Free The Same River Twice by Chris Offutt

to save my money and head into the world.
    A decade later I was in it, facing the end of autumn. During cold weather bums and birds headed south, and I wintered in West Texas, working as a painter of houses built rapidly during the oil boom. Entire towns were materializing near oilfields. Trucks brought stud walls and rafter frames, predrilled for electrical wires. Young trees waited for holes, their root balls wrapped in cheese-cloth. Mats of damp sod arrived by flatbed truck. As soon as the interior work was complete, a family moved into the house.
    Outdoor painting was the last stage, and I hired with a contractor named Bill, a former gunnery sergeant in Vietnam. Half the crew was Mexican and the rest were ex-cons or marginal ruffians. Bill paid us in cash at the end of each day, saying, “You have two choices, boys. You can save for a convertible or spend it on poon-tang. I’ll go your bail once. Just once.”
    Bill always wore some article of military clothing-—a hat one day, boots the next, a web belt on another day. He was prone to silent crying, apropos of nothing. No one mentioned it. He was also good-looking and gentle, very popular with the women whose houses we colored. After an incident in which a woman exposed her breasts to me while I was on a ladder, I asked him if he’d ever gotten laid on a job.
    â€œThe problem is what to do with your wet brush,” he said. “If you lay it on top of the bucket, it gets too dry. And if you stick it in the bucket, the paint gets up into the handle and ruins the bristles.” He glanced at the bleak landscape beyond the carefully watered lawns. “Indoor work with latex is the best.”
    The woman whose house we were painting couldn’t decide what color she wanted. We had several different buckets, and were instructed to paint giant swatches on the front of the house. After lunch, the crew lounged in the shade while the other wives in the community congregated to give opinion. They carried infants, whom they regarded with the same detachment as they did the patches of color on the siding.
    â€œYou know, Judy’s baby has already got a suntan,” one mother said. “I’m going to get mine in the sun today.”
    â€œI can’t make mine shut up crying long enough to dress it,” said another.
    â€œTake and push half a Tylenol up its butt. That quiets mine right down. Regular, not extra-strength.”
    The husbands took little interest in their homes, confining their aesthetic concerns to clothing. Boot toes ran to amazing points, as if designed to spindle a spider in a corner. They wore the biggest hats in the West, decorated with huge feathers. In local bars, the men spent most of their time accusing each other of having “knocked my feather.” Such an insult was tantamount to a Kentucky warning shot, the French musketeer’s slap in the face, or the New York faux pas of daring to look someone in the eyes for more than ten seconds.
    â€œHey!” someone would yell. “You knocked my feather.”
    People backed away from the victim, who stroked his feather while glaring at the perpetrator. The accused man stared back. Each stretched his body to full height, squinting, jaw thrust out, gauging his chances in case things got downright western. After a minute of staring, both men turned slowly away feigning reluctance. After witnessing this rite, I spoke with the men involved. Each claimed to be a descendant of original settlers. One was a dentist. The other worked as an accountant. Both were a little put out that oil hadn’t been discovered on their land.
    When occasional trouble actually erupted, it was the wrestling-across-the-floor sort, until one man exposed his genitals in surrender. A little while later they’d be drinking together. The Kentucky style of brawling is similar to the Viking berserker—all out, using whatever is at hand, aiming for the throat and crotch. Texans