Tarry, Tarry Night

The roofers have started working on the homestead. They began with the garage. Or maybe just the breezeway between the garage and the house. Darkness was falling when The Pony and I came down the driveway Wednesday night. We could barely see the new green metal on the back side of the roof.

There were other signs, though. The cedar tree next to the garage, by where The Pony’s Ford Ranger is parked, was missing. At first I thought I was simply noticing that the Ranger, Hick’s Toronado with its car cover, and the Gator were gone. Moved over by Hick’s Shantytown so as not to be sullied by falling shingles, and that in their place was a white dumpster.

“Did you notice it yet, Mom? Did you notice what’s missing?”

“The cars? The ones always parked there?”

“No. The TREE!”

“NO! I liked that tree there! Why is my tree gone? Your dad never said ANYTHING about that tree! I know he plans to get a carport with a roof coming off the side of the garage. But he didn’t say that tree was going. That’s just like him! He PLANNED it! He knew I would say no to the tree!”

Oh, yes. Val had a bone to pick with Hick. Little did she know it would be just the tip of the skeleton.

The Pony gathered up the accouterments of the school day and headed inside. I stepped out of T-Hoe and was slapped in the face with the odor of stale cigarette (and perhaps cigar) smoke. YUCK! There is nothing as repulsive to a non-smoker as lingering smoke. It’s impossible to ignore. Smokers will pretend it’s our imagination running wild. They will point an accusing finger at us. The reformed smoker who has gone an hour or two without puffing, lungs restored to mint prenatal condition, pure as the driven snow, will declare that there is absolutely no way we could be smelling smoke. But no. We can tell.

Then I glanced to the right, to admire my non-driving car, my precious new Acadia. MY ACADIA! Sitting in the garage all day with that stale smoke! The new car smell would be replaced by the bottom-of-an-ashtray aroma! This was almost as bad as car park valet BO!

I stormed into the homestead, ready to give Hick what-for for that polluted environment. Of course I found him missing. Out building a new outbuilding, most likely. I sent him an angry text. Pecking at that cell phone keypad like a buzzard pecking at poor Gabilan’s eyes at the end of a Steinbeck classic. “Why does the garage, with my NEW CAR in it, smell like stale cigarettes and old cigars?”

Hick did not respond. I took it to mean that he was girding his loins for battle. Indeed, he came to my dark basement lair 30 minutes later, having donned the cloak of incredulity and armed himself with the cutting sword of ridicule.

“Heh, heh. SMOKE? The garage doesn’t smell like smoke.”

“Yes it does! It’s really noticeable. And my car has been sitting in it all day! The garage stinks like cigarette smoke, and now my new car will! Those workers were smoking in the garage!”

“Val. The garage smells like smoke because the guy and I were walking around in there.”

“Why? Why would you be INSIDE the garage? They’re putting the roof on the outside.”

“To look at the roof. Where the vent goes.”

“It already has a vent in the side. Right above where I get out of T-Hoe’s door. Did you knock the bat out of it?”

“Bat? I didn’t know anything about that.”

“It’s been roosting there on and off for over a year. I told you about it before. So why does the garage smell like smoke?”

“The guy had a cigarette, Val. When we walked in there.”

“Why would you let him smoke in the garage? You have four propane tanks sitting in front of where I park T-Hoe. I can’t believe you let him walk in there with a cigarette. I bet all those guys were in there all day, taking a break in there, smoking. The garage smells like it.”

“No it doesn’t, Val. He was only in there few minutes. Nobody has been smoking in the garage.”

“Yes they were! I bet all those workers took turns, two by two, and opened up my Acadia and sat in it and smoked. Just because they could. And they’ll do it again tomorrow!” I could picture them, trucker caps cocked back on their shaggy heads, in their tar-stained, hobnail boots and faded jeans, long-sleeved once-white thermal underwear shirts under faded t-shirts, hard packs of Marlboro Reds bulging at their shoulders, hawking loogies off the roof, then climbing down the ladder to enter the garage, cutting up, swigging Red Bull, belching, playing grab-ass, elbowing each other in an effort to reach my Acadia first.

“Oh, Val. Heh, heh. They don’t even work tomorrow, because it’s going to rain. Nobody was smoking in the garage.” And with that, Hick made his exit, with an air of superiority.

Is it just me, or did he plainly say that roofer guy was walking around in the garage smoking a cigarette?