He reaches the chimney and unties the rope and signals the Cat operator who starts the winch. Simon begins pulling the rope up, the cable looped behind. Once it is there, Simon scrambles around the edges of the chimney piece like a referee around a wrestling match. When he sees the angle he wants, he runs the cable through the middle of the chimney, soot-black and flecked with creosote. He hitches it and steps front-side and signals the Cat again and the cable begins to tighten. It goes taut. The chimney begins to shift, cutting shingles like the prow of a clumsy ship through ice. It gets close to the back edge and the roof collapses. The chimney tumbles down harmlessly into the kitchen, where it punches through the floor and into the basement. The foreman waves Simon clear and Simon waves back and walks to the front, hops down onto the porch and swings from the gutter onto the deck.

The men are coming around the corner as he smacks the dust from his jeans.

“Christ Almighty. Good job, Spiderman.”

“Easy work.”

“What the hell did you do before? I thought you was gonna have to tear ass off the roof like a raped ape.”

“I did that,” he says, pointing at the IDS.

“You sure as hell saved us some time. You want I should get you a permit during lunch?”

“Not for me. I finished my climbing days.”

“Could turn a good buck.”

“Could take a dive.”

“Yeah, well, could get hit by a car buyin milk at the Rainbow Foods. But have it your way.”

“I plan to.”

The men break to the back to move the Cat and Simon knows he doesn’t want to see any more, isn’t interested in seeing the end. Like a porno film he has watched too many times, he knows the mechanical posture, the false gestures, the orchestrated culmination.

It is enough to know that the house will be gone, the plot seeded with gas pumps and a low cinder block gas station. The house will be gone. This is not singular, nothing worth mentioning, it is beyond the notice of preservationists and urban historians. What really happened there, what was sold by Betty, was forgotten anyway. Standing or being paved over, it didn’t make a difference. The scars of a city never really show.

Simon turns to go and sees One-Two standing in the doorway of the Windsor, waving him over. He uses the old hand signal they developed on the high jobs to signal pulling a load of beam horizontally.

Simon crosses. They stand in silence, both turning their eyes across the street.

“Sad to see her go?” ventures Simon at last.

“Never cared much for the house. Sad to see your ma leave.”

“Ain’t nothin for her here. Surprised she didn’t head north years ago, after Irma took off for San Diego. I probably gave her reason to get out.”