Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
And meanwhile, that jackhammer droned on.
Bob got back to his hot chocolate because it was the only thing keeping him warm at this point. Goddamn, he hated eating out in the cold, and it was ridiculous that OSHA standards required them to be outdoors to protect their lungs. Yeah, ’cuz pneumonia was better than a little chemical exposure here and there. At least the arctic chill was an improvement over the hot months when you couldn’t drink enough to keep up with the sweat—
“Big D,” Petey mimicked as he tore into his sub like he was chewing off an animal leg. “Fucking Frankenstein motherfucker. Oh, sorry, am I allowed to use that f-word? Wouldn’t want to offend anybody. Or Dick himself, over there.”
“His name is Dev,” Bob muttered.
Instead of doing something else with a fist—like coldcocking the smartass and losing his own job and benefits—Bob set into his wife’s meatloaf sandwich and thought, God bless that woman. As he chewed, he couldn’t decide if the fact that opening his lunch box was the highlight of his work night was a good or bad commentary on his life.
Better to have the home thing going right, he decided. You could always find another job.
As the tone and volume of that asphalt assault got higher and even louder, Bob shifted his eyes over the field of dumpsters, construction equipment, and debris. In the noon-bright glare of the cage lights, real-name Devlin was bearing down on the jackhammer like the piece of equipment better get him to the center of the earth or he was going to throw the hunk of crap into the Hudson. Steam rose off a set of weight-lifter-worthy bare arms, his reflective bib and t-shirt all that he was wearing—unlike the rest of them, who were so layered, they were basically human Gobstoppers.
And yeah, okay, fine. Big D’s intensity was a little weird, and the never-taking-a-breather stuff on shift was pretty stupid. The collective bargaining agreement for the union guaranteed you two fifteen-minute breaks as well as a thirty-minute lunch, but if you didn’t take them, it wasn’t like you got overtime. Still, the guy rarely sat down, and not because he was some tweaking kind of drug user. He just seemed to want to work, and between that drive and all his strength, he could do in an hour what three regular guys took half a shift to get done.
Which was why motormouth with the slurs had a problem with him.
Not that Big D cared. He just ducked his head and—
The jackhammer’s engine got cut, and Big D easily put it aside. Then he bent down and picked up a chunk of sidewalk the size of a car hood. As he walked off with the load, he might as well have been strolling through a park, and when he tossed the section over the lip of a dumpster, there was no grunting, no groaning—
“Hey, Dick! You know we got a lift for that shit!” Petey called out.
Bob went back to his sandwich with a grim fixation. The skyscraper they were renovating was a hundred years old and had last been updated about four decades ago—so they were in the total demo stage of things, ripping and tearing out every square inch of carpeting, all of the cubicle walls, and any fixture there was down to the faucets and toilets in the bathrooms and every goddamn fluorescent ceiling bar that had ever been made. Of course they were behind schedule, but he wasn’t allowed to let Dev stay inside and keep cranking. The rule was, when it was break time, everyone had to vacate whatever level they were on and come out here into the open air as a group.
Big D had started working the jackhammer on the sidewalk just this week, and he’d already made it about a quarter of the way down the building’s block. After he was finished? Well, he could start on the front entrance’s stone stairs if he wanted to—
“Yo, Big D!” Petey shouted over again. “How ’bout you bend over some more. You look like you want a fucking date!”
As the nitpick continued, a couple of the guys grumbled and looked over pointedly. At Bob.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said under his breath. “I got it.”
Except before he could figure out his next move, Petey shot to his feet and marched away from the break area, a greasy string bean on a bad-idea mission.
Toward Big D.
Bob polished off the last of his sandwich and extricated himself from the bench. As he jacked up his insulated work pants, he was reminded of why he hadn’t really wanted to become foreman. Too bad the pay was so much better, and it looked like tonight he was going to be forced to earn the extra ten bucks an hour.
“Can we not do this—”