brother. He says he plans to give him the blue BMX bike that Dad rescued for him. He’s kept it all these years. It reminds him of my father.
“My dad, he is that person now,” Josh says. “But back then, he wasn’t there as much as I would have liked him to be. Your dad was.”
* * *
—
I wasn’t able to see, as a young man, how much we need to lean on the male supports in our lives. It’s what the other guys who hung around our house have been telling me since my dad died—friends who had more complicated relationships with their fathers, or didn’t have them in their lives at all. They’d come to our house and sit on the deck or around the kitchen table and chat with Dad, listening to stern advice given with a smile because it was something they’d craved in their own lives. I didn’t understand that then. I didn’t get it until I saw them crying by his hospital bed or in the weeks after he was gone. They told me the things they loved about him because it was too late for them to tell him themselves.
One friend, Steve Farley, lost his father in an industrial accident when he was six years old. When he started his own renovation company he sat down with Dad several times to get his advice. “Especially missing that male aspect in my life, anytime there was someone you had a lot of respect for, you took it,” he told me.
Sometimes Steve did contracting jobs at the church. One day he was adjusting a duct and had to open up the wall in the basement beneath the old sanctuary. Dad walked in just as he’d bashed through the drywall and found a carjack that someone, years ago, had spray-foamed into the wall to hold up the floor above. “The look on your dad’s face was just comical. Absolutely hilarious,” Steve told me. “He says, ‘Man, when will this church learn that volunteers just will not cut it sometimes?’ ”
Dad would often check on the work being done. “He paid a lot of attention to detail,” Steve said. “You knew. He’d give you a look of approval, or he’d make suggestions for how to adjust things.”
Another time, they were sitting in a Kelseys restaurant near the church while Steve went over the details of a business plan he’d laid out for his renovation company. Dad sat there relaxed, not saying much at all. “The detail I was going into he didn’t need to hear. He’d seen it and done it,” Steve said. “He kept reiterating to me, ‘You need to get guys. You’re worried about the product. Your job is to manage guys.’ ”
It was the first time, Steve told me, that he understood that his job in the field wasn’t the job itself—it was to oversee it, and to make sure it was done the way it needed to be done. “I never realized that your dad had run his own renovation company until later,” Steve said. “I’m sitting there going, ‘Come on, Rick, you don’t understand what I’m talking about.’ But you come to realize years later that he did know what he was talking about—and I just had to trust that the information he was giving me was exactly what I needed to hear.”
Sometimes it takes years to learn the lesson. It takes time to understand what you were really being told and why it mattered more than you could have known. It took Dad’s death for me to realize that, all along, my father’s job was really about managing men. Keeping them honest, but inspiring them too.
* * *
—
At that East Side Mario’s table, I tell Josh that I think he appreciated what I’d taken for granted. That he was able to understand how Dad was different. But that I didn’t really know what I had in my father.
He nods.
I’m jealous of the time they spent together, I say. I envy the natural talent he had working with his hands—the talent Dad had gushed to me about. I regret that I hadn’t tried harder to be like him when he was alive, and that I feel an enormous void because of it.
I tell Josh that I’m trying to make up for it now. I’m trying to be the kind of person who can take care of himself and fix things for his family. And it’s making me feel closer to Dad again. It’s making it feel like he’s not fading away.
“It’s weird how you carry them with you,” I say. “When people you love die, they’re still part of you.”
It might be a cliché, but it’s true. I can see that Josh knows what I mean. Of course he does. He knows it even more than I do.
“You look back and just know you were better off for knowing them,” I say, “even though they’re gone. Because you had them. And they’re part of you. They’re part of everything you do. Part of the way you think. You can actually hear them saying things. Mostly for me when I’m trying to use tools, he’s just like, ‘Son, how are you my son?’ He would say it in a loving way, but—you know—because I was just brutal.”
We both use the laugh to wipe away tears.
“I didn’t learn a lot of the things you spent time learning from him,” I continue. “I was doing my thing and he was doing his kind of thing. I admired that he could do it, but…Later on, in the last couple of years, he’d come down to Toronto and fix stuff in my apartment that I couldn’t do but should have been able to, and I remember telling him, ‘It’s pretty amazing that you can do all this stuff.’ And I’m really glad I had the chance to say that to him, because I hadn’t before. I think he understood that I respected him, because it was something I couldn’t do at all—and now I’m lost, trying to learn how. Totally lost. Anyway…”
Our pasta is getting cold. We order another round of salad and bread, intending to pack up what’s left so that Josh can take it home.
I know Dad would have wanted us to get together, and I feel terrible that it’s taken this long. I also know that it’ll be a while before Josh and I see each other again. And that will be on me, because I can’t be the man he was.
Josh looks up from the table.
“He was an amazing person. But that doesn’t give it justice, you know what I mean?” he says. “He was honestly the best guy ever.”
22
Matt is clearly frustrated by the pace of the project so far. And to be fair, we are significantly delayed. We stand in the bathroom, hands on hips, taking a tally of what still needs to be completed.
“You’re driven to get this done,” I note.
“I have to be. If I want to get this business going, I have to be organized,” Matt says. “If I’m not organized…”
One of the many delays is the fact that the wall across the back of the bathroom, where the tub sits, wasn’t built perfectly plumb. That seemingly small mistake leads to huge headaches. Most of the tiling in the shower is done, but the joints between each white rectangle tell the story. Tiles leave no room to hide mistakes.
Matt is diplomatic about it all, trying to hide his irritation. Working with a crew seems efficient, but it also means they can mess up on you. It’s about managing people. When you do it yourself, you have control—and no one else to blame.
Matt points to the corner of the shower, where several rows of tiles end with a gap before meeting the other wall. “It’s kind of annoying now,” he says. “Because each cut is out by a sixteenth. So up here it’s different from down here.” He points to the unfinished top half of the shower wall where the head and faucet are. “But if we’d done the wall perfectly level, we’d just go out and cut them all the same.” He smiles and sighs, and then rotates his forearm in a small circle—the universal sign for speed it up. “And we have to take the extra time. That’s why we have to make sure everything is square, plumb, and level.”
“So now we have to do a bit more detail on the corner,” I say, shaking my head like a frustrated craftsman.
“Yeah,” Matt says, and sighs again. “Yeah…”
I’d never heard the phrase “square, plumb, and level” before starting this project. Apparently it’s one of the most common and important concepts in construction. It’s pretty simple in theory, but it’s also essential to making sure that each element fits in place and functions in support of the next step. It’s about planning and precision. It requires that the surface of the foundation you’re building on is perfectly horizontal—or level. The tiniest slope will create problems as you build.
When building up, like framing a wall, it’s imperative that every vertical element stand perfectly upright. From top to bottom, ceiling to floor, each wall has to be straight up and down—that is, plumb. The idea comes from a tool called a plumb line, which is just a string with a weight on the end that uses gravity to show you what a perfectly vertical line is. And every angle has to be ninety degrees—or square—because the smallest incongruity can lead to massive problems later. There is nowhere to hide a mistake when you’re a framer. If your wall is square but sitting on a floor that’s not level, then the wall that runs perpendicular won’t be plumb. And if you’re not paying attention when you’re laying out the footings, chances are the framer will see it when he’s putting the plywood on the roof. You can try to hide your mistakes somewhere, and there are definitely tricks. You can spread your mistakes around so evenly that maybe only another carpenter will be able to spot them. But who would you rather be, the guy who masters the tricks or the guy who builds things square, plumb, and level?
When you get it all right, everything is “true.” But right now, everything is wrong.
“What about on this side?” I ask, turning to the black tiling above the vanity that Jonathan is busy working away on. “Is it level?”
Jonathan is trying to fit a small square of tile into a gap in the corner, twisting it around as if it’s a puzzle piece. There are several small gaps of varying sizes running up the corner.
“Well, that one,” Matt says. “I mean…”
“We’ve already had to cut pieces,” Jonathan says, mumbling as he fiddles with the tile that clearly doesn’t fit the space. “I don’t know if it’s level or not.”
“Right,” I say.
It’s not level.
“This one’s a little more tricky,” Matt says.
“Matt, your number eight broke,” Jonathan tells him. He runs his finger across a gap closer to the top of the tiles. He’s referring to one of the pieces of tile that had to be custom cut to reach the corner.
“There was one on the floor that might fit,” Matt says. “Maybe an extra piece that’s not…” He bends down and picks up a grey slab. “Maybe this one here.”
Jonathan doesn’t seem encouraged by this development. He tries to fit the piece of tile in his hand into another gap a few rows up.
Matt holds the new piece, examining it. “No, this is too big,” he says, and drops it.
“So, it’s a bit of a puzzle, putting a wall together, eh?” I say.
“Oh yeah,” Matt says. His voice is flat. “Oh yeah.”
Jonathan tries to force the piece into the gap again, this time pressing it in with his middle finger. It doesn’t fit.
On its own, each step in this process is easy enough, but combined with small imperfections, the big picture falls apart. Bringing everything together in a way that functions, that will stand through time—making it true—that part is much harder than it seems.
* * *
—
Later that morning I’m tasked with cutting the new baseboard trim. I take a big step and suggest using Dad’s saw in the garage to help speed up the process. It feels like taking his prized sports car for a joyride. Dad bought the saw within the last couple of years before he died. He’d talked about it for weeks, hemming and hawing over the cost until he finally convinced himself that it was justified. Then he went to Home Depot and bought it, a Milwaukee mitre saw with a wheeled portable stand.
Dad loved it. He packed it up and brought it to my condo in Toronto several times, setting it up on my front patio and spraying the courtyard in sawdust. This was how we built the ten-foot bookshelves downstairs and my desk on the second floor that looked down over the loft. We picked up the lumber together. He measured out what we needed based on a design drawn up by one of our friends who’s an architect.
I remember Dad joking that architects and builders often live in different head spaces. The architect dreams something up, but it’s the builder who has to somehow make that crazy vision happen. It felt like Dad had let me in on an industry joke—something that only someone who wore a hard hat every day would get. It was the kind of banter Dad always shared with his workers at the job sites we’d visit when I was younger. There they spoke in a construction-site language I didn’t understand and made jokes I didn’t get.
It was also like the banter Dad shared with the men working at the loading dock when we went to pick up the large piece of Douglas fir I’d ordered from British Columbia. The idea was to mount it on an early twentieth-century punch press I’d bought at a vintage store and to use it as a kitchen table. I’d paid too much for a piece of otherwise useless industrial equipment; and I’d ordered a special slab of wood to make it into a piece of furniture. It was a very Toronto thing to do. Not the kind of thing Dad would have done. But he took me to pick up the wood when it arrived.
The loading dock was somewhere west of Toronto, in the kind of industrial area off the 401 highway that I never went to but that Dad seemed to know by heart. We drove up to this gigantic garage door, raised about six feet off the ground. The man at the dock asked us what we needed—and Dad started talking and joking with this guy in that strange language. It was English, but somehow foreign. Dad had lit up, smiling with a comfortable confidence, chatting away with a stranger about loading docks and lumber.
In the maybe ten minutes that it took for our order to be retrieved and delivered, Dad and this middle-aged guy in grey coveralls were laughing as if they’d been best friends for years.
They loaded the Douglas fir tabletop into the truck. Dad gave the man a friendly wave before he climbed back into the driver’s seat. Then we rumbled out into the street, my industrial-chic tabletop furniture hanging
out the bed of the blue F-150.
I pull the big mitre saw out from the corner of the garage, steering it into an open area and plug in.
Matt pauses with a wide smile. The saw is a beautiful machine. It makes me proud. But also afraid. It’s powerful and dangerous, a stunning, ferocious beast. It could build a house—or take a finger, without a pause.
Matt and I fiddle with it, finding the different safety locks and gauges that allow you to tilt the blade on different angles and along different guides to ensure you’d make a precise cut.
“What was one of our marks there?” Matt says.
I pull my notebook out of my tool belt and flip for some recent scribbles.
“Seventy-four,” I say. “Back wall.”
Matt rests a long piece of baseboard on the saw. Then he smiles and walks away.
I pull the end of the measuring tape, stretch it out to seventy-four inches, and mark it with a line. I place my left hand carefully down on the wood several inches from the blade, holding it steady. Then I grab the handle of the saw and brace the trim with my other hand.
I can feel my heart beating. I press the trigger and the saw whirls as I push it down slowly—much slower than I should. A car pulls into the driveway just before the blade hits the wood. I release the trigger as though I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Jai gets out of the car with a tray of coffees. (It’s job site etiquette: Never arrive without coffees.)