Hal sat there eating his Dubba Bubba Burger. He was hungry. He hadn’t worked this hard in a long time. The job was nearly done but he knew it was going to be a rough week.
Across from him McCready was digging into his fries. He mixed the ketchup and mayonnaise together and poured the mixture generously on the fries which he dumped onto the paper.
Latrelle looked over at McCready and at the sloppy mixture.
“How the hell you eat that shit man?” he smiled while he said it although he couldn’t hide the additional look of disgust.
McCready laughed and made it a point to take a particularly large handful and jam them into his mouth. He chomped down with bits of the mixture getting into his beard and mustache.
“You mean the magic sauce? Ain’t you never had it?” he asked with a full mouth.
Latrelle chuckled and looked away as his own food was delivered. His food was the last to arrive. He had been in the restroom washing his hands, trying to remove all the dirt from under his nails. The dirt would inevitably return upon getting back to work.
“You can have that shit man. Disgustin. I bet you didn’t even wash your hands. You’re an animal.”
McCready doubled down, “To each his own.” He jammed more fries into his mouth and smiled.
“And no I didn’t wash my hands. I kind of like how they smell.”
Latrelle looked up, “Like shit?”
McCready was ready, “Like your mom.”
They both burst out in laughter. Hal chuckled. The others looked at him.
“He can smile. What’s wrong kid? Lady trouble? Come on, you can tell us.” Latrelle prodded.
“That’s why I always pay for it. Too much trouble,” said McCready.
“Oh. Is that why? You fuckin ingrate,” Latrelle brought his attention back to Hal.
Hal put his burger down and thought about the first half of the work day. He was dreading going back to the development.
“It’s just that I didn’t think dirt could be that hard. We still have to get the ditches and the pipes laid out for the rest of the place.” Hal looked distraught to be sure.
McCready sucked the end of each of his fingers, “Shit kid this aint nothing.”
“Ground aint even close to froze yet,” said Latrelle.
“But it’s so hard,” Hal said. “I took the head clear off of my shovel.”
“Then you’ll grab another shovel and go again,” said McCready. “It gets worse kid. We’ll show you some tricks that’ll make it easier when we get back to the job site.”
“Yeah. Hell he’s lucky he wasn’t there for Patriot’s Colony,” said Latrelle.
“Patriot’s Colony?” asked Hal.
“Yeah man. New development over off Route 5. Went in last summer. They cleared that shit out and we went in to start digging but man the roots. That was some hard damned dirt,” said Latrelle.
“I was on that one. Were you around for Chanco’s Landing?” asked McCready.
“Nah I wasn’t on that one. I was working down Carolina way. How was it?”
“Fucking winter and fuckin clay. That’s tough dirt,” McCready stopped eating while he spoke about it. Pain was in his eyes.
“I bet. That clay is a motherfucker,” said Latrelle.
“High water table, no top soil. Dry season and frozen solid. That shit was hard. Actually lost three four pickaxes,” said McCready.
“I can’t even imagine,” said Hal.
“You youngsters don’t know a damn thing about dirt.”
Hal, Latrelle, and McCready looked up from their food and across the aisle to a table in the corner. Two grizzled hands grasped either side of a newspaper.
“You say something boss?” asked McCready.
Earle Hickson lowered the paper. He folded it up and placed it on the table beside his tray. The aged man leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. He adjusted his worn USS Indianapolis hat sitting atop leathery skin.
Earle didn’t look at the others as he spoke. He gazed into the distance. He spoke but was somewhere else.
“February 97. We had 30 men on the Washington’s Retreat job. Just after the dozing. It should have been a simple job. But it was cold damned cold.”
“What’s he talking about?” asked Hal in a whisper.
“Shhhh,” said Latrelle. “He never talks about Washington’s Retreat.”
Earle continued unperturbed, “The clay hit nary an inch down. The roots. It were like the trees never really left. Damn near 20 degrees in the wind. But they wanted us to get it done. Big money.”
Earle put his hands on his forehead and kept talking.
“The boss wanted it finished and we pressed on. Three weeks in that frozen hell.”
Hal was fascinated, “That’s ridiculous. They would have at least given you a Ditch Witch at that point.”
Earle turned his head quickly and stared into Hal’s eyes. The boss had never made eye contact with Hal before. A chill ran up his spine as the worn gaze met his own.
“Use a Ditch Witch he says!” Earle stayed silent for a moment while he sized up Hal.
“Where’d we get you boy? Did Latrelle pick you out at the genius store?”
“I…” Hal began.
“Of course we had a Ditch Witch boy! We had three. Ran it dawn to dusk. Chunks of dirt like you’ve never seen. Pieces four five yards across. Then they started to break.”
“The Ditch Witches?” asked Hal, horrified.
“Turns out the Ditch Witches break before the men do.”
“What did you end up doing?” asked Hal.
“We finished the job. Cheaper to keep buying shovels then to fix the ‘Witches. But soon the men started breaking too. It took a week before the first one went. But then when he did, old Bob Hostetler it was, the others started dropping.
Steve Ranzinsky broke every bone in his hand digging into that damned dirt. They say Lou Sheltzer ran off into the woods and no one ever heard from him again.
Franko Pangini. Northern guy went home one night two weeks in and snapped. Nearly beat his woman to death. They found pieces of the dirt in her wounds.
The neighbors called the cops. When they got there the girlfriend ran outside to them. Franko was inside muttering about the clay as they cuffed him.
At the end it was just me and eight others including the boss. We finished but we were never the same.”
“Jesus Christ,” said McCready. “I heard about that. I never knew you were in that crew Earle.”
“Holy shit,” Latrelle said quietly.
Hal was quiet. Earle hadn’t taken his eyes from him and hadn’t blinked. He relaxed slightly and turned back to the newspaper.
He picked it up, unfolded it and began reading again as if he had never spoken.
“We got 10 minutes then we have to get back out there and get back to it. Eat up,” he said.
Hal, Latrelle, and McCready looked down and ate silently. They thought about the hard dirt.