Free How Loveta Got Her Baby by Nicholas Ruddock

you?”
    â€œOnce, and that’s enough. Anyway, then we look up at the house like the experts we are.”
    â€œSupposed experts.”
    â€œNo, real experts, that’s how you pull it off. You stand back, you take a look. There, the back side of that house, on the east, that’s the sunrise side, it’s all peeled up. On the front side west, there’s five layers of paint, one on top of the next. There’s pink, then red, then blue, then white and then there’s the oldest one of all. Yellow. Dig at it with the knife.”
    â€œPocket-knife. I got one.”
    â€œThat’s fine, that’s all you need. Then the windowsills. They’re all messed up with the dry rot. You run your hand along there, splinters.”
    â€œThat’s no good.”
    â€œThen inside we go. Hi there Mrs. So-and-So, let’s say Mrs. Ferris, open up the windows please, the old sash windows. Try again. They’re stuck solid, fifty years. That don’t make it easy. What about the fancy, fine work? Back outside again. There’s the electric meter, you got to paint all around it, and the round window up there with the harbour view, you need a steady hand for that all right. The mailbox right by the front door, picture of a whale on it? It’d take an hour with a tiny brush to smooth around that. You need a wipecloth for the little drops. They’re not cheap. Top it off, old Mrs. Ferris, she’s got the front cement footstep painted kind of a dark red.”
    â€œFor that, clean that off, you need chemicals.”
    â€œDamn right. The kicker though is the overhanging roof. Try to paint that. Three feet it hangs out. Up on the ladder, high up there, you got to lean back, way back.”
    â€œAdd lots of money for that. Danger pay.”
    â€œThen we eyeball the square footage of the whole house, measure here and there with the tape, add it all up on a piece of lined paper.”
    â€œClyde can’t make a quote. His mind don’t work that way.”
    â€œFor sure. That’s why we do it.”
    â€œSo you and I, we set him up, we make the quotes, we drives Clyde to the job, we leaves him there till 5 p.m.”
    â€œHow much for us?”
    â€œEighty percent for the backers, I say.”
    â€œSay the quote’s two thousand dollars.”
    â€œThat’s way too cheap.”
    â€œThat’s how you get the job, that’s how it works. Lowball. That’ll be two thousand dollars, Mrs. Ferris, is what you say.”
    â€œYou write it out?”
    â€œOh no, that’s fatal. Verbal quote, a handshake, that’s all.”
    â€œDiscount for seniors, they all do that.”
    â€œDarn right. Widow discount too. Ten percent for each.”
    â€œShe’s a widow?”
    â€œMost of them are.”
    â€œThen you sets Clyde to work.”
    â€œHe scrapes off the front of the house.”
    â€œThe up-high part?”
    â€œThat’s why the ladder. Start up high I say.”
    â€œThen we come back, Clyde’s still up there with the chisel, and we says, Mrs. Ferris, my dear, the dry rot on this one window frame is going to eat up the whole quote I gave you last week. We needs a re-figuring.”
    â€œTwelve thousand dollars.”
    â€œThat’s it. At least. Otherwise, I’m afraid, Mrs. Ferris, we’re off to Mount Pearl with the crew.”
    â€œThe crew?”
    â€œWell, Clyde. Clyde’s the crew. Not much of a crew, but he is the crew.”
    â€œThere’s no dry rot in Mount Pearl, Mrs. Ferris, all the houses there is brand new. All you needs in Mount Pearl, Mrs Ferris, is a roller and a tray. They don’t have none of this old clapboard, they got vinyl. This old house costs a lot of money just for the up-keep.”
    â€œShe might say, that’s the trouble, living here in the old part of town.”
    â€œThen you says, Sorry to hear about the death of Mr. Ferris, Mrs.