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Electric Nights
Elijah was an electrician. He worked for Big Jim’s Electrical Shop: Building, Maintenance and Repairs. Big Jim was, in fact, big.
“Elijah, going to take another chance on you boy, and this is gonna be just ‘bout it.” He stared hard at the younger man. “You get me?” More staring.
Elijah nodded meekly, head down. He knew in his heart of hearts that he really didn’t deserve another chance.
“Yer a damn good electrician and the folks all like you. Do good work. But, jeese…” the older man wiped one big paw down his weather beaten and worn face. “The coming in late, the missing work, the lame excuses…” He shook his head. “Jesus kid, who in the world do think believes all that crap?” He looked at Elijah again.
Elijah could only shake his head. He felt like crying or throwing up. Couldn’t decide which.
“I…I..I’m getting back to meetings, Jim. I got a sponsor this time. Going to do my best.” He tried hard not to wring his hands together like some damn homeless person in front of the Circle K.
“And your wife, that lovely girl…those two kids…Jesus,” Big Jim continued…”don’t know what in the hell you were thinking.” The big man started to turn away.
Elijah was glued to the spot. He wanted to scream “I know, I know! I wasn’t thinking, I was drinking. Isn’t that the point?” He didn’t scream, he didn’t say anything.
Big Jim pointed to the board up on the wall. “There’s a rotation coming up. South Tucson, you know the area. Nouveau riche, or think they are. New client. We don’t know him. Try to be nice and get the job done.” He tapped the white board with a thick finger.
He turned before disappearing into the back office.
“And Elijah, if we get even so much as a hint you’ve been drinking….”
Elijah shook his head furiously back and forth. “No, no sir. Absolutely not.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. He needed to get to the restroom, he might still throw up.
Emerging from the restroom fifteen minutes later, Elijah had washed his face and hands with cold water and felt a little better. He hadn’t had a drink or a hit of anything in about ten days. So, it wasn’t an actual hangover or the dry heaves. He decided it was getting sober nerves, and he was still a bit jumpy.
He went to pick up his paperwork from Louisa, the office manager. The woman was older with steel grey hair in a short curly perm. She had no doubt heard every word between Big Jim and Elijah.
“Ah, need the paperwork for the South Tucson job, Lisa.” He opted for her more casual office name the guys usually called her.
Without looking up or looking at him, she handed the sheets over the counter to him.
“Thank you,” Elijah stammered and decided it was best to not try any small talk. Not the time.
The young man slouched out of the office and carefully closed the glass door behind him. Lisa had been at Big Jim’s since before Skippy was a hotdog and Elijah had no doubt she had overheard all of the gut wrenching, pleading phone calls his wife had made to Big Jim. Begging for her husband to please, please keep his job and give him one more chance.
The contempt that filled the air of the little front office wasn’t like static electricity, it was more like dirty brown sludge, running slowly out of an old rusty pipe. Elijah escaped to his pickup truck, pulled out his cold igloo.
This time, instead of vodka, he pulled out the large sized bottle of Tylenol, took two with orange juice. Then he pulled out his bottle of gum and stuffed in three gum pellets, his mouth was so dry.
Laying the papers on the passenger side; he put the directions into his phone GPS and started on his way. Once out of the parking lot, he pulled over and stopped to check the toolbox in the back of the truck. When he had been drinking, various of his tools had a way of walking off, usually right in the middle of a job, necessitating yet another hurried trip to Ace to buy a replacement. This was especially embarrassing if the job was out of town and there was no Ace close by. And again, resulting in another call to the shop inquiring about “Where is that electrician of yours?” and “Why is this taking so long?”
In his mind’s eye, Elijah could envision the telephone conversations with the owner. Big Jim twirling a yellow number two pencil between two large fingers. His patiently explaining things to the customer, over and over again. Assurances that he would come out himself to “get it fixed” if necessary. And then the snapped pencil pieces on Jim’s desk and the short, terse “Where the fuck are you?” phone calls on his voice mail.
Elijah wanted to drink. Badly. But as much as he still really wanted to drink; he really, really wanted the circus that had become his life to stop. The angry phone calls, the recriminations, the disappointed looks from his wife and the kids, his parents….. All of it. He just wanted it to stop and to have some peace and quiet in his life.
After checking the tools and assuring himself they were all there; he headed out to the 10 freeway to go south. He knew the area somewhat but not enough to know where any nearby Ace’s were in case he needed something.
He pulled in front of the house. Two story, beige-tan with white trim. Little front yard; it was a cookie cutter of the dozens of other houses just like it on this medium-income block.
Mr. Vito Russo appeared at the front door when the young man rang the bell. All of 5’2” tall with a large belly hidden under a florid Hawaiian shirt; Mr. Russo came out to the front porch in his fresh khaki shorts and flip-flops. His black hair was slicked back from his low forehead with some kind of hair product.
“You’re late,” was the first thing out of his mouth.
Elijah checked his watch; 9 am.
“I believe we said 9 am for the appointment, sir.”
Russo waved his hand. “That’s not what I said to that woman. Whatever, you’re here. Let’s get this thing going.” He hit a button on the wall inside of the front door and the garage door creaked open. He walked down the front steps and waved at the electrician to follow him.
Elijah had a rough idea of the job specs and had brought his toolbox and his igloo with water with him and laid them on a table in the garage.
For an hour and a half, Elijah worked hard at getting the under-counter lights put in. Fortunately, the client had gotten all the light strips himself, so it didn’t necessitate a run to the store. Russo hovered continually in the background with a scowl on his face and the ever-present cell phone stuck in one chubby hand.
“It’s for my wife,” Russo growled. “Always complaining about working in a cave.”
“Ah,” Elijah responded.
“Bitch, off to her mother’s. Again.”
Elijah nodded his head and didn’t laugh. In the black and white Hawaiian shirt with little splashes of pink and yellow, Russo reminded him of the nuns back a parochial school. Jesus, the nuns. No wonder he drank.
That and his alcoholic father always making them go to church all the time and all those damn classes. If it wasn’t his father it was the church. Probably inherited the alcoholism from his father. Never had a chance. Destiny. He nodded his head.
However, a little niggling voice in his head whispered quietly, Your sisters don’t drink and they grew up in the same household.
He stabbed at the cupboard aggressively with the drill. Sisters! Always butting in and giving unwanted advice. He ground his teeth.
“Fuck’em!” he said out loud.
“What?” Russo said close to his ear.
“What?” Elijah repeated and almost jumped.
“What did you just say?” Russo demanded again. “You’re talking to yourself. Is there something wrong with you?” He scowled even deeper and looked at Elijah from the corners of his eyes.
“No, no,” Elijah backpedaled. “Just thinking about something….”
Russo made a kind of “Humph,” noise and wandered off a bit. “Can’t you hurry it up? I got things to do.”
Elijah finished with the last screw and pushed the light in place. “Yeah, done here.”
Russo shook his head in a disparaging manner and waved his hand, which was now holding a short whiskey glass at the electrician. Elijah could smell the Jack Daniels from where he stood and tried hard not to salivate.
The two men went out the sliding glass door to the backyard. An in-ground pool gleamed in the hot Arizona sun. An automatic pool cleaner puttered lazily around the pool, dragging a long white cleaner tail behind itself.
They were standing on a grey cement porch under a slanting corrugated roof held up by skinny posts on the side. An assembly of white plastic chairs were bunched around a white plastic table. A sad grouping of faded Chinese lanterns were strung across the porch, trying to look festive.
One single word popped into Elijah’s head. Cheap, came to mind.
Russo went forward and waved with his glass. “Wife is hot to have parties out here in the summer. We got no good music.” He walked over to the side of the yard where the big box that held the pool filter housing sat. He then launched into a long, complicated explanation about tying the electrical of the pool filter system to an electrical system that would play music in the backyard and under the water in the pool. “So people can hear it when they swim.”
As soon as this elaborate and unrealistic plan started to become clear to Elijah, he began shaking his head. It wouldn’t work and he certainly was not going to go fooling around with an underwater, pool electrical system. No way.
Russo stopped gesturing with his whiskey glass and turned to stare at the young man.
“Won’t work, Mr. Russo. That system will never work.”
“My neighbor tells me he got one just like it.”
“No sir. Don’t know who it was he got to do that kind of work, but we wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“My Lucinda got her heart set on the music, in the pool.”
Elijah continued to shake his head.
“Well, you little shit-faced bastard.” Russo gripped his glass.
Elijah put up his hands almost defensively. “Now, wait a …..”
“Get the hell out of my house you little turd.” Russo was shouting now.
Elijah turned and retreated back to the house, snatched his toolbox off the kitchen table and went out the front door.
Russo followed him to the door and stood there. “I knew I shouldn’t hired you and your lousy company. You’re a bunch of shits!” He hit the button on the wall and the garage door came down. “Just see if you get paid!”
Elijah hustled to his truck and put the toolbox into the back. His face was red with anger, and he had to grip his hands on the edge of the pickup to try and control his breathing. At 6’ tall and a buff 180 pounds he could have easily beaten the little shit up. But…. He heard the front door slam.
He got control of himself and was about to leave when he realized he had left his igloo in the garage. “Fuck it!” He swore and glared at the house now with all the doors buttoned up tightly.
He slammed the truck door closed and strode back up the sidewalk to the front door. He rang the doorbell.
Russo answered the door again. “What the hell you want, asshole?”
“I left my lunch pail in your garage, and I need to get it.”
Russo hit the door button that opened the garage door. “Go get it.” He followed the electrician out and stood there with his arms crossed like he suspected theft.
Elijah walked briskly back to the garage, grabbed the igloo, tapped the door closure button; retreated down the driveway and got back into his truck. Leave no job unfinished.
He sat in his truck a few minutes organizing his paperwork. There was a tap on his side window. It was Russo.
Elijah looked at the man and rolled down the window.
“I locked myself out of the house.”
Elijah goggled at the man a moment. Then, he hit the button to raise the window and drove off, leaving Russo in the street.
The young man was humming to himself as he drove away. He patted the dash with the little Virgin Mary statue stuck on top.
“You know, Mary. It is a very good day when you don’t drink.”
He actually began to whistle a little tune as he got back on the freeway.
Courtney Webb 12/25
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