Free Poles Apart by Terry Fallis

The place is supposed to open in the next couple of weeks.”
    He bent down close to the hole and shouted.
    “Okay, Anthony, you know what to do. Let’s go!”
    A few seconds later, a fat threaded bolt came right up through the floor.
    “Okay, hold it there.”
    Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic package. He ripped it open and took out a very large nut (at least I’m pretty sure it’s called a nut).
    “Shit, there’s no lock washer,” he said before moving closer to the hole again.
    “Anthony, there’s no lock washer. Where is it?” he shouted.
    A muffled response seeped into the room around the threaded bolt.
    “I told you yesterday, they’re fuckin’ backordered! You gotta go without for now.”
    “Shit. Sorry about the language. But this fixture really should have a lock washer. Anyway, I guess we gotta go with just the nut, for now.”
    Peter threaded the nut and then pulled a giant honking wrench from some secret pocket in his work pants. I wondered what other gargantuan tools of the trade he might have secreted in his clothes. Using the wrench, he tightened the nut, punctuated by two loud grunts and a very heavy exhalation. Then he took a rag from his back pocket and buffed up the nut so it looked better than nuts usually look when protruding from kitchen floors.
    “That must be one honking heavy chandelier you’re hanging,” I said.
    “Well, actually …” he stopped. “Okay, yeah, it’s a very heavy chandelier.”
    “So what’s the big secret going in downstairs, anyway?” I asked. “Restaurant? Bar? Bowling alley? CIA headquarters? The Riddler’s lair? What?”
    “You’re asking the wrong guy. I got nothing for you. The boss is a little, yeah, a little concerned about security and secrecy. We get fired if we say anything about the job we’re on. I lost a good guy last week who blabbed to the dude delivering drywall. So you’ll get nothing from me. Sorry.”
    “Even though you just drilled a big-ass hole in my kitchen floor?”
    “Yep. Sorry.”
    The din continued after Peter returned downstairs and didn’t stop for the day, er night, until just after 10 p.m. Man, it was quiet when the compressor and pneumatic drill were finally shut down. It was so still you could almost hear a spoon drop. In fact, when I dropped a spoon onto the kitchen floor, the noise was almost deafening. I was about to head to bed when my cellphone chirped. I looked at the call-display screen before answering.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Hi, Ev. Where are you?”
    “I’m standing in the kitchen of my new apartment here in Orlando, or should I call it
our
new apartment?”
    “Good, so that means you got the money I transferred.”
    “Well, if I hadn’t, there’s no way I’d be standing in the kitchen of
our
new apartment.”
    “Good, I’m glad. So bring me up to date. How’s your father?”
    “If you were only listening to him you’d think nothing happened. He’s just the same crusty, off-colour, sexist …”
    “I know what’s he like, Ev, I was married to him,” she interrupted.
    “Right. Well, mentally he’s just as socially stunted as he always was, but physically, he’s kind of in rough shape.”
    “How rough?”
    “Right now, his left leg is really just dead weight. He just drags it along behind him. I’m sure his right leg is getting nicely toned because it’s working harder than it should be to compensate. And his left hand is not what it used to be. He’ll never be able to cutthe cards with that hand alone. His fine motor control is virtually nonexistent at this stage. So his dream of learning the violin and playing at Carnegie Hall is out the window.”
    “Oh, God.”
    “Mom, he’s going to be okay by the end of all this. We’re working on his walking every day. And he spends the rest of his time in physio and squeezing these two little black balls in his left hand to regain his strength and control. It’s going to take some time, but he can and will recover