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Is That The Color?
Whoever recently lost their upper respiratory congestion in the newly and ill-formed Louisville area, please contact me for immediate return. No ID required, but please bring your own phlegm bucket.
Was up at six yesterday and over to Dumaine to clandestinely run a cord from the temporary pole on the right side of Esnard Villa so I could power up my little spray rig. It will run off the small generator I have but not without over-am ping it. I sprayed the trim woodwork high and low and was done by seven so I retired to Betsy's for breakfast while the paint dried in the morning sun.
I had the special but done ala carte fashion because it being a holiday, they were not offering the special per se. It was about three dollars more expensive that way, which is not a complaint, just a report. I had ice-tea instead of hot coffee.
By eight I was back to Dumaine to start brushing the front weatherboards.
A crew of Mexicans had the previous day emptied the contents of the former Mama D's house onto the sidewalk in the neatest damn constructed debris pile I have ever seen.
This day the front man for the debris removal team working Memorial day at time and a half (26 dollars per hour) called out to me, while surveying the neat pile his crew would soon de-construct, remove all electronic devices, and then re-pile across the street. He called out to me--you painting that by yourself? I said yes, not giving Fermin any credit for the few days he helped me or for that matter those three New Yorkers and that solitary Californian, who spot-primed the front.
You a real painter, he said, in a tone that would easily accept the word painter being replaced by, man. Well, jiminy-fuckin'-shucks if that wasn't enough to make my already substantial-sized ego bloat to weather-balloon size and float high above Dumaine.
I crossed the street, and from the shade, sitting on the steps closest to the dumpster, admired my own damn work and conversed with a fellow worker man, about the ways of the world.
Later, BeBe came by to borrow a tape measure, and said, that the color? I said yes, is it all right, do you hate it? She said no she didn't hate it, it was nice, it gonna be real cute.
In the afternoon, Joe came by, which I had sort of been dreading, because I had a month ago let him pick some colors from a chart, and I did not end up using those colors but at the time had enthusiastically said I would. I changed my mind about his selected color scheme and was ready for his--hey man, that's not the color I chose harangue. However, when he came by he said, that the color? and I said yes and he said, that's good man, that's the color I like, (even though it is not even remotely similar to the colors he picked.)
Even later in the afternoon and the shade is my blessing on the porch. I'm up on the eight foot step ladder painting the porch ceiling and Phillis calls from across the street, hey Jim, that the color? I said yes and she said, ohh, I like that, that gonna look real nice. Which is all good, because its she and Joe and BeBe that are going to be looking at it everyday.
It is similar but a bit more electric than the color it is replacing, of the blue/teal family, and I wanted it to be a sort of recognizable color memorial to all the boys that grew up there, under M's guidance. I want them to be able to pass by with pride, say, I planned my first felony up in there, or really, in many cases--that place was part of my saving. I would have been much worse off without that place.
In those days gone by, wrapped up thick in the middle of it, I never answered in the affirmative when asked--do yall think you are doing any good there? It was all so yet to be seen. But with the affording of a little distance and the re-acquainting with some of the boys recently, I can say that at least a few of the literally 100+ children who passed through that house, benefitted from the passing through. And there is something good about that, perhaps almost equal to being called a real painter/man.