dangle posted his awkward social situation about his quality contracting work and made me relive a moment that could have made me awaken screaming for the rest of my life.

My second home was a custom home. My wife and I designed it with an architect. We'd already been burned with one builder and had to do a total redesign because the architect that the first builder recommended made blueprints that measured square footage in a pejorative way and had to be redone.

We had excellent luck with the second builder. He was so honest, so punctual, and so easy to work with I said I'd do a commercial for him. He said "Would your wife?" So my wife did a commercial for him. The final walkthrough was pristine. Not one piece of red tape.  Honestly.  It was fucking perfect. But the foreman (Bobby) wasn't satisfied with one part of the paint. There was a tiny bit of overspray.

During construction, I was checking on the house literally every day. I'd met the contractor who'd done the paint. He was a good guy. Bobby called me up and said the painter would be over Wednesday at five.  He didn't show.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt.  Hell, he's busy.  I didn't even bother Bobby.  But when he didn't show up on Thursday, I was annoyed.

Since I had the painter's business card, I was going to give him a call, "Hey... you forget about me or something?"  But as I was dailing the number, I stopped.  That's not the way you do it.  He wasn't my employee.  I didn't pay him.  Bobby and Thad (my builder) did.  Hell, it was Bobby who told me when he was coming.  I hung up and called Bobby instead.

"Hey, Bobby, it was Wednesday this week that Chuy (my painter(yes, his name was Chuy)) was coming to clean up the paint in the bathroom, right?"

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry, Tom.  I forgot about that."

"I was about to call Chuy and called you instead."

"What... you called Chuy" Bobby sounded like I told him I'd punched a baby.

"No.  I said I was about to call him.  I called you instead."

"Oh... good.  You didn't call him, right?"

"No, goddammit Bobby, what's up"

"He ran over his daughter.  He was backing his trailer out of his driveway to go to your house on Wednesday.  His daughter ran out to say goodbye to him.  She ran behind the trailer.  She's dead." 

I hadn't met Chuy's daughter but I knew she was just younger than my daughter, about to turn five. 

Bobby told me he'd come over on Saturday and take care of it himself.  Bobby was a bad-assed Marine who fought in Hobo Woods during Vietnam in 1968.  He was probably within ten miles of my father for a year.  My father was army, he was marines.  Bobby had these marks all over his neck from mortar shrapnel and was missing the two outside fingers on his left hand from a rifle bullet that took half his hand off.  He tells people a band saw blade broke in the garage.  When he hung up the phone, he was crying like a baby.

When I think how my conversation with Chuy whould have gone, I feel a sense of dread that is dissociative.  The guy who owns the house you were on your way to when you killed your daughter calls and asks you where the fuck you are...

What would be worse:  Mouth foaming, inarticulate rage?  Wailing moans of dispair?  Gibbering laughter?  Shrieking accusations?

I'm thinking the gibbering.