The Trade

Chapter 1 : Death and Taxes
We were in an open trench, boots muddied to our ankles in thick clay, over us a tall beige building at the center of a lush complex. For days we were running a bank of 4” data conduits up the hill of a high-end retirement community on Mt Trinidad, now we we’re coming to tie them in. We’d gotten used to the dirty looks we’d get from the staff and residents, bad looks from the public are a benchmark in our trade but maybe this time we deserved them.

The day before we had flooded the security data room by opening a conduit that had been sealed for nearly 3 years. “Oh fuck! Vince get in here!” called Robert on the radio. As I hurried up the corridor through the lobby I could see a security gaurd standing outside of a doorway, a crowd gathering behind him as water spewed on to the carpeting. “He’s in there!” he shouted pointing toward a stench that worsened as I neared. Through the doorway I saw Robert laying on the ground of a server room, cables, cpu’s, and sparks flashing all around him, “Vince get in here, I need a hand!” I piled on top trying to get a lid on, but he’d punctured a hole in the cap and the water pressure wouldn’t let up. “How the hell is there so much water in there?!” My only guess was that at some point a few years prior some other crew was running the underground and never sealed their ends of the conduits before some bad weather. Rainwater finding the lowest point flooded into the pipe and stayed there, for years, until the day he opened it and it all exploded like a stale water fountain all over computers and servers, not to mention Robert, myself and the security guard who’s office was inside.

We wrestled with it a while longer, staff had come in with some industrial vacuums, they might of been used to cleaning up after wet messes, but ultimately all we could really do was let it all drain out. Afterward as we sopped out into the hallway smelling of liquid death in front of staff and faculty, all we could say was “sorry” as the management replied “just go” in utter contempt. That was our first day on this job.

Back in the trenches we were struggling to tie in the home run conduits, a bell end poking out the ground at the bottom of the hole was crushed and oblong so a new stick couldn’t plug into it. “Want me to get the torch? Heat it up and jam it in?” I asked Robert. “No,” he replied, “check this out, want to see something cool?” He grabbed a bottle of pvc glue and poured it all over and inside the pipe, spilling gobs of it on the ground in front of him, “this is a little trick of the trade someone taught me.” Now there are grades of pvc glue from medium to “hot” that if you took a whiff it’d burn your nose hairs, it’s also highly flammable. He took a lighter hoping to light only the pipe so it’d soften enough to fit our conduit, instead he lit the trench and himself on fire. “Oh shit!” he cried as we both scrambled away from the flame up the narrow hole, he tried patting his leg down but it kept burning, “grab some water!” All around the sides of the trench were water bottles but they were mostly emptied, I finally found one half drank and he poured it down his leg. We looked at the trench end as it burned itself out then at each other in stunned silence, “neat trick Robert, works like a charm,” and we both burst out in laughter. After about a minute he said “Holy shit man, I swear to god, this job fucking sucks, let’s take a break before we both get killed!” “Fuck yeah, I’m with you,” and we got out the hole.
We walked up the pathway to our trucks in the lot, he lit up a cigarette and we propped ourselves up, backs against our tailgates. “Probably shouldn’t be smoking here, but I don’t give a shit. I mean seriously, how much worse can it get?” he said as he pulled out his work phone. “I don’t know, with you here? A lot. Things can get a lot worse bubba.” “Oh fuck off! I swear to you, that shits worked before…ah never mind,” he said scrolling through an email.
It was silent a moment as I looked up the hill to a line of residential houses being built in every phase of construction, from slab to framing to finish. “A lot of work here,” I said. “A lot of money here, we can never afford it, buy in at the complex is half a mill. Every home as it gets higher up the hillside goes for more and more, some going for 1.2,” said Robert. “All that money and you still end up in a home.” “Better then what you and I will get. We’ll probably be working till we’re dead.” “Not me Rob, this is just a phase.” “Oh is it? I’ve heard this before. Me too buddy, except this phase has been going on the last 25 years.” “Yeah.” “Problem is the money. It’s too good, but for here, it’s just not good enough. If your not making at least a hundred grand a year, your struggling. Even then you get used to it, we’re just above the poverty line. At the end of the day you just about break even. The cost of living, health and welfare, our pension, it all ropes you in. And if you have a family, forget it, that’s a life sentence.” “Not me Robert, I’m gonna figure something out, I’m not gonna be doing this forever.” “Oh yeah?” he said with a grin. “Well when you do, do me a favor and let me know cause I’ve been trying to figure it out for 25 years and guess what, here I am with you.” I shook my head knowing he was right but I still didn’t want to believe it. “I just don’t want to be one of those guys that feels like he can’t stop working, even if he’s falling apart like Trevor. He’s 50 now, he’s had knee surgeries, hip replacements, now somethings going on with his shoulder but he won’t take the time off to get it fixed cause he feels like he can’t miss a check trying to take care of his family. You end up sacrificing your body and your time to this trade and by the time you make it to the end, if you haven’t lost everyone along the way you’re too fucked up to enjoy whatever time you got left and all I’m saying is that’s not gonna be me.” “Sure Vince, I hear you but it’s a story as old as time, this is just what we do. The trade is our living but a trade is what you end up making. If you don’t want it happening to you better get out now and find something else to do.” I stood silent for a moment as he kept reading off his phone “fuck” is all I could say.
We stood there for a moment, hammers pounding and petibones beeping in the distance when Robert suddenly exclaimed “Shit!” “What happened?” “Here’s someone who just got out.” “Who?” “It’s Philly, he’s dead!” I was shocked, “listen to this:”

Dear DSE Employees,

It is with heavy hearts that we inform you that Micheal “Philly” Leiberman has passed away. Philly was a part of the DSE family and we cannot be more saddened by his sudden passing. We will be taking up a collection for his family and hope you can contribute whatever you can.
In solidarity,

DSE Management

I stood in disbelief, what a tragedy, and right around Thanksgiving time. “Did you know him?” Robert asked me. “I met him a couple of times at the foreman’s meeting, but I didn’t really know him,” I said, “Jacob was working for him, they’re over building that new mid rise hotel on the waterfront in downtown.” “Jesus Christ man, I wonder how he died, I know he liked riding dirt bikes out in the desert, him and Chris would go out there all the time, maybe there was an accident.” “I don’t know, that’s fucking sad.” “He had two young girls too, god damn what a tragedy.”

We both walked back to the trench in silence, both having this feeling that we needed to busy ourselves so that we wouldn’t have to think about it, but it loomed over us like the grey sky above. Everything seemed sort of pointless after that as we pieced together more fittings for future tenants phone and internet services that will be moving in to live out their last days. Robert made a few phone calls and I talked to Jacob offering my condolences. He said that he would be in touch with me but it was just a rough time right now and that the company needed time to figure it out. I wondered how all the guys over at his site were taking it. I wondered how his family was dealing with it. I thought of my own son and what would happen if I suddenly wasn’t around for him. I got the urge that I needed to leave, go home and just hug him, but I didn’t. I told myself that the only way I could really take care of him was to keep working, but in the back of my mind I knew that that was a lie.
After a couple of hours Robert said “fuck it, I’m done for the day, shits got me too down. Let’s pack it in.” We started to roll up when he got another message on his phone, it was a video from another coworker. “Oh my god,” he said as he watched. “Christ what now?” “It’s the local news,” said Robert, “it wasn’t an accident, it was murder suicide.” My heart sank.