by Rachel Simon
Looking at me over his guitar, Hal says, “What do you mean, get up the nerve?”
“It took me months to pay attention to him. He might be insulted. Besides, everything I read about contractors focuses on their unscrupulousness. He might have something to hide.”
“I have every reason to think he’s aboveboard, and I don’t think he minded at all that you didn’t know his name.”
Well, now that I think about it, as I’ve been at the house more, I have seen that the only resemblance Dan has to the Marlboro Man is that he’s a person of few words. He also isn’t testy, unresponsive, dismissive of Hal’s ideas, sloppy with paperwork, given to surprise bills, erratic about showing up, or anything else I’d associate with unprofessional behavior. He’s on time every day and tidies up at night. He laughs at Hal’s jokes and doesn’t raise his voice. He wears clean-cut clothes. His workers aren’t the wolf-whistling, bar-bouncer types I might have expected, either. They’re respectful and hard-working. Several are even middle-aged. I suppose it’s my own cluelessness about Dan’s life that, more than anything else, stands in the way of my talking to him.
“If only he’d just let me tag along,” I say, “and see what his life is like.”
“Why not just ask if you can do that?” Hal says. “What do you have to lose?”
So it happens that a little while later, I spend a day at Dan’s side.
When I arrive at his office at nine a.m., I think that we might begin with a cup of caffeine. But Dan’s been going since four forty-five, when he woke to train for his next triathlon, then eat with his wife and kids, then hurry here, where he’s been faxing invoices, writing letters, proof-reading estimates. It’s like any hectic office, except his phone never stops ringing, and if his receptionist can’t answer, Dan has to. All six of his other employees are skilled workmen out at jobs.
Then we’re out to a church he owns. In addition to residential contracting, he explains, he also does small-scale development. This can be a lifesaver when the economy drops; for instance, he receives rent from the day care center that leases this church. Well, not the whole church. He reserves the basement as storage for his company’s supplies. But the basement ceiling is low, and Dan hits his head every day. Also, the church roof leaks. That’s why we’re here, to meet with the roofer. When the roofer arrives—late, but so are we—we climb onto the roof, where they trade ideas about how to make the repairs work. The meeting almost gets tense. But Dan doesn’t flinch and the roofer caves in, sealing their agreement with a shake.
“You have a lot of rough people in this industry,” Dan says, driving to the next appointment, cell phone ringing away. “There are a lot of anger management issues.”
At the next site, the addition for a historic house, Dan checks the foundation just completed by a site contractor. Then a truck with steel beams shows up, though the sub who should be handling them isn’t here. Dan mentions that he recently worked with a framing sub who disappeared to work on another job, which set Dan back two weeks. Then he switches to a different frustration. This house belongs to a friend who insisted on using his own kitchen subcontractor, despite Dan saying that such divided work would be a headache. Another friend once got him to price out a deck, then hired a contractor whose use of illegal immigrants allowed for a much lower rate. And finding good employees is problematic as well. Too few people have a strong work ethic, and the best workers are aging out—the average age is forty-eight.
Over the day, as we go from site to site, he maintains his pleasant demeanor, but also expresses no love for his career. When he was growing up with his single-parent father, Dan dreamt of being in finance. But during college, a job in the financial field didn’t click, whereas a job painting houses was fun. Soon thereafter his father died, and Dan, having only himself to rely on, opened a painting company, then eventually expanded into general contracting. The work was hard, and he hoped to return to his first dream. He even went to night school to get an MBA. But just as the diploma reached his hands, the market collapsed, his wife had their first child, and Dan elected to stay with what he knew. Construction, however, remains far from what he wanted for his life.
How much does his company bring in? Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars last year. What does he pay himself? “Less than I pay my employees. Forty thousand a year. My wife works, and I know how to invest. Otherwise, I couldn’t do it.”
I’m amazed that he’s never hinted at any dissatisfaction. I didn’t even know until today that a worker on our house quit suddenly, then was discovered to have stolen some of Dan’s supplies and ended up in jail. Nor did I know that the insurance company didn’t cover everything from our explosion—and that Dan made up the fifteen-thousand-dollar difference.
Late in the day, I ask, “Why do you think people get upset with contractors?”
“Ninety percent of the time, homeowners think they know what needs to be done, but there’s always something they don’t know. They also don’t really understand how the business works. And they almost never ask for proof that I’m insured.”
“But don’t you think people get upset because there are shady contractors?”
“Sure. But there are crooked types in every industry. Look at Enron. Look at chemical companies dumping toxins into streams. But in this business, the public is more aware of it. It’s their homes—and their money. A lot of money.”
His cell phone rings. At lunch we counted forty-seven calls that had come in since morning. Hours have passed, and he’s answered none.
“Hope you don’t mind if I take this,” Dan says, signaling the end of our day.
“Man,” I say to Hal that night, “your industry is really depressing.”
“It can be.”
“Not to mention that whole adversarial thing. It’s all around Dan. He can’t escape it.”
“Sure he can, at least sometimes.”
“Like when?”
“As I keep saying, he and I have worked very well together. That’s probably true of some other architects and clients he works with. He has a bunch of good employees and reliable subs, too. I know his two mechanics blew it”—he laughs as I throw a napkin at him for his pun—“but I think he tries to surround himself with people who are really on the same team.”
“But it seems the industry is set up for problems.”
“In some ways that’s true.”
“What can be done about it?”
“It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and change the whole system. But I think even a genius billionaire who devoted his entire life to reforming the industry would fail. I don’t think about changing the whole system. It would make me crazy.”
“Then how do you deal with it?”
“I think about it on a small scale. In very simple terms, that’s what Dan and I have been doing: agreeing that we have a common purpose, and working together to reach it.”
“So if you can’t change the world, you can still do something in your small corner of it?”
“That’s right.”
“And relationships are the key.”
“Pretty much. When you have a relationship that works, it might not make the rest of the nonsense go away. But it certainly makes it easier to face.”
Of course, the importance of relationships has been one of my major preoccupations as we’ve moved through the renovation. As befitting thoughts inspired by a house, my focus has been on personal rather than professional ones, but even so, it’s been clear over and over that strong, mutually helpful relationships can be hard to come by, or fail to last. This unfortunate truth makes each relationship that does cohere, and endure, all the more precious, even if it is with a professional like Dan or Robin. But what I hadn’t thought about until our house readies itself for repair is that most of us have a tendency to rank relationships without even knowing we’re doing so, placing intimates like family and friends above those who build our houses or counsel us for an hour, or teach our classes or work in our booksto
res—even though sometimes our family and friends are not really working with us, walking side by side toward some common purpose. This isn’t to say that professionals necessarily do. Goodness knows, we’ve all had disappointing cashiers or physicians. In this month of not-building, however, I start to think that there is a kind of relationship that transcends all others, whether they are personal or professional. It is a kind of relationship rarely discussed except in terms of warfare, yet it can be found anywhere, and it can get us through anything. Allies.
This is what Hal and I end up talking about on Christmas, an unusually warm day, which we spend going out for a long walk. As we’re strolling about the city, looking at buildings, we talk about Dan and Robin—and Deb, who helped me get the job in the store; and the friends who helped me buy a car, select a wardrobe, move my life; and Laura, who is at my side as we face Rosalie’s decline; and Hal himself, now that we are there for each other. Hal has his own memorable allies, too, and as the day goes on, both of us remember more and more.
I hadn’t thought we’d feel festive when this day arrived. But it turns out that we have a lot of fun, reminding each other about people who ministered to us, and to whom we did the same. It might not be as celebratory a time as we’d have had with our families. Nor is it as grandiose as figuring out the big question about the meaning of my life. It is, though, a fine way to spend a quiet holiday with my husband, and it does help me figure out one piece of that question: however I try to make a difference, I want to be an ally—and it doesn’t have to be, as I’d been thinking, of the whole world. All the allies Hal and I ever had have made a difference just by helping us. There is no need to think in terms of millions. Even one person will do.
Eventually I explore more of the construction industry. During and after our renovation, in our house and at other sites, I ask carpenters and plumbers and electricians and painters about their lives, and when they get to the point in the conversation where they express frustration with the industry, it is relationships they talk about, too—and the forces that can undermine them.
Immature behavior comes up a lot, such as the carpenter who tells me, “The silliest and most childish things can bring on problems. Like a mis-cut of an eighth of an inch. It could actually come to blows. I’ve seen it—jail time over something like that! Dude, grow up.” Another frequent grievance is self-absorption, or, as a different carpenter says, “You got footer people, and all they do is pour footers and they’re out of there. They don’t care where the dirt got piled, they don’t care about no mess they’re leaving. The attitude is, ‘I ain’t never working here no more so whadda I care about anyone else.’ ” Other common difficulties might be summed up as attitudes that are arrogant or rigid, illustrated by stories about bosses who refuse to listen to ideas from their employees, highly skilled craftsmen who see no point in hiding their impatience with less proficient workers, and plumbers who are so fixed on laying their pipes one way that they hack away at brand-new construction to do the installation. The top lament, though, is rudeness. This covers a lot of ground, from the contractor who’s brusque when a client expresses anxiety to the roofer who dumps materials into a neighbor’s yard to the temperamental worker who snaps at anyone around him. One painter put it this way: “You need to be courteous to everyone. Corporate employees might object to the fumes and get confrontational. You don’t want to talk back to them—they have good reason to feel the way they do. Homeowners don’t want anyone scraggly and smelly. Take showers, don’t bring your dirty clothes inside. Don’t even be rude to a beggar asking for a handout. That’s his neighborhood. And you never know. He just might come down the street later and kick the ladder out from under you.”
I enjoy listening to the insights of people who work with their hands. Certainly they have a lot to say about how to trowel on plaster or hang a door, but now that I’m really paying attention, I see that they’re also perceptive about people. Hal was right. Construction isn’t just the act of building—it really is a microcosm of the larger human experience.
Right after New Year’s, when we return for a job meeting, I see that repairs have begun.
Nothing seems different when we enter the still-unheated living room, holiday cookies in hand. But as we continue into the kitchen, looking for Dan, we pass sawhorses, a power saw, a ladder, a shovel, a work belt. The soffits are now framed. Above our heads, a subfloor has been installed for the second story, and just below it, metal rods run between the west and east walls, a form of repair that will tie them together structurally.
The back door is open. I set the cookies on the ladder, and we continue outside.
In the alley, Dan and Victor, one of his carpenters, are standing on scaffolding. Victor is patching around the metal rods I saw in the kitchen, which extend outside the masonry. Once he’s finished, he’ll weld metal plates to the ends of the rods. I didn’t know this before, but I do now, and the knowledge makes this land feel less strange, and me less of a stranger.
Not that I understand every detail of the meeting, which begins when Dan climbs down from the scaffolding. But I can follow it.
“What’s the schedule for the insulation?”
“After the inspection, which is today.”
“The replacement windows still on schedule?”
“Yes. And we’ll be installing the new floor on the second story next week.”
“If kitchen cabinets are here two weeks from now, is that okay?”
“Should be fine.”
Then Hal unfolds an oversized sheet on which he’s printed a schedule of everything that remains to be done. He says, “So what’s your estimate for the move-in date?”
Dan says, “I think we can get the Certificate of Occupancy by the end of February.”
Oh, no. We need to be out by late January. No, no, no, no. I try not to look at Hal.
Hal says, “Could we do it any sooner?”
“Well . . .” Dan looks at Hal’s schedule. “Friday, February 17,” he says.
“You sure?”
“It’ll be tight. But we can do it.”
I shoot a look at Hal, but he keeps his eyes on Dan and the notebook.
They keep talking, and I tell myself that it’s all going to work out. I’m not so sure I believe it, but remembering the good graces of the neighbors who helped when we were building this stone wall, I know that we have people to turn to. Maybe Jim and Susan will know someone in their church with an extra room. Maybe the insurance agent will know of some hotel where we could live for two weeks. I won’t worry. We have allies.
As the meeting breaks up, and Dan walks us toward the front door, I think about how Dan’s career is not at all his Life Purpose. He never reached the great pinnacle he dreamt of when he was a boy. Yet he is a good man, and he does a good job, and he has been an exemplary ally to Hal.
And at this incredibly banal moment, as Hal and Dan are talking about when we need to pick up our light fixtures from the store, I have my fourth, and final, awakening. Hal has long suggested to me that the whole question of Life Purpose is silly. I still don’t want to think that, but I do see, looking at Dan, that just as important as anyone’s purpose is his character—and maybe even more.
It’s a quiet thought. No trumpets blare, no dancers leap from the walls. In fact, no one notices, because at that very moment, Hal and Dan are having a tiny exchange.
“Hey,” Hal says, nodding toward a windowsill in the living room, “nice job with the Dutchman.”
“I thought you’d like it,” Dan says, smiling.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, no longer afraid to speak up.
“When something’s rotted or broken,” Hal says, “you cut out the rotted stuff and make an even perimeter, then cut a new piece and patch it in. The patch”—he points to a patch I now see in the windowsill—“is called a Dutchman.”
We can’t always figure out the big questions, I think, as Hal and I continue out the door. But until we do—and even if we don’t—
there are still the small things we can do. We can be sisters. We can be Dutchmen. We can give, and receive, repair.
We head down the porch steps, now freed of its police tape. Victor calls after us, “Thanks for the cookies.”
I am waking up, and the house is coming back to life. Maybe there is nothing left to fear.
CLOSING IN
I·N·S·U·L·A·T·I·O·N A·N·D W·A·L·L·S, A·G·A·I·N
Time
“By the way,” I say to Hal one evening in mid-January, as we stack the dishwasher in the rented house, “you know how we’re supposed to move back to the house on February 17?”
He freezes, a dirty plate in his hands. “There’s a problem?”
“Well, I kind of have a talk on February 16. At seven in the evening. In Florida.”
“Florida?”
“Sorry.”
“It would be a good idea if you got out of it.”
“I tried all day today. But it’s for a university. They’ve already advertised the date.”
“So?”
“They made my book required reading for the entire freshman class, which is thousands of students, and they’ve already secured an amphitheater for a large audience.”
“But we’re moving the next morning.”
“I know. But my publisher set up the event, and the head honcho there called me today and said that it would be really, really bad if I pulled out. Like it could ruin their business account with the university for years.”