“Since I’m a dyed-in-the-wool communist, you can count on some profit sharing on this job. I assume you’re saving for college.”

“Who do you write for?”

“Write?”

“Your column?”

Chick laughed. “I said communist, Leo. You know? The red flag and all that?

Leo did know. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know much more. They were passing through a poplar grove where the road split off. Chick was shaking his head and smiling. He pointed his thumb out the window and Leo downshifted with more noise than he wanted, accelerating past the trees up a long hill. At the top of the rise the road cut left, and on both sides were fields of tall grass. To the right was a barn. In front of that was the burned out basement of a long-gone house. A lone sapling grew out one corner. Chick had Leo pull the truck up beside it.

“New owner wants that turned into a home. It’ll take the four of us all summer. Good job for you though, Leo. You’ll see all the steps from appetizer to dessert.”

The day was hot and dry with no wind and the whole gang, even Chick, had their shirts off before coffee break. Chick had some build for a family man. He was short all right, and small-boned, but he had biceps that became hard little balls everytime he moved his arms, his back was wide and lumpy at the shoulders and narrow at the hips, and his chest muscles weren’t big, just easy to see, two lean squared plates under his collar bone with a few tufts of hair in between. The rest of Donovan’s Renovators were two men named Tom Burrell and Floyd Starrett. Tom was quiet and naturally big. Leo knew his son Billy from the high school. Floyd was probably twenty-five or -six. He was shorter than Leo but there were thick veins running down each tanned arm. His blonde hair was almost shaved off and he had a USMC tattoo on the back of his neck right between his hairline and his backbone. Chick had introduced Tom as his foreman and Floyd as his crack carpenter. Tom shook Leo’s hand and Floyd offered him a stick of Wrigleys, smiling, his strangely bright gray eyes staring into Leo’s, Leo thinking cracked carpenter, that’s what Chick must’ve meant.