The Chronicle of Kirk
Kirk was a roofer. A West Texan tile roofer with a curly blond mullet; thick, bull-like shoulders; biceps like boulders; crazy, wide, oscillating eyes and hands like pitted shovels. He liked his vices, did ol' Kirk; he breakfasted every morning on a six-pack of High Life (The Champagne of Beers – it says it right there on the 16oz cans, folks) chased down by a shakily-rolled doobie en route to the jobsite at 6am. This didn't slow him down, however – he would bust arse like a bastard, running about the roof as if another sixer was waiting for him at lunch, which it invariably was.
He was aggressive to the point of obstreperousness; he somehow got the idea I was working for him rather than with him under our mutual boss, and so would start barking orders and subsequently threatening me when I'd "give him some goddamned backchat". He was a classic bully, however; when his first threat was growled in my direction I wantonly blazed the broad Yorkshireism "COME ON THEN, CUNT!" Dropped my toolbelt and bowed up, flexing my (by comparison) somewhat frail physique.
This lightened his mood and made him chuckle, which was fine by fucking me as I really had no desire for getting into a fight with a crazy, muscle-bound, drunk, drugged-up redneck with nothing to live for on a sloping roof 30 feet off the ground.
One day, he dropped his $30 Estwing framing hammer off the roof. We were on a three-story house, and it was about 11.30am, so he deigned not to climb down to fetch it immediately as his lusty liquid lunch was just 30 minutes away. He looked over the eave and made a mental note of where the hammer lay, just next to some scaffolding where a Mexican stucco crew was busily mudding the walls.
Half-an-hour later we shimmied down the ladder and circled the house to find the tool had disappeared, with the stucco crew munching on tacos beneath a nearby shade tree. "Any of you guys pick up a hammer that was settin' right here?" drawled the beefy, sweating, shirtless Kirk. A sea of blank faces greeted his questing, lunatic gaze. "No ablay Englaze, huh?" He began to rile; "We're goin' to lunch!!" he fired, "an' when we come back, I wanna see my hammer settin' on this plank right here!!" He smacked down on a scaffolding baton with his catcher's-mitt paw and rattled the entire structure. "If it ain't there, I'm gonna kick yur ass!" he pointed to the biggest Latino, "Then ah'm gonna kick yur ass!" indicating the guy next to the big one, "Then yurs! And yurs! And yurs!" on down the line. Half-full Mexican mouths 'O'ed and we made our exit.
90 ounces of life's lubricant and another hastily-constructed spliff later we returned to see what Kirk's wrath had wrought:
There were three hammers carefully waiting on that scaffold.
One Friday, after work, we went on the piss. Now, for an established alcoholic, Kirk had the capacity of a pre-pubescent girl. I was barely nursing the beginnings of a buzz and he was howling at the commode like a prison rape victim. So much so I told him he could stay at my house, rather than make the long drive back to his trailer house in Lockhart, about 30 miles south of Austin. The last time he'd done so after a night out with me he ran into an escaped cow on the road, killing it stone dead and badly wrecking his truck. The farmer tried to sue him but Kirk somehow managed to redneck juke the lawsuit. We got back to my house and Kirk made his pit in a giant bean bag I had in my living room, and I toddled off upstairs to bed, making sure to lock the bedroom door and back a chair under the handle. Midway through the night I was woken by a man screaming and the violent noises of a scuffle. Kirk was fighting off intruders! I grabbed a convenient lamp-stand and hot-footed it down to the living room in my grundies, weapon cocked like a bat, to see Kirk, asleep, fighting the bean bag.
Jesus fucking Christ. I went back to bed and left him battling his imaginary assailants.
After the cow incident, Kirk hired a car while his truck's front end was being rebuilt. We arrived at Friday and again, went on the razzle-dazzle. Kirk decided, after hearing my story of his unconscious demon war, that he'd park his hire car in his nearby estranged ex-wife's driveway, and sleep in the back. The beasts from beyond apparently revisited, and he woke the next morning to find he'd completely kicked out the window and smashed up the rear door interior so much it now refused to open. Kirk parked the car in a remote location and reported it stolen. The insurance covered the damage.
Then, the following Friday, after getting his newly-fixed truck out of the shop, he decided it was about time I saw his trailer house in Lockhart. I really didn't want to go, but he wouldn't take 'Oh, fucking hell no!' for an answer. At 2am, Kirk, using a hillbilly short-cut along some unlighted farm roads, assured me he could drive these familiar narrow thoroughfares with his bloodshot eyes shut. Feeling precious little more confidence, we hit a 90 degree corner doing about 50. Kirk's last, famous utterance to me was "Hold on, mate!" ('mate' was my nickname, as it was how, as a Brit, I address everybody.) We bounced over an embankment and soared, General Lee-like, into the black ether. Rear tires span for purchase in the thin night air as the engine note screamed impossibly highly at the lack of dampening friction. We pancaked into a Roscoe P. Coltrane fucking LAKE!
The freezing water quickly filled the cab as we scrabbled to egress. The entire truck sank forward until the only thing visible was the tailgate as we swam to shore. We walked a couple of shivering miles to the nearest convenience store and called a tow truck; it took two to haul his truck out of the water, thanks to a submerged tree trunk hooking the front wheels, thereby destroying the week-old rebuild. I paid one of the tow-truck drivers $30 to take me bloody well home.
One of the several reasons, gentle reader, why I gave up roofing. Well – roofing with Kirk, anyhow.
Cheers
Stef
He was aggressive to the point of obstreperousness; he somehow got the idea I was working for him rather than with him under our mutual boss, and so would start barking orders and subsequently threatening me when I'd "give him some goddamned backchat". He was a classic bully, however; when his first threat was growled in my direction I wantonly blazed the broad Yorkshireism "COME ON THEN, CUNT!" Dropped my toolbelt and bowed up, flexing my (by comparison) somewhat frail physique.
This lightened his mood and made him chuckle, which was fine by fucking me as I really had no desire for getting into a fight with a crazy, muscle-bound, drunk, drugged-up redneck with nothing to live for on a sloping roof 30 feet off the ground.
One day, he dropped his $30 Estwing framing hammer off the roof. We were on a three-story house, and it was about 11.30am, so he deigned not to climb down to fetch it immediately as his lusty liquid lunch was just 30 minutes away. He looked over the eave and made a mental note of where the hammer lay, just next to some scaffolding where a Mexican stucco crew was busily mudding the walls.
Half-an-hour later we shimmied down the ladder and circled the house to find the tool had disappeared, with the stucco crew munching on tacos beneath a nearby shade tree. "Any of you guys pick up a hammer that was settin' right here?" drawled the beefy, sweating, shirtless Kirk. A sea of blank faces greeted his questing, lunatic gaze. "No ablay Englaze, huh?" He began to rile; "We're goin' to lunch!!" he fired, "an' when we come back, I wanna see my hammer settin' on this plank right here!!" He smacked down on a scaffolding baton with his catcher's-mitt paw and rattled the entire structure. "If it ain't there, I'm gonna kick yur ass!" he pointed to the biggest Latino, "Then ah'm gonna kick yur ass!" indicating the guy next to the big one, "Then yurs! And yurs! And yurs!" on down the line. Half-full Mexican mouths 'O'ed and we made our exit.
90 ounces of life's lubricant and another hastily-constructed spliff later we returned to see what Kirk's wrath had wrought:
There were three hammers carefully waiting on that scaffold.
One Friday, after work, we went on the piss. Now, for an established alcoholic, Kirk had the capacity of a pre-pubescent girl. I was barely nursing the beginnings of a buzz and he was howling at the commode like a prison rape victim. So much so I told him he could stay at my house, rather than make the long drive back to his trailer house in Lockhart, about 30 miles south of Austin. The last time he'd done so after a night out with me he ran into an escaped cow on the road, killing it stone dead and badly wrecking his truck. The farmer tried to sue him but Kirk somehow managed to redneck juke the lawsuit. We got back to my house and Kirk made his pit in a giant bean bag I had in my living room, and I toddled off upstairs to bed, making sure to lock the bedroom door and back a chair under the handle. Midway through the night I was woken by a man screaming and the violent noises of a scuffle. Kirk was fighting off intruders! I grabbed a convenient lamp-stand and hot-footed it down to the living room in my grundies, weapon cocked like a bat, to see Kirk, asleep, fighting the bean bag.
Jesus fucking Christ. I went back to bed and left him battling his imaginary assailants.
After the cow incident, Kirk hired a car while his truck's front end was being rebuilt. We arrived at Friday and again, went on the razzle-dazzle. Kirk decided, after hearing my story of his unconscious demon war, that he'd park his hire car in his nearby estranged ex-wife's driveway, and sleep in the back. The beasts from beyond apparently revisited, and he woke the next morning to find he'd completely kicked out the window and smashed up the rear door interior so much it now refused to open. Kirk parked the car in a remote location and reported it stolen. The insurance covered the damage.
Then, the following Friday, after getting his newly-fixed truck out of the shop, he decided it was about time I saw his trailer house in Lockhart. I really didn't want to go, but he wouldn't take 'Oh, fucking hell no!' for an answer. At 2am, Kirk, using a hillbilly short-cut along some unlighted farm roads, assured me he could drive these familiar narrow thoroughfares with his bloodshot eyes shut. Feeling precious little more confidence, we hit a 90 degree corner doing about 50. Kirk's last, famous utterance to me was "Hold on, mate!" ('mate' was my nickname, as it was how, as a Brit, I address everybody.) We bounced over an embankment and soared, General Lee-like, into the black ether. Rear tires span for purchase in the thin night air as the engine note screamed impossibly highly at the lack of dampening friction. We pancaked into a Roscoe P. Coltrane fucking LAKE!
The freezing water quickly filled the cab as we scrabbled to egress. The entire truck sank forward until the only thing visible was the tailgate as we swam to shore. We walked a couple of shivering miles to the nearest convenience store and called a tow truck; it took two to haul his truck out of the water, thanks to a submerged tree trunk hooking the front wheels, thereby destroying the week-old rebuild. I paid one of the tow-truck drivers $30 to take me bloody well home.
One of the several reasons, gentle reader, why I gave up roofing. Well – roofing with Kirk, anyhow.
Cheers
Stef
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