Broken Home
We consulted experts. They stood around our little courtyard off Wellington and inspected, making notes and drawings on coffee-stained clipboards.
“It’s not pretty,” sighed the master mason. “Big job, but we can do it. It’ll take my whole crew though. Lintels are all rotted.”
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We received glossy envelopes in the mail with neatly typed pages of bids all ending in many zeros. We didn’t sleep much.
Days stretched into weeks. Every time I left home I came back to find another bite taken out of the house, until there was no more parapet, no more corner above the master bedroom, and nothing between the second floor and the sky. When it rained, a single mason showed up to lay down sheets of bright blue plastic that flapped along the sides of our decapitated home.
Doormen of nearby high-rises began to wave and ask me on a regular basis how the work was coming along. I was touched. Then our mail carrier, Gerald, told me there was a pool going. The doormen, UPS drivers, FedEx deliverers had all placed bets on how long it would take the masons to finish. “Gotta be 300 bucks in the pot by now,” he reported as he handed me my mail. “Any news?”
