Constant Pull Read Free

working on a job-one of my first jobs, actually.” Now my hand movements were getting bigger and I felt less awful. “Have you ever had the candy-Atomic Fireballs?”  I asked him.
    Harry’s eyes got wide and he nodded even bigger this time . He wrote on paper ‘my granddaughter’.
    I laughed . “Spicy. Yes. Well, I love those. I was refinishing a bar top for a client. I hated the smell of poly back then because I wasn’t used to it. So I’d gotten into the habit of keeping an Atomic Fireball in my mouth. For whatever reason, I learned that I couldn’t smell the varnish quite so bad when I did that. I kept a bag of them in my truck just in case-worked great. Well, in this case it worked a little too great. One of the guys working in the house-it was a remodel-well, he nicked the gas line somehow. I had no idea. I’d gotten there before everyone. So, the other crews forgot I was there. So, they didn’t know to get me out and I didn’t smell the leak because of the fireball candy. I had headphones on and didn’t hear all the commotion. So, the cavalry came and Kevin was with them. The owners of the house had one of those stickers on the door to save their cat in case of a fire. They went through the whole house looking for the cat. There I was pouring poly on the bar with my headphones on and big Atomic Fireball bulge in my cheek. I had no idea.”
    Harry nodded with a smile.
    “Yeah, so I had already felt like I was going to puke from the gas I guess. I was getting ready to take my mask off. When I looked up I saw a couple of guys wearing full face masks who were pretty surprised to see me down there. Big cat, right?”  I laughed, weakly with a half-smile, glancing at Harry.
    “So they kind of whisked me upstairs and over to the end of the street on the other side of the caution tape. They called me an ambulance. All I did was puke in there and get a big headache. I was fine. But, they made me go to the hospital. Kevin called my Grampa for me to tell him I had been taken to the hospital, while I was in the background getting sick. Nice, right?  Hopefully this isn’t too much detail for you. I’m sorry about that.” I thought of my mother whose eyes would water whenever someone mentioned getting sick.
    Harry smiled and closed his eyes half way while shaking his head very gently to let me know that my mentioning that I puked didn’t bother him at all.
    “OK good. So, I fell asleep at the hospital when they gave me oxygen and Kevin actually stayed the whole time.” I smiled, feeling surprised again as if it just happened. “Oh, and they saved the cat too.”  I said. Harry brought his hands together in a large movement and made a wispy sound for his laugh.
    “ It took my Grampa a while to come to where I was. He was up north. I woke up and called him and told him I was completely fine and told him that he didn’t need to come back. But, he still insisted on coming home.”
    Harry nodded as if to say ‘ I would’ve done the same thing ’.
    “I was starving when I woke up so Kevin went down and got me a sandwich from the cafeteria. A Monte Cristo if you can believe it. You have to be a little nuts to eat that kind of hospital food, but I did and it was a really good sandwich actually. He waited with me until my Grampa got there. He introduced himself to my Grampa and handed him his phone number on his business card. The next day, Kevin came to the house I was working on-you know-where the gas leak was, to check on me and we just kind of hit it off. He had a girlfriend-I figured that out pretty fast. He was just a regular nice guy. I can say that now, because I know, but back then I was waiting for-you know-the other shoe to drop, or whatever that expression is. It’s been about three years since I first met him and he’s just a true blue nice person. Just when you lose faith and think they don’t exist, you know?”
    Harry smiled broadly. I was very comforted by the tiny wink lines on the sides of